With a nice backhanded swat at the man she’s replacing, Dr. Condoleezza Rice is expected to pledge to mend relationships with our allies when she appears before Congress to be interviewed for the job of America’s #1 diplomat. On one hand that’s heartening as it demonstrates she understands the position she’s acquiring, but on the other hand it’s nearly farcical:
As Condoleezza Rice’s confirmation hearing got underway, she planned to pledge to work to mend ties with allies frayed by the war in Iraq, based on prepared remarks. "The time for diplomacy is now," she was expected to tell senators.
With all due respect, Dr. Rice, the time for diplomacy was before we invaded Iraq. Before thousands of innocent Iraqis were murdered in an atmosphere allowed to get out of hand, due to a shortage of troops, brought about greatly through US ally-alienating arrogance and swagger…before you and Rumsfeld effectively ran ramshot over Powell’s efforts to work with the rest of the world, hellbent as you were to get our soldiers onto Iraqi soil on your timetable.
But a quick look back may reveal what lies ahead for the good Doctor on the fence-mending front:
Powell’s successor in office, national security adviser Condoleeza Rice, stated that US policy towards Europe should be: “Encourage the Russians, ignore the Germans and punish the French.”
I’m sure Chirac is puckering up now to welcome Condi with warm wet kisses as her reward for punishing him. I’m sure the Germans are flattered and anxious to bid her "Willkommen" as well.
The real handicap facing her, however, may be her boss’s modus operandi:
Bush recently promised a new push to sell U.S. policy abroad, and the White House has been signaling since his re-election that Europe would be the primary target of its diplomacy at the start of his second term.
Now this is a Chicago Tribune article (and not WH words), but still, look at the language their rehtoric/stance inspires: "push to sell" and "Europe would be the primary target." Like Democracy, the administration seems to be convinced it can force diplomacy down other nations’ throats. Why it hasn’t dawned on them that this approach has failed miserably thus far and a new plan might be in order remains a mystery. Perhaps they have learned…we’ll see.
Dr. Rice is expected to head to Europe soon, to smooth the way for the President, who’s heading to Brussels next month for meetings with leaders of the EU and NATO. The "New Europe" she’ll find when she gets there is one best defined by Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow and director of Europe studies at the Council on Foreign Relations:
The dominant images for a 20-year-old European soon taking on a position of responsibility will be the Iraq war, the unraveling of Iraq and the car bombs. That’s a very different starting point than Europeans who saw American soldiers in tanks liberate Europe from the Nazis and rebuild their countries.
Condi’s got her work cut out for her.
Why does it never seem to occur to these people that it’s no use changing the advertising strategy when the produce itself is unsaleable?
Daily Kos has a link to Senator Boxer’s online petition to “hold Condoleezza Rice accountable for her misleading statements leading up to the Iraq war and beyond.”
Just passing it along …
votermom,
That whiffs of Final Solution 🙁
Why? What was there to do? I mean, isn’t the whole argument that there was nothing at all for us to do, as far as Iraq was concerned?
What was there to do?
Build a coaltion.
Build a coalition for what purpose? Usually the first thing to do before you even start coalition-building is have some objectives. What objectives are you thinking of, Edward?
Slarti: Why? What was there to do?
Assuming that invading Iraq was a given, any realistic plan for the occupation of Iraq would, as we know, have required at least twice as many troops as the US had available. (Of course, Bush & Co got around that by doing no planning at all for the occupation, but I think most people would agree that was a mistake.)
Diplomacy to put together a coalition of countries willing to lend troops to the endeavor (rather than just agreeing to put their names to a list, providing the US didn’t actually publicise that their names were on the list) might have been a good idea. We’ll never know, because Bush & Co opted for insulting all their potential allies.
Then again, since their potential allies all wanted some proof that Iraq represented a threat before they were willing to support an invasion (and since Bush & Co were unable and unwilling to provide such proof) you’re right, diplomacy by itself wouldn’t have done a lot of good. Bush & Co needed to have a reason for invading Iraq that was grounded in reality, and they didn’t, as the whole world now knows.
However, let’s fantasise: supposing that Bush & Co actually meant to bring democracy and human rights to Iraq, rather than wanting to establish an American military hegemon over Iraq, pace PNAC? Supposing all that hot air Bush blew about the invasion/occupation being intended to benefit the Iraqis was actually true, and sincerely meant?
Then diplomacy would have been helpful. It would have been necessary to plan for the occupation of Iraq far more intensively than planning for the invasion. It would have been necessary to put together an international coalition of nations willing to invest in rebuilding Iraq to no personal or corporate proft. It would have been necessary to work with the UN, and with humanitarian agencies, getting international support. It would have been necessary to do all this publicly, well in advance, to make clear that there would be immediate benefits from the defeat of the Iraqi military and (temporary) foreign occupation of Iraq. It would have been an extraordinary scheme – but, as we all know, Bush & Co saw the occupation of Iraq primarily as a means of looting the country of its wealth to the benefit of large US corporations. Benefiting Iraqis wasn’t even considered, and running free elections was of extremely low importance. Of course, that kind of thinking tends to foment insurgency in occupied countries… and so it was.
Come on Slart…work with me.
Even taking for granted that nothing was going to get France or Germany or Russia (FGR) to join us in the invasion, once Bush made the decision he was going in, without FGR, he still had every reason to continue to reach out to them diplomatically (so that after the battle was offer and Baghdad fell, they might be convinced to come in to help with the reconstruction). Remember, that was where we really needed all the troops and money.
What did the administration do instead? Like spoiled little brats they tossed their teddies and started calling “Old Europe” nasty names. It was scandalously stupid and short-sighted of them.
after the battle was offer
Is Olde Gibberish for “after the battle was over.”
Edward,
Well, given that French President Jacques Chirac said his country would vote against any resolution that contains an ultimatum leading to war and the fact that:
Yesterday’s session [November 21, 2002] also failed to persuade Germany to abandon its refusal to support military action against Iraq even if the UN authorises it.
So France was going to automatically veto any resolution that would’ve had teeth, so they’re out.
Germany said screw UN and its resolutions. I must’ve missed the uproar over that.
Was it? It’s not clear that this is the starting point in Edward’s what-we-ought-to-have-done exercise.
You’re going to have to refresh my memory on that front. It sure looked as if France was going to impede any action that didn’t have France making the decisions, but that could be sloppy memory at work.
read my 12:12 PM post, Stan.
Edward,
This is getting juicy and I got a job interview to run to… Doh!
Why would coming in at that stage make any more sense than hopping in at the get-go? It’s still expense, with no advantage.
As I recall, there was quite a bit of nastiness from “Old Europe”. It’s not as if it was a one-sided exchange.
Uh…well, exchanges aren’t, by definition, one-sided. If you don’t know what I meant to say, I’ll happily clarify.
I object to this part of your sentence: “Before thousands of innocent Iraqis were murdered in an atmosphere allowed to get out of hand…” Atmospheres don’t murder people, thugs and terrorists do. There’s no doubt that the post-war was poorly executed, but let’s not take the eye off the ball and play the blame America first game by minimizing the behavior of those pulling the triggers and planting the bombs.
As for the “push to sell” and your labored assertion that we’re trying to force it down Europe’s throat, it’s a two-way street. Several of the European nations proved just as pigheaded and obstinate as some in the Bush administration, with Chirac having the stiffest of European necks. As far as I can tell from your writings about Bush, Edward, your position is not unlike France’s, which is when the US says “oui”, the reflexive response is “non”. Am I wrong?
Why would coming in at that stage make any more sense than hopping in at the get-go?
