Yup,nothing wrong with OUR plan. It's all the president's fault. We had nothing to do with it. Gosh, if we had been in charge, it would have gone perfectly according to plan.
This, from the party of 'personal responsibility.'
I half agree with them and half don't. It does seem like the war was winnable, once, although probably only with more competent management and a commitment we were never willing to make. Where I disagree is on whether the premise was right in the first place. If we think that flexing our muscle is a good way of taking leadership (and some would even call THAT a big if), there were certainly better places to do it than Iraq. Say, for example, if we had bothered to fix Afghanistan first.
Rumsfeld Must Go
Just days after President Bush publicly affirmed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's job security through the end of his term, a family of publications catering to the military will publish an editorial calling for the defense secretary's removal.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15552211/
Other conservatives critical of Iraq/Bush:
Andrew Sullivan
Dick Armey
Colin Powell
Richard Viguerie
David Kuo
Richard Armitage
John Warner
Chuck Hagel
Christoper Hitchens
The competency of the Bush administration and the rightness of taking down Saddam are two different things.
For example, in WW2 I think it was right to defeat Hitler and Nazi Germany. We did the right thing by declaring war on them. Now, even if we had ended up losing the war, or if we won but botched the occupation, that doesn't mean we weren't right to declare war and fight in the first place. As it was, we made tons of mistakes in WW2(see Huertgen Forest, the Ardennes/Bulge, N. Africa, Anzio for starters) and when you consider how close the Germans came to winning even despite all their mistakes(postponing Barbarossa from May to June, the invasion of Crete, the invasion of Yugoslavia, the decision to hold Stalingrad at all costs instead of pushing for the Caspian and the oil fields, the abandoning of Rommel and the Afrika Corps, the incompetence of the Luftwaffe and OKW that allowed the BEF to escape from Dunkirk, the horrible strategy of the Luftwaffe during Aug-Sept 1940, etc...), we were lucky to win as we did.
That said, the administration has been woefully bad in Iraq post war. And I say this as someone who supported the war in the first place and still think taking out Saddam was the right thing to do.
But I never expected the administration and the Pentagon to do this badly. See the too small number of troops, the blind faith in democracy, the supporting of guys like Chalabi and al-Maliki who are stooges for Iran, the lack of resolve in confronting Iranian and SYrian support for the insurgents and terrorists, the lack of decisive action against terrorists, the way they've handled the media and failed to explain things ot the public, the coddling of the EU with regards to Iran's nuclear program, etc...
If I knew then what I know now about how they've performed, I'd prbably say it isn't worth it.
But it's certainly possible to be consistent and say you supported the war in the beginning not no longer have confidence in how the administration is handling the occupation and post war period. I don't see anything wrong with that.
We didn't have to declare war back on him and if you know you're stuff his declaration was irrelevant to use declaring war on Germany. After all, Al Qaeda declared war on the United States in 1998 and Bill Clinton didn't declare war on them back. In fact, he didn't do much of anything but that's a whole nother story. But the comparison of Clinton and FDR to enemy declarations of war against the US is instructive.
It was a boon to FDR because politically he didn't want to seen as going first and breaking his explicit promise of the 1940 election to keep the boys home and not get us in another war in Europe, but FDR planned on taking on Hitler all along, it was just a matter of finding the right time. Further, we were already openly supporting the UK and USSR through lendlease before we declared war on Germany so we had already made our bed, so to speak.
Christopher Hitchens is a conservative? I know he abandoned his comrades in supporting the Iraq war, but isn’t he still a man of the left? Doesn’t he still want Henry Kissinger tried as a war criminal?
I will present my findings in full in the January issue of Vanity Fair, which will reach newsstands in New York and L.A. on December 6 and nationally by December 12. In the meantime, here is a brief survey of some of what I heard from the war's remorseful proponents.
Whatever you think of the various and sundry neocon zingers, it's fun to see the media try to shovel more dirt on Republicans right before the election. We really needed the teaser, out of context quotes and all, and we could not wait for nov. 8 to get it!
The invasion of Afghanistan was tactical: that's where the immediate enemy, Al Qaeda, was.
The invasion of Iraq was strategic and had little to do with Iraqi support of terrorism or WMD. Our plan was to change the Moslem world by force, or by the sort of persuasion that force-next-door works on neighboring countries, and Iraq was a practical place to start.
But because we were dishonest about practicing realpolitik we saddled ourselves with a need to justify the invasion by finding WMD, or WMD programs, or terrorist connections, and our failure to incontestably do so has given the war's critics all the ammunition they need. Worse yet, our real purpose seems to have been overtaken by a need to defend our rationalizations against this criticism. We have lost track of our own strategic thinking and turned the war on Islamic primitivism into The Iraq War.
Even if we win in Iraq, which we may still do, we have abandoned the reasoning that justified the invasion in the first place. Victory in Iraq will be signaled by the troops coming home, not by their massing on the Syrian border. The whole affair is an exact illustration of the old saw "When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember you came to drain the swamp."
If only the President had begun by saying "My fellow Americans, the Islamic world needs an enema and Iraq is the perfect place to put the hose," all of us who aren't educated beyond our capacity would have understood exactly what we were doing. But between dishonest rationalizations and inept execution, the whole WOT has turned to mush.
