Let’s take a tour ’round the far-right blogosphere:
(UPDATE 2: A selective tour, as Tacitus reminds me in comments.)
John O’Sullivan once again reminds us that he’s not merely an idiot, but an amoral idiot. O’Sullivan suggests that we should’ve executed prominent Ba’athists without trial and shot looters on sight in the opening days of the occupation. Way to win those hearts and minds, Sully! He then gets down to the obvious (and therefore non-O’Sullivan) point that we need more troops. OK, ya got me!*
Charles Johnson, endorsing a Ralph Peters article, pursues a similar theme: we’re too weak, we should be tougher, our military doesn’t know what it’s doing, etc. Of course, the only practical solution that either Johnson or Peters offers is, again, more troops.
Welcome to the party, Mr. Johnson. I’ve only been calling for more troops since, erm, January 2003.
But, as for your other suggestions, I’ve got a modest proposal: Let’s turn it over to a nice neo-Ba’athist and be done with it. You know, like Saddam, but kinda more controllable? Really, what’s the rule of law ever done for me? It’s not like, umm, we’re trying to in Iraq into a responsible member of the world community. It’s not like we’re trying to reform the country. More of the same, more of the same — that’s what I say.
UPDATE: OK, fine, I’m a little extra-pissy today. But I’m fed up with pundits — invariable male — mistaking their balls for their brains when it comes to foreign policy matters. Let’s all try to understand the difference between calls for “getting tough” on Iraq and calls for “increasing troop strength, with emphasis on MP training and deployment.” The former is for your bedroom mirror; the latter is actually worth saying in public.
And, yeah, I’ll grudging cop to having been guilty of some of this idiocy. Grudgingly.
von
*Via Yglesias, who hurts his own cause by suggesting O’Sullivan’s views represent “Republican foreign policy.” Matt, this is a difficult lesson, but burn it into your head: O’Sullivan does not speak for the “Republicans” any more than Kos speaks for the “Democrats.”
I got to admit I responded immoderately at Yglesias. But I am very frightened by so many ambiguous signals about what is going on in and going to happen in Iraq.
15-20 thousand private contractors (is it ok to call the Somalians and Rhodesian guys mercs?) who can do what they will and be flown out of the country to avoid prosecution.
That group who appeared to be planning an assassination of Mugabe.
The affection still retained for Chalabi in the Pentagon and West Wing.
Tell me I have no grounds for concern that Sullivan is not looney tunes, or doesn ‘t have company in high places.
Dumb on me, but it’s not clear that shooting a few looters wouldn’t have had the ultimate effect of saving lives. It would have been an illegal order but not (to me anyway) an obviously amoral one.
And while I’m against the death penalty in the US, I don’t see why we couldn’t have restarted the (according to what I’ve read competent) Iraqi judicial system and let them try and execute some of Saddam’s henchmen.
I don’t think a nice Baathist would be the worst outcome (civil war and Iran/Turkey/Syria/… getting drawn in seem not that improbable), and perhaps (depending on what “nice” means) good enough that a large set of war supporters would reasonably accept. Plus I assume Bush would find the coming election very hard under those circumstances, so that counts as a positive for me.
Hello? Far-right blogosphere right here? Anyone?
Tacitus: “Far-right … right here”
Did you move?
Hello? Far-right blogosphere right here? Anyone?
Fair point, particularly since I just called Yglesias on his own over-generalization.
Tacitus is considered the “far” right? Where the hell is LGF?
Hmm, maybe Tac can explicate his post further. I thought he was suggesting that there was no reason for von to bring up the far Right since the ObWi readership doesn’t include anyone in that category. But that can’t be the case, because Tac frequently posts on outrageous far Left behavior at his place.
The last half-dozen comments are confusing to me also. However, I presume von’s mistake was in some way corresponding the crazy fascism of O’Sullivan and Johnson with conservatism.
Fox says 11 marines dead in Al-Ramadi and 20 injuried. Wonder if the right has had enough revenge and blood for today.
James, your 5:29 seems overpartisan to me.
Sky reports “up to 130 US troops” dead. Hope it’s not true.