Because we had a larger objective in proving Rumsfeld’s “lighter army” theories, and because the invasion plan was designed to plow through the country side, take Baghdad quicker than anyone imagined possible and them spread out. Too many troops at that stage would have been a waste. Which isn’t to say that they couldn’t have been standing by, but FGR not being involved at this point was only a negative in the PR department.
After we owned the country, however, we were clearly underfunded and undertrooped. That was the point at which FGR’s participation would have made a big difference. They could have served as peacekeeper as we looked for WMD and started training Iraqi forces. They could have secured the borders as we set up the government. They could have rebuilt the schools, roads, oil fields (uh, no, that wouldn’t work, would it?)…but if the insurgency is where it is today because we had too few boots (something only Bush and Rumsfeld seem to still disagree with), bringing in FGR at this point could have save untold numbers of lives.
As I recall, there was quite a bit of nastiness from “Old Europe”. It’s not as if it was a one-sided exchange.
Personally, I’m stunned at how often that excuse is used to cover mistakes this administration makes. It’s so second grade, you wouldn’t imagine the Conservative (supposedly grown up) side of the aisle would hide behind it.
Slarti, why is it that you and others keep quoting Chirac as if he had issued a blanket refusal to support any military action against Iraq ever?
What Chirac actually said was “Speaking on French television, Mr Chirac said France would not support any measure at the UN that would lead to military action against Iraq until the weapons inspectors said they could do no more on the ground.” It’s on the very news report you cited – why pretend he never said it?
Atmospheres don’t murder people, thugs and terrorists do. There’s no doubt that the post-war was poorly executed, but let’s not take the eye off the ball and play the blame America first game by minimizing the behavior of those pulling the triggers and planting the bombs.
I won’t let the administration off so easily on this, sorry, Charles. There were plenty of people predicting an insurgency (none of the least of which is the president’s father and his circle). There is no excuse for them not to have had a better plan here.
Let’s be clear though, I’m not blaming “America” here. I’m blaming Bush and Rumsfeld. They’re not synonymous.
Several of the European nations proved just as pigheaded and obstinate as some in the Bush administration
See the tale end of my 12:28 post.
Slarti, why is it that you and others keep quoting Chirac as if he had issued a blanket refusal to support any military action against Iraq ever?
i think it’s called “staying on message”.
And I’m in turn a little mystified about the expectation that our government ought to be able to take endless crap from other governments without there being some backlash. Do you recall Schröder being for the invasion, before he was against it?
No, you misunderstand my question. My question was supposed to be: why would European involvement as an occupation force make more sense than continuing noninvolvement. More sense to the respective countries, not to us.
i think it’s called “staying on message”.
{{snicker}}
😉
If you can find an occasion when I quoted Chirac, you’d probably be better off referring to it. I can’t speak for “others”.
I think that remark contains more layers of misunderstanding per character than I’m used to dealing with.
why would European involvement as an occupation force make more sense than continuing noninvolvement. More sense to the respective countries, not to us.
It was an easier sale then (or at least it would have been if the insurgency could have been contained better).
You’re Chirac. You go to your people and say, although you didn’t support invading Iraq, now that there is no government there and the infrastructure of the country is in shambles, we French people have a moral obligation to help rebuild this nation.
And I’m in turn a little mystified about the expectation that our government ought to be able to take endless crap from other governments without there being some backlash.
I gave up thinking like that in grade school, I’m sorry. We knew we would need them or our own people would pay an unfair price for the invasion. Keeping our eyes on the long-term goals, petty insults should have been easy to step over.
“Slarti, why is it that you and others keep quoting Chirac as if he had issued a blanket refusal to support any military action against Iraq ever?”
We know that Chirac was uninterested in supporting military action in Iraq when French intelligence was telling him that Saddam had weapons programs. We know that in January 2002 his government was attempting to remove sanctions against Iraq without even bothering to get inspectors to return after being barred from the country for four years. Are you arguing that he would have supported military action when the inspectors failed to turn anything up? That seems odd.
Slarti: And I’m in turn a little mystified about the expectation that our government ought to be able to take endless crap from other governments without there being some backlash.
Because when you desperately need favors from other governments, you pretty much have to take whatever crap they dish out. 😉 (And besides, the “crap” getting dished out amounted to being told “No, we won’t support your invasion of Iraq because we think it’s a stupid idea.” What, the US can’t take criticism of stupid ideas that its government comes up with? Why not?)
Slarti: If you can find an occasion when I quoted Chirac
I beg your pardon. Quite right, it was Stan LS (January 18, 2005 12:15 PM) who quoted Chirac. Apologies for the confusion.
“why would European involvement as an occupation force make more sense than continuing noninvolvement. More sense to the respective countries, not to us.
It was an easier sale then (or at least it would have been if the insurgency could have been contained better).
You’re Chirac. You go to your people and say, although you didn’t support invading Iraq, now that there is no government there and the infrastructure of the country is in shambles, we French people have a moral obligation to help rebuild this nation.”
Now is Chirac’s failure to do this Bush’s failing or Chirac’s failing? And when has France had this foreign policy: “we French people have a moral obligation to help rebuild this nation”? On what basis. From all appearances their policy on Iraq is, America broke it, we will laugh on the sidelines and hope that America gets bogged down–see for example almost any random issue of Le Monde in 2003.
“Because when you desperately need favors from other governments, you pretty much have to take whatever crap they dish out.”
Ah good, we now get to talk about how endlessly useful French military strength is despite all indications to the contrary in say Bosnia.
I disagree strongly with this, Jesurgislac, as you might have anticipated. And the “crap” being dished went pretty much like this: initial pledge of unconditional support, followed by a volley of tomatoes (no “adventure” in Iraq). Finally, the right thing to do is the right thing to do, regardless of any crapfest that might have gone before.
I don’t see how France is going to go for this, Edward. It’s all expense and no benefit. Plus, if the war was disagreeable to them, support for the occupation looks a lot like tacit support for the war (without getting hands quite as dirty).
Not a problem. With a memory like mine, it was a distinct possibility.
Sebastian: Are you arguing that he would have supported military action when the inspectors failed to turn anything up? That seems odd.
I’m arguing that the quote that Chirac would veto any military action against Iraq – which is frequently cited, most recently by Stan LS, to prove the point that “we know Chirac would never support any military action against Iraq” is seldom quoted completely – rarely do quoters point out that Chirac said he would veto any military action until the weapons inspectors had been allowed to finish their job.
Now, as we now know, had the weapons inspectors been allowed to finish their job, there would have been no excuse for Bush to invade Iraq claiming that it had stockpiled WMD – because the weapons inspectors would have been able to prove that there were none. Over one hundred thousand Iraqi lives would have been saved, and over a thousand American lives, as well as the lives of coalition soldiers, humanitarian agency workers, and so on.
Chirac was right – if you care about saving lives.
Of course, I think that Bush was lying when he claimed his motivation for invading Iraq was those stockpiled WMD that turned out not to exist. I think, given the lack of planning to dispose of those fabled stockpiles, Bush knew in any case that there were no such stockpiles, and that the reason Bush stopped the inspection teams in order to invade was because he knew that the inspection teams would turn up nothing – he was lying all along. But I wasn’t aware that you believed that. Do you?
Sorry, Stan LS, I don’t understand your 11:31 comment.
On the thread in general:
My pov is that Bush, Condi, Rumsfield, and Powell lied about why the free world should attack and invade a sovereign country.
Some other countries believed them and signed up, some didn’t and refused to sign up.
Now Condi is up for promotion. Are those other countries going to be inclined to believe her future statements?
Does it matter?
Atmospheres don’t murder people, thugs and terrorists do. There’s no doubt that the post-war was poorly executed, but let’s not take the eye off the ball and play the blame America first game by minimizing the behavior of those pulling the triggers and planting the bombs.