The neocon rats have only themselves to blame. They're the ones who pushed Bush into the lost War in Iraq as the beginning of an arrogant and condescending foreign policy initiative to spread democracy to the third world via war.
However, war is by its very nature is destructive, cruel, bloody, and barbaric (or as General Tecumseh Sherman put it, "War is Hell!") and whoever is better at the foregoing than their adversary wins the war. Let's not kid ourselves, we won WW2 because we bombed Germany back into the stone age and hunted down the Japanese in the Pacific until it came time to drop a couple of atom bombs. There was nothing altruistic or glorious about our actions to win WW2 although it had to be done after Japan bombed us at Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war on us.
Therefore, to spread democracy by war is by its very nature contradictory, which is something the neocon rats never came to terms with. Now they're abandoning ship. Good riddance! I hope they abandon the Republican party that they have hijacked for these past six years.
If only the President had begun by saying "My fellow Americans, the Islamic world needs an enema and Iraq is the perfect place to put the hose," all of us who aren't educated beyond our capacity would have understood exactly what we were doing. But between dishonest rationalizations and inept execution, the whole WOT has turned to mush.
Absolute rubbish. You will not remake the middle east by invading and installing democracies. The people there identify themselves along religious, family, and tribal lines. If you manage to install a democracy they will vote for mullahs, imams, etc. or those beholden to them and you will be back where you started. While you are trying to install democracy there will be tremendous amounts of bloodshed and large piles of money just incinerated in runaway military spending. In practice, trying to "install democracy" by force in the middle east results in an endless feedback loop of lost lives and money.
Perhaps you should look a little closer to home for someone "educated beyond their capacity".
I personally supported the War in Iraq. I think the Bush administration has a tendency to focus on just 1 thing or area at a time and get side swiped by the stuff outside of their focus. (This can be seen throughout their functioning, from the State of the Union address were Bush bemoaned the expiration of the patriot act and had the look of complete incomprehension when the Democrats started clapping, to Katrina, to Iraq).
I think he has some strong qualities, but as a manager, he leaves a lot to be desired.
Personally, I do not have much to say about this topic, however, I did find something interesting and relevant on the internet that I wish to share.
One of the people quoted in the article, David Frum, has some further comments here. Scroll down to the entry titled "Vanity Fair's Inventions" if it is not already at the top. I think it is fair to say that Frum is an expert on what he meant to say. For the convenience of the readers of these comments, here are a couple of excerpts from Frum's comments,
It cites not only myself as one of these remorseful supporters, but also Richard Perle, Ken Adelman, and others.
I can speak only for myself. Obviously I wish the war had gone better. It's true I fear that there is a real danger that the US will lose in Iraq. And yes I do blame a lot that has gone wrong on failures of US policy. (...snip...)
My most fundamental views on the war in Iraq remain as they were in 2003: The war was right, victory is essential, and defeat would be calamitous.
And that to my knowledge is the view of everybody quoted in the release and the piece: Adelman, Cohen, Ledeen, Perle, Pletka, Rubin, and all the others.
(Not that it matters, but this fight is very personal for many of those people. Cohen and Ledeen have both had children serve in Iraq, Cohen's in the Tenth Mountain Division, Ledeen's daughter in the civil administration and his elder son in the Marines. As a civilian adviser in Iraq, Rubin displayed impressive personal courage living solo for long periods of time in the Shiite zones of east Baghdad.)
Vanity Fair then set my words in its own context in its press release. They added words outside the quote marks to change the plain meanng of quotations. (...snip...)
In short, Vanity Fair transformed a Washington debate over "how to correct course and win the war" to advance obsessions all their own.
Frum has much more to say and what he says sets the above excerpts in a thoughtful context. In any case, I thought that Volokh Consipracy readers might enjoy reading the thoughts of one of the sources of the Vanity Fair article as a companion to the article itself, especially as theses thoughts seem highly relevant to the interpretation of the article itself.
And poking around the same web site I found yet another blog entry by someone quoted in the Vanity Fair article, Michael Rubin. The blog entry is here. It is shorter than Frum's piece, but also well worth reading as a supplement to the Vantiy Fair article. Once again, here are some short excerpts:
Some people interviewed for the piece are annoyed because they granted interviews on the condition that the article not appear before the election. Vanity Fair is spinning a series of long interviews detailing the introspection and debate that occurs among responsible policymakers every day into a pre-election hit job. Who doesn’t constantly question and reassess? (...snip...)
Now, for my own quote: I absolutely stand by what I said. Too many people in Washington treat foreign policy as a game. Many Washington-types who speak about Iraq care not about the US servicemen or about the Iraqis, but rather focus on US electoral politics. I am a Republican, but whether the Republicans or Democrats are in power, Washington’s word must mean something. Leadership is about responsibility, not just politics. (...snip...)
It’s not enough to have an attention span of two years, when the rest of the world thinks in decades if not centuries.
As in the comment on the Frum piece, my excerpts give a sense of what Rubin said, but the whole (short) blog entry shoud be read for the full context. And as in the case of the Frum piece, the thoughts of the person quoted seem highly relevant to interpreting the Vanity Fair article itself.
Personfromporlock--Ding, ding. You win the prize today. This is exactly why we went to war. It was then--and is now--unacceptable to the American people, hence the dodges and misdirections like WMD, nation-building, etc.
