Deja Nam All Over Again
By Robert A. Hahn Posted in Featured Stories | War — Comments (31) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Iraq is no longer part of the war on terror.
Whether that statement is true in any objective sense matters very little. I believe that we are obligated, by the terms of our compact with our fellow American citizens, to treat the statement as if it were true. That is because a majority of our fellow citizens have just voted it to be true.
It is not entirely clear to me that our fellow citizens are wrong in concluding this. It was going to become true at some point in any case, although most of the partisans who have been advocating such a position started doing so long before it made any sense. I do not credit them with any sort of prescience; instead I suspect them of the worst sort of mental and moral depravity, in particular the sin of having forgotten who they are. But this is not the time for that.
Like most here at RedState, I believe that we entered Iraq for good and justifiable reasons that at the time appeared to be an essential part of any plan to protect the lives of the American people in the face of what was obviously an extremely well-planned and well-funded attack on our soil. At the time, no one could have been certain another attack was not imminent, and no one could be sure what form it would take.
For some reason, there has been collective amnesia in this country concerning the fact that someone attacked us with a biological weapon. Directly on the heels of the attacks on New York and Washington, Persons Unknown used anthrax spores to kill people and to shut down our mail delivery system. This has since been dismissed as a minor event. I doubt that it was considered such at the time by those entrusted with our national security. The potential harm to the United States was incalculable. Another ten pounds of those spores would have brought the U.S. economy to a screeching halt as our postal and other delivery systems, and our intercity transportation systems, were shut down as each became contaminated. And that leaves out the horror scenarios concerning attacks that could kill 100,000 people at a stroke. The bet that any President of the United States would have had to take — at the time — was that we faced an imminent threat from a state actor with a biological weapons program. To not act on that assumption would have been derelict.
I had no problem taking out Saddam Hussein. And I believe that having done that, mostly for our own benefit, we owed the Iraqis an opportunity to construct a new government for themselves free of outside interference. And indeed there was outside interference, and I believe that we have done a good job of eliminating that.
However, it has become increasingly obvious in recent months that most of the violence now taking place in Iraq is among various flavors of Iraqis, and that the Iraqis themselves seem more involved with settling old scores and indulging in tribal and sectarian rivalries than in taking advantage of any "opportunity" to do otherwise. The American people have tired of having our soldiers blown up while they do that.
It may be that after we leave, the various factions will bomb and shoot each other until the last of them are dead. Our vote on November 7 sets the U.S. policy in this matter to be: we don't care. We provided them with three years in which to 'make nice' and build a country. They did not do it. Gong. Time's up.
I am hoping that even the Democrats can see merit in protecting the Kurds from the coming firestorm. They didn't want it, they didn't participate in it, and they put in a good-faith effort to take advantage of the opportunity we provided. They deserve better than to be massacred by the Iraqi Sunnis for their oil.
As for the larger War on Terror, it will be back. I think it will be a long time before another U.S. President tries to do anything about it, other than to lob a cruise missile or two into some tents. I suspect the terrorists could even crash a few more planes into some buildings here with few real repercussions. I'm sure they suspect it too, which is why it will happen.
I think we all know that the day will come when nukes start going off in our cities. It might be five years; it might be twenty. But it's coming, and when it does, we won't know from where. All we'll know is that three or four of our cities have been nuked, and there doesn't seem to be any way to end it without...
It may be that had our effort in Iraq borne fruit, the resulting success might have persuaded others throughout the Middle East that there was more to life than hating the Great Satan and sending one's children off to blow up the infidels. We'll never know. But we will know we tried, which will make it a little easier to do what we will have to do to make the nukes stop. That's going to be really ugly.
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Deja Nam All Over Again 31 Comments (0 topical, 31 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
As always, fine work. But I disagree with your premise, that the voters having spoken by their choice of representative, we are obligated to interpret the results as the majority now says.
We the people do not get to vote on issues, at the Federal level, anyway. We elect representatives. Even Amendments are handled with a level of indirection.
The wise folks who threw this country together over the course of a decade or so knew that we the people are prone to moods that are contrary to good sense and our own interest. Then, as now, charlatans and rabble-rousers could incite the maddening crowd into all manner of mischief.
