UPDATE: Based on the response from fellow bloggers on this site, I’ve rethought a central line in this post. I’ve left it in, willing to own up to my mistakes, but realize that I projected an objection to the line about “good liberals” on the Tacitus site to my thoughts about this issue here. My defense of Liberals (and the corresponding snark about “normal conservative stance”) belong on Tacitus, not here. Having conceded that (and underlined the offending bits for anyone who can forgive and carry on with this topic), let me clarify that this post is asking whether this critique of the Fallujah decision is on target or a bit hyperbolic.
Across the blogosphere conservative folks are fretting about the turn of events in Fallujah. Tacitus, worried that this is another Mogadishu moment, spares no scorn for Bush in his blistering attack. Andrew Sullivan worries that the unthinkable is happening: Bush is losing his resolve. And it’s made The Politburo Diktat question “what are we fighting for?”
And so I have to wonder—feeling that this does not follow the {{normal conservative}} stance that criticizing our leaders during war is unpatriotic—how FUBAR is the Fallujah decision, really?
The New York Times summed up the dilemma this new plan addresses this way:
Nonetheless, the tenuous plan represents a possible face-saving alternative to two onerous options the American marines confronted: a prolonged assault on the city that would leave hundreds if not thousands of civilians dead, or the continuation of a seemingly endless series of shaky cease-fires that have exposed marines to guerrilla attacks and emboldened the insurgents the longer they stood up to the superior force.
But even if you reject that assessment, there’s no clear indication, just yet, that the hyperbolic rhetoric is called for. General Richard Myers (Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff) cleared up a few things on Face the Nation (a pdf transcript), this morning (emphasis mine)
Let me–let me try to–to–to clear this up, ’cause there’s–it’s–there’s been a lot of inaccurate reporting through to–through this morning, matter of fact–the morning papers. First of all, the Marines have not withdrawn from Fallujah. They are not withdrawing from Fallujah. Second, the objectives–the end objectives in Fallujah remain the same. The–the foreign fighters, the extremists and the terrorists are going to have to be dealt with. The heavy weapons are going to have to come out of that city. The Marines are going to have to have freedom of movement in that city without being shot at. It’s got to go back to–to more normalcy.
The folks that perpetrated the crimes against the Blackwater Security Group are going to have to be identified and hopefully brought to justice. And we need some intelligence from these folks that have been in there. Those are the objectives. How we get there is what we’re trying to work out. And if we can do this in partnership with Iraqis, then that is–that’s an example that we want in the rest of the country. So we’re working that very, very hard.
It has been mentioned that there’s this one General Sala, who is th–their–the commander of
these–actually, now it’s 600 Iraqi forces. That is not true yet. There are a couple of generals whose names are being vetted with the Coalition Provisional Authority, the Iraqi minister of defense, and as–un–until that process is finished, we don’t know who is going to lead these forces.…
Again, supporting the troops, or so I’ve read countless times recently, means not criticizing our leaders while the battle rages; it means not playing armchair general; it means being patient, having faith, and believing that our cause is just. I don’t necessarily believe that, but then I’ve never claimed to. I do, however, claim to want Iraq to be better off after we leave than it was before we invaded. If that means we have to let a few insurgents imagine they’ve beat the US momentarily, so the otherwise resulting slaughter of thousands of civilians doesn’t turn the entire regional population into willing martyrs, so be it. Won’t the surviving democracy we leave speak for itself about our strength?
“Won’t the surviving democracy we leave speak for itself about our strength?”
Don’t plan on leaving, myself. Tho I am not there, of course. My goal is a permanent base of 2 divisions, completely unobstrusive and welcomed by the Iraqi people, or at least 70-80 percent of them. I still think this is achievable, tho more difficult.
As to whether Fallujah needs to be cleaned out, heck I don’t know what is going on in Iraq. How dangerous are these guys to the rest of Iraq. Does anybody remember the Kirkuk or Kurdish bombing at the political headquarters, in which two major Kurdish poltical figures died? Who did that, and why? Was it Sunnis out of Fallujah? How did the Kurds react? Who did the big bombing during the holidays? Al-Zarqahi and al-Qaeda?
How much Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence is happening on a daily basis? One of the biggest complaints against the occupation has been the inability to curtail this. Will this Fallujah decision increase or decrease it?
OT, reading your blog for the first time (via tacitus).
Excellent blogs. Is Moe the moe lane out of tacitus?
Falluja is showing us that military violence must be disciplined by clear political objectives. There is never a certain “military solution” to any problem. There must always be a political solution. The problem in Falluja is the fundamental lack of legitimacy of the CPA and IGC in the eyes of a growing number of Iraqis. The blokes in Falluja just happen to have the guns to put up a fight. If we were to go in and crush them, militarily, it would not take long at all until others take their place, rallying around the “martyrs”. If we do not go in, we risk looking militarily weak. But this matters less, to my mind, then finding a political solution. And that might mean an arrangement sans US. (In my opinion, we should never have gone in, in the first place, but….). It is abundantly clear by now that Bush and Co. are incapable of thinking politically. It is depressing to watch Tacitus yearn for something like the Tamerlane approach. The jig is up boys. Military power is limited in what it can achieve, limited chiefly by political objective, which Bush has failed to articulate (and don’t start with “a democratic Iraq.” It would be nice to have all good things, too.).
