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January 21, 2004
Iraq Reassessed
Pacifists are the only ones I give any credit for opposing the war against Saddam Hussein. Everyone else is trying to make political points. This is the context for my judgement of Bush.
Something I've been thinking about for a couple weeks and really couldn't find a way to say it was what to think of American discontent with the war disaggregated from the political performance of GWBush. I've come up with some questions I think must be considered in order to do so. But first to Bush from my perspective.
I find GW Bush to be a mediocre president. His election was primarily a repudiation of the Clinton presidency gone sour. He was elected to do the standard kinds of things people now expect of Republican presidents. Compassionate Conservatism could work. His election was achieved in the context of a healthy economy and an overheated stock market which has gone mostly kaput and has now finally started creeping back. But as for Bush's own domestic agenda, especially vis a vis Compassionate Conservatism, he never quite rose to that task. Events overcame him.
I don't think he's made the best out of a bad situation, but he has performed admirably. My confidence about where we are as a nation comes not my faith in Bush's ability to work the government, but from the people we are as Americans. We handled the situation, and we wouldn't have let any other president do much differently. But the zealotry of Neocons have rubbed a lot of otherwise intelligent people the wrong way, and it is the squealing of these stuck pigs that adds more noise than signal to the evaluations of Bush, the anti-Saddam missions and the actions against global terrorism.
What should Bush have done differently? He should have given Powell more time to be a hero. When the operant words were 'regime change', Powell was a hero in Europe. Could we have waited 6 months? Yes of course we could have, and I think we should have. Bush antagonized many nations by his timetable. There was no present threat, but we weren't sure about that. We in the American public were no more sure about Saddam's WMDs than we were about the Arab Domino theories which were equally discussed and considered a year ago. How many of us remember this? (insert link of very popular animation with little mad bombing terrorists and missiles flying all over the middle east).
Key in my thinking about these matters is the question of the no-fly zones. These were supported by the American public. Supporters of the 'Baby Bin Laden' theory had very little concern about the militaristic reactions to that American military presence. For those who might have spoken up against flying American jets over Iraq, the concern was primarily humanitarian, or so it seemed.
When the hostilities escalated to an out and out shooting war, I expected many Americans who sounded like pacifists in order to justify their arguments against Bush to focus on issues of humanitarianism. From those who complained that America had run roughshod in the first war and defied the UN whose oil for food program was insufficient I expected an airlift. I wrote a cartoon about it because I felt that the spirit of the loyal opposition was primarily one of concern for the living conditions of the Iraqis themselves. But that airlift never materialized.
By the time the anti-war arguments began pointing to 'priceless antiquities' I realized the amount of hypocrisy in many of these arguments. The contradictions were becoming clear. Fisk himself was a great example of someone who consistently asked the kinds of questions that were not generally answered, but battles erupted about the man himself. I think that reflected poorly on everyone both pro- and anti- forces.
What we have not been hearing in the anti-war arguments are about the devastation of war itself. There may be people who complain about refugee problems, but are there really refugee problems? How many people have actually been displaced by the battles and occupation? The humanitarian question has really not persisted in any shape. This is what is most striking to me about most opposition to the war against Saddam Hussein, and it is for this reason that I will most likely discount the kind of arguments that I am beginning to see: the increasing body count of American soldiers. If your most strenuous objection to the war and occupation is expressed in terms of the cost to America then I believe you're on the wrong track. Such an argument fails to recognize most moral calculations, most notably humanitarianism. Besides, we can actually afford it.
More later on Bush's lies.
UPDATE:
Human Rights Watch hasn't published a word on Iraqi refugees in over 10 months.
Posted by mbowen at January 21, 2004 08:14 AM
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Comments
Good post -- couldn't agree more. The sheer hypocrisy of some people in their 'complaints' boggles my mind on a daily basis...
Posted by: Ken White at January 21, 2004 09:46 AM
On the "give it six more months" angle (with respect):
One of the things I haven't seened mentioned at all in such an opinion is the effects of weather on our mobilization. I recall (but could of course be recalling incorrectly) that one of the "ulterior motives" for European intransigence was the hope that they could delay the operation long enough for summer to come around in earnest. This would, the reasoning went, make campaigning too difficult, perhaps scuttling the entire mission.