Rikefan wrote:
Just out of curiosity, would it in fact have been an illegal order to order a soldier to shoot a looter in that situation?
“…pundits — invariable male — mistaking their balls for their brains when it comes to foreign policy matters.”
I can think of quite a few belligerent women bloggers who are equally rant-n-rave kill-’em-all-and-let-god-sort-them-out, actually.
“Tacitus is considered the “far” right? Where the hell is LGF?”
The difference between Tacitus and Charles is not location on the right/left spectrum. It’s sanity, forthrightness, and good will. That’s another spectrum entirely.
Von wrote:
Let’s see if I get this straight, you’re arguing that if we were to execute prominent members of the privileged group who had been oppressing, imprisoning, raping, torturing and murdering the majority of the population that that would somehow not be conducive to wining their hearts and minds how exactly?
Here is our problem: In Iraq, as elsewhere in the Arab world, being even a moderately pro-American Muslim is more likely to get you killed than being an openly violent anti-American Muslim.
“You have to be careful about what you say about al-Sadir. Their hands reach every where and you don’t want to be on their shit list. Every body, even the GC is very careful how they formulate their sentences and how they describe Sadir’s Militias. They are thugs, thugs thugs. There you have it.” Where is Raed, Iraqi blog today. To confirm Mr Cella
Two suggestions: I a long time ago recommended a WWII level mobilization, and thought the political will would have been available early after Sept 11. Now, having been told it would be easy, it would require another Sept 11, and probably a new president to regain that will
2) Incentivize the Iraqis. They are still massively underemployed, underserviced, undersecured. Not tens of billions, but hundreds of billions of American money. Make them rich, make their leves better than they would have ever dreamed.
“Make them rich, make their leves better than they would have ever dreamed.”
Can’t. Gas is over $2 at the pump. Priorities, man.
“Getting tough” worked so well in Viet Nam – maybe we can try “bombing them into the stone age” – that was a good one. Getting tough has worked so well for the Israelis too – great model for us – after another 40 years of failure we will try to solve it by walling them in?
Seems like a disaster no matter what choice we make. “Cut-and-run” leaves anarchy, civil war, probably a virulently anti-US theocracy in much of the country. But how to stay and fight with the population increasingly against us, and an insufficient force for the job? Draft is not likely to be a popular idea. More mercenaries perhaps – hey, that will help with Bush’s unemployment problem, maybe deal with some illegal immigrants too. Probably not.
At least you have explained why this fiasco was so predictable (clearly anticipated by Bush I), yet not predicted by our current leadership who expected to be welcomed with flowers. They were thinking with their balls – maybe not a lot else available to think with?
Let’s see if I get this straight, you’re arguing that if we were to execute prominent members of the privileged group who had been oppressing, imprisoning, raping, torturing and murdering the majority of the population that that would somehow not be conducive to wining their hearts and minds how exactly?
Two thoughts:
1. I’m suggesting that, when attempting to establish the rule of law in an area where it has largely been absent, it is important to obey the rule of law. Even if it means we do better to Nazis and the leaders of the Bataan death march than they did to their victims. That’s pure pragmatism, which appears entirely lost on O’Sullivan.
2. The “privileged class” is almost certainly larger than one might imagine. After a certain point, virtually all members of a society (no matter how oppressive) eventually come to have a stake in the status quo.
Here is our problem: In Iraq, as elsewhere in the Arab world, being even a moderately pro-American Muslim is more likely to get you killed than being an openly violent anti-American Muslim.
Exactly correct — though I’d add that good-old-fashioned poverty, lack of opportunity, and lack of freedom may be even greater factors. As someone mentioned, we need to change the incentives.*
von
*Cue Bush’s least-talked-about-and-almost-certainly-totally-out-of-fashion plan for a Middle East Free Trade Area.
skynews is reporting up to 130 US soldiers killed in Ar Ramadi
everyone else is saying 12.
Maybe sky news combined US and Iraqi deaths accidentally…
Up to 130 includes 12, but it doesn’t exactly place the mantle of accuracy on the reporting agency. But, hey, only an order of magnitude off.