The popularity of an idea is not determinative of its truth or falsity. You know that, but you left it out of your argument.
The Democrats won the majority. If they think the President must do what they say because of that, then let the impeachment proceedings begin. They probably are coming anyway. But we must stand on principle, and let long term strategy for national survival and not political expediency be our counsel.
It may be that a shift of focus away from Iraq is the best course. It's not clear that the conditions will improve without some change in our tactics. But it's also clear that Al Qaida and friends are still engaged in terrorism in Iraq. At the very least, we cannot leave another ally in the field.
To assert that it's only a war if we choose to believe in it is to wish away the difficult world in which we find ourselves, in favor of returning to the fantasy we had before we learned the truth.
Evil men hide from the truth, but good men stand upon it.
I guess.
I've never entered into a fight that I wouldn't win. If I have to cheat to win, I win. If I had to kill to win, I'd win. But I'll never fight and quit.
Our enemies are still the same people. The Sunnis that tried to start a civil war were the same Sunnis that were Saddam's henchmen and comforters. They were our enemies then, and they are our enemies now. Kill them. Kill them one at a time, or kill them in large quanities. But win.
The Shiites who answered with murder when we were dying to give them a different life, are now our enemies. Kill them. Kill them one at a time or kill them in large quanities. But win. As that great man said (paraphrased), never give in. Never.
I know I sound harsh, and I do try to be nice. But don't quit this war. Don't quit until every human on the face of the earth has heard that attacks on us, or our military, or helping the SOBs that attack us will get you really really really dead. We need to inspire some real fear. Right now, we look like Bruno, but we act like Olive Oil. Wah, wah, wah.
I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.
I don't think the American people have given up on Iraq yet. Sure, the Republicans lost Congress in the election, but there have been numerous posts and stats bandied about here showing that the number of seats lost was not out of line for a 6th-year midterm election, or a war-time election.
Even the most devout has a crisis of faith at some point in their lives.
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Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community
Happened a good year ago, not a week ago. A week ago was when they gave into it and threw in the towel by voting for the cut-and-run party in droves. And that's just the ones that cared enough to go to the polls and vote... less than half the eligible population. There's not much to be hopeful about here.
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"I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
This is a painful reality that is starting to become more clear. America has lost the stomach to stay any course. We have become soft...I would say that close 90% of citizens were as mad as hell and ready for blood on 9/12 and several months afterwards.
But the justice that we all seek has not come fast enough. Not fast enough to silence the doubters and nay-sayers. Combine that population with an "American"-based media, which uses our Constitution to defend their ability to promote more anti-American feelings than any group we could possibly have the misfortune of facing in the field of battle.
Results, we did not get them fast enough, and the body counters started on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, ABC and the like. We get daily headlines of how many Iraqi citizens were killed while we slept...and there is no discrimination between those we killed and those that were killed by other Iraq citizens. Our soldiers put a dog leash around a prisoner's neck and we get hearings and charges, meanwhile headless Americans start showing up on the web...I can't recall any hearings or charges or general outrage about our citizens losing their heads just because they were "from the west".
THESE PEOPLE WANT TO KILL US. They want to end everything that we stand for. They will not disagree with every point you make but defend like hell your right to have the opinion and speak your mind. They would rather cut your tongue out.
Where is our greatest generation now? Where are the people that were born to those that fought the good fight and knew that RESULTS DO NOT COME SWIFTLY, but justice to terrorists MUST.
I question my country's intestinal fortitude but doubt everything about declaring a Democratic victory in the polls as some grand edict about us pulling out of Iraq and stopping the fight....I have hope, but it is fading.
Stranded in a blue section of a red state.
But maybe Americans haven't lost the intestinal fortitude for the War on Terror, they just think that what we're doing in Iraq is not really furthering our goals in the War on Terror. That's actually what I've come to think.
is excellent. I hadn't considered that particular point in relation to the Iraq war before. I think you lay down the logic and thinking very clearly. It is a shame, however, that it is laid out only here, and was not made over and over again by the President and his administration before and after the Iraq invasion. The American people voted on what they knew and had heard repeated to them over and over again. And the support for the war evaporated in part because large numbers of voters decided they had been duped. The President didn't see fit to virgorously challenge the media's narrative, and the consequences for that are now with us.