Their basic philosophy about the possible uses of U.S. military power is the fundamental problem. The strategic failures in Iraq are simply a particular manifestation of the flaws in the their philosophy.
The Divagator: There I think you are wrong. Most Americans are idealists and I think they would have gone for the idea of spread democracy. The dodges and misdirections were to avoid giving the far left, the UN and old Europe ammo. They were never going to be onside with military action but you don't want to arm your enemies.
But because we were dishonest about practicing realpolitik
I don't think the invasion of Iraq was much of an exercise in realpolitik. Realpolitik would have treated Sadaam as a powerful, murderous thug ... who might be turned (or returned) into being OUR powerful, murderous thug, a useful check on the powerful, murderous thugs in Iran. Hey, there's a lot of powerful murderous thuggery going around in that part of the world, who are we to solve all the problems of a wicked world?
EricP: The far left consists of Americans. All Americans should have a say in whether we go to war. It's called Democracy. The UN is an institution of which not only are we a member, but one of five on the security committee that can veto resolutions. Finally, the old europe that you talk about consists of some of our strongest allies: Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and so on.
So basically you are saying that a small elite group of people can decide that we go to war, and that's all that is needed, and everyone else be damned.
Funny, the GOP didn't think that was the case when Clinton went into Bosnia.
Listen, this would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. The neocons were stupid, stupid blind people -- and they still are. They still cling to this idea that we could have invaded Iraq, set up a democracy in a few months, and then all the other middle eastern countries would fall like dominos once they see democracy in their midst. Their only contention is that Bush bungled the job, but the job was a good one nonetheless.
Baloney. I worked on a project for several years with the ABA entitled the Central and Eastern European Law Initiative. Our goal was to help the emerging former communist countries implement democracy, constitutions, and independent judiciary, and the concept of the rule of law among all those former Soviet bloc states. Even under the best of circumstances -- peaceful overthrow of the communist dictators, an educated public, democratic and capitalistic neighbors close by, and so on, it took many, many years of hard work. The ones that succeeded the best were Hungary, Poland, the Baltic States, and the Czech Republic. The further you go east, the less successful it has been.
So my experience is that implementing the full buffet of democracy, freedom, capitalism and so on takes years, competent and able leaders, a willing public and no small amount of good luck.
And yet we had Bush saying that we would be out of Iraq in months, and it would be a democracy 'by August'. The oil revenue would pay for the war, so no cost to Americans. Whoopee! We would get something for nothing.
Not only was this terribly naive -- yes, I'm saying Richard Perle and Dick Cheney are naifs -- and terribly wrong, but it violates the first rule of global politics. You NEVER get something for nothing.
This was a stupid war right from the start, and it was doomed to failure.
Well, the democracy thing may be naive; the preference for parlimentary democracy is surely foolish in a country as divided as Iraq. But democracy 'took' in Germany and Japan, and those places had no history of it at the time.
So, "stupid" and "doomed" are maybe a little strong. We could have done better and we may yet. I have to admit a suspicion that once we leave, Iraqi democracy will turn out to be of the 'one man, one vote, once' variety, but hey, I've been wrong before.
Actually, the popular pacification of Iraq HAS been a great success - both popular and functional.
The Kurdish north is democratic and peaceful, such that GIs go there for vacation. The Shi-ite south is newly democratically governed, popular and peaceful.
As a Texas National Guardsman who, after serving in Al Anbar for 18 months, told me: "these people are SO tribal." Think about it: "These people are SO tribal." Between faimily and klan, there is the tribe - and then the nation. No Rotary groups, bowling leagues, business or religious associations. No civil society to mediate and conduct legitimacy up and down.
While the rest of this country has been transformed by the fires of conducting popular government under the fact of terrorism into nationalism, the Sunni minority has not. They only joined between February 2005 and February 2006. And then the focus on revenge by religion set in motion. Such fires can last a long time.
The fires of sectarian rage focus in multi-ethnic Bagdhad.
Either a powers must devolve to local regions, or else a new constitution must be written, including more of the disaffected Sunnis, and with a stronger executive authorized to provide better, stronger security, or else the anarchy will go unstaunched.
If you read Douglas Murray's new book "Neoconservatism: Why We Need It" - only the socalled "neocons" had a strategic answer to the Islamist Jihadism. And busying the young demographic bubble of Arabis speaking male Muslims with a populist alternative was one key plank. I still believe Iraq has successfully done that, turning a civil war reflected outward back in on itself where it belongs.
I respectfully disagree with PersonFromPorlock regarding his assertion that democracy did not exist in Germany and Japan prior to WW2. Modern Germany is not so much a product of American democracy as it is the result of a centuries' long evolution of democracy beginning under the Holy Roman Empire wherein the Emperor was often elected by lesser nobles who came together in a type of parliament called the "Diet." The foregoing concept is not too different than the electoral system implemented by our Founding Fathers wherein the President is not directly elected by registered voters but by electors.
Also, although I am less familiar with Japan's pre-WW2 government institutions than I am with Germany's, Japan adopted a parliamentary type democracy (based on England's example) in the late 19th century. In fact, Japan's entry into WW2 was not the result of any decision by the emperor but rather of competition between Japan's Navy and Army for scarce, natural resources (the Navy wanted oil for its fleet in the West Indies while the Army needed natural resources from Manchuria).