Bob-
Two suggestions: I a long time ago recommended a WWII level mobilization, and thought the political will would have been available early after Sept 11.
You’re channeling Tac now. A WWII-level mobilization … to invade Iraq? Or to “win the peace”? Either way, it’s a political pipedream. No one is talking about it.
Also, throwing more energy into this system in the form of more troops might not cause the reaction we desire.
Incentivize the Iraqis. … Not tens of billions, but hundreds of billions of American money.
Where is that hundreds of billions I had around here? Oh, damn. I gave it away in tax cuts. Oh well.
Don’t you think it would have been better to have taken the $150 billion we’ve spent (so far!) and air-dropped it on the Iraqi people? They could have bought themselves a new government and satellite cable.
Satellite cable? Just how long are they making them cables these days? And how do they keep them from getting all tangled up in the other satellites?
Just how long are they making them cables these days?
*snicker*
Wait, what do they call that newfangled satellite stuff? Just “satellite TV”? As a leftist commie urbanite, the only television I get is at the gym.
I hold to something I call the “Jimmy Johnson Principle.” Anyone who tells you “my problem is that I’ve been too nice” is always kidding himself.
“Don’t you think it would have been better to have taken the $150 billion we’ve spent (so far!) and air-dropped it on the Iraqi people?”
I actually gave this some thought. Von mentions Middle East Free Trade, I was talking about incentives large enough to make you endanger the lives of yourself and your family by turning in the Sadr thug living next door. They can actually, like, get killed. A minimum wage job ain’t gonna excite them.
…..
Then I thought, well, if you give every Iraqi a million dollars, nobody is gonna want to be a bodyguard. And no gain against the thugs. So maybe distribute it in such a way as to create 10000 people each worth 10 million dollars, and create a tight enough labor market that bodyguards, cooks, and housemaids earn six figures.
But I am serious. We desperately need to avoid the usual stratification and corruption in Iraq, cause if Baghdad and Fallujah end up looking like Gaza and the West Bank, we are in endless trouble. And that is going to be very hard to avoid.
“You’re channeling Tac now. A WWII-level mobilization … to invade Iraq? Or to “win the peace”? Either way, it’s a political pipedream”
I actually believe this is a sooner or later thing, inevitable, and that sooner will cost less lives than later. And I know simply transporting millions of Americans over there would cost thousands of lives in transit. Accidents.
But I think we are gonna get WMD’d, respond in kind, and then take over the whole place anyway.
I don’t have nice dreams.
Our best weapon continues to be the promise of liberty. The Iranians et al certainly understand that.
Those who scoff at the idea that Western freedom and material development can succeed where Saddam’s torture chambers could not are ignoring the numbers. Human Rights Watch estimates that Saddam killed many hundreds of thousands to maintain his rule, most of them innocent people. The targeted assault of Sunni and Shi’a gangsters, whose total casualties are in the hundreds, stands in stark contrast. The differential is due not merely by the efficiency of the US Armed Forces, which would shorten the time, but not the carnage. The imbalance is due to the relative weights given to force and to development; to the fact that many Iraqis have gainful employment and other avenues of political action as never before. If there are less than a hundred thousand dead, it is because the 99,000 are working. The AC-130 or the MOAB are not America’s ultimate weapon. It is the Iraqi Governing Council and the hope that it represents.
Via Belmont Club
So maybe distribute it in such a way as to create 10000 people each worth 10 million dollars…
Being a commie, I say it’s better to give $5,500 to everyone in the country, but I’ll take your way, too.
The obvious flaw in the plan, of course, is that the Pentagon would want to develop an AC-130 Currency Delivery Device (CDD, or “The Reagan Gun”) to fire packets of currency at 300 ppm. After a competitive bidding process, the contract would be let to a joint venture of Boeing and First Union Bank’s ATM division. With cost overruns, the CDD will be deployed in 2012 at a total cost of $189 million per unit. The military will then promptly abandon the program.
I think we are gonna get WMD’d, respond in kind, and then take over the whole place anyway. I don’t have nice dreams.