I don't buy it. Each of us and our leaders have an obligation to advocate for what we believe is right. How one reads the electoral mandate on 'cut and run' is debatable. Even if the answer were absolute, it is not static.
The devil made me do it. Some posts on this board seem to me to be adopting a passive-aggressive strategy. Perhaps you are not. Perhaps you really do advocate from personal conviction that our presence in Iraq has nothing to do with the GWOT. I would like to see you argue that on the merits. But to argue that it is true because the American people voted it so, and that they have dictated a wait to be hit strategy, randomly sacrificing many of our citizens who have not individually chosen death, and countenanced whatever it is we leave behind in the Middle East... I don't know, I call foul. I hope it is facetious.
The imputed voice of the majority calling "we don't care" does not obligate me as a citizen to advocate that position. And it does not allow me to wash my hands of responsibility for the negative and possibly immoral results I may believe attach to that position. I have a responsibility to try and change it. And besides, elections install representatives who set policy. And this election did not give Dems the ability to completely and thoroughly set policy. So the fight over what is right must go on. To become passive is a cheap way out which will only increase overall failure and which itself deserves to be blamed.
I understand that some feel it unwise to make sacrifices in a losing cause. And there is a very fair question of judgment there. But what if we are 6-18 months away from leaving behind a stable democracy in Iraq? Did the election give us the answer to that question?
John E.
Blame the leaders.
Bush did this by breaking his own word: He fought this as a limited, PC war.
To blame the Iraqis for declining to lay down, when we never made them lay down, is silly.
We should have bombed Fallujah flat, killed Sadr immediately, provided enough security for the UN and the pro-American mullahs, from the beginning.
We should have sealed the Syrian and Iranian borders, and bombed the Iranian facilities making the so-called IEDs.
We should have told Syria to either give it up or have their ports shut down.
Bush pulled his punches, and he gets the black mark for it.
There's no reason that SADR is calling many of the shots in Iraq right now.
This war was fought on the cheap. It was a new, improved war, where only the bad guys will die, and that will involve rainbows and kittens.
That's not what war is.
Just look at how many civilians died in WWII.
Victory would've involved a much dirtier, messier, more morally complicated execution. And it would've taken not only more blood and treasure, but a commitment from a nation that lacks the penchant for foreign adventures that was inherent to peoples like the Brits.
I tend to agree with (look away! look away!) McCain (told you to look away!) that we should either pound the bad guys into submission or get out and let them pummel each other. We're not doing any good otherwise.
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Rudy for President: Four years of low taxes, balanced budgets, conservative judges, and dead terrorists.
but it is only a very small part of it, and retreat from Iraq no more signals defeat in the larger struggle (which, like the Cold War, will last decades) than McClellan's retreat from the james Peninsula mneant that the union has lost the Civil War. Battles are not always won, and tactical retreats are sometimes necessary. That does not, I repeat, absolutely does not, mean "defeat"! So let the handwringing and gloom-mongering cease.
Now, if we do retreat from Iraq (hopefully to rebuild both our forces, our morale, and our international repute so we can better deal with Iran, which was the greater enemy all along) we must do so in good order, finding the best settlement (which may not be very good, alas) we can for that unahppy country-- we do owe that much to those people.
One thing that our failure in Iraq does mean is that the dream of turning the Middle East into any kind of democracy has failed and its probably time for a realpolitk approach now. It was worth the attempt, let no one dispute that, but it just did not work. Now we have to try something else.
That does not, I repeat, absolutely does not, mean "defeat"! followed by One thing that our failure in Iraq does mean...
First of all, by going back to the Civil War, you've made a tactical error. Lincoln was ABSOLUTELY committed to winning at all cost. His problem was finding a General who would do just that. I suspect that the editors of the NYT would be hanging from a lamppost outside their former offices were Abe still POTUS. Your example is meaningless, because "retreating" in the case of Iraq simply underlines that fact that the American political class do not have the will to fight and win. You would be better inclined to point out AQ's response after Mogadishu.
