Did We Get Iraq Wrong?
I found Slate‘s Iraq mini-symposium very helpful in clarifying my own views on the state we’re in. To avoid boring you to tears (again), I’ll state, briefly, that
I think Jeffrey Goldberg and I are in roughly the same place. I say roughly because his last paragraph gave me pause.
But on my last trip to Iraq, four months ago, I learned that many of Saddam’s victims continue to see the invasion as a triumph of justice. The Kurds, who make up nearly 20 percent of Iraq, remain, by and large, quite pleased with the Anglo-American invasion, which removed from their collective neck a regime that did an excellent job over the years of murdering them.
Many of Saddam’s victims see the invasion this way, but, if we consider a large swathe of Iraqis to be among Saddam’s victims, I’m guessing most do not. And why don’t they? There’s the obvious matter of all the murder and mayhem that’s followed the invasion, but I also think there was a real lack of political maturity, I know this sounds inflammatory, on the part of Iraqis — a subject Kanan Makiya address in his mini-essay is right.
All of a sudden this raw, profoundly abused population, traumatized by decades of war, repression, uprisings, and brutal campaigns of social extermination, was handed the opportunity to build a nation from scratch. True, they were adept at learning the most arresting symbols of their re-entry into the world—the mobile phone and the satellite dish, for example. But it proved infinitely harder to get rid of the mistrust, fear, and unwillingness to take initiative or responsibility that was ingrained into a people by a whole way of survival in police-state conditions.
And I think this actually explains a lot about the modern Middle East, particularly the passivity, as awful as that sounds, of the Iranian population. Imagine if, as Makiya counseled, the Shia leadership had behaved somewhat more magnanimously over the past five years. Granted, this would be pretty damn difficult given Shia suffering at the hands of Saddam. But Iraq would look very different, I suspect, if we had seen a more conciliatory stance. This must sound like blaming the victim. I actually think calling for withdrawal is blaming the victim — let them shape up on their own time! Actually, we’ve accrued a moral obligation that goes well beyond increasing the number of Iraqi refugees we allow to settle in the United States.
Christopher Hitchens, unsurprisingly, writes the most tart entry. I guess I don’t think of the invasion in quite the same terms, though he’s certainly right that the phony war was going on for a very long time.
Basically, I believe there are two positions on the invasion that have been vindicated. The first is the Michael Walzer position that has received so much criticism of late: tighten the vise on Saddam, keep the inspections going and escalate the military pressure while you do it.
The second is the Perry Anderson position, outlined in his brilliant essay, “Casuistries of Peace and War.” Every sentence is worth reading, but this passage is particularly powerful.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty is a mockery of any principles of equality or justice – those who possess weapons of mass destruction insisting that everyone except themselves give them up, in the interests of humanity. If any states had a claim to such weapons, it would be small not large ones, since that would counterbalance the overweening power of the latter. In practice, as one would expect, such weapons have already spread, and so long as the big powers refuse to abandon theirs, there is no principled reason to oppose their possession by others. Kenneth Waltz, doyen of American international relations theory, an impeccably respectable source, long ago published a calm and detailed essay, which has never been refuted, entitled ‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better’. It can be recommended. The idea that Iraq or North Korea should not be permitted such weapons, while those of Israel or white South Africa could be condoned, has no logical basis.
So what is the third position we are supposed to accept? It seems to be that it was blindingly obvious that Scott Ritter was right and German intelligence was wrong. Interesting.
Then there is the notion that the US never had the resources — the troop strength, first and foremost — to successfully pacify Iraq, a heavily urban country that would require at least as many troops per capita as, say, Bosnia. Given the success of the surge strategy (limited, to be sure, to lowering the temperature of a communal conflict and reducing sectarian violence in Baghdad), it seems a sharp increase shortly after the invasion would have made a difference, not to mention, well, general competence. But perhaps not. Makiya identified the crucial variable, and I tend to think the relative magnanimity of Shia Iraqis was essentially unknowable.
I should mention Luke Mitchell’s excellent piece on Iraq, and the role of oil in the invasion and occupation. I tend to think it’s pretty obvious that we didn’t invade for oil — if anything, oil interests were pressing for detente with Saddam for obvious reasons, including some voices within the Bush Administration. But yes, part of the reason I think we need to stay is that Iraq is a key swing producer. It’s reason number 3 or 4, but it’s certainly in the top 5.
<i>And I think this actually explains a lot about the modern Middle East, particularly the passivity, as awful as that sounds, of the Iranian population.</i>
hm. do you think that the analogy is a strong on here? i mean, it seems from what i know that iraq or syria, garrison states run by ethno-religious minorities (sunni arabs and alawites) are/were far more totalitarian than iran, which is authoritarian but has given some “vent” to popular intent now and then (e.g., the two khatami wins). i guess i’m saying that iran is a “real state,” with an identity that goes back to the unification under the safavids and their imposition of twelver shiism as the religion of the state.
