Why Iraq?
Dean
One of the things that constantly chagrins me is how often those of us who supported the liberation of Iraq have to explain, again and again and again, why we viewed it as the right thing to do, still think it's the right thing to do, and don't regret advocating it at all.
It's not that I mind the disagreement. It's just wearisome that most of the people who opposed it still seem to act like they don't even know what the other side's arguments are. It's truly maddening, and often exhausting if you're a writer and you get constantly pelted with questions about it.
Mind you, not everyone on the other side does this. Just a depressingly high number of the ones I encounter.
Although I have some niggling arguments here and there, I think John Weidner has very good summation of the pro-war arguments, none of which have changed substantially in the last two years. For the most part, this is what I and most of the other advocates for the liberation of Iraq have been saying all along--and pretty consistently so, I might add. I suggest you read the whole thing.
That way, those of you who favored it can remember what it's all about--and those of you who are opposed can at least know your opponents and their arguments a bit better.
Do you agree that you can be opposed to the war in Iraq and still be an intelligent, reasonable person? I see a lot of opinions from the right that run about "If you can't see why the war in Iraq was necessary, you're {feeble-minded, stupid, the enemy, a moonbat}". Where do you fall?
The Presbyterians have always had a good saying: "Men of good faith may differ".
Although it becomes more complicated once we actually are at war. Once the Congress voted their war declaration, then I think a patriot does his best to set aside his reservations while still expressing them firmly, understanding that this is an argument he lost, and tries to support America to victory (or an intelligent, non-panicked withdrawal).
I mean, it really is a simple question: do you want us to be victorious or don't you? You thought it was a mistake to go, but now we're there. We had a year of debate on this, and the anti-war side lost when the Congress voted overwhelmingly (and in bi-partisan fashion) to authorize the expedition. So now, do you want to carp and whine because you lost? Do you want to spread as much disunity and poison about our troops and our leaders as you can, just because you lost? Or do you maybe want to do what you can to support our troops, express your dissent thoughtfully, and try to reason your fellow Americans into what you think is a better course of action--rather than spreading hatred, vitriol, and slime, like the Michael Moores and Ted Ralls and Tom Tomorrows of the world?
We are there now, and we are engaged in a struggle to bring democracy and human rights to a region that has never had them. Do you believe this is a hopeless project and should never have been embarked upon? Well, I can see why someone would think so, though I believe them wrong. But it would certainly help, to start, if those of you who think this would actually try to engage rationally and thoughtfully, with the understanding that those who disagree with you may have some good points and may just have been very thoughtful and intelligent themselves.
Hey, my ears are burning! :)
I believe the free world has a moral obligation as well as a political imperative to rid the world of these pestilent little death camps. Should you Americans elect to raise an army ten million strong and carry freedom to the world on the point of a bayonet it would stir me to such emotion that I would seek to join you on that crusade. I do not say such things lightly.
The moral obligation is that of a people who enjoy the fruits of freedom and prosperity. The political imperative is simply this: you are running out of time.
On a related note, I just finished Lee Harris' "Civilization and Its Enemies." Some minor problems, but overall, pure genius. He lays down a masterful framework for our current war. I took this book out of the library, and then bought a copy right after I finished it. I'll read it again, but right now I'm lending it out. Worth the read. VERY worth the read.
Yup, I feel the same way.
Just enough of us doing that has, I think, put us in the position where the Democratic nominee has pledged not to cut and run on Iraq.
Which is good, because that would be a disaster for America and the world at large.
To me, this is a far more imminent danger than Iraq ever was, even if the assertions by the administration regarding both WMD and terrorist connections were entirely correct.
I would like to see someone who supported the war in Iraq without reservations give a list of why we should NOT invade North Korea in the same fashion.
THE ENTIRE LIST OF WHY WE SHOULD NOT INVADE NORTH KOREA:
1) They already have nuclear weapons, and would undoubtedly use them.
End of list.
Well, it should be the end of the list. Are you really willing to see Seoul, possibly Tokyo, possibly even Los Angeles, disappear under a firey mushroom cloud just to make the world a safer place? If so, then advocate the cause of invading Kim's psychotic hellhole regime. Otherwise, please (please God!) think twice.