“feeling that this does not follow the normal conservative stance that criticizing our leaders during war is unpatriotic”
And that would be the point where I stopped reading this particular post.
“If that means we have to let a few insurgents imagine they’ve beat the US momentarily, so the otherwise resulting slaughter of thousands of civilians doesn’t turn the entire regional population into willing martyrs, so be it. Won’t the surviving democracy we leave speak for itself about our strength?”
Edward: You’ve got it right about not increasing the numbers of people hating the US enough to act.
But there won’t be a surving democracy if the US (military and civilian) looks like bumbling fools. The implied message to each ethnic group is “get your own militia”.
This Falluja chaos can be fatal to a federal Iraqi democracy. A Marine Lt. Gen appoints a Republican Guard general (with perhaps a nasty past) to be the point of the spear in Falluja. His commander (Sanchez) is silent. The Centcom commander is silent. The Chair of the Joint Chiefs (who is not in the chain of command under US law) says the appointment is void. The Secretary of Defense and Commander in Chief are silent.
Who would believe (anywhere in the world) that the US knows what it is doing.
The weekend previous to this the President and his security advisors met in Camp David to decide what to do in Falluja. The decision to negotiate something rather level the city seemed to emerge as the policy. Yet, here we are a week later totally unclear what is happening and who is in charge.
It is time to move beyond believing the leaders of the country know what they are doing, and to recognize that we have politically-driven decision making at work, and that on a single day, leading media outlets are reporting totally different policies from major military and political figures.
The Iraq policy is in meltdown. That’s a fact, IMO. The bigger question is whether the US government (BushCo) is also melting down.
Be worried, very worried. The terrorists would love signs of a government that cannot act decisively and in a unified manner.
“feeling that this does not follow the normal conservative stance that criticizing our leaders during war is unpatriotic”
Whew, I was worried that we might have a useful debate, but you saved us.
Conservatives have no such stance. We believe that using foreign policy issues as pretexts for political attacks are unpatriotic not to mention stupid for the purposes of foreign policy. When your premise is as bad as this, it isn’t surprising that your conclusions might be a bit odd.
Looks like Moe and Sebastian have chosen to pick up on one line out of your post and ignore the rest, Edward. Ah well. (I look forward to quoting Sebastian’s claims back to him in January 2005:
“using foreign policy issues as pretexts for political attacks are unpatriotic not to mention stupid for the purposes of foreign policy” was not a Republican position under the last Democratic president, and I doubt it will be one under the next one, either.) Not that Republicans and conservatives necessarily have anything to do with each other any more.
If that means we have to let a few insurgents imagine they’ve beat the US momentarily, so the otherwise resulting slaughter of thousands of civilians doesn’t turn the entire regional population into willing martyrs, so be it. Won’t the surviving democracy we leave speak for itself about our strength?
Well, assuming that the US does end up leaving Iraq better off than it was before the invasion (at the moment, this still looks like a big assumption, but it’s one I’d like to make, too).
Tacitus and other pro-war Republicans (this isn’t really a conservative/liberal split) are stuck with a major problem. Either they admit Bush’s plan to invade Iraq had no connection with the war against terrorism, and has, in fact, turned out to be America’s most colossal foreign policy blunder of the past hundred years: or they stick with the notion that military force can be used against terrorism, and the only problem with invading and occupying Iraq is that the invading army just hasn’t been hard enough. Sebastian demonstrated this in his recent post: the hypocritical reasons Moe was coming up with for not supporting Kerry were yet another demonstration of the reluctance of Republicans to admit how vastly Bush & Co have blundered.
(I haven’t read Tacitus’s post, blah-blah-banned babycakes, so I’m not commenting on that.)
A besieging army in a hostile country simply cannot go on forever laying siege to a city, nor could they escalate it, without serious local repercussions (the JoeSchmoe “massacre them all and raze the city to the ground!” idea has got to sound pretty damn stupid to anyone who’s there). They had to do something. It may be that they did the right thing: it may be that they did the wrong thing. But outbursts of outraged patriotism over the US army “effectively surrendering” seem misplaced. There was no point in attacking Falluja in the first place: it looked like one of those WWI battles that killed soldiers by the thousands for the sake of a few yards of ground.
“Looks like Moe and Sebastian have chosen to pick up on one line out of your post and ignore the rest, Edward.”
Because, being conservatives and everything, we’re supposed to be good sports when people accuse our side of things that we don’t in point of fact do*. I cannot stop you from acting as if what Edward did was not a barrier to honest debate, but I see no reason why I should pretend.
Moe
*Although I suppose that we could cater to anti-conservative bigots next time by being loud and obnoxious when attacked in this way. Do any of the anti-conservative bigots out there have any preference? We do try to provide the full spectrum of enjoyable blogging experiences here at Obsidian Wings, after all; I’d hate to think that we weren’t filling a need.
when people accuse our side of things that we don’t in point of fact do
Conservative isn’t a “side”: it’s a point of view. Edward’s comment about conservatives was inaccurate and misleading, but was also just a side-comment: the meat of the post was elsewhere. As a Bush supporter, you need not have assumed it applied to you in any case.