Orson23, the probably with your conclusion is that a "civil war reflected outward back in on itself" is the opposite of what the Neocon rats said was the goal from Iraq. The Neocon rats essentially promised that after removing Saddam Hussein from power, Iraq would become a nice little, peaceful democracy that would be an example for the rest of the Middle East. Well, I seriously doubt any nation in the Middle East will want to emulate Iraq now given its sectarian strife. However, the sectarian strife was only inevitable given that it was stifled only by the brutality imposed on all Iraqis by Saddam Hussein and his sons.
We certainly did not decide to go to war with Japan and Germany to make them democratic. We went to war with them because they were waging war all over the place, and we needed to defend our allies. Prior to the Nazis or the 1930s, both countries had extensive experience with the concept of a rule of law, a functioning court system, respect for contracts and private property, basic capitalism, some degree of popular government and so on. So our imposition of democracy upon them was hardly a foreign concept. Plus their populations were well educated and eager to join modern societies.
Contrast that with Belarus, or Romania, or Kazakhstan, and their neighbors, and you can see the difference. Or with Iraq before the invasion. Big diff.
Also,
one thing that no one mentions in comparing Iraq to WW2 is the USA did not win WW2 by itself! People seem to forget about the Soviet Union. They took 50X the casualties we did! 50X! If you look at the figures, 80%+ of German divisions and 85%+ of war materiel and weaponry was were destroyed by the Russians, not the Americans. IN reality, the Eastern Front was where WW2 was won. The western front was like the minor leagues compared to the major leagues of the east. If Germany had had been able to use all its forces in the ast against us in the west and not had to worry about the Russians, things would have turned out differently. Ask any true historian or military guy, and he'll tell you the Russians had more to do with beating the Germans than we did
We don't have a Soviet Union fighting the stength of the enemy for us in this war
If Germany had had been able to use all its forces in the ast against us in the west and not had to worry about the Russians, things would have turned out differently.
omarbradley's point raises what I think is the real unanswered question--could a true international and regional coalition have brought about a favorable result in Iraq? Obviously one was not forthcoming in this case at this time, but perhaps in the future such interventions will be possible.
It's true that going to war for democracy" was well down the list of reasons for toppling Saddam. But the Iraq Liberation Act of October 1998 made that the goal of US foreign policy, and it was signed by Democrat president Bill Clinton. Thus, Bush merely acted on official US policy.
Furthermore, the fact remained that Saddam WAS at war with the US. Given that the peace terms signed in the armistice were perpetually broken, the situation reverts to a state of war. Costs of "containment" were already sunk. The Fodd For Oil program and the rampant corruption thus exposed - and far too little discussed in the media - meant that such a strategy wasn't viable. As last year's book "The Bomb in my Garden" details and a recent NYTimes story confirms, Saddam had aggressive WMD programs at the ready, only waiting out the US and UK enforced trade embargo. (And UBL made these a point of Jihad in 1998 in his declaration of war against the US.)
No, the war in Iraq was a good and necessary war. The bloody and prolonged pacification struggle there since, however, may not have been avoidable. These fair weather neocons seem committed to not realizing that. Tom Sowell in the Wall Street Journal points out the fact that diversity itself made this difficult outcome almost inescapable.
But Fouad Ajami has repeatedly trumpedt the fact that popular rule is now on the table in the Arabic speaking Middle East. This gives them an example to know and learn from that Israel could never be. And since democracy IS widely admired there, this is all to the good for any modern future. Who here will argue agains the preception that popular government has somthing to do with Western success? Not Arabs.
A recent "Opinion Survey of the Arab Street 2005" by Al Arabiya news network provides interesting confirmation. The survey sought to see what Arabs thought about the relative lack of economic progress in the Arab world. In answer to the question, “What is stalling development in the Arab world?,” 81 percent chose "Governments are unwilling to implement change and reform"; asked "What is the fastest way to achieve development in the Arab world?", had 67 percent choosing "Ensuring the rule of law through justice and law enforcement." http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/200552911951.asp
Too bad so many here will deny the Araqb world the obvious. Iraq provides an object lesson in how and how not to proceed to a brighter future.
There is a lot being overlooked by the word "merely" in this sentence. For example, any action has to be judged not only by whether it is in furtherance of a legitimate end, but also by whether it pursues that end with appropriate means and at an acceptable cost.
And that continues to be a fundamental problem with much of the pro-war analysis that I see: many such people like to talk about the benefit side of the equation, but they often understate or even just ignore the cost side of the equation.
The SophistiCons - at Vanity Fair and other print media outlets - represent the leading edge of meta-opinion syntax producers and opinion formation in general, at least so for those who are decidedly more enamored with intellections than they are committed to any type of intellectual integrity. The Graydon Carters, the James Wolcotts, invitees like the Seymour Hershes, et al. are rife with an egoistic cum political conceit. With facility and a giddy ease they promulgate an ideologically born mendacity and divisiveness.
Overly much moralizing? No, and decidedly no. Serving as substantiation, the links made available herein, and a comprehensive substantiation it is:
But no mind, as with the manufacture of consent they additionally manufacture an ample supply of a rabid disdain and contempt for anyone who too decidedly, too consciously, fails to toe the line. Conformity - willingly, via a tired acquiescence or otherwise - being the decided, political aim.
