Forgive me if I sound skeptical, but...
I confess to being conflicted about the American action in Iraq. On the one hand, I agree with the notion that Saddam Hussein is, to use President Bush's clunky prose, an evil-doer. As a general matter, evil-doers should be punished, and non-evil-doers should be encouraged to replace them, and this, in and of itself, could be a worthy justification for military action against Iraq. The fact is, Saddam Hussein has terrorized and held hostage a nation of 26+ million people, and ought to arrested, tried, and if found guilty, punished. Arresting a dictator, however, is not the same thing as taking down an ordinary criminal, and perhaps a larger and more heavily armed "police" force has to be called in to do the job.
There is well-respected precedent for this that even moderate European governments could probably support -- Slobodan Milosevic and Manuel Noriega come to mind, and Somalia was conceived in the same light [Arguably, the failure in Somalia may have been that the target, Mohammed Fareh Aidid, was too insignificant on the world stage to enable the US (politically, at least) to justify heavy casualties. Nevertheless, there are few who would argue that anyone who engineers starvation, as he appeared to do, is a bad person who ought to go.] Anyway, if our standard as a global superpower was that we go and get the backs of people who can't shake off an evil-doer on their own, I don't think there'd be the same opposition, even if the result -- large scale military incursions -- is the same.
The thing is, if Republican conservatives believed, or at least, paid lip service to, that ideal, they probably could have the popular war that they so desperately seem to want. Moreover, they'd have a moral preemption doctrine that is more broadly protective of national security -- evil-doing that threatens American interests usually begins at home -- but with international moral (and possibly logistical) support to boot. Would we find ourselves in more places like Somalia and fewer like Panama? Maybe, but maybe not -- careful definition of who is and is not worthy of international removal might limit preemption actions to "state actors" and leave civil wars and warlords for some other type of international response, such as peace-keepers and humanitarian workers, whose objective would not be to change the political status quo, just to moderate its consequences on non-combatants.
On the other hand, the constantly shifting justifications, explanations, denials and obfuscations about the war that we are currently seeing out of the Bush administration are, to me, more troubling than the actual action taking place in Iraq. No less prominent Administration personnel than Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld started this action saying that it would be short, that the Iraqis would offer little, if any resistance, and that, to the contrary, they would welcome American "liberators" and turn on Hussein. When that proved optimistic, they denied that they had ever said that, and left General Richard Meyers to say that if someone said something that some people took to mean that, they were wrong. Then the Administration started whistling a different tune: no war is easy and this war is no exception, and we anticipated these setbacks anyway.
This message has been dutifully parroted by conservative pundits. Today's New York Times, for example, had an Op-Ed by Michael O'Hanlon, of the Brookings Institution [link], the main thrust of which is that the war in Iraq isn't going so badly, and that it's about to get better. In support of his point, O'Hanlon cites three factors: "The battle of Baghdad will be quick"; "Critical troops are on the way"; and "Saddam Hussein can't cause lasting problems in the south".
Where have we heard that before? Oh yes, from Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld. CNN.com, for example, in a March 16, 2003 article, quoted the Vice President as saying that the war would last only a few weeks and that should a U.S.-led attack occur, the forces would be "greeted as liberators" and that Saddam would likely flee, be captured, "or perhaps killed by his own people." [link] Other Administration insiders -- notably Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman, both appointed by Rumsfeld to the influential Defense Policy Board -- similarly dismissed the notion that the US would face any serious opposition in Iraq. Adelman, for one, famously intoned that "I don't agree that you need an enormous number of American troops", and that Hussein's army "is down to one-third than it was before, and I think it would be a cakewalk." [link].
Now, I'm no military expert, but I have to be skeptical when anyone says that a battle for Baghdad will be quick. If in fact this is the last stand for Hussein loyalists, they have nothing to lose by abandoning all "acceptable" war tactics and taking it to the streets -- literally. In this guerilla-warfare scenario, the technological advantages favoring the US tend to be lessened, as our experiences in Mogadishu and Vietnam showed, and the numerical advantages aren't necessarily in our favor either, since guerilla warfare is predicated on a few outmaneuvering and strategically harrassing a far more numerous force until that force gives up and goes home. The other scenario -- a siege of Baghdad, also isn't likely to be quick (sieges never are). Finally, reliance on shock and awe -- that is, American air superiority -- may go some way toward winning the city, but we should expect high civilian casualties and extreme anti-American propoganda anytime a missle kills an child or pregnant woman or elderly, no matter how careful we have been not to target civilian areas or known non-combatant installations.
Similarly, I would not be so sanguine that the Iraqi regime has lost (or is losing) its ability to exert influence in the south. Recent battles to protect vulnerable and crucial supply lines have demonstrated that even a small number of defenders can wreak havoc behind the lines and inhibit the ability of a strike force to move forward (see my previous point). As it is, the opposition is smaller than the expeditionary force, but that doesn't mean that it's not a threat, or that it couldn't muster popular support if civilian sentiment is stirred against the US by high civilian death tolls or propoganda. Perhaps the introduction of additional troops from the 4th Infantry or the 101st Airborne will help, but it's not clear that it will eliminate the threat. For more on that, I recommend Nicholas Kristof's Op-Ed in the Times today, which talks about the dichotomy among Iraqis between wanting US aid and despising the US presence at the same time. [link]
In the end, I want the US to succeed in ousting Saddam Hussein, but I also want my own government to be straight with me. I'm an adult, and I can handle painful truths better than they think. And maybe, with the right motives, I can be persuaded that whatever may come, we're doing the right thing. I want to get there, and I think alot of people who support our troops but don't like how we got here would say the same thing. And, I think we're prepared to accept some casualties for a just result, just so long as truth isn't one of them.