One more important note on this. The standards are higher when you invade another nation. The standards for planning, contingencies, sucking it up when faced with petty insults, etc. A war of choice demands that you rise above what would give you license to respond more viscerally in a war you didn’t choose.
So many times folks argue that “the French were mean to us” or “the insurgents aren’t covered by the Geneva Conventions” or “the insurgents are shooting at us,” therefore we’re not responsible for higher standards. That last one slays me: they’re shooting at us: well Duh! We invaded their country.
We chose to invade Iraq. We should demand a much higher standard of ourselves than the current administration is wont to do. We broke it…we better damned well do whatever it takes, even being nice to the French, to fix it.
If those rules are not to your liking, then DON’T INVADE ANOTHER COUNTRY!!!
Of course you think that. And of course you think that the various Democrats who thought that prior to the war (including Clinton and his staff) were lying as well? Just to keep things fair and balanced.
Slarti: Of course you think that.
Yep. Can you explain why Bush & Co weren’t bothering themselves with plans to dispose of those stockpiled WMD that they knew were there, otherwise?
And of course you think that the various Democrats who thought that prior to the war (including Clinton and his staff) were lying as well?
You forget – I’m neither Democratic nor Republican. 😉 But, FWIW, I think it depends what access to information these people had. Did they have identical access to the same information as Bush and his senior administration? Or did they have access only to the information that Bush & Co made available? I only became convinced that Bush & Co were definitely lying, rather than conned by Chalabi/wanting to believe, when the news broke that Bush & Co hadn’t made any plans to dispose of those fabled stockpiles – stockpiles that were supposedly the basic rationale for invading. That made it clear that Bush & co were either so incompetent I have no measurement for it, or lying through their teeth. I decided it was unlikely they were that incompetent, and therefore they were lying. But there are only those two options. Do you then think they were so incompetent they made no plans to accomplish the primary goal of invasion – to locate/destroy stockpiled WMD?
Clinton and his staff I don’t have similar evidence for – they weren’t responsible for planning the Iraq invasion. Bush, ultimately, was – though people seem inclined to throw all the blame on Rumsfeld.
I’m just not making much sense today.
And of course you think that the various Democrats who thought that
should be
And of course you think that the various Democrats who thought that Saddam represented a WMD threat
“We chose to invade Iraq. We should demand a much higher standard of ourselves than the current administration is wont to do. We broke it…we better damned well do whatever it takes, even being nice to the French, to fix it.”
But being nice to the French won’t fix it. Being nice to the French won’t do much of anything to help fix it. Being nice to the French is irrelevant. They don’t have the military capability to help us even if they were remotely interested, which they are not. Their economy isn’t doing so hot either, even if they were remotely interested in helping, which they are not. Being nice to them or not being nice to them is pretty much irrelevant to Iraq.
As President, Clinton had access to the exact same kind of information that Bush did. His intel might be a few years older, but in 1998 Clinton and Sandy Berger believed (or at least, professed to believe) that Saddam represented a WMD threat.
It’s immaterial what you are, actually. But it’s worth noting that you’re under no obligation to criticise evenly. My point, however, is that the notion that Saddam represented a WMD threat is not one that Bush just fabricated; it’s been around for quite some time, and it’s been professed by Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Tom Daschle, Sandy Berger, and Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Of course, it’s possible that Bush and Rove are sufficiently evil that they planted that notion in advance of even the 2000 Republican primary. It’s something worth pondering, as much as any of your other unsupported claims are.
Can anyone point to any aspect of our Iraqi misadventure that could not have been handled, by us, more competently? Far more competently?
My dislike of Bush is total and second to none’s, but it’s also somewhat confused or paradoxical: do I dislike him because he’s wrongheaded, or do I dislike him because he and his crew are habitually incompetent? (And not just in Iraq.)
In any case, I’m with Edward: diplomacy is vital. But I doubt that Dr Rice, a trained cold warrior, will have much of a clue about how to conduct it in today’s terms.
It is really weird to read Bush supporters on this thread denying the need for diplomacy and coalition-building prior to the invasion when those people are the very people who claim we have a coalition that is fighting together to “liberate” Iraq now!
Also, Charles, tens of thousands of people (including women and children) in Iraq have been killed but, since by far the majority of deaths are the result of American military action, are you serious about blaming the deaths on “thugs and terrorists”? If so, your thinking on this war has changed dramatically.
Pointing out that diplomacy has its limitations is denial. Noted. Still, I haven’t seen a convincing case for a different approach resulting in a much different outcome, post-invasion.
And with that, I’ve got to scoot. I’m going to Dayton, of all places, and it’s barely breaking into double-digit temperatures there. Gotta dig out the hat and gloves.
As President, Clinton had access to the exact same kind of information that Bush did. His intel might be a few years older, but in 1998 Clinton and Sandy Berger believed (or at least, professed to believe) that Saddam represented a WMD threat.
“kind of information” is meaningless.
“kind of information” is meaningless.”
Ok, having the full intelligence gathering system of the US at his disposal, Clinton in the 1996-2000 period believed that Saddam had stockpiles of illegal weapons and also had WMD programs.
Slarti: “And I’m in turn a little mystified about the expectation that our government ought to be able to take endless crap from other governments without there being some backlash.”
With all due respect, I completely agree with Edward’s dismissal of this as grade school thinking, especially if the ‘backlash’ in question is supposed to be not a backlash among US citizens, but on the part of our government, and if it’s supposed to take the form not just of private feelings of annoyance, but of actual statements and actions. (If it’s not meant this way, then the ‘backlash’ doesn’t address Edward’s point, which was about government actions.)
Our government is supposed to do what is necessary to keep us safe, and to achieve our objectives as efficiently as possible. If this requires that government officials suppress their private feelings of annoyance, then so be it: that’s part of their job, and if they can’t do it, at least given the kinds of ‘provocations’ offered by the Europeans in the run-up to Iraq, then they are not suited to hold their positions.
This isn’t unique to government officials: most jobs require that people put aside their personal feelings from time to time. Suppose you are a lawyer negotiating a settlement, and someone on the opposing side insults you or your client in a way you find offensive, but that does not affect the outcome of the settlement. (E.g., s/he calls you a reprehensible moron.) If you cannot help punching the person out, or refusing an offer that is, from your point of view, a good one just to get back at this person, or whatever, you are not a good negotiator. If you are a baseball player and the umpire makes a call you think is indefensible and you curse him out, and as a result are thrown out of the game, you do your team real damage by being unwilling or unable to control your temper. And so forth.
Similarly, if a government official, having (let’s assume) been insulted by an official of another country, responds in a way that makes us less likely to get that country’s help when we need it, then that government official is letting his or her personal annoyance get in the way of our national interest. That’s just wrong, and its wrongness is not affected by any answer to the question, was the official from the other country also wrong to do what s/he did?
having the full intelligence gathering system of the US at his disposal, Clinton in the 1996-2000 period believed that Saddam had stockpiles of illegal weapons and also had WMD programs.
tu quoque .
Our government is supposed to do what is necessary to keep us safe, and to achieve our objectives as efficiently as possible.
This is a smart, often overlooked. It also gets to the heart of the actual flaws with the Bush admin: they seem to let their feelings get in the way of our national interests. For example, Condi’s comment, which was basically “fuck the french,” may have been gratifying, but it clearly got in the way and will get in the way in the future of securing help. Maybe that help isn’t absolutely necessary, but it would be, well, helpful.
I object to this part of your sentence: “Before thousands of innocent Iraqis were murdered in an atmosphere allowed to get out of hand…” Atmospheres don’t murder people, thugs and terrorists do.