Hence the subcultures of cliques and claques and cookie-cutter conformity - and so among self-regarding "sophisticates" and their epigones.
Orson: But the Iraq Liberation Act of October 1998 made that the goal of US foreign policy, and it was signed by Democrat president Bill Clinton. Thus, Bush merely acted on official US policy.
Yeah, and there is just no way that the President of the United States could change official policy.
Not to be overly offtopic, but I was just wondering if anybody else was as struck by Annie Leibovitz's portrait of Bush in that article? It was fairly breathtaking to see a portrait that so strips him of the presidential identity.
Oops. The quoted notables now claim that they were misquoted, twistquoted, and quoted out of context and that the VF article does not represent their views.
You all were laboring under the illusion that a media institution was being honest, an unexamined premise.
"Too bad so many here will deny the Araqb world the obvious."
Something that stuck with me through many years of Catholic education: The ends do not justify the means.
It is the means wrapped up in your "deny" that "so many here" object to.
The risk of failure is an empowered Kurdish region that ignites civil war in Turkey in an attempt to form a greater kurdish nation. Iran and syria could easily absorb parts of the remainder either directly or a la Lebanon. In the end, this weakens an important US ally and strengthens two problematic states.
Democracy in Afghanistan would have been a better start, I think, given all that terrorism business that was used to excuse the invasion of Iraq in the first place.
"You all were laboring under the illusion that a media institution was being honest, an unexamined premise."
Yeah, there real views are that things are going really well in Iraq and it was a good thing to invade them and the plan was executed perfectly. That's their REAL view?
Or maybe their real view is that Bush isn't really at fault for bungling the invasion, but that they are.
Well, now I can sleep better.
Sheesh. If that *isn't* their real view, then they are even more in denial than I ever thought possible....or maybe .... they are just mad because their views came out before the election?
Randy. They claim VF misquoted them, just for starters. This, if true, means what VF said they said isn't their real view.
Not too difficult to follow, now, is it?
Then what IS their real view? I'm mean, it's pretty much limited to the following:
The plan to invade was a good one, but it was poorly executed by Bush (The VF article).
The plan to invade was a good one, and it is going along just fine (The out of touch with reality argument)
The plan to invade was a bad one, and it's going along badly (IMO a true argument, but it would require Perle to admit that he was wrong, which I doubt), or
The plan to invade was a bad one, but it's going along nicely. (Bizarre on all accounts).
So which one is Perle claiming now? He has every opportunity to clear the record as to his real views right *now* and chooses not to. Therefore, I suspect that the VF article is quoting him accurately, but he's just mad that his real views are made known before the election. But the public has a right to know what his views are, since he was one of the main people arguing for this war in the first place, and it's topic number one in the minds of the voters.
Randy. I looked around for people who wanted to pay for your opinion. No luck so far. I'll keep looking.
Anyway, the issue is whether the neocons were quoted accurately in VF. They claim they were not. You can ask them or read their own statements to find out what they think, which is probably not going to be much influenced by what you think/hope.
But, to the extent they were not quoted accurately in VF, gloating over what VF claimed they said is kind of lame.
They also said they were told nothing would be published until after the election, whatever that is all about. But VF lied about that, too.
Lesson; even if you love what they say, presume as a starting point that the media lie, and research from there if the topic interests you.
Great. But my point is that IF VF misquoted Perle, then why doens't he bother to tell us what the real quotes are? The fact that it somehow doesn't occur to him makes me suspect that VF didn't misquote him as much as he says they did, and that he just wants to backtrack from the firestorm it unleashed.
I do presume the media lies -- that's why I don't watch Fox news.
Randy. See National Review Online, wherein the quoted have a symposium responding to the VF article.
This damn' web. Can't get away with nothing.
Has Fox done anything like the TANG docs, and the al QaQa ammo dump hoax?
They all lie, unless they're not paying attention. Accidents do happen.
Oh, yeah. Don't forget to say you don't read that reactionary, right-wing rag, so as to have an excuse not to see what you said you wanted to see when you thought it wasn't available. Don't let me down.
This, from the party of 'personal responsibility.'
Just days after President Bush publicly affirmed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's job security through the end of his term, a family of publications catering to the military will publish an editorial calling for the defense secretary's removal.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15552211/
Other conservatives critical of Iraq/Bush:
Andrew Sullivan
Dick Armey
Colin Powell
Richard Viguerie
David Kuo
Richard Armitage
John Warner
Chuck Hagel
Christoper Hitchens
That's all I can think of off the top of my head.
For example, in WW2 I think it was right to defeat Hitler and Nazi Germany. We did the right thing by declaring war on them. Now, even if we had ended up losing the war, or if we won but botched the occupation, that doesn't mean we weren't right to declare war and fight in the first place. As it was, we made tons of mistakes in WW2(see Huertgen Forest, the Ardennes/Bulge, N. Africa, Anzio for starters) and when you consider how close the Germans came to winning even despite all their mistakes(postponing Barbarossa from May to June, the invasion of Crete, the invasion of Yugoslavia, the decision to hold Stalingrad at all costs instead of pushing for the Caspian and the oil fields, the abandoning of Rommel and the Afrika Corps, the incompetence of the Luftwaffe and OKW that allowed the BEF to escape from Dunkirk, the horrible strategy of the Luftwaffe during Aug-Sept 1940, etc...), we were lucky to win as we did.