I confess to being conflicted about the American action in Iraq. On the one hand, I agree with the notion that Saddam Hussein is, to use President Bush's clunky prose, an evil-doer. As a general matter, evil-doers should be punished, and non-evil-doers should be encouraged to replace them, and this, in and of itself, could be a worthy justification for military action against Iraq. The fact is, Saddam Hussein has terrorized and held hostage a nation of 26+ million people, and ought to arrested, tried, and if found guilty, punished. Arresting a dictator, however, is not the same thing as taking down an ordinary criminal, and perhaps a larger and more heavily armed "police" force has to be called in to do the job.
There is well-respected precedent for this that even moderate European governments could probably support -- Slobodan Milosevic and Manuel Noriega come to mind, and Somalia was conceived in the same light [Arguably, the failure in Somalia may have been that the target, Mohammed Fareh Aidid, was too insignificant on the world stage to enable the US (politically, at least) to justify heavy casualties. Nevertheless, there are few who would argue that anyone who engineers starvation, as he appeared to do, is a bad person who ought to go.] Anyway, if our standard as a global superpower was that we go and get the backs of people who can't shake off an evil-doer on their own, I don't think there'd be the same opposition, even if the result -- large scale military incursions -- is the same.
The thing is, if Republican conservatives believed, or at least, paid lip service to, that ideal, they probably could have the popular war that they so desperately seem to want. Moreover, they'd have a moral preemption doctrine that is more broadly protective of national security -- evil-doing that threatens American interests usually begins at home -- but with international moral (and possibly logistical) support to boot. Would we find ourselves in more places like Somalia and fewer like Panama? Maybe, but maybe not -- careful definition of who is and is not worthy of international removal might limit preemption actions to "state actors" and leave civil wars and warlords for some other type of international response, such as peace-keepers and humanitarian workers, whose objective would not be to change the political status quo, just to moderate its consequences on non-combatants.
On the other hand, the constantly shifting justifications, explanations, denials and obfuscations about the war that we are currently seeing out of the Bush administration are, to me, more troubling than the actual action taking place in Iraq. No less prominent Administration personnel than Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld started this action saying that it would be short, that the Iraqis would offer little, if any resistance, and that, to the contrary, they would welcome American "liberators" and turn on Hussein. When that proved optimistic, they denied that they had ever said that, and left General Richard Meyers to say that if someone said something that some people took to mean that, they were wrong. Then the Administration started whistling a different tune: no war is easy and this war is no exception, and we anticipated these setbacks anyway.
This message has been dutifully parroted by conservative pundits. Today's New York Times, for example, had an Op-Ed by Michael O'Hanlon, of the Brookings Institution [link], the main thrust of which is that the war in Iraq isn't going so badly, and that it's about to get better. In support of his point, O'Hanlon cites three factors: "The battle of Baghdad will be quick"; "Critical troops are on the way"; and "Saddam Hussein can't cause lasting problems in the south".
Where have we heard that before? Oh yes, from Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld. CNN.com, for example, in a March 16, 2003 article, quoted the Vice President as saying that the war would last only a few weeks and that should a U.S.-led attack occur, the forces would be "greeted as liberators" and that Saddam would likely flee, be captured, "or perhaps killed by his own people." [link] Other Administration insiders -- notably Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman, both appointed by Rumsfeld to the influential Defense Policy Board -- similarly dismissed the notion that the US would face any serious opposition in Iraq. Adelman, for one, famously intoned that "I don't agree that you need an enormous number of American troops", and that Hussein's army "is down to one-third than it was before, and I think it would be a cakewalk." [link].
Now, I'm no military expert, but I have to be skeptical when anyone says that a battle for Baghdad will be quick. If in fact this is the last stand for Hussein loyalists, they have nothing to lose by abandoning all "acceptable" war tactics and taking it to the streets -- literally. In this guerilla-warfare scenario, the technological advantages favoring the US tend to be lessened, as our experiences in Mogadishu and Vietnam showed, and the numerical advantages aren't necessarily in our favor either, since guerilla warfare is predicated on a few outmaneuvering and strategically harrassing a far more numerous force until that force gives up and goes home. The other scenario -- a siege of Baghdad, also isn't likely to be quick (sieges never are). Finally, reliance on shock and awe -- that is, American air superiority -- may go some way toward winning the city, but we should expect high civilian casualties and extreme anti-American propoganda anytime a missle kills an child or pregnant woman or elderly, no matter how careful we have been not to target civilian areas or known non-combatant installations.
Similarly, I would not be so sanguine that the Iraqi regime has lost (or is losing) its ability to exert influence in the south. Recent battles to protect vulnerable and crucial supply lines have demonstrated that even a small number of defenders can wreak havoc behind the lines and inhibit the ability of a strike force to move forward (see my previous point). As it is, the opposition is smaller than the expeditionary force, but that doesn't mean that it's not a threat, or that it couldn't muster popular support if civilian sentiment is stirred against the US by high civilian death tolls or propoganda. Perhaps the introduction of additional troops from the 4th Infantry or the 101st Airborne will help, but it's not clear that it will eliminate the threat. For more on that, I recommend Nicholas Kristof's Op-Ed in the Times today, which talks about the dichotomy among Iraqis between wanting US aid and despising the US presence at the same time. [link]
In the end, I want the US to succeed in ousting Saddam Hussein, but I also want my own government to be straight with me. I'm an adult, and I can handle painful truths better than they think. And maybe, with the right motives, I can be persuaded that whatever may come, we're doing the right thing. I want to get there, and I think alot of people who support our troops but don't like how we got here would say the same thing. And, I think we're prepared to accept some casualties for a just result, just so long as truth isn't one of them.
posted by Daniel at 10:42 AM
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