Well, the US military has a higher civilian-to-combatant kill ratio than the Iraqi insurgents, according to recent reports. But even given that, I wouldn’t refer to the US military as thugs and terrorists. I guess you are just a little bit to my left on this one.
let’s not take the eye off the ball and play the blame America first game by minimizing the behavior of those pulling the triggers and planting the bombs
Who has pulled more triggers and planted more bombs during the current invasion of Iraq, the US or the insurgents? You can be quite sure it is the former. So what you are saying is to not play the blame America first game by minimizing the behavior of Americans. Once you fill in the missing facts, your statement becomes absurd.
All in all, your argument just comes off as whinging that the people whose country the US invaded are fighting back. Perhaps this is an occurrence that could have been planned for, no?
Slarti: My point, however, is that the notion that Saddam represented a WMD threat is not one that Bush just fabricated;
But the notion that Iraq represented a WMD threat that justified full-scale invasion is one that Bush just fabricated – out of thin air, apparently.
And about Clinton and the Democrats who thought there were WMD: Jes’ original claim was: “I think that Bush was lying when he claimed his motivation for invading Iraq was those stockpiled WMD that turned out not to exist. I think, given the lack of planning to dispose of those fabled stockpiles, Bush knew in any case that there were no such stockpiles, and that the reason Bush stopped the inspection teams in order to invade was because he knew that the inspection teams would turn up nothing – he was lying all along.”. This is what led Slarti to ask: whether the Democrats who thought that Saddam represented a WMD threat were lying as well.
Now: I disagree with Jes about whether the Bush administration was lying about its reasons for going to war with Iraq. (I favor the ‘incompetence’ explanation.) But note: first, no parallel lie can be attributed to the Democrats, since they did not claim that their reason for invading was Saddam’s WMD. They did not make this claim since, well, they didn’t invade Iraq. Second, the reasons Jes adduces in support of her claim — that having invaded on the basis of this claim, the Bush administration failed to take the basic and (one would have thought) obvious step of securing known WMD sites — can’t apply to the Democrats either. One might wonder whether, had Clinton invaded Iraq, he would have secured known WMD sites, but since he neither invaded nor failed to secure the sites, there’s no reason for thinking he was (or would have been) lying about his motives. Third, as I have said before: I thought we had WMD as of, say, October 2002. But I was dubious as of February, precisely because I assumed it would be in our interests for Blix to find a smoking gun, and that for that reason we were probably telling him where to look, and if he wasn’t finding anything, that was a reason to worry about the quality of our intelligence. This is exactly the sort of consideration that was not available to Clinton, and should (imho) have made this administration think twice before invading. (At least, I think they should have used Blix, with his enhanced inspection powers, as a way of testing their intelligence before going to war. As we now know, it would have failed that test.)
But the general point is: Clinton is irrelevant to this debate.
re: clinton’s thinking.
first, he used that knowledge to maintain the no-fly zones and the sanctions, not to invade. second, his knowledge, like everyone else’s, was proven wrong by the second round of inspections. third, he’s not god. so he was wrong at a point where he was NO LONGER PRESIDENT!
This is such a schoolyard argument. Can we try for a more elevated standard of discourse?
re: europe. There are two issues here — political and military. The political issue is the degree to which the US wants to fight the GWoT alone. The Bush admin seems to think that there is no limit on its ability to soak future taxpayers and no possible political / financial / investigatory assistance that european countries could provide. I think they’re wrong on both counts.
i lack the expertise to comment on the military issue. what i’ve read suggests that the EU military has made major investments in developing regimes for training foreign forces, and that the US has put too high a price on the EU providing training assistance in Iraq. (no cites.)
cheers
Francis
Slarti: As President, Clinton had access to the exact same kind of information that Bush did.
Ah – so you’re arguing that, between 1992 – 2000, Clinton had the same access to data as Bush has now. Indeed – and Clinton never thought that the data available justified invading and occupying Iraq. So, Clinton’s judgement was better than Bush’s. *shrug* Does this come as a surprise to anyone?
It’s something worth pondering, as much as any of your other unsupported claims are.
The Bush administration’s failure to plan how to deal with those supposed stockpiled WMD is hardly “fabricated”, Slarti – as you know. You followed the Al QaQaa news too, the weekend before the Nov 2nd election.
Charles Kupchan’s comments are interesting in themselves. You historians among us should have a field day toying with his comments apparently trying to establish what is so wrong today with what must have been so right then.
“The dominant images for a 20-year-old European soon taking on a position of responsibility will be the Iraq war, the unraveling of Iraq and the car bombs. That’s a very different starting point than Europeans who saw American soldiers in tanks liberate Europe from the Nazis and rebuild their countries.”
Let’s tinker a bit. So the 20-year-old European, who didn’t have their brain ground to mush in a liberally dictated university might see a coalition of forces finally responding to Middle East despots, liberating and rebuilding two countries and favorably impacting the intent of nefarious nations nearby. Not at all unlike American soldiers in tanks that overcame countless set backs and miscalculations in Mr. Kupchan’s generations World War. The more I ponder that notion, the more I realize that things haven’t changed so much, even with France and Germany’s involvement.
And just to ‘substantiate’ Jes’ claims about unsecured WMD, some links: here, here, and here.
Blogbudsman: might see a coalition of forces finally responding to Middle East despots, liberating and rebuilding two countries and favorably impacting the intent of nefarious nations nearby
Heh. If that were actually happening anywhere, they might see it. But as it’s not, they won’t.
“Middle East despots” have mostly been left alone. (Saddam Hussein is not plural.) No countries have yet been successfully liberated by the Bush administration – Afghanistan was turned over to the warlords, exactly as it was before the Taliban took over (indeed, the horrors of warlord rule are what made the Taliban appear to be an acceptable alternative), and Iraq is currently under military dictatorship, such as it is. There has been no favorable impact on any nearby nation, nefarious or not.
And a 20 year old in Europe who followed the news would be aware of all that. It’s all public information.
If I wanted to argue that, I would have said the same rather than the same kind. Or thereabouts.
hilzoy’s protests notwithstanding, I think it’s fair to point out that practically everyone who had access to intel data coming out of Iraq thought that Hussein posed a WMD threat. It matters less that it was Clinton than it does that it’s a former President of the US.
If you think this is Clinton-bashing, too much projection going on.
Let me chime in, echoing hilzoy, fdl, and jes to some degree. Let’s say Clinton thought Iraq had WMD. Let’s say Chirac and whoever else you want to name thought so. Does that justify Bush’s invasion on the basis of the WMD threat?
I don’t think so. It’s one thing to sit in Washington, or Paris or Berlin, and think that Iraq probably has WMD. It’s another to invade the country on that basis. Shouldn’t that demand a higher standard of evidence – a standard the Bush Administration was not very interested in meeting?
The argument that “everybody thought so” fails on that ground, and it also fails when the “everybody” in question had no independent information, but relied on Bush’s statements.
Let’s refocus. What are the concrete things that diplomacy is supposed to get us (or have gotten us) in Iraq. Is it money? Whose? Is it troops? Whose? Is it token? Is it substantial?
You can deconstruct each nation’s standing individually, toss in a few digs about their character, and satisfyingly conclude that none of them will do anything to help no matter how skilled our diplomatic efforts may be, Sebastian, but in the end that misses the point. It’s accumulative. It’s not whether France is currently prepared to send 15000 troops, but whether France is currently prepared to trust us. If you can get that far, a whole new range of possibilities opens tomorrow.
Think baby steps. One baby step at at time. First get them to like us again. Then move on to step two. You’re never going to get anything out of them by “punishing” them.
The bottom line is we’re in over our heads and our allies are miffed with us enough to not extend a helping hand. It’s not a good place for us to be. Diplomacy is currently supposed to reverse that animosity. Then we can begin to push further.