That said, the administration has been woefully bad in Iraq post war. And I say this as someone who supported the war in the first place and still think taking out Saddam was the right thing to do.
But I never expected the administration and the Pentagon to do this badly. See the too small number of troops, the blind faith in democracy, the supporting of guys like Chalabi and al-Maliki who are stooges for Iran, the lack of resolve in confronting Iranian and SYrian support for the insurgents and terrorists, the lack of decisive action against terrorists, the way they've handled the media and failed to explain things ot the public, the coddling of the EU with regards to Iran's nuclear program, etc...
If I knew then what I know now about how they've performed, I'd prbably say it isn't worth it.
But it's certainly possible to be consistent and say you supported the war in the beginning not no longer have confidence in how the administration is handling the occupation and post war period. I don't see anything wrong with that.
It was a boon to FDR because politically he didn't want to seen as going first and breaking his explicit promise of the 1940 election to keep the boys home and not get us in another war in Europe, but FDR planned on taking on Hitler all along, it was just a matter of finding the right time. Further, we were already openly supporting the UK and USSR through lendlease before we declared war on Germany so we had already made our bed, so to speak.
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这里有名言警句 名言警句
他是兽人皇帝grubby 兽族皇帝grubbyorc,fighting!
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You have provided one of the best summaries of the problem of the Iraq war I’ve seen anywhere.
Christopher Hitchens is a conservative? I know he abandoned his comrades in supporting the Iraq war, but isn’t he still a man of the left? Doesn’t he still want Henry Kissinger tried as a war criminal?
Whatever you think of the various and sundry neocon zingers, it's fun to see the media try to shovel more dirt on Republicans right before the election. We really needed the teaser, out of context quotes and all, and we could not wait for nov. 8 to get it!
The invasion of Iraq was strategic and had little to do with Iraqi support of terrorism or WMD. Our plan was to change the Moslem world by force, or by the sort of persuasion that force-next-door works on neighboring countries, and Iraq was a practical place to start.
But because we were dishonest about practicing realpolitik we saddled ourselves with a need to justify the invasion by finding WMD, or WMD programs, or terrorist connections, and our failure to incontestably do so has given the war's critics all the ammunition they need. Worse yet, our real purpose seems to have been overtaken by a need to defend our rationalizations against this criticism. We have lost track of our own strategic thinking and turned the war on Islamic primitivism into The Iraq War.
Even if we win in Iraq, which we may still do, we have abandoned the reasoning that justified the invasion in the first place. Victory in Iraq will be signaled by the troops coming home, not by their massing on the Syrian border. The whole affair is an exact illustration of the old saw "When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember you came to drain the swamp."
If only the President had begun by saying "My fellow Americans, the Islamic world needs an enema and Iraq is the perfect place to put the hose," all of us who aren't educated beyond our capacity would have understood exactly what we were doing. But between dishonest rationalizations and inept execution, the whole WOT has turned to mush.
However, war is by its very nature is destructive, cruel, bloody, and barbaric (or as General Tecumseh Sherman put it, "War is Hell!") and whoever is better at the foregoing than their adversary wins the war. Let's not kid ourselves, we won WW2 because we bombed Germany back into the stone age and hunted down the Japanese in the Pacific until it came time to drop a couple of atom bombs. There was nothing altruistic or glorious about our actions to win WW2 although it had to be done after Japan bombed us at Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war on us.
Therefore, to spread democracy by war is by its very nature contradictory, which is something the neocon rats never came to terms with. Now they're abandoning ship. Good riddance! I hope they abandon the Republican party that they have hijacked for these past six years.
Absolute rubbish. You will not remake the middle east by invading and installing democracies. The people there identify themselves along religious, family, and tribal lines. If you manage to install a democracy they will vote for mullahs, imams, etc. or those beholden to them and you will be back where you started. While you are trying to install democracy there will be tremendous amounts of bloodshed and large piles of money just incinerated in runaway military spending. In practice, trying to "install democracy" by force in the middle east results in an endless feedback loop of lost lives and money.
Perhaps you should look a little closer to home for someone "educated beyond their capacity".
I think he has some strong qualities, but as a manager, he leaves a lot to be desired.
One of the people quoted in the article, David Frum, has some further comments here. Scroll down to the entry titled "Vanity Fair's Inventions" if it is not already at the top. I think it is fair to say that Frum is an expert on what he meant to say. For the convenience of the readers of these comments, here are a couple of excerpts from Frum's comments,
Frum has much more to say and what he says sets the above excerpts in a thoughtful context. In any case, I thought that Volokh Consipracy readers might enjoy reading the thoughts of one of the sources of the Vanity Fair article as a companion to the article itself, especially as theses thoughts seem highly relevant to the interpretation of the article itself.
It is shorter than Frum's piece, but also well worth reading as a supplement to the Vantiy Fair article. Once again, here are some short excerpts:
As in the comment on the Frum piece, my excerpts give a sense of what Rubin said, but the whole (short) blog entry shoud be read for the full context. And as in the case of the Frum piece, the thoughts of the person quoted seem highly relevant to interpreting the Vanity Fair article itself.