— razib · Mar 20, 06:29 AM · #
Short answers to simple questions:
Did we get Iraq wrong? Yes.
A few more points.
The Shia showed very surprising patience after the invasion. It wasn’t until after the Golden Dome in Samarra was destroyed in 2006 that they really took the gloves off. This was after almost three years in which terrorists coming across borders we left open, using explosives from massive ammo dumps we left unguarded were murdering them with great abandon. If we don’t like the way Shia politics have turned out, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
When people like McCain talk about victory, or finishing the job, or even moral obligation, it is usually a way to avoid the real questions: is it in our national interest to stay? Is it in the Iraqis’ interest?
The answer to the first is no. There’s no way the best way we can spend another trillion or so dollars (along with the lives of more thousands of young people) is to hang on for another 5 or 10 years in the hopes that something better will happen.
The answer to the second is harder to know, but I’ve never seen a convincing argument that we can in the long run improve the lives of Iraqis.
— Peter · Mar 20, 07:04 AM · #
The answer to the second is harder to know, but I’ve never seen a convincing argument that we can in the long run improve the lives of Iraqis.
Furthermore, if we spent a portion of the trillions we spend there on humanitarian aid in other countries, we would almost certainly improve their lives far more than we are currently (if at all) improving Iraqi lives.
Heck, if we just used that money to pay down debts, that would probably mean more improvement for the world than what we’re doing in Iraq.
Sometimes war is necessary to maintain what you have, but it’s a really bad way to improve things.
— Consumatopia · Mar 20, 12:55 PM · #
The second is the Perry Anderson position, outlined in his brilliant essay, “Casuistries of Peace and War.” Every sentence is worth reading, but this passage is particularly powerful.
Every sentence is worth reading to see how badly they stand up to the test of time. All six of the “iron-clad” arguments he offers in defense of the invasion look really damn stupid five years later. That is what is so embarrassing about our march to war five years ago—that it was wrong for so many reasons. It was illegal, immoral, bad for Iraqis, bad for America, bad for counter-proliferation, good for terrorists, bad for oil supplies (though if you operating under the Administration’s delusion that it could enforce order in Iraq than the war would be good for oil, therefore oil was almost certainly a very high if not top motivator for invading.) And it resulted in North Korea removing the seals on their reprocessed plutonium. It was bad for many reasons, good for few or none, and it was avoidable.
Pretty much every argument against invading Iraq has been vindicated, and if anyone argued against any argument—even just as a foil to use for their own argument against invading—then they were wrong. I know I was. And while Anderson was certainly interesting, there’s definitely a lot he wrote there that looks foolish in retrospect (and a lot of that probably looked foolish at the time).
— Consumatopia · Mar 20, 01:12 PM · #
Consumatopia, did you read the piece? He found those arguments lacking as well. His piece was an argument against the invasion. He proposes a smarter framework for thinking through the war:
An alternative perspective can be suggested in a few telegraphic propositions.
1. No international community exists. The term is a euphemism for American hegemony. It is to the credit of the Administration that some of its officials have abandoned it.
2. The United Nations is not a seat of impartial authority. Its structure, giving overwhelming formal power to five victor nations of a war fought fifty years ago, is politically indefensible: comparable historically to the Holy Alliance of the early 19th century, which also proclaimed its mission to be the preservation of ‘international peace’ for the ‘benefit of humanity’. So long as these powers were divided by the Cold War, they neutralised each other in the Security Council, and the organisation could do little harm. But since the Cold War came to an end, the UN has become essentially a screen for American will. Supposedly dedicated to the cause of international peace, the organisation has waged two major wars since 1945 and prevented none. Its resolutions are mostly exercises in ideological manipulation. Some of its secondary affiliates – Unesco, Unctad and the like – do good work, and the General Assembly does little harm. But there is no prospect of reforming the Security Council. The world would be better off – a more honest and equal arena of states – without it.
3. The nuclear oligopoly of the five victor powers of 1945 is equally indefensible. The Non-Proliferation Treaty is a mockery of any principles of equality or justice – those who possess weapons of mass destruction insisting that everyone except themselves give them up, in the interests of humanity. If any states had a claim to such weapons, it would be small not large ones, since that would counterbalance the overweening power of the latter. In practice, as one would expect, such weapons have already spread, and so long as the big powers refuse to abandon theirs, there is no principled reason to oppose their possession by others. Kenneth Waltz, doyen of American international relations theory, an impeccably respectable source, long ago published a calm and detailed essay, which has never been refuted, entitled ‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better’. It can be recommended. The idea that Iraq or North Korea should not be permitted such weapons, while those of Israel or white South Africa could be condoned, has no logical basis.