Oh, and one other note, Sebastian. If France has nothing of value to contribute, then why are we angry they’re not helping out?
And the last of my ‘just read the whole thread, and had lots of responses’ posts:
Edward wrote: “With all due respect, Dr. Rice, the time for diplomacy was before we invaded Iraq. Before thousands of innocent Iraqis were murdered in an atmosphere allowed to get out of hand, due to a shortage of troops…” To which Charles replied: “I object to this part of your sentence: “Before thousands of innocent Iraqis were murdered in an atmosphere allowed to get out of hand…” Atmospheres don’t murder people, thugs and terrorists do. There’s no doubt that the post-war was poorly executed, but let’s not take the eye off the ball and play the blame America first game by minimizing the behavior of those pulling the triggers and planting the bombs.”
I don’t see where Edward minimized the role of thugs and terrorists. There are lots of situations in which I can blame myself or someone else for putting in place the conditions in which X would happen, even when the actual perpetrator of X is a different person. For instance (note: this is not supposed to be like what happened in Iraq, just an illustration of my present point, and which is extreme precisely to establish that point): suppose a military commander ordered his or her troops to put down their weapons, take off their body armor, put big signs on that said ‘American Soldier! Unarmed!’ in Arabic, cuff their hands behind their backs, and march through Fallujah. And suppose further that, not surprisingly, a lot of these soldiers were killed. Obviously, it’s violent people in Fallujah who actually did the killing. But does that in some way mean that the commander is blameless? Not according to me.
More specifically: who killed the soldiers? Individuals in Fallujah. Did the commander kill them? No. S/he may have ‘as good as killed them’, or ‘consigned them to their death’, but s/he did not kill them. The Fallujans did that, and are responsible for it. But who was unbelievably stupid, and criminally casual about those soldier’s lives? The commander: s/he did that, and is responsible for what s/he did. Who is responsible, not for killing them or for stupid deployment orders, but for their deaths? I would say: both the killers in Fallujah and the commander. Both did things they should not have done, given what they knew at the time. Both the orders and the actions contributed to the deaths (if no Fallujans were inclined to kill American soldiers, the soldiers could have marched in this stupid way without being killed; if these orders had not been given, the fact that Fallujans were so inclined would not have led to people being killed.)
Note: the basic claim about responsibility here is: if you do something which you have every reason to believe will lead to some bad outcome, and given what you know at the time, you should not do this thing, and it does lead to the bad outcome, you are responsible for that outcome. If you didn’t know, and this isn’t due to e.g. stupidity but to non-culpable ignorance, you are of course not to blame. If you knew it would lead to the bad outcome but you had a good reason to believe that every other alternative would be worse, you are responsible for choosing to do something that would lead to X, but you should not be blamed for that choice, since it wasn’t the wrong one. (E.g., if the reason the commander gave the idiotic orders was that that was the only way to prevent terrorists from blowing up the whole world, s/he should not be blamed.)
Suppose you agree with this general analysis. Then two things follow. First, if the administration should have known that putting in as few troops as they did would cause problems, like e.g. a lack of order in Iraq and all that followed from that, and if there was no reason for not putting in more troops that was good enough to outweigh the need to avoid those problems, then because they decided to go in with too few troops, they are to blame for those problems.
Second, the general analysis implies that responsibility is not zero-sum: there is no fixed amount of responsibility such that when I say that X is responsible for something, I am thereby saying that other people are not responsible for it (or even: not as responsible.) This is so because the fact that some bad decision of mine helped to produce some state of affairs does not imply that no bad decision of anyone else’s helped to produce it as well.
But if responsibility is not zero-sum, then when Edward notes that our lack of good diplomacy contributed to the shortage of troops, which in turn contributed to the breakdown of order and the murder of innocent Iraqis, what he says does not imply, in any way, that anyone else is less responsible for those murders. Specifically, it doesn’t imply that the thugs are not responsible for them. And if this is right, then he’s not doing what Charles implies that he is.
Finally, a point about ‘blaming America first’: it would be wrong to leap to the conclusion that any bad thing that happens is America’s (or anyone else’s) fault. But I don’t think it’s wrong, when several parties can be held responsible, in different ways, for some bad thing, for Americans to focus on America’s responsibility. This may be easier to see in the case of a person focussing on his or her own responsibility: when several people are to blame for something, and one of them is me, I should (I think) start by focussing on my role, because while blaming other people may be fun in a sort of cheap way, I am the only person whose actions are under my control, and therefore when I figure out what each of us did to bring something bad about, I am the only one whose flaws I can begin directly to try to rectify.
Also, if I am to blame for something, this may imply things about my obligations in the future, which I need to know about. (E.g., if I ran you over while drunk, I might need to do what I can to help you recover. And it’s much more important for me to know what I owe in this way than to know what, say, Newt Gingrich might owe, since I am me, and if I conclude I owe something, I can just decide to pay up. Regrettably, I do not have this sort of control over Newt Gingrich.)
For both sorts of reasons, it’s normally more important for me to figure out whether I am responsible for something than whether someone else is. I think something similar is true in the case of one’s country: as citizens in a democracy, we can try to fix any problems we discover, and we can also try to bring it about that we as a country live up to our obligations. So I think that while it’s always a mistake (a) to blame someone, or some country, when that person or country is not actually to blame, it is not at all a mistake (b) to concentrate on what you or your country is to blame for, as opposed to what some other person or country is to blame for, when you or your country are in fact among those responsible. And I think that when people complain about ‘blaming America first’, sometimes they’re rightly complaining about (a)l, but sometimes they’re wrongly complaining about (b). In this case, since I think we are responsible for the breakdown of order in Iraq, both in virtue of not having sent enough troops ourselves and in virtue of having alienated those who might have helped, I think (b) is at issue.
And even here Afghanistan is totally forgotten.
People do realize that for instance the French and the Germans were part of the coalition that invaded Afghanistan? That quite a few Germans were killed? That they still are trying to build the country up, trying to fulfill Bush’s promise that he would not let Afghanistan down again? But that is no reason to stop making remarks like:
Germany said screw UN and its resolutions. I must’ve missed the uproar over that.
And I’m in turn a little mystified about the expectation that our government ought to be able to take endless crap from other governments without there being some backlash. Do you recall Schröder being for the invasion, before he was against it?
Or had people allready forgotten that this is the second invasion Bush is responsible for?
I wish my country had the guts to stay in Afghanistan, trying to try to improve things there, instead of jumping on Bush’s lap as soon as the UN gave a vague permission.
Yes, with diplomacy there probably would not have been an invasion because the weapon inspectors would have concluded that there were no WMD and thus no threat. To start a war you have to have a really really good reason, and the US did not have it. No WMD, no humanitarian intervention, no connection with the attack on the WTC, no good reason.
And maybe, maybe… a few of the resources that went into Iraq could have been used to improve the situation in Afghanistan, to mend what was broken there and make improvement a certainty instead of a small change.
The argument that “everybody thought so” fails on that ground, and it also fails when the “everybody” in question had no independent information, but relied on Bush’s statements
It also fails because it is a false statement. Scott Ritter, speaking a few years before the invasion:
Some of the results when Ritter spoke up?
Those on the ground – the weapons inspectors – did not think Iraq posed a serious WMD threat. If one is wondering why more people did not speak up, reread the above reaction when people were told the truth. They attacked the messenger.
hilzoy, that’s a great post on accountability and responsibility.
what hilzoy said at 03:16 PM!!!
damn fine reasoning!
votermom: thanks. (It’s my job 🙂 )
Maybe just acknowledging that: 1. these countries had a right to disagree with us and, 2. that they might be correct in wanting to wait, could have ultimately kept us out of the mess that we now find ourselves in. It was always the “rush” to go to war that I found most objectionable.