With respect to your comments about rebuilding our forces and our morale, you've spent too much time reading the NYT. They are doing fine. What we need is to find the will to win in the heart of the American political and media systems. They are cowards.
The single most unbelievable comment in your post is the part about rebuilding our international repute so we can address Iran. The EU spent the last three years urinating into the wind exercising diplomacy that's gone nowhere. And will go nowhere. The "international community" isn't about to do anything about Iran or Syria or Hezbollah or Hamas or Sudan or anywhere else in the world.
In case you haven't noticed, the "international community" has been trying "diplomacy" in the ME for the last three decades. See Carter, Jimmy and Clinton, Bill for examples of raging failures in the region.
_______________________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
Iraq is not a "very small part" of the GWOT. It is not a single battle. It is a theater. It is the most important theater in the GWOT right now, because it is where we the action and most of the enemy is concentrated at the moment.
A much better analogy: If we, along with the British, decided to cut-and-run from North Africa or we decided to cut-and-run from the Pacific, we would certainly not be living in the same world we are today.
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"I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
a battle. It was an attempt (and a well-intentioned one) to try to reform the Arab world. It failed. When that happens you do not continue to throw good money after bad (and live soliders after the dead). You pull back, regroup, and seek out some other avenue by which to pursue your goals. The notion you folks propound (stay the course no matter what) wastes men, wastes money, wastes morale, and will lead to a far bigger defeat than a simple tactical retreat now would. (Again, this is not "cut and run"; I am proposing a well-ordered retreat with things as settled in Iraq as they can be). Wars have been lost because people refused to admit temporary failure (generally for reasons of arrogance and ego). Study the great generals of the past: if at first they didn't suceeed they tried something else. Staying the course in Iraq would be as stupid as the WWI generals who just insisted that frontal assaults would lead to victory if they could just kill another 100,000 men in the process. Be creative, find some new tactics, a new way to address the needs of this struggle.
And above all, quit the doom-mongering. That's a big, big part of the problem: you are creating a self-fulfilling prophesy!
As for my Civil War analogy it is apt: Virinia was one theater of that conflict, and much of whatr hapepned there was a waste of men and money. The Civil War was actually won in the west (of the CSA) and on the seas. In Virginia the Union could not win; but a few more bungles and it might well have lost there.
It was won in Georgia. It could have been won sooner in Virginia if McClellan didn't always assume there was 3 times as many rebels as there were.
The Dems and drive-by media (one and the same) has spent the past several months trying to convince us that the election is a referendum on Iraq. Last I checked, war powers rest with the President, who was not on the ballot.
I do think we need to step up operations though. Maybe if we break out with a few nukes (listen up, Iran) and show the Middle East that we mean business, someone over there with real influence just might get it. But to borrow from "the Great One", as long as we keep dropping care packages along with bombs, we're not going to get anywhere except for more of the same.
It does no good to pretend that we get to tell the Democrats what they can and cannot do with their majorities in both houses of Congress. It also doesn't matter whether we think Iraq was on the ballot. The Democrats get to decide whether it was; they are the ones who now control the purse strings. If they do not affirmatively vote to fund the war effort, the war effort must cease: "No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law."
I watched them do this same thing 32 years ago. It was one of the most shameful episodes in our nation's history. Millions died as a consequence of the policy dictated by a Democratic majority in Congress. Do you see them wearing their shame? John Kerry was there; he helped make it happen. Edward Kennedy was in the Senate; this will be the second ignominious defeat he will have helped engineer for the United States. Are they ashamed? Not at all. They are proud of what they do.
They were just handed Congressional majorities in both houses, by people who pretty much knew what the Democrats would do if they got in. The worst thing we can do right now is try to apply the rules of Fantasyland to a real-world situation. In the real world, Nancy Pelosi is calling the shots on what gets funded and what doesn't. Start with that; don't start with the idea that "war powers rest with the President." Without money, the President can't do anything.
Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.