4. Annexations of territory – conquests, in more traditional language – whose punishment provides the nominal justification of the UN blockade of Iraq, have never resulted in UN retribution when the conquerors were allies of the United States, only when they were its adversaries. Israel’s borders, in defiance of the UN resolutions of 1947, not to speak of 1967, are the product of conquest. Turkey seized two-fifths of Cyprus, Indonesia East Timor, and Morocco Western Sahara, without a tremor in the Security Council. Legal niceties matter only when the interests of enemies are at stake. So far as Iraq is concerned, the exceptional aggressions of the Baath regime are a myth, as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt – hardly two incendiary radicals – have recently shown in some detail in their recent essay in Foreign Policy.
5. Terrorism, of the sort practised by al-Qaida, is not a serious threat to the status quo anywhere. The success of the spectacular attack of 11 September depended on surprise – even by the fourth plane, it was impossible to repeat. Had al-Qaida ever been a strong organisation, it would have aimed its blows at client states of America in the Middle East, where the overthrow of a regime would make a political difference, rather than at America itself, where it could not leave so much as a strategic pinprick. As Olivier Roy and Gilles Keppel, the two best authorities in the field of contemporary Islamism have argued, al-Qaida is the isolated remnant of a mass movement of Muslim fundamentalism, whose turn to terror is the symptom of a larger weakness and defeat – an Islamic equivalent of the Red Army Faction or Red Brigades that emerged in Germany and Italy after the great student uprisings of the late 1960s faded away, and were easily quelled by the state. The complete inability of al-Qaida to stage even a single attentat, while its base was being pounded to shreds and its leadership killed off in Afghanistan, speaks volumes about its weakness. In different ways, it suits both the Administration and the Democratic opposition to conjure up the spectre of a vast and deadly conspiracy, capable of striking at any moment, but this is a figment with little bearing one way or another on Iraq, which is neither connected to al-Qaida today, nor likely to give it much of a boost, if it falls tomorrow.
6. Domestic tyrannies, or the abuse of human rights, which are now held to justify military interventions – overriding national sovereignty in the name of humanitarian values – are treated no less selectively by the UN. The Iraqi regime is a brutal dictatorship, but until it attacked an American pawn in the Gulf, it was armed and funded by the West. Its record is less bloody than that of the Indonesian regime that for three decades was the West’s main pillar in South-East Asia. Torture was legal in Israel till yesterday, openly sanctioned by the Supreme Court, and is unlikely to have disappeared today without an eyelash being batted by the assembled Western Governments that have befriended it. Turkey, freshly off the mark for entry into the EU, does not, unlike Iraq, even tolerate the language of its Kurds – and, as a member of Nato in good standing, likewise jails and tortures without hindrance. As for ‘international justice’, the farce of the Hague Tribunal on Yugoslavia, where Nato is prosecutor and judge, will be amplified in the International Criminal Court, in which the Security Council can forbid or suspend any actions it dislikes (i.e. which might ruffle its permanent members), and private firms or millionaires – Walmart or Dow Chemicals, Hinduja or Fayed, as the case might be – are cordially invited to fund investigations (Articles 16 and 116). Saddam, if captured, will certainly be arraigned before this august body. Who imagines that Sharon or Putin or Mubarak would ever be, any more than was once Tudjman before its predecessor?
What conclusions follow? Simply this. Mewling about Blair’s folly or Bush’s crudity, is merely saving the furniture. Arguments about the impending war would do better to focus on the entire prior structure of the special treatment accorded to Iraq by the United Nations, rather than wrangle over the secondary issue of whether to continue strangling the country slowly or to put it out of its misery quickly.
— Reihan · Mar 20, 03:07 PM · #
First of all, I think this series says more about human nature than anything else, because most of the people writing are conceding little and apologizing for nothing.
Second, Jeffrey Goldberg or anyone else citing Kurdistan as a reason for pride in Iraq is idiocy. There is no democracy going on in Kurdistan. Kurdistan is ruled by two competing, corrupt oligarchies. The idea that Kurdistan is this flowering beacon of democracy is just evidence of American media’s continued ignorance of what’s going on in the region. (And we should probably keep in mind, if we’re inclined to pieties about Kurdistan, that the United States enthusiastically supported Turkey’s brutal oppression of the Kurds for years.)
I actually think calling for withdrawal is blaming the victim — let them shape up on their own time! Actually, we’ve accrued a moral obligation that goes well beyond increasing the number of Iraqi refugees we allow to settle in the United States.