I might add that, way down on the list (below #1, #1, #1, #1, #1, #1, #1, #1, and #1) there is another reason:
#10) The Chinese would very possibly be drawn into the conflict and side with North Korea, which would mean we were going to war with not just North Korea, but a second nation of over a billion people and nuclear arms of its own.
Seriously, man, what's not to understand? Invading North Korea would be crazy crazy dangerous. To be entirely blunt with you, I would advocate it if I thought it possible, for the world would undoubtedly be a far, far better place if we did. But seriously, you might as well suggest that the world would be a better place if we could all flap our arms and fly. Which it might well be, if only it were possible.
If you're curious why I think we should accompish regime change in Iran and Saudi Arabia sooner rather than later, see Dean's North Korea list. Once they get nukes the whole military equation changes.
Other than the China factor, if Iraq had the WMD that many Iraq-war supporters claimed, then the scenario you outlined could be written "Do you want to see Tel Aviv go up in a mushroom cloud? How about the major oil installations in Saudi Arabia, crippling the worlds oil supply and creating a bigger depression than the one that started in 1929?" So given what we knew BEFORE the Iraq invasion, the objections you raise for an invation of North Korea (again, discounting the China factor) could have been applied to an invasion of Iraq. China is indeed a knotty problem, but if they knew we were serious about invading North Korea, they may have been more willing to put the pressure on North Korea to open up their facilties to inspection to avoid that conflict occurring. Even with their people resources, as a developing country China has more to lose than we do in a war and would be far more reluctant to directly intervene as they did when Mao was in charge.
I should have posed my question differently, my apologies for that, but if we are going to evaluate John Kerry on his main "selling point", his service in Vietnam (which I feel is incredibly idiotic and may well deservedly lose him the election), we should evaluate George Bush on what he is using as a main theme, which is that the world is safer now. I contend it is not, because a North Korea with 10 or 20 nukes is far more likely to sell one than a North Korea with 4 or 5.
With what was known 2 years ago, at that time I was against the decision to invade Iraq as part of the first use of our new "doctrine of pre-emption", and I was FOR an invasion of North Korea if we were going to apply that doctrine at all. If you are going to have a doctrine of pre-emption, you better be sure to use it on the RIGHT targets, in other words, the most dangerous, not the ones least likely to give you a black eye. Two years ago, I contended that Iraq was not as dangerous as North Korea, but we invaded Iraq and we've let North Korea hang fire, allowing time for them to continue development of both nuclear weapons and missiles. Given what we know now, we should be asking the same question, which was the more imminent danger? Unfortunately, I suspect we'll see sometime within the next 20 years which choice was correct.
I predicted that we would have thousands of casualties and that the war would cost $100s of Billions of dollars. I predicted that the Iraqis would not really rise to our support. I predicted that our unilateral invasion would weaken our alliances and overextend our armies. I predicted that our military forces, while quite capable, would be shown to poor at nation building and in general make America appear weaker to our enemies.
When I pointed these things out, the raving loons on the Right, which there are very many, called me a coward, a traitor and a terrorist lover.
Now I consider myself patriotic, so I take these charges very seriously. I am a Veteran of our armed forces. I pay my taxes dilligently. I serve on Jury Duty and vote in every election. I always volunteer some time to help the democratic process around election season, either as a campaign helper or as a poll worker, or in some other capacity. It infuriates me that my reasoned, patriotic opposition to the War on Iraq subjected me to such charges. Just as Dean will not forgive the Democrats for their attacks on Bush, I will not forgive the Republicans for their personal, vitriolic, unbalanced attacks on anyone who disagreed with them. I am not a Democrat, but these attacks pushed me very close to them.
They continue in this vein today: just read any Ann Coulter column, listen to any Rush Limbaugh show or *shudder* tune the dial to Michael Savage. These people are mainstream Republican commentators. The only thing comparable on the left might be something like The Ruckus Society or Indymedia and these groups hate the Democratic Party for being too moderate.
"If you're curious why I think we should accompish regime change in Iran and Saudi Arabia sooner rather than later, see Dean's North Korea list. Once they get nukes the whole military equation changes."