Having a Marxist on their side is an indictment of the right.
Neocons should just climb under a rock.
I don't think the invasion of Iraq was much of an exercise in realpolitik. Realpolitik would have treated Sadaam as a powerful, murderous thug ... who might be turned (or returned) into being OUR powerful, murderous thug, a useful check on the powerful, murderous thugs in Iran. Hey, there's a lot of powerful murderous thuggery going around in that part of the world, who are we to solve all the problems of a wicked world?
I think Americans are such idealists that they believe democracy can be spread without invasions.
So basically you are saying that a small elite group of people can decide that we go to war, and that's all that is needed, and everyone else be damned.
Funny, the GOP didn't think that was the case when Clinton went into Bosnia.
Baloney. I worked on a project for several years with the ABA entitled the Central and Eastern European Law Initiative. Our goal was to help the emerging former communist countries implement democracy, constitutions, and independent judiciary, and the concept of the rule of law among all those former Soviet bloc states. Even under the best of circumstances -- peaceful overthrow of the communist dictators, an educated public, democratic and capitalistic neighbors close by, and so on, it took many, many years of hard work. The ones that succeeded the best were Hungary, Poland, the Baltic States, and the Czech Republic. The further you go east, the less successful it has been.
So my experience is that implementing the full buffet of democracy, freedom, capitalism and so on takes years, competent and able leaders, a willing public and no small amount of good luck.
And yet we had Bush saying that we would be out of Iraq in months, and it would be a democracy 'by August'. The oil revenue would pay for the war, so no cost to Americans. Whoopee! We would get something for nothing.
Not only was this terribly naive -- yes, I'm saying Richard Perle and Dick Cheney are naifs -- and terribly wrong, but it violates the first rule of global politics. You NEVER get something for nothing.
This was a stupid war right from the start, and it was doomed to failure.
you forgot the boogeyman and the gays.
So, "stupid" and "doomed" are maybe a little strong. We could have done better and we may yet. I have to admit a suspicion that once we leave, Iraqi democracy will turn out to be of the 'one man, one vote, once' variety, but hey, I've been wrong before.
The Kurdish north is democratic and peaceful, such that GIs go there for vacation. The Shi-ite south is newly democratically governed, popular and peaceful.
As a Texas National Guardsman who, after serving in Al Anbar for 18 months, told me: "these people are SO tribal." Think about it: "These people are SO tribal." Between faimily and klan, there is the tribe - and then the nation. No Rotary groups, bowling leagues, business or religious associations. No civil society to mediate and conduct legitimacy up and down.
While the rest of this country has been transformed by the fires of conducting popular government under the fact of terrorism into nationalism, the Sunni minority has not. They only joined between February 2005 and February 2006. And then the focus on revenge by religion set in motion. Such fires can last a long time.
The fires of sectarian rage focus in multi-ethnic Bagdhad.
Either a powers must devolve to local regions, or else a new constitution must be written, including more of the disaffected Sunnis, and with a stronger executive authorized to provide better, stronger security, or else the anarchy will go unstaunched.
If you read Douglas Murray's new book "Neoconservatism: Why We Need It" - only the socalled "neocons" had a strategic answer to the Islamist Jihadism. And busying the young demographic bubble of Arabis speaking male Muslims with a populist alternative was one key plank. I still believe Iraq has successfully done that, turning a civil war reflected outward back in on itself where it belongs.
Also, although I am less familiar with Japan's pre-WW2 government institutions than I am with Germany's, Japan adopted a parliamentary type democracy (based on England's example) in the late 19th century. In fact, Japan's entry into WW2 was not the result of any decision by the emperor but rather of competition between Japan's Navy and Army for scarce, natural resources (the Navy wanted oil for its fleet in the West Indies while the Army needed natural resources from Manchuria).
Contrast that with Belarus, or Romania, or Kazakhstan, and their neighbors, and you can see the difference. Or with Iraq before the invasion. Big diff.
one thing that no one mentions in comparing Iraq to WW2 is the USA did not win WW2 by itself! People seem to forget about the Soviet Union. They took 50X the casualties we did! 50X! If you look at the figures, 80%+ of German divisions and 85%+ of war materiel and weaponry was were destroyed by the Russians, not the Americans. IN reality, the Eastern Front was where WW2 was won. The western front was like the minor leagues compared to the major leagues of the east. If Germany had had been able to use all its forces in the ast against us in the west and not had to worry about the Russians, things would have turned out differently. Ask any true historian or military guy, and he'll tell you the Russians had more to do with beating the Germans than we did
We don't have a Soviet Union fighting the stength of the enemy for us in this war
And vice versa is exactly true also.
Furthermore, the fact remained that Saddam WAS at war with the US. Given that the peace terms signed in the armistice were perpetually broken, the situation reverts to a state of war. Costs of "containment" were already sunk. The Fodd For Oil program and the rampant corruption thus exposed - and far too little discussed in the media - meant that such a strategy wasn't viable. As last year's book "The Bomb in my Garden" details and a recent NYTimes story confirms, Saddam had aggressive WMD programs at the ready, only waiting out the US and UK enforced trade embargo. (And UBL made these a point of Jihad in 1998 in his declaration of war against the US.)