First of all, saying that someone else is blaming the victim while you continue to assault them is a pretty neat trick. Second of all— if I was making this kind of an argument, you can damn well believe I would be on my knees begging for forgiveness for getting this aspect wrong in the first place. The kind of intellectual turn that is taken here (and it’s hardly Reihan who does so) is truly breathtaking. You were right about many of the reasons that we shouldn’t go in; but now that we’ve seen those things come to pass, they’re reasons why we have to stay. And by the way, sorry for calling you cowards, America-haters, naive children, and worse. Sorry for belittling and insulting you. Sorry for acting as if your opinions weren’t “serious”, for doing absolutely everything in our power to marginalize and disenfranchise you. (But not really.)
And, by the way, coming from a libertarian, I find the line “let them shape up on their own time”, spoken facetiously, to be odd. That is precisely the attitude towards the people of, say, West Baltimore. This highlights again the central incoherence of economic conservative’s support of the war in Iraq: there is no amount of resources appropriate to help the poor of our own country; there is no limit to the amount of resources we owe to help the poor people of Iraq. Welfare and food stamps create a culture of dependency; a never ending military occupation where the occupying power provides whatever the occupied needs, and makes most of the major decisions, does not.
And, by the way, if you’d care to look you’ll see that there were anti-war commentators saying precisely this: All of a sudden this raw, profoundly abused population, traumatized by decades of war, repression, uprisings, and brutal campaigns of social extermination, was handed the opportunity to build a nation from scratch.)
And do you know the term that was used to combat us then? Racist, of course. For the pro-war drumbeaters so loved and respected the Iraqi people that the mere suggestion that they wouldn’t be able to immediately pick up and “build a nation from scratch” was typical liberal double talk on race, that we acted as if we wanted to spare the Iraqi people harm but. aha! really, we just have more typical liberal condescension for them.
Oh, and by the way, we were told, over and over again, that the war would be quick, it would be cheap, it would be painless, and it would cost America little. No one has the guts now to admit that they were saying that then, and the men who can’t deny that they said it, men like Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, are men disinclined to explain themselves to pretty much anyone, ever. I know, as we are told constantly, that the Iraqi hawks now wish someone else had prosecuted the war. I’m afraid I have no patience for the incompetence dodge; it’s like betting on a football game and cursing that the team you bet on doesn’t have better players.
Given the success of the surge strategy (limited, to be sure, to lowering the temperature of a communal conflict and reducing sectarian violence in Baghdad)
The goal of the surge, as defined by the the Pentagon, General Petraeus, and President Bush, has always been political reconciliation. Baghdad is peaceful now (and outside of the ludicrously low standards of post-Saddam Iraq, Baghdad remains one of the most dangerous cities on Earth) because it has been successfully ethnically cleansed. Peace in Iraq is inversely proportional to the degree that the different warring sects interact with one another. Do you really see reason for celebration here, Reihan? I’m always left with the same question for those who continue to support the occupation. If the Iraqis wanted to make a decision totally contrary to US interests in their country— if the Iraqi government, say, voted to nationalize the oil fields and deny any export to the United States and its allies— do you really think that would happen? Do you really believe that things the US military and government really don’t want to happen will, under the order of the Iraqi government? I don’t see how anyone can. The truth is, there is one power in Iraq, and it is almost entirely devoid of Iraqis. You cannot support a fledgling democracy by endorsing its continued occupation by the world’s lone superpower. The very presence of US troops on Iraqi soil undercuts Iraqi self-determination. You cannot have an occupying army and call yourself a self-governing country; Iraq’s government is all symbol. So who really supports Iraqi democracy? I know it’s easy for me to say this, knowing that I don’t live in near-total chaos and violence. But I’ll take an actually free, failing state over a secure vassal. I can’t continue to watch my government pour trillions of dollars and thousands of lives in creating Vichy France.
— Freddie · Mar 20, 03:28 PM · #
Then there is the notion that the US never had the resources — the troop strength, first and foremost — to successfully pacify Iraq,
You know, Reihan, the US would have plenty of troop strength if just one in ten of the people who supported the Iraq War, instead of writing whiny blog posts about us not sending enough troops to Iraq, would just go join the fucking Army. I realize leaving both the fighting and the debts of the Iraq War to our children is the official GOP position, but its ridiculous for a healthy, sane 28 year old to act all shocked, shocked at the lack of US troop strength.
— Bo · Mar 20, 03:50 PM · #
Kurdistan: this is clearly true. But does Goldberg claim that Kurdistan is a liberal democracy?
Assaulting the victim: not sure exactly how I’m doing this. I’m holding the Shia leadership class to the same standards I hold the Bangladeshi or the U.S. leadership class. Do you mean that US troops are assaulting Iraqis to no discernible purpose?