And when we are talking about lying trying to make their case, no one has mentioned the plagarized British doctoral thesis that Powell was armed with to go to the UN! I have always been amazed at how complacently that information was taken, and how it seems to have totally disappeared from view now. Just a little mistake, I guess…..Give it a little thought, and it is clear that there was pressure being brought to bear for the intelligence folks to have even produced this outdated garbage!
me: Ah – so you’re arguing that, between 1992 – 2000, Clinton had the same access to data as Bush has now.
Slarti: If I wanted to argue that, I would have said the same rather than the same kind. Or thereabouts.
You’re confusing me. I thought I was agreeing with you. But you don’t think Clinton had the same access to data when he was President as Bush has now? So, who do you think had greater access to data, and why?
Slarti: I think it’s fair to point out that practically everyone who had access to intel data coming out of Iraq thought that Hussein posed a WMD threat.
Even granted that, no one except the Bush administration thought that the intel data justified invasion/occupation in order to secure the WMD threat: and, as you know, even the Bush administration didn’t believe that WMD threat enough to actually make plans to secure those WMD. Are you arguing that the Bush administration were so incompetent that it didn’t occur to them to do so?
It is really weird to read Bush supporters on this thread denying the need for diplomacy…
There’s always a need for diplomacy. At times, there is a need to apply just war theory.
Also, Charles, tens of thousands of people (including women and children) in Iraq have been killed but, since by far the majority of deaths are the result of American military action, are you serious about blaming the deaths on “thugs and terrorists”?
Yes. If these enemies of freedom and democracy really cared about the Iraqi people as a whole, they’d have laid down arms and joined the interim government. I tend to place more blame on those actually pulling the triggers, and less on those who allegedly “created the environment” for those violent and barbaric acts.
Well, the US military has a higher civilian-to-combatant kill ratio than the Iraqi insurgents, according to recent reports.
What credible reports?
All in all, your argument just comes off as whinging that the people whose country the US invaded are fighting back.
Nope, the “insurgents” are fighting against the UN-recognized Iraqi interim government. These thugs and terrorists have no legitimacy.
If these enemies of freedom and democracy really cared about the Iraqi people as a whole, they’d have laid down arms and joined the interim government
Skipping past the glittering generalities propaganda, this statement is simply a non sequitur.
I tend to place more blame on those actually pulling the triggers
So, since the US has pulled more triggers during the Iraq invasion than the Iraqi insurgents, you blame the US. Or, perhaps, your whole argument is simply based on fallacious logic.
Bird Dog: Yes. If these enemies of freedom and democracy really cared about the Iraqi people as a whole, they’d have laid down arms and joined the interim government.
It is not helpful to sweepingly describe the insurgency as “enemies of freedom and democracy”, simply because it’s not at all clear that the US occupation, or the US-appointed puppet government of Iraq, can be described as representing either freedom or democracy to the Iraqi people as a whole.
What if they perceive the “interim government” – appointed by the US government and maintained in power by the US military – as an enemy of democracy and freedom in Iraq?
Why should any occupied people join a governing power appointed and maintained by the military occupation?
If the Bush administration had really cared about the Iraqi people as a whole, rather than rushing to appoint an interim government that they hoped could legalize their plans to loot Iraq, they would have held free elections back at the beginning of 2004 – at the very latest. Delaying the elections for over a year hardly makes the US occupation look like “democracy” – or “freedom”, either.
I tend to place more blame on those actually pulling the triggers, and less on those who allegedly “created the environment” for those violent and barbaric acts.
OK, this is a tricky one (and hilzoy explains this much better above), but it’s not one or the other. There is blame for both.
Those who deserve to die for what they did are those insurgents pulling the triggers. Those who deserve to be held accountable for allowing those who pulled the triggers to do so are our leaders. And, yes, our leaders are responsible for providing security to all the Iraqi civilians, regardless of where the threat to them comes from. We dismantled the system that was protecting them before we invaded (when it wasn’t threatenting them itself, granted).
Powell warned the President that he, Bush, would “own” an insurgency. There’s no way for him to disown it now.
“So I think that while it’s always a mistake (a) to blame someone, or some country, when that person or country is not actually to blame, it is not at all a mistake (b) to concentrate on what you or your country is to blame for, as opposed to what some other person or country is to blame for, when you or your country are in fact among those responsible.”
I think this is generally correct, but is an impulse that can be abused by those who rarely want to engage in (b) themselves against those who do.
Taking Iraq as an example, the world community had failed in Iraq long before Bush came to power. They (and we) had allowed Saddam to slaughter resistance to his regime after the first world war. They (and not we) were content to allow him to play games with the inspections. As far as intelligence goes, the failure to force adequate inspections in the 1998-2002 period was one of the reasons that adequate intelligence was not available–and contributed greatly to the mistaken impression that Saddam had current WMD programs. The failure to make the nuclear non-proliferation agencies effective in the 1980s and 1990s was a failure of the international community–a failure which was resisted by Clinton in the UN (to his credit) but when that failed he contented himself to symbolic gestures (to his discredit). The problem with the (b) blaming analysis is that over the long run, if other people really are the problem, you can’t solve the problem only be focusing on your part. At the moment there is a problem among the international community–and especially the UN in that it typically has a lack of will to take action even in the face of serious consequences without America taking the lead AND it doesn’t like it when America takes the lead.
This creates a situation where either no action is taken, or action driven by the Americans is taken and then resented. (See the UN and tsunami relief for only the most recent example). See the Sudan for another recent example of relative inaction in the face of non-American leadership. See also the Balkans.
The problem with this dynamic is that no amount of US self-criticism or change can satisfy it. Action or forcing action causes resentment in the international institutions. Failing to do so means nothing happens. The US has two options, it can try to provoke change or it can ignore the international institutions. Clinton tried the former, with little real-world success. Bush has done the latter with success which is both negative and positive.
As for Ritter, I note that when the inspections ceased in 1998 he sung a different tune. He was given no further evidence and was not able to explain why in the lack of further evidence he changed his view.
“Delaying the elections for over a year hardly makes the US occupation look like “democracy” – or “freedom”, either.”
Merely holding elections immediately after an invasion–especially when the potential political leaders have had the boot on their necks for decades, doesn’t make democracy. It isn’t a magic spell.
by the way, anyone see Boxer rip Condi’s head off?
not pretty.
Sebastian: They (and not we) were content to allow him to play games with the inspections.
Isn’t this claim getting a little tired by now? The claim that Saddam Hussein was “playing games with the inspections” was (to the best of my knowledge) based on the belief that Iraq really did have WMD, and the failure of the inspections to find WMD was therefore because Saddam Hussein was playing wily-beguiled with the inspection teams.
But as we now know, there never were any WMD for the inspection teams to find. None, anyway, in the run-up to war in 2002/2003. You’re behind the times, Sebastian.
Sebastian: Merely holding elections immediately after an invasion–especially when the potential political leaders have had the boot on their necks for decades, doesn’t make democracy. It isn’t a magic spell.
Given your passionate attacks on democracy and free elections in other threads, and your passionate defense of terrorism and assassination as a means of preventing democracy, I am unsurprised that you feel allowing Iraqis to elect their own government in free elections would not “make democracy”. You’ve made it clear that you don’t support the right of a people to elect their own government if the “wrong party” might win.
Way back when the insurgency was a tiny thing and it looked as if Iraq might be a success, I recall large, and largely peaceful, demonstrations by Iraqis against the US occupation, calling for free elections. I recall news reports of US soldiers firing into those demostrating crowds. I recall it, because I remember thinking that this kind of behavior on the part of the US occupation was hardly likely to convince Iraqis that the US was trying to bring them democracy.