...but that doesn't mean that that we have to just lie down and take whatever the libs want to dish out. The President does have veto power and he might actually start using it. If they send him a budget that doesn't include what he thinks is necessary, he can send it back. The Dems may have a slight majority and Herr Pelosi may get to call some shots, but they don't get free reign. They don't have 2/3. They will have to compromise on some things.
President Bush can veto all he wants, but unless Pelosi and Reid each get a bill funding the war through their respective chambers, then the war will have to cease.
Vetos can only block legislation. They cannot force legislation.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
With or without a veto override, it won't happen because the numbers aren't there, as I quoted. A veto would be part of the process. We need a defense bill every year so the democrats would absolutely have to pass that unless they wanted ALL defense of the US to stop, which is obviously not going to happen. In this imaginary scenario they would pass a defense bill without funding for certain things in Iraq. The president would veto, and there aren't enough democrats to override. In the imaginary scenario the democrats would have to risk shutting down the whole defense department, in an attempt to shut down the Iraq war.
No party would even take the risks of attempting to cut war funding that way. The democrats would only act if they had the 2/3 necessary to override the veto, like in VietNam.
This is logical because no one would cut off funding for a war in a 50%/50% situation, but only when most of the country had turned against it.
The problem is, though, that we haven't been funding the war in the regular Defense bill. We've been funding it in supplemental bills.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
If the democrats don't have the 2/3 to override and by doing so write the full legislation, then they wouldn't try it, for the same reasons. That type of shutdown would be all or nothing, starting that one morning the US troops in Iraq wouldn't be able to shoot a bullet or defend themselves. Everything in the supplemental would run out of money, no exceptions. It was never done like that and never will be.
That we have enough money to run the war for another year... until we are in the next FY. That means a supplemental will be required. That means Murtha and Pelosi will have to cooperate with the administration and let a bill come up for a vote. Yea, I can't see any problems there. They don't even have to have the vote. And there's nothing for anybody to veto. They only need the support of the leadership to kill funding for the war.
I wouldn't be so sure they don't have the votes in the House to kill off funding for the war should it come to a vote, anyway... sure, some Democrats will cross, but so will some Republicans.
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"I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more I have of it." -- Thomas Jefferson
That tells me I need to take a break from RedState for a while.
Evil men hide from the truth, but good men stand upon it.
In fact, the exit polls showed that only one-third of voters favored withdrawal on a timetable. Those are the same freakin' moonbats who were against the war in mid-2003.
The Democrats who won Republican seats on the 7th pointedly did NOT call for withdrawal necessarily, and most specifically ruled out any time frame. They were more general, lavish with their criticism of Bush/Rumsfeld but vague where their own ideas were concerned.
For example, Patrick Murphy, the "antiwar Iraq vet" who beat Mike Fitzpatrick in PA, refused to even say whether or not he would have voted for the Iraq War Resolution EVEN IF WE KNEW NO WMDs WOULD BE FOUND. And this is an "antiwar" candidate!
No, the Democrats certainly COULD HAVE campaigned on "cut 'n' run" if they chose to. Not only did they refuse to do so, they complained loudly whenever the phrase was used.
Now, the Democrats do have the power to cut the funding, if they can muster the votes in their own narrow majority. Heath Shuler, Brad Ellsworth, Baron Hill, and others will hesitate.
If they do NOT force withdrawal, though, they will have to deal with their moonbat base, who would rather see terrorists win if they can claim Bush lost. That would start a Democratic Civil War.
I'll bring the popcorn, you bring the beer. Good stuff, none of this mass-produced domestic swill.
- the exit polls showed that only one-third of voters favored withdrawal on a timetable
You must run and tell Nancy Pelosi. She may not know this.
Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.
And now, as someone approximately half your age, I am going to witness firsthand and for the first time what you witnessed 32 years ago, while you watch it happen for the second time. Those are some big shoes to fill and I intend to stick around, because you did.
I blame the American people specifically, and The West in general.
When the nukes go off in American cities, they won't have to look far for who's to blame - they'll only have to look in the mirror at their own complacency, smugness and ignorance.
In the end, Bin Laden was right - The West is the "Weak Horse". And weak horses deserve to lose.