We were wrong, now there’s chaos, we have to say: I can see how this would be very frustrating. But that has no bearing on whether or not we ought to stay. It should lead you to question the judgment of those who argued for the invasion in the first place. (Some of the arguments hold up, many do not.) Once that discount is applied, we continue to weight different factors and evaluate whether or not we’re doing the right thing.
Libertarian: I’m not a libertarian, actually. To the extent I’ve tried to advance a political idea, it’s the idea that government can play an important role — through wage subsidies, through interventions designed to help working women, through a smarter approach to government healthcare spending, etc. — in helping people help themselves. I tend to agree with Jeremy Waldron on property rights more than I do with, say, Tom Palmer.
So what is my attitude towards the people of West Baltimore? It’s that they are human beings who are entitled to respect. That means we use race-neutral policies, e.g., wage subsidies, increased police presence, drug decriminalization, increased spending on mentorship programs and other efforts to build noncognitive skills, early childhood interventions, summer opportunity scholarships, etc., to remove economic obstacles facing families and neighborhoods. What we shouldn’t do is claim that capitalism is the problem. It’s not. Dysfunctional government policies and family disruption — in turn a product of decision-making warped by dysfunctional policies — are the problems.
Why does an increased police presence matter? It deters crime. Why does decriminalization matter? Ideally, it will help reduce the stakes, and thus reduce the scale of the violence. What if we do if this ideology leads us in the right direction — do we withdraw and damn the consequences? Or do we adapt and change our approach?
As a meliorist pragmatist with a neoconservative sensibility (a mouthful), I say we adapt and change.
Racism: This is a fair point. I actually think you’re giving anti-war voices too much credit, but of course it depends on who exactly you’re talking about. This is certainly what Jeane Kirkpatrick was saying (not a favorite of yours, I suspect) and Michael Walzer. It’s not what everyone was saying — not by a longshot. So yes, you pick and choose and I pick and choose. That’s to be expected.
Of course ethnic cleansing is the reason we’re seeing relative calm. Who denies that? Right now, our mission is to slow down the killing. There is the wrinkle that some people are returning to their homes. To your point re: democracy: you’ll notice that my arguments are not arguments from democracy. I don’t think democracy is always the highest value domestically.
I think you’re mostly arguing with someone else, which is your right.
Bo: war-fighting, believe it or not, is a skill. Not everyone can fight. I guess some people think, say, infantrymen are basically drones — that anyone can do their job. It’s not true. I know, because I know people who’ve done and who are doing that job, and I know my own limitations.
I would, however, slit my throat if you convinced me that I’d save many lives in the process. I don’t know what that says about me — possibly that I’m insane. But it’s true.
— Reihan · Mar 20, 06:32 PM · #
war-fighting, believe it or not, is a skill. Not everyone can fight.
Reihan, you must also know that not everyone in the Army is an infantryman. There are medics and supply drivers and mechanics and school painters and a thousand other jobs, all of whom are as necessary as the infantry to pacifying Iraq. Shouldn’t someone as committed as you are, rather than preemptively pleading incompetence at everything the Army needs, go offer the Army the chance to see if any of your abilities do correspond to its needs?
— Bo · Mar 20, 06:55 PM · #
Freddie –
While I share a lot of your frustration with the war, I’m not sure that Mr. Salam deserves to be lumped in with the National Review’s crack team of foreign policy “experts.” When the war started, I was in high school and blithely unaware of the online commentariat, but I find it difficult to imagine Mr. Salam hurling epithets like “coward” and “racist” around the blogosphere.
The rest of your post, however, is spot on. Conservatives do have this weird ideological blind spot when it comes to foreign policy. So far, no one has been able to adequately explain why conservatives are willing to suspend their suspicion of big government when it comes to warrantless surveillance, Iraq, and the War on Terror.
I also don’t get Mr. Salam’s insistence on our moral obligation to stay the course. My most frustrating college debate rounds were always those in which one team conceded that their plan a) didn’t solve for the harms presented in the first affirmative constructive and b) was probably counterproductive but continued to argue that we had an unconditional ethical obligation to act anyway. To me, this is pure pure moral narcissism, particularly in the context of foreign policy. So, if the US occupation actually deters Iraqis from creating a stable polity and encourages further violence by attracting foreign fighters and providing convenient targets for the insurgency, do we still have a moral obligation to indefinitely occupy the country? The “morality” of our dilemma in Iraq should not be framed in terms of what makes Americans feel better about themselves. We fucked things up really badly, and tragically, there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it other than withdraw.