Thing is, I think they're right. If we had given Powell 6 more months that would've put the jump off date in the heart of a 130 degree summer. Our complex equipment had enough problems with dust and sand, adding brain-frying temperatures to the mix may have been disastrous. The potential, in my opinion, to incur extra US and UK casualties simply to please the international community was very real and completely unacceptable.
Well, then, why not wait a whole year? Then you're in the heart of an election cycle, and everyone remembers the "wag the dog" invective Clinton went through when he attacked Baghdad around the same time. And those were just missles, not troops.
I think the weather combined with political and military exigences to create a very 1914-like situation. The campaign had to happen in the spring or fall. Had bin Laden attacked in 2000 instead of 2001, I think there would have been a very real chance we would've given Powell a whole year to try negotiations. As it stood though, the machine simply couldn't spare the time.
And no, I'm not very comfortable with that conclusion. But I can't ignore it.
Posted by: scott at January 21, 2004 12:54 PM
Gah. "measure twice, cut once". Replace "we" with "the bush administration." I don't like him very much either, and that line reads like I live in Cheney's bathroom or something. Like most republicans (can't say if you're one or not, haven't read enough just yet) I'm going to hold my nose when I start marking up the ballot this fall.
Posted by: Scott at January 21, 2004 12:59 PM
I agree that timeliness to battle should be a crucial factor and I hadn't thought at all about logistics when I was reviewing matters this time around. I think if Rumsfeld's minimalist forces (thanks Turkey) had failed the aggrevation between he and the Pentagon chiefs would have been unbearable. I think we're much better off with the kind of political debate we have than with something that breaks the military.
That said, I know there are a lot of angry folks who are not speaking up because of the take-no-prisoners politics of the White House. That only reinforces my belief that there is an iron shield around the president and that sophisticated decisionmaking lies deep in the wonkarchy. I imagine that Bush says 'make it so' and never joins the away teams, which means that a lot of people are saying '..on behalf of the president'.
Posted by: Cobb at January 21, 2004 01:18 PM
I know there are a lot of angry folks who are not speaking up because of the take-no-prisoners politics of the White House.
And there you have hit upon the head of what bothers people like me about the current administration. There is no room for discussion or exchange of ideas. It's a regime with a fundalmentalist attitude. It's why 'You're with us or against us' pissed off folks. It's why "Bring it on" caused such discussion. When you are making decisions, such as the Iraq one, which will have life or death consequences, you cannot be scared or afraid to talk about it.
Posted by: Prince C. at January 21, 2004 03:44 PM
Well, thing is, as they say, "it has ever been thus." I read Ellsberg's book Secrets and one of his premises (premii?) was "the danger of the executive office is that the success or failure of the country is defined as the success or failure of the man", and that everyone involved in the executive branch is dedicated to one thing and one thing only... the success of the man.
Then I read 1919 and MacMillan is saying the same thing, that one of Wilson's impediments was he defined success as the advancement of his own agenda, and would not bend on things like the League, and because of that WWII suddenly became possible.
Of course the excesses of the Nixon administration are well documented, but that was simply an extreme case. They all lie to us, sometimes egregiously. I still can't think of a single administration that didn't lie in some way to get the US involved in a war. Usually it turned out all right in the end, but sometimes only just, and at least once not at all.
While my studies of Vietnam have shown me that Iran is most definitely not a quagmire (neither, in fact, was Vietnam), I am sometimes deeply disturbed by the more subtle parallels that can be drawn between this administration and the ones between 64 and 73.
All I can take comfort in is the founding fathers' intentional weakening of the office,the twenty-second amendment, and the mouth-breathing press corps (a monument to the axiom, "if a 4 year old can't understand it, there must be something wrong.")
Well, that and the fact the Democrats can't seem to campaign their way out of a paper sack with both hands, a map, and a compass.
Posted by: Scott at January 21, 2004 04:46 PM
Well, you can count me as a war opponent whose opposition was primarily due to my distrust of our front-man President. I'd trust Bush more on terrorism issues if I could get over the feeling that his electoral prospects are enhanced by American fear.
Posted by: Barbar at January 21, 2004 04:49 PM