Hilzoy — in situations where I am one of several people who can be held to account for some bad thing, I prefer to focus on the other people — better they should get the blame.
As I recall from the 2004 campaign, there always seemed to be a point in the war debate when the argument would reach a certain shrill level (not unlike the above) when Bush would trot out his most reliable blunderbuss and what turned out to be the ultimate “shock and awe” weapon of his reelection campaign: My opponent would rather have Saddam back in power! If it was up to the liberals, Saddam would still be in power! If we hadn’t gone into Iraq, Saddam would still be in power! The world is a safer place with Saddam gone!
Until W. took over, Saddam was nothing to most Americans but a distant memory; some despot whose ass we long ago helped kick out of Kuwait.
Saddam would still be in power. And…?Your point is…? Sure, maybe Saddam would still be in power but Osama bin laden would be dead or in prison, Al Quaeda would be dismantled and no longer a threat, the Taliban would be gone, Afghanistan would be a free democratic ally and the real war on terror would at least be heading in the right direction.
I wonder what made that straw man – Saddam would still be in power -so potent for so many?
I wonder what made that straw man – Saddam would still be in power -so potent for so many?
Two words: Paul Wolfowitz
Jeremy Osner: “in situations where I am one of several people who can be held to account for some bad thing, I prefer to focus on the other people — better they should get the blame.”
Yeah, silly me forgot to add the crucial moral premiss: supposing you are a good person… ;P
As for Ritter, I note that when the inspections ceased in 1998 he sung a different tune.
What he said in 1998 does not directly contradict the statement, “a.) Iraq represents a threat to no one, and b.) Iraq will not represent a threat to anyone if we can get weapons inspectors back in”. He called for, in both 1998 and later, aggressive inspections and effective monitoring as a means to prevent Iraq from regaining WMD capabilities that would make it a threat, and he noted in 1998 that failure to do so would lead to Iraq becoming a threat. He did note in 1998 that Iraq could quickly rebuild its WMD capacity, his argument years later noted that Iraq after years of sanctions and bombing did not have the money or infrastructure to do so.
In addition, Ritter’s 1998 testimony disputes your assertion that, “They (and not we) were content to allow him to play games with the inspections”.
They (and we) had allowed Saddam to slaughter resistance to his regime after the first world war.
I would dispute this timeline as well, although I guess it is technically accurate… 😉
One word: Baaaaa.
One word: Baaaaa.
Edward: I realize Wolfowitz engineered the DOD propaganda machine. What I don’t understand is how that straw man could so thoroughly stump the entire brain trust of the Democratic party. Throughout a two-year campaign, the Ds never came up with an effective answer for: “Saddam would still be in power.”
It was so lame, I’m just wondering how that’s possible.
BD writes: If these enemies of freedom and democracy really cared about the Iraqi people as a whole, they’d have laid down arms and joined the interim government.
Why should they? They are under a hated occupation with a quisling government.
The colonists committed treason against George III. The southern states preferred to take up arms than have their way of life destroyed. Small changes in either military history and the other side would have won.
If the Sunnis cause civil war and end up with a partition more favorable than what they’re facing now, how will their history books read?
You’d think that since most of us regular posters are american citizens, we could at least operate under the basic principle that democratic government is based on consent of the governed. It appears that a substantial percentage of Iraqis have not given their consent.
Sebastian raises the much harder question of interfering in failed states. What would have a successful UN mandate in Rwanda looked like? How do you force people who live next to each other not to kill each other? My personal take is that if the West were serious about the issue then there would be a substantial UN presence in Haiti, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Indonesia, (probably several others) coupled with a commitment to remap boundaries to create viable states.
but i think that a lot of people believe that some battles need to be worked out internally, by war if necessary. The US was unable to resolve slavery without war; we hardly hold the high ground in telling other states how to resolve their critical internal issues peacefully.
francis
Hey, Chas, in light of this statement:
I tend to place more blame on those actually pulling the triggers, and less on those who allegedly “created the environment” for those violent and barbaric acts.
Can you please answer a quick question for me? I don’t need exact numbers — in-the-ballpark figures will do fine.
Approx. % of Iraqi civilian casualties caused by U.S. forces: _______
Approx. % of Iraqi civilian casualties caused by insurgents: _______
Thanks!
Forever in your debt,
Phil
Sebastian: Are you arguing that [Chirac] would have supported military action when the inspectors failed to turn anything up? That seems odd.
Wait a sec… which rationale for war are we using today?
And damn you, hilzoy, for making the point (@ 3:16pm) I was going to make, but orders of magnitude better!
Condi
Childhood prodigy, Dr. Condi Rice, took center stage today for her confirmation hearing. Her introduction provided a great summary of her qualifications and her personal qualities. I listened to about an hour today and what I heard was a publicity…
Francis wrote:
but i think that a lot of people believe that some battles need to be worked out internally, by war if necessary. The US was unable to resolve slavery without war; we hardly hold the high ground in telling other states how to resolve their critical internal issues peacefully.
This is one of the central problems, I think, and one that I’m incredibly uncomfortable with. I’m going to speculate wildly and irresponsably here, so please everyone be nice.
I had a conversation with my rabidly non-intervenist, libertarian, canadian dad about these issues over the holidays. He maintained two things I found disturbing–and somewhat contradictory. 1) that a civil war in Iraq seemed inevitable and that the US should pull out and let it happen. 2) that the US civil war should have been avoidable somehow.
I guess one of the questions that comes out of this paradox is: could the US civil war have been prevented if, say, the British had invaded and imposed Abolition on the South?
The other question that comes up for me is how nations find their forms. In europe, of course, centuries of border fights led to the present-day battle-fatigue and the modern nation-states. But in a lot of the places where nations are the result of largely arbitrary imperial decisions, can UN respect for sovereignity prevent nations from trying to alter their current boundaries? Put it another way: the US got to expand to the Pacific, France got many of its “natural borders” (except, notably, the Rhineland), why shouldn’t, say, Saddam Hussein not annex that weak little rich state of Kuwait?
I know that the answer is “ethnic cleansing.” And as a Sudanese expatriot recently explained to me, trying to redraw boundaries in many post-colonial nations leads to totally atomized tribal warfare. But what are the models for peaceful resolution of long-standing tensions like the question of slavery?
I don’t know where to find figures on how many civilians have been killed by insurgents as oppposed to how many have been killed by US service people. It would be easier to count up the deaths caused by insrgents because those deaths are counted and reported (grimly, daily). The number of civilians killed by US service people is not counted up and reported daily. Instead wildly divergent estimates are given after large military operations such as the attacks on Fallujah. The fact that the deaths caused by insurgents are countable and reportable (three civillians here, ten there in news reports) argues that the insurgents aren’t killing as many as Americans are. The deaths caused by Americans in larger-scale operations are in the thousands, more than the ten here and five there insurgent totals could reach. But this is speculation on my part.
Since we invaded under false pretenses and started a war that didn’t need to be fought at all, I think Bush and his supporters are ultimately responisble for all of the deaths.
Why was Bush in such a bloody hurry?
His father took the better part of 6 months preparing for Gulf War I – and that was after Iraq had actually done something – i.e., invaded Kuwait. Bush the First made sure he had a real coalition; he made sure most of our allies were with us; he made sure the armies had enough equipment and support.
Whatever quarrels you may have with Gulf War I (from April Glaspie’s giving Saddam a wink-wink nudge-nudge to Bush’s betrayal of the Kurds) the war itself was planned and executed in a professional manner.