RE: Proliferation
This is actually a really interesting and under-appreciated facet of foreign policy. My understanding of Waltz is that he is in favor of a relatively slow process of symmetric, transparent proliferation in order to encourage mutual deterrence. His findings probably buttress your contention that the NPT should be scrapped, but how would your new framework deal with the dangers of accidental launch, rapid, assymetric proliferation, or a lack of transparent confidence-building? My problem with Waltz is that he draws his conclusions from an ideal scenario of symmetrical proliferation, which I think is unlikely given the disparities in various countries’ political structures, industrial sectors, and scientific know-how.
Furthermore, I think there is an intuitive distinction between the risks of proliferation associated with relatively “mature” countries like Israel or France and the dangers of allowing lunatic dictators to acquire nuclear arsenals. The NPT might not be very fair, but simply conceding that all countries have the right to acquire nuclear weapons sounds like a pretty dangerous alternative. Wouldn’t it be better to embrace an international effort to reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons? Wasn’t the principle of universal disarmament enshrined in the original NPT? I think that alternative would resolve your fairness claims while reducing the risk of accidental nuclear exchange.
— Will · Mar 20, 08:10 PM · #
Occupying a foreign country through military force is always an assault. It doesn’t matter if you call it benevolent. It doesn’t matter if you say it’s for their own good. If you have invaded another country and hold it through military conquest, that’s an assault on the people of that country, on their liberty, their self-determination, their security, and their national identity.
— Freddie · Mar 20, 08:12 PM · #
Hi Bo:
I guess we have different ideas about democracy and commitment. I suppose you’d rather I not participate in public conversation, which is fair enough. But I’m going to keep at it.
— Reihan · Mar 20, 09:20 PM · #
That’s a strained reading bordering on mental constipation, Reihan. Obviously, being you, you’re going to “participate in public conversation” regardless of whether you join the army or not. It’s just the height of silliness to curse the darkness while standing next to the light switch.
The thing I find weird is that you even bothered pretending you would join the army if you only had the skill. Were that an honest offer, after all, you would surely be overjoyed to discover the other capacities in which you could serve. Seems not to have worked out that way though.
— Bo · Mar 20, 10:49 PM · #
Consumatopia, did you read the piece? He found those arguments lacking as well.
I did indeed read the piece. It made the typical Sovereignty Left argument that the only to argue against the war in Iraq was to was to defend the sovereignty, legitimacy and past actions of the Baathist regime—in other words, the cases for war on humanitarian, pragmatic, international law and security grounds were all “iron-clad”, given any assumption other than Saddam being a warm and fuzzy guy misunderstood by the world. This is not “a smarter framework for thinking through the war”, this is enabling the war—all of those cases were in fact wrong, even assuming the legitimacy of the United Nations, NATO, and counter-proliferation.
I, like most citizens of great power nations, think it makes perfect sense to limit nuclear weapons to the few nations that already have them. (Though I’d like to have fewer of them, assuming everybody else does as well). This may make me an utter hypocrite. Nonetheless, the hypocrisy of others is something Anderson needs to take into account when trying to prevent a war. He will never succeed in convincing great powers that the problem with the world is that they are too powerful, and if the success of such an argument was the only alternative to war, then war is inevitable. We might succeed at convincing great powers that they can get what they want through negotiation rather than violence, and anyone opposed to that process, as Anderson seems to be, is ultimately making war more likely.
Regarding Waltz’s theories, I always think of Bill Joy’s metaphor about an airplane flight in which every passenger has a button that crashes the entire airplane.
— Consumatopia · Mar 20, 11:25 PM · #
Forgive my delay in replying, I’ve apparently had difficulty posting. But, yes, I did indeed read the Perry Anderson essay. I’m sorry if I was unclear in describing it’s deficiencies. Anderson claimed that the only way to argue against the war was to make his outlandish assumptions abandoning any legitimacy not only for American military force, but for the United Nations, NATO and counter-proliferation in general. Otherwise, the arguments for war on pragmatic, international law, humanitarian, and security grounds are “iron-clad”. Regardless of whether he was right in his final conclusion, events have clearly shown him to be wrong in his reasoning. Especially when it comes to the success of arguments against war. Clearly, arguments that America was stupid to invade Iraq have been succeeding far more than arguments that America had no right to invade Iraq.
Whatever brilliance it had back in the day is obscure to me, it sure as hell doesn’t look better five years later.
— Consumatopia · Mar 21, 12:34 AM · #
ugh, sorry for double post, i’m bad at internet
— Consumatopia · Mar 21, 12:37 AM · #
Hi Bo:
I wasn’t pretending — I think the military is right for some people and not right for others. That was the point I was trying to make. The military is not right for me. How do I know? I have friends in the military. I realize I won’t convince you that I’m anything other than a loathsome chicken hawk. And frankly, this argument has been rehearsed by a lot of other people a lot smarter than me. What you don’t seem to get is that democratic publics have a right to take part in democratic decision-making whether or not, Heinlein-style, we are on the frontlines. I actually don’t defer to people who’ve served in the military — I defer to those whose judgment I find persuasive.