Which “place” are you referring to, if the people who WMD us are not state-controlled (and only partly state-sponsored)?
If you mean we’re going to take and hold Saudi Arabia and significant chunks of the rest of the middle east, it’s not going to happen. Even if we are nuked, we don’t have the manpower to occupy the region and maintain anything near an acceptable standard of living. Much more likely, we’ll shut the borders, expel most foreigners, and fund a bunch of military dictatorships in the region.
“don’t have the manpower to occupy the region and maintain anything near an acceptable standard of living.”
Man, the “Greatest Generation” just done been forgotten, ain’t it. Rations of what 5 gal of gas and 1 lb of sugar a week for 3 years. Socialites riveting away.
Been there, done that, survived and prospered, thank you. It is called war for all you proudish hawk types. It involves something called sacrifice, which isn’t done by someone else for your TV entertainment. If there is a single reason I hate George Bush, it is for waging a war that doesn’t reduce our “acceptable standard of living”. After 3000 Americans were murdered on our own soil.
I am so GD sick of hearing “It ain’t possible.” This is America, we can do just about anything we want to do. Period.
bob, something simpler to get angry about – TPM notes that the 9/11 commission asked to see the speech Rice was to give on 9/11 but the WH has decided it’s confidential.
“…Then I thought, well, if you give every Iraqi a million dollars, nobody is gonna want to be a bodyguard.”
Well, they can all hire Palestinians as bodyguards. It’s a threefer: the Iraqis get bodyguards, the Palestinians get a lot of cash, and the Israelis get the Palestinians to move to another neighborhood.
“…to the fact that many Iraqis have gainful employment…as never before.”
On what planet is this taking place?
“…This is America, we can do just about anything we want to do. Period.”
New plan: we send all terrorists to the moon.
I propose that within ten years, all terrorists will be moon colonists. I propose we do this, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
Wait a minute. I think I’ve just proposed the real life version of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
Farber making fun of my kinky fantasy life here.
Humiliating. I will regain my Texas pride by putting on my Cowboy Cheerleaders Uniform and running for congress.
I think I’ve just proposed the real life version of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
Or Dune. In both books, it turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea to relocate convicts to a hostile environment. Even though Muad’Dib prevailed over the Sardaukar hordes in the end, they accomplished all manner of mischief in the centuries prior.
And anyway, Paul Atreides in Dune seems more clearly modeled on Islamic imagery: The great prophet and warrior unifies the tough desert peoples to threaten and finally subjugate the great Emperor.
Erm, it’s the Fremen who cast him that way, with the aid of ages of thoughtful manipulation on the part of the Bene Gesserit. Paul struggled with his role and the expectations of the people. It’s the Fremen who’re most comparable to Islamic Arabs.
But I digress.
Von wrote:
It’s important to keep in mind that Von has not actually posted anything O’Sullivan wrote in either his initial or subsequent posts so that we can determine if Von is accurately portraying O’Sullivan’s comments. Here is what O’Sullivan actually wrote that pertained to looters and Baathists:
It’s clear then the O’Sullivan has considered the military’s rationale for not shooting looters (which I do not believe would necessarily be illegal) but believes that had we done so in the first days of the liberation after such a quick victory in the major military operations, it would have done much to discourage future lawlessness and also show the Iraqis that we would deal harshly with future terrorists. O’Sullivan’s thesis for his article was that by acting in a relatively soft manner in a region of the world which tends to respect power, we may have actually hurt our cause by appearing weaker and less resolved then we are and thereby emboldened our enemies by making the people we are trying to help question our resolve. I tend to agree and with regards to the Baaathists:
It’s pretty clear from this that O’Sullivan was not talking about rounding up Baathists at random but rather having trials and if convicted, executions for some of the more brutal thugs of the deposed regime. This is in no way inconsistent with the rule of law and also serves a pragmatic purpose of squashing speculation that they might be returning to power or that the United States might scuttle in the face of opposition.