Why didn’t Bush the Second do that? Why was he in such a goddamned hurry? Why did he blow off the weapons inspectors, why did he present misleading information and cherry-picked intel, why did he go out of his way to insult our allies?
Because of WMDs?
No.
Bush had, as has been pointed out, much the same information about WMDs that Clinton had. Clinton didn’t think Iraq was such a grave, gathering, whatever you want to call it, threat to the US that the US had to invade Right!This!Minute!!
It also can’t be because of WMDs because Bush’s own actions and priorities show HE didn’t think they were really that much of a threat, either. If he had believed his own rhetoric, securing every damned weapons installation in Iraq would have been the highest priority. It wasn’t. (Qaaqaa wasn’t someone’s garage, for god’s sake.)
No. WMDs were just what Perle and Andy Card said they were: a ‘bureaucratic’ reason for war, a marketing ploy to sell Americans on an unprovoked war; a sale based on fear.
Bush was in a hurry because, if he let the weapons inspections continue, his marketing ploy would be revealed as the lie it was.
Bush couldn’t make an honest case to our allies for war, because there simply wasn’t one. He’d bet the farm on WMDs, and knew he’d lose if the weapons inspectors were allowed to finish their work.
So he hurried. He went in without a workable plan, without enough allies, without enough soldiers, without listening to his own military advisors… and now we have 100,000 dead Iraqis, 1500 dead US soldiers, hundreds of dead aid workers and contractors, thousands of maimed and crippled soldiers, hundreds of thousands of widows, widowers and orphans, cities reduced to rubble, infrastructure still not repaired to its pre-war levels, $200 billion and counting in money spent, a shattered Iraq, an exhausted and demoralized military, an irreparably harmed international reputation… and no end in sight, no good choices left to make.
All because Bush based his war on a lie and didn’t want to get caught – at least, not until after he’d pulled off his fait accompli.
Is that evil? I think so. I also think it’s despicable, contemptible, and cowardly.
Jackmoron,
“could the US civil war have been prevented if, say, the British had invaded and imposed Abolition on the South?”
I think you need to revisit the issues in the Civil from the prespective of that time. Very few southerners who actually fought in the war owned slaves. The elite in the South are the one’s who owned slaves. Somewhere around 5% of the population did.
The common southerners who fought the civil war knew that they would never benefit from slavery, even knew they were hurt by slavery. They common soldier fought the war because they opposed invasion and being told what to do by the Federal Gov’t. You still find this behaviour in the same states today. Just for example. La. thumbing it’s nose at Federal Drinking Age and such. If Britian had invaded the South they would have fought just as ferociously. Maybe more so against Britian than the North. You have to remember that these Southerners parents and grand-parents and great-grand-parents had been fighting the English for generations.
Slavery was more of a fighting issue for the North and the Southern elites. Not the common soldier.
Also, I don’t know how that idea would play out given that at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation there were the border slave states that supported the Union plus the slave states under Union control actually outnumbered Confederate slave states. The slaves in the Union controlled states weren’t freed.
The common southerners who fought the civil war knew that they would never benefit from slavery, even knew they were hurt by slavery. They common soldier fought the war because they opposed invasion and being told what to do by the Federal Gov’t.
It seems to me like this observation has some kind of application to the current state of affairs in Iraq but I am not sure exactly what.
greg,
I presume that the typo in my handle was that.
If you’ll forgive me, it seems as though you’re making my point. There were deep, long-standing tensions between the north and the south in the US civil war, and as usual the soldiers mobilized on either side to die had little to do with the structural arguments. Change of any kind is painful and often violent, and the bodies inspired to fight for or against change usually have little to do with the reasons change is felt to be necessary. That much, I’m sure, we agree on. The problem I’m more interested in is how the Southern elite could have been forced to give up its privileges while avoiding the bloodbath of the civil war. And again, I’m less interested in the specifics of this particular American case than in the general problem of long-standing, seemingly unresolvable national tensions. The US case is only interesting to me insofar as it highlights this idea of civil wars as being necessary to solve constitutional (or historical or ethnic) problems.
“Why was Bush in such a bloody hurry?”
What hurry? Saddam had been toying with the UN for more than 10 years and Bush was talking about it for almost a full year. If anything, we should have invaded much earlier–1998 by my calculation.
Sebastian: What hurry? Saddam had been toying with the UN for more than 10 years and Bush was talking about it for almost a full year.
Why was Bush in such a hurry? There were UN weapons inspection teams in Iraq: why did he insist on
If anything, we should have invaded much earlier–1998 by my calculation.
If the aim was to stop mass murder, 1988 would have been a more appropriate year for you to choose. But back then, Saddam Hussein was a favored ally of George Bush/Ronald Reagan, and Eastasia – sorry, Iran – was the enemy. That Hussein was committing mass murder in 1988 was not considered important by the US government then.
1998 or 2003 – both were too late to stop mass murder. Invasion cost at least one hundred thousand Iraqi lives. To justify that, you have to have evidence that Iraq presented some threat to the US. And that was exactly what Clinton didn’t have in 1998 – and didn’t invade – and Bush didn’t have in 2003 – and invaded anyway.
Damn, pressed Post when I meant to press Preview.
Why was Bush in such a hurry? There were UN weapons inspection teams in Iraq: why did he insist on invading before they’d finished their job?
As we now know, they would have found nothing justifying invasion – Sebastian’s behind-the-times comments about Hussein playing with the UN nonetheless – and Bush would have had to come up with some other reason. Given that we now know Bush didn’t believe there were stockpiled WMD, Bush rushed into war because he knew the inspections would find nothing to justify invasion.
Damn, pressed Post when I meant to press Preview.
That might be the blog gods telling you to turn it down a notch…
We have blog gods?
Hmmm…. can we have an open thread to discuss how they are worshipped?
(As for the other: you may be right. I should not post pre-coffee.)
Can anyone point out any Rice accomplishments as NSA?
In her testimony to the 9/11 Commission, she essentially said the Bush Admin did little-to-nothing about OBL/AQ pre-9/11 because they didn’t have a process for doing anything.
I’d be esp. interested in hearing about that special Iraq coordination role she took on way back when. It was announced with great fanfare and promptly vanished.
What has this woman actually *done*?
What has this woman actually *done*?
Performed four years of political fellatio on George Bush.
What has this woman actually *done*?
Performed four years of political fellatio on George Bush.
xanax.
that’s ban worthy
please retract
That Hussein was committing mass murder in 1988 was not considered important by the US government then.
Actually, it was considered important enough for the US to block a motion of censure in the UN Security Council.
xanax: the rules. Edward: were you thinking it was banworthy under the heading of profanity or incivility? If the latter, well, she isn’t a poster, at least as far as I know.
as soon as I posted that I realized I owed Xanax a better explanation…thanks for asking hilzoy.
It’s so graphic I at first thought it ‘profane’ but I’m willing to reconsider.
I could have made the metphor infinitely more graphic, blow by blow if you will, of Condi’s last four years of being nothing but a bobbing yes-head for Bush (like the rest of the crew he’s surrounded himself with) but I didn’t and (though it would be fun) won’t. I sincerely apologize if I’ve offended anyone but before considering a retraction, I ask that anyone point to a single specific achievement of Dr. Rice in her four years as NSA beyond that mentioned in my 1:12 post. Find one and I’ll retract.
I could have made the metphor infinitely more graphic, blow by blow if you will, of Condi’s last four years of being nothing but a bobbing yes-head for Bush (like the rest of the crew he’s surrounded himself with) but I didn’t and (though it would be fun) won’t. I sincerely apologize if I’ve offended anyone but before considering a retraction, I ask that anyone point to a single specific achievement of Dr. Rice in her four years as NSA beyond that mentioned in my 1:12 post. Find one and I’ll retract.