Let me expand on this idea that the military is not for everyone. I oppose conscription. The true horror of prescription is that people deeply unsuited to fighting or killing or to military discipline were forced to “fight.” As Randall Collins documents, only 15-25 percent of soldiers engage in heavy fighting. Half soiled themselves on the battlefield. Militaries have since grown more adept at training personnel, and the volunteer army helps. These days, a far higher proportion shoots, and shoots in the right direction.
Also, in Iraq there are no frontlines — mechanics and medics are engaged in war-fighting. That said, a lot of soldiers don’t fight. Troops in Iraq vary pretty dramatically — some are in COPS and go on long patrols. Others assiduously avoid fighting. There are heroes in the US armed forces. Not all membersof the US armed
force are heroes. They arehuman beings who’ve chosen a difficult and dangerous lineof work for a lot of different reasons: family ties, economic opportunity, in some small number of cases its ideological zeal.
I could describe at greater length why I don’t think a careerin the military isn’t right for me (I’ve thought about it a lot, not that I think I was ever obligated to think about it), but I’m uninterested in sharing those reasons with you. I clearly have a totally different conception of how society works, and how discourse should work.
I am kind of fascinated by people like you, or rather people who make arguments like yours, for the same reasons I liked reading microsociological studies. But I don’t I’ll learn much more beyond the fact that you think I’m a schmuck. And you’re probably right!
— Reihan · Mar 21, 01:38 AM · #
I can’t wrap my head around what your opinion of the war must have been before it started. Was your support for the war purely on the security level, as it seems to be now? Did you favor invasion strictly because of the possibility for the United States to provide “security”, or peace, to Iraq? (Were you perhaps a dove before invasion but are now a hawk?)
I ask these questions with respect, Reihan. And, to be honest, with genuine, deep confusion. I really can’t quite wrap my mind around someone who defends the continued occupation with such brio yet doesn’t support it from a position of supporting democracy; as much as I find that notion flatly wrong, the notion that we are supporting democracy through occupation at least has an animating passion that I can identify.
Central to my confusion is this: if security is your primary concern, how could you not support Saddam? Whatever gains have been made by the surge, Saddam’s Iraq was vastly more secure than it is now. And since you place such little emphasis on democracy or personal freedoms, that’s got to be the bottom line, isn’t it? (Wouldn’t someone who’s goal was safety for the Iraqi people be the most inclined to believe that the war has been a disastrous failure?)
I guess I would just like to see some affirmative argument for war that could explain your beliefs. I begrudge no one the right (the necessity!) of a painful and at times confusing evolution of beliefs. But I can’t find the central thread to your argument, and though your views seem to be evolving, they seem to evolve only in one direction. (And though I don’t think you feel this way… the notion of a superpower’s foreign policy being grounded on the “security” of lesser nations, and one which places such little emphasis on democracy and self-determination, scares me to death.)
— Freddie · Mar 21, 02:24 AM · #
I too find these spontaneous odes to democratic participation when the subject of voluntary military service comes up psychologically intriguing, Reihan, since they seem to as red a herring as was ever proffered. After all, nobody outside your own imagination has claimed here that your vote or speaking rights should be contingent on it.
The main problem you’re facing is that all your great ideas where US soldiers make sure every Iraqi gets his pony just don’t work if backed only by cowardly self-justifications (or secret reasons arrived at after deep deliberation if you prefer). And when generals talk about ‘breaking’ the army, they’re directly addressing the ones who, by refusing to serve for reasons unenumerated, are pushing 15 month tours of 15 hour days on the ones who are out there. But you know, they must really just hate free speech and democracy, just like I apparently do.
— Bo · Mar 21, 02:41 AM · #
Bo:
You mean you haven’t been questioning my right to have an opinion despite being a healthy 28-year-old? Well, okay then.
Re: breaking the army: not sure how closely you follow these debates, but the spontaneous enlistment of hundreds of thousands of Americans ill-suited to military service doesn’t seem like it would solve the problem. Incentives could be changed at the margin, we could use a more intelligent rotation of experienced commanders (i.e., we rotate out senior officers just as they become experienced, even when they express a desire to remain in theater), there’s a case for using more “combined action platoon” approaches, to rely less heavily on US manpower, we can incentivize the training mission (which is not rewarded in the promotion structure), we can …
And Bo: yeah, I actually do think a lot of generals are uncomfortable with free speech and democracy, particularly when it involves questioning their decisions regarding personnel and strategy, the internal politics of the military, and obscene budgets for unnecessary military hardware. You seem to think that arguments from the military’s unimpeachable moral excellence are persuasive as a matter of course, and that they needn’t be evaluated via thought or reflection. I don’t buy it. The tours you’re describing are a structural problem dating back to IRR. Individuals, regrettably, can’t solve these problems.