You're absolutely right. Iran (the center of Shiite Islam) and Saudi Arabia (the center of Sunnite Islam) are our deadliest enemies. Islam is NOT "the Religion of Peace"! They hate America and the West and they will destroy us at the first opportunity. We must destroy them before they destroy us. We are at War. Wake up, America! Wake up, Mr. President!
Political Correctness: America's time bomb?
If I follow your logic correctly, you would have found it acceptable to lose Seoul or Tokyo and just possibly Los Angeles (we had evidence as far back as the Clinton administration that Kim had missiles that could reach the California coast), just becuase he might get more nukes later?
I'm sorry, I cannot see how you think this is reasonable. I really cannot. In my view, once a power becomes nuclear armed, the "invade them because they're dangerous" option becomes very nearly out of the question so far as I'm concerned, and I would hazard a guess that at least 9 out of 10 people would agree. Nor do I accept the "well, because we can't take out North Korea, we shouldn't take out anyone else." Both of these notions fail to parse for me.
Again, look at a map, look at North Korea. None of that would be possible there. And by doing what you suggested, quite possibly 22 million people in Seoul, along with tens of thousands of American troops, would possibly have been killed in a single blast.
You cannot draw a comparison between these scenarios, man. That's totally insane.
Now, that said: Ann Coulter is a vile, noxious woman and an embarassment to anyone who votes for Bush. Limbaugh and Savage, mildly less so. Then again, Michael Moore and Ted Rall are every bit as horrendously nasty and hateful, and you don't seem to be blaming Democrats for them. Why? They're at least as "mainstream" as Savage or Coulter.
As for your opposition to the Iraq war: I read a lot of mainstream left and right commenters, and I don't recall any who said that principled opposition to the Iraq war made anyone "a coward, a traitor and a terrorist lover." I don't listen to Coulter, Limbaugh, or Savage though, because they all alternately repulse and annoy me. So maybe I missed where they did that.
However, what I did see in the runup to the Iraq war was a depressing type of leftist who made the most vile and hideous arguments about it. I saw, heard with my own ears, read with my own eyes, leftists saying such horrendous things as we were "going to war for oil," that it was all "to make Harken and Halliburton rich," that it was a "racist war against Arabs," that people like me who advocated it were "bloodthirsty" and were "chickenhawks" (i.e. cowards) and even "murderbloggers." There was all that and more, on and on it went.
Worst of all, theere were the people who drew a moral equivalence between Saddam and Bush.
I personally was never afraid to call such people "Saddam lovers" or "terrorist apologists." Because they deserved it. I would therefore have to ask, of the commenters you saw using such phrases, were they really as broad as you thought, or were they possibly talking about the irresponsible lefties who were talking like I mention above?
I can see why you're angry with the far right. I'm annoyed with them too, but I take greater issue with the far left right now, because they're the ones doing the most damage to our war efforts. If it were the far right doing that, I'd be hugely annoyed with them too.
I mean, seriously man, I got two words for you: "Fahrenheit 9/11." Do I need to say more?
Regarding Iraq itself: my own prediction for the Iraq war is that it would take longer, cost more, and result in far more deaths than it actually has, and that establishing a new stable government there was no better than a 50% probability. On the whole I am thrilled that it's gone so much better than I (and most commentators at the time) expected. Also, despite claims from the contrary, many in the administration, going all the way up to Bush himself, were also predicting that it would be a long, difficult, costly struggle--I'm still amused (and sometimes annoyed) that the press has been allowed to spin history into suggesting that the American people were ever made to believe by the administration that it would be no problem at all. It's simply not so.
But ah, whatever. I remain thrilled at how incredibly well the Iraq operation has gone so far, and believe the world a much better, safer place as a result. Thus it is a foregone conclusion that I would never support a candidate who said it was a mistake to go.
Fortunately, Kerry has not done that. Indeed, he's pledged not to cut and run on Iraq, for which I praise him (and have more than once).
If you believe Iraq was a mistake, okay. I happen to think you're terribly wrong. Either way, how you believe each of the two candidates will handle the aftermath should guide your vote. For me, it'll be Bush. But if Kerry wins I'll do my very best to support him.