Von it seems, completely mischaracterized O’Sullivan’s comments in order to demonize him. It was completely dishonest for Von to say that “O’Sullivan suggests that we should’ve executed prominent Ba’athists without trial” when there is nothing in a fair reading of his article that suggests that at all.
von,
You are rather out to lunch here, regarding O’Sullivan anyway. Refusing to accept reality does not confer moral superiority. A strong hand must be taken with any enemies so as to project a strong image.
Hesitancy, real or perceived, in dealing with insurgents and whatnot shows weakness to Iraqis, not benevolence. This does not mean that you give the crowds a whiff of grapeshot, but it does mean that decisive, public action needs to be taken. The current Marine endeavours at Falluja are an excellent example.
Finally, let it be said that calling John O’Sullivan an amoral idiot reflects more on you than on him. Whatever you think of his principles, he has a history of reasoned conservative discourse. You should respect that.
I have to stand up for Von here. The looters O’Sullivan is advocating shooting so we could demonstrate how seriously we should be taken included children.
More importantly, and completely lacking from O’Sullivan’s critique and the comments defending him, is the fact that the culture over there needs to change for democracy to take root. Police who shoot looters and democracy are not compatible…at what point would you have had US troops begin to demonstrate that we are more humane than Hussein was, after they were all as horrified of us as they were of him?
This does not mean that you give the crowds a whiff of grapeshot, but it does mean that decisive, public action needs to be taken.
You’re assuming, of course, that military action we take can be “decisive”. They’re guerillas; it sounds like they know how to fight a conventional enemy: “The enemy attacks, we retreat. The enemy camps, we raid. The enemy tires, we attack. The enemy retreats, we pursue.” Another one of those lessons learned from another conflict that “can-do” Americans always forget.
The current Marine endeavours at Falluja are an excellent example.
I agree with this. It just remains to be seen what they are an example of.
Edward wrote:
That’s nonsense. Only a moral idiot thinks that there is some sort of moral symmetry between a government that uses deadly force to violate the rights of individuals and one that uses it in self-defense of the lives, liberty, and property of individuals from those that would encroach on that through looting.
Mithras,
By decisive, I mean capturing and/or killing enemy combatants in situations like Fallujah right now, where the Marines hold all the cards.
The one thing that I can rely upon, out here in the blogosphere, is constant overestimation of the enemy. These guys are not tactical or strategic geniuses. For the most part, they are either simply trying to kill people, or are trying to cause simple ambushes.
“These guys are not tactical or strategic geniuses.”
And perhaps they do not need to be. They may or may not understand, and may or may not need to understand, a new paradigm of nodes and networks as opposed to heirarchies. I am fairly certain the Bush administration does not yet understand it.
If you don’t understand what I am talking about, and I certainly would admit I really don’t completely, there are plenty of sources and methods to learn….on the Internet. 🙂
Sorry, I’ve been away for the day. Here’s my too short response to Thorley‘s points:
O’Sullivan: In the days immediately after the fall of Baghdad, the U.S. failed to shoot looters.
With a trial, I presume. (Oh, wait, I guess not.)
O’Sullivan: No enemies of the U.S. — or of ordinary Iraqis — have been tried, convicted, and executed. When captured, they simply vanish into detention. Yet the execution of high-ranking Baathist thugs would both reassure Iraqis that their tormentors face just punishment and warn the terrorists that they too will end on the gallows. By the same token, interminable interrogations suggest to Middle Easterners that some deal is in the works to free Saddam in return for an end to terrorism. And that encourages the terrorists to think that the U.S. will eventually scuttle.
Ahh, but O’Sullivan doesn’t request that they be “tried, convicted, and executed.” He faults the US for not trying, convicting, or executing them (and what of those found not worthy of execution). He also faults the US for the process that will lead to their trial and (if proven) conviction and execution: “they simply vanish into detention. . . . interminable interrogations.”
You’re not reading O’Sullivan clearly. Pay attention to what he’s criticizing: it’s not the process of justice. It is the dealing of justice itself — which, he quite directly states, should be accomplished without process.
Or, to put it more succinctly:
O’Sullivan could’ve criticized the process. HE didn’t. He’s criticizing the result. That’s the problem. (If you believe in rule by law, not men.)