And so I have to wonder—feeling that this does not follow the normal conservative stance that criticizing our leaders during war is unpatriotic
Since Moe objects so strongly there must be something that Edward (and me, too, for that matter) is missing. Perhaps if we include a Moe exclusion the statement will pass. It should go something like, “this does not follow the normal conservative (except for Moe) stance that criticising our leaders during war is unpatriotic”. Perhaps Edward thought he was already excluding Moe when he refered to “normal” conservatives. We all think of Moe as an extrordinary conservative and somebody we would want on our drinking team.
We believe that using foreign policy issues as pretexts for political attacks are unpatriotic not to mention stupid for the purposes of foreign policy.
How convenient. It has indeed struck me that any criticism you don’t like is a “pretext” for a political attack.
We all think of Moe as … somebody we would want on our drinking team.
That statement I can agree with!
Do any of the anti-conservative bigots out there have any preference?
Moe, it truly pains me that you’d take this so personally and hard. I’ve retracted that statement and explained where it came from. I hope that goes some way toward convincing you I work hard to avoid bigotry in my comments (and yes, appreciate when they’re pointed out to me).
I see it now, and again my anger belongs on Tacitus’s site, not here, so please accept my apology.
Repeat after me: conservatism is not an ideology.
Conservatism is not an ideology.
Even Edmund Burke was in favor of a great many liberal ideals.
feeling that this does not follow the {{normal conservative}} stance that criticizing our leaders during war is unpatriotic
Another example of your conservative bigotry, Edward, unless I’m misinterpreting your {{text}} signs. I hope I am.
As for Fallujah, my feelings are mixed. I tend to give the Marines the benefit of the doubt, but the constant make-believe ceasefires and persistent violence by Fallujans makes us look weak to other Iraqis. We are looking like appeasers, which could endanger us further. Bush is looking adrift.
Another example of your conservative bigotry, Edward, unless I’m misinterpreting your {{text}} signs. I hope I am.
I’ve retracted and apologized for that Bird Dog. But, with all due respect, I’ll compare the balance of my overall record against yours willingly. Against Moe’s record, I have no defense…against yours, well, let’s just say neither of us should be throwing stones here.
I agree that the back and forth is not sending a clear message to either Iraq or the US, but it does strike me as perhaps the smartest approach. I understand that looking weak can endanger us, but short of killing everyone in Fallujah (and then answering the charges of “war crimes”) how do you suggest we proceed? If an iron fist response had been working, I’m sure the Marines would have followed through. Does anyone really believe they don’t have the resolve?
Didn’t see a lot of the local conservative voices here complaining about Tacitus‘s characteristic “good liberal” line over at tacitus.org. And could we use some other word than “bigotry” to describe partisanship?
“How convenient. It has indeed struck me that any criticism you don’t like is a “pretext” for a political attack.”
Maybe it strikes you that way, but I don’t for a moment believe that all criticism of Bush’s foreign policy is pretextual.
For example I believe that concerns voiced about abuses in Iraqi prisons are well founded and important. I believe that there are a huge number of issues which would be great for debate. They include such topics as how are we going to get from the ‘here’ of occupying Iraq to the eventual ‘there’ of a free and prosperous country. And hopefully without massive losses of troops. That would stand in direct opposition to useless calls to bring the troops home immediately. (You know who you are.)
I believe that there are a huge number of issues which would be great for debate.
Then, if I can rescue the intent of this thread, what about Fallujah? The nebulous-at-best “Marine assault we were promised” was examined and rejected. The number of civilian casualties the action would cost seen as too high a price for the objective. And the idea that our objectives should always come second to some theatrical “show of strength” strikes me as naive and irresponsible.
Maybe it strikes you that way, but I don’t for a moment believe that all criticism of Bush’s foreign policy is pretextual.
Sebastian, do you think you could rephrase that? The word “pretextual” has no defined meaning (according to my M-W) but my head keeps seeing it as “pre textual”, meaning (for example) oral versions of The Iliad before they were written down.
If you can find a similarly bigoted statement written by me, Edward, bring it on.
“If you can find a similarly bigoted statement written by me, Edward, bring it on.”
He can start with this statement.
I’m with you, Rilkefan, in finding it annoying seeing “bigotry” used for partisan opinions. Bird Dog supports Bush out of all reason*: I would not therefore say that makes him a bigot, just someone who’s unreasonably partisan. I think the original comment in Edward’s post about “normal conservative stance” was inaccurate/misleading (and Edward has handsomely apologized and corrected it): but I wouldn’t say it was bigoted: just partisan.
*Or did, back when I was still reading Tacitus’s blog.
“Here we see the modern Democratic party – secular elites at the top using the levers of government to effect wealth transfers from Middle America to reliable Democrat constituencies and special interests.”
Partisan, wrong – not bigoted.