But I did not know about this place before the war so I was left pointlessly discussing it on hard right blogs like LGF and Free Republic.
I don't like Michael Moore much either and have said so before. I think he presents an unbalanced and therefore fundamentally dishonest view of things in his so-called documentaries. We need a new word for this sort of film, though I guess propaganda works just fine.
I was against the War on Iraq primarity because I feel that it is a distraction from the real War on Terror, but I know that not everyone feels the same way. In any case, we are there now, so we have to make the best of it.
I certainly remember being told by Administration officials that Iraq would be a cake walk. In fact, that is exactly the words Ken Adelman used. Re-read this Washington Post editorial, published during the debate on the war:
Cakewalk in Iraq
This article looks kind of foolish in retrospect.
I also remember being told that the Iraqis would greet us as liberators and shower us with flowers.I don't think I really need to cite references for that. Richard Perle said that "support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder."
If you did not buy that Dean, good for you. I don't think anyone doubted that we would crush the vaunted Republican Guard like a twice cracked and glued back together vase. But the risk was always winning the war and losing the peace.
The vote in 2004 is not all about who will handle the nation building process in Iraq, though that is important. For me, it is about who has the best judgement. For a position as important as President, being able to use power in a carefully thought out deliberate manner is paramount. So the Iraq War is a telling indictment on Bush's judgement. The deliberative ones were all either run out of the Administration or sidelined.
One nit: Free Republic is not a blog, it's a free-for-all zoo, the Republican version of Democratic Underground. You won't find much rational discussion there.
Now, as for the bigger parts:
I certainly remember being told by Administration officials that Iraq would be a cake walk. In fact, that is exactly the words Ken Adelman used.
Ah, I do wish you were reading my blog back then.
Ken Adelman was a mid-level appointee to a single commission. After he said that, such people as Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumself, and Dick Cheney all specifically repudiated that statement, said they would never call it a cakewalk, and were quite concerned how difficult it would be. In announcing the invasion launch, the President warned repeatedly that it would be a long hard slog. Even on that aircraft carrier where he supposedly declared "Mission accomplished" (which he did not), the President said we still had a long, difficult struggle for ourselves in Iraq.
There is this thing called "media bias" which you apparently don't believe in, Jim, but I do, based especially on things like this. The "cakewalk" meme was repeated endlessly despite numerous repudiations from the administration, and despite countless things said by much higher level officials than Adelman.
So who to blame? The left in general for being dishonest? Or the press for failing to do its job because most reporters and editors voted for Gore and didn't believe in the war and were too eager to hype a phrase used by one mid-level official that was repudiated by everybody above him?
A guy who, by the way, resigned very shortly after making that statement?
The press has fallen down on the job in this case and in so many others on this war it's pathetic. "Cakewalk." Jesus. I can't believe people still believe this crap about "cakewalks." (Sorry Jim, I'm ranting now.)
I also remember being told that the Iraqis would greet us as liberators and shower us with flowers.
Which, of course, we were. You missed all that? It certainly happened.
Although I don't recall the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, or any other high-level officials telling us that would happen, it is indeed exactly what happened. Photos and news footage were shown all over the place. Much of it was published on this blog. You miss all that too?
Richard Perle said that "support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder."
Which, of course, is pretty much exactly what happened, Jim. Jesus, where were you in 2003, on the moon or something? Heh.
Saddam's support did collapse. We were greeted with flowers and singing and dancing in the streets. But we were warned repeatedly by the administration that there was much more to do, and observers from the government and seasoned experts from all over told us even before we went in that there would be parts of Iraq where we would be less welcome than others, especially among those minority populations that benefitted most from Saddam's regime.
To me the 2004 election is about the Iraq war. It is also about fact-checking the mainstream press, which has so horrendously misled the populace about that war and its handling, has horrendously mislead the public about the occupation pretty much ever since the minute the President landed on that aircraft carrier, and is even now still rewriting history in ways that never happened--and I know becuase I've been documenting it on this blog for two years.
I'm sorry you've bought into lies like "cakewalk" and such, Jim. I guess that would explain your vote. I just wish it were based on stuff that's actually true.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.