No, the war in Iraq was a good and necessary war. The bloody and prolonged pacification struggle there since, however, may not have been avoidable. These fair weather neocons seem committed to not realizing that. Tom Sowell in the Wall Street Journal points out the fact that diversity itself made this difficult outcome almost inescapable.
But Fouad Ajami has repeatedly trumpedt the fact that popular rule is now on the table in the Arabic speaking Middle East. This gives them an example to know and learn from that Israel could never be. And since democracy IS widely admired there, this is all to the good for any modern future. Who here will argue agains the preception that popular government has somthing to do with Western success? Not Arabs.
A recent "Opinion Survey of the Arab Street 2005" by Al Arabiya news network provides interesting confirmation. The survey sought to see what Arabs thought about the relative lack of economic progress in the Arab world. In answer to the question, “What is stalling development in the Arab world?,” 81 percent chose "Governments are unwilling to implement change and reform"; asked "What is the fastest way to achieve development in the Arab world?", had 67 percent choosing "Ensuring the rule of law through justice and law enforcement." http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/200552911951.asp
Too bad so many here will deny the Araqb world the obvious. Iraq provides an object lesson in how and how not to proceed to a brighter future.
There is a lot being overlooked by the word "merely" in this sentence. For example, any action has to be judged not only by whether it is in furtherance of a legitimate end, but also by whether it pursues that end with appropriate means and at an acceptable cost.
And that continues to be a fundamental problem with much of the pro-war analysis that I see: many such people like to talk about the benefit side of the equation, but they often understate or even just ignore the cost side of the equation.
Barone on WMD
The SophistiCons - at Vanity Fair and other print media outlets - represent the leading edge of meta-opinion syntax producers and opinion formation in general, at least so for those who are decidedly more enamored with intellections than they are committed to any type of intellectual integrity. The Graydon Carters, the James Wolcotts, invitees like the Seymour Hershes, et al. are rife with an egoistic cum political conceit. With facility and a giddy ease they promulgate an ideologically born mendacity and divisiveness.
Overly much moralizing? No, and decidedly no. Serving as substantiation, the links made available herein, and a comprehensive substantiation it is:
Richard Perle
David Frum
Michael Rubin
Michael Barone
And most certainly not least of all Strategy Page
But no mind, as with the manufacture of consent they additionally manufacture an ample supply of a rabid disdain and contempt for anyone who too decidedly, too consciously, fails to toe the line. Conformity - willingly, via a tired acquiescence or otherwise - being the decided, political aim.
Hence the subcultures of cliques and claques and cookie-cutter conformity - and so among self-regarding "sophisticates" and their epigones.
Yeah, and there is just no way that the President of the United States could change official policy.
After Tuesday, he will be reduced to a babbling child, I predict.
You all were laboring under the illusion that a media institution was being honest, an unexamined premise.
Silly.
Something that stuck with me through many years of Catholic education: The ends do not justify the means.
It is the means wrapped up in your "deny" that "so many here" object to.
The risk of failure is an empowered Kurdish region that ignites civil war in Turkey in an attempt to form a greater kurdish nation. Iran and syria could easily absorb parts of the remainder either directly or a la Lebanon. In the end, this weakens an important US ally and strengthens two problematic states.
Democracy in Afghanistan would have been a better start, I think, given all that terrorism business that was used to excuse the invasion of Iraq in the first place.
Yeah, there real views are that things are going really well in Iraq and it was a good thing to invade them and the plan was executed perfectly. That's their REAL view?
Or maybe their real view is that Bush isn't really at fault for bungling the invasion, but that they are.
Well, now I can sleep better.
Sheesh. If that *isn't* their real view, then they are even more in denial than I ever thought possible....or maybe .... they are just mad because their views came out before the election?
Not too difficult to follow, now, is it?
The plan to invade was a good one, but it was poorly executed by Bush (The VF article).
The plan to invade was a good one, and it is going along just fine (The out of touch with reality argument)
The plan to invade was a bad one, and it's going along badly (IMO a true argument, but it would require Perle to admit that he was wrong, which I doubt), or
The plan to invade was a bad one, but it's going along nicely. (Bizarre on all accounts).
So which one is Perle claiming now? He has every opportunity to clear the record as to his real views right *now* and chooses not to. Therefore, I suspect that the VF article is quoting him accurately, but he's just mad that his real views are made known before the election. But the public has a right to know what his views are, since he was one of the main people arguing for this war in the first place, and it's topic number one in the minds of the voters.
Anyway, the issue is whether the neocons were quoted accurately in VF. They claim they were not. You can ask them or read their own statements to find out what they think, which is probably not going to be much influenced by what you think/hope.
But, to the extent they were not quoted accurately in VF, gloating over what VF claimed they said is kind of lame.
They also said they were told nothing would be published until after the election, whatever that is all about. But VF lied about that, too.
Lesson; even if you love what they say, presume as a starting point that the media lie, and research from there if the topic interests you.
I do presume the media lies -- that's why I don't watch Fox news.
This damn' web. Can't get away with nothing.
Has Fox done anything like the TANG docs, and the al QaQa ammo dump hoax?
They all lie, unless they're not paying attention. Accidents do happen.
Oh, yeah. Don't forget to say you don't read that reactionary, right-wing rag, so as to have an excuse not to see what you said you wanted to see when you thought it wasn't available. Don't let me down.