And actually, I think the military’s recruiting problems are in some sense a very good thing. Why? Because they are forcing us to consider measures like Jim Webb’s new GI Bill, which would make today’s veteran’s benefits as the original GI Bill was in its context.
When the senior brass and the country is screwing up, a non-conscript army is a good indicator of how good a job we’re doing of defending the country, fighting wars, etc. Clearly we’re not doing a very good job.
I don’t think you hate democracy, Bo. I think you’re enjoying this not-so-edifying exchange for reasons I don’t fully get. Perhaps you feel you’re striking a blow for moral righteousness, which is terrific for you, and I suppose I don’t begrudge you that.
And you know what: I suppose I’m doing much the same thing! I saw some articles, and decided to share my thoughts. Why? Well, I’m interested in the subject matter, and I happen to have a low-cost publishing platform. I will keep using it, and I hope you keep commenting on various other bees in my bonnet relating to questions of high moral seriousness. Because war isn’t the only matter of life and death. So is extreme poverty. And Americans fighting in Iraq aren’t the only people who are suffering, as my friends at least would be quick to remind you. The case can be made that they’re not even suffering the most — we can all form or join a Spanish Republican-style International Brigade to fight injustice around the world. The start-up costs are somewhat higher, but perhaps fighting is not the way to solve all of the world’s most pressing problems, a conviction I at least hold very strongly. Then there is the concept of comparative advantage …
Anyway, this is fun.
Freddie deserves a response. Suffice to say, I don’t support the occupation with any brio — for a long time I favored withdrawal, influenced in part by Andrew Sullivan. I changed my mind after doing some reading and talking to a number of experts, including friends in the military and friends involved in reconstruction efforts. I imagine not everyone would have reached the same conclusion, but these people were pretty persuasive and sober, and many opposed the invasion.
— Reihan · Mar 21, 02:28 PM · #
Ah, Reihan, there’s a difference between having a right and being right, a distinction you seem to have continuing problems making. Or maybe you’re just enjoying your right to be wrong too much to stop now. Your ideas of how, by shuffling the chairs better, everyone can sit, do provide a nice example of that, if a bit too redolent of that grasping at straws desperation. After all, a recent Army study recommended more time, not less, on tour and longer breaks. That is, however, from the Army, which I suppose makes it eminently ignorable if it conflicts with your pre-conceived notions.
Still, you are correct that no one individual makes a huge difference and manifestly unqualified people (one does figure that Charles Krauthammer enlisting would be more humorous than helpful) should be left out. However, considering the insufficient enrollment and the very real stresses that are resulting from that, it’s also obvious that war supporters as a group are significantly underestimating the level of commitment they need to put forward to succeed in the very endeavors they support.
So, work with me here, Reihan, and we can figure this out. Let’s say we create a unit of military unfitness, the Reihan, equivalent to your unfitness. Now, obviously, you, along with 99% of you fellow blogwarriors, think you’re on the far side of where the cut-off should be. However, the army needs more soldiers, and, since they’ve already lowered their enlistment standards several times, they obviously believe that the need for more men overrides picking from the lowest end of the Reihan scale. So, it makes sense to correct our scale to match, even if that might make the cut-off point, say, 1.2 Reihans or some point where the actual Reihan falls inside it. Now, maybe it’s still fine, and the limit is still more like .2 Reihans or something, but it does sure sound suspicious, when after telling us all about how you came to support throwing thousands of more soldiers’ lives at Iraq, you suddenly decide that your reasons for exempting yourself are top secret.
— Bo · Mar 21, 06:53 PM · #
Y’know, Bo, I know a thing or two about the Army. For what it’s worth, my political views are I think well on Reihan’s left.
I don’t swipe away what you’re saying (and nor does Reihan as I read it). But there’s a much better question you should be asking – why aren’t you signing up? The hawkish view is as you suggest kind of overrepresented in the armed forces anyway (although it is by no means universal). But I think you’re dancing around something important. Army is reaching a point, yeah, where a lot of Americans are pretty distant from it and don’t understand it. In many ways I’m one of those, too. Anyway: the massive distancing between the Army and American society — in particular the American left — is no good thing. The Army has to feel like it serves all of America, and most of America had damn well better feel like Army serves it, or we are truly, truly screwed.
So maybe Reihan should sign up. But maybe you should. It sounds like you think his views are getting better representation in uniform anyway — so I submit that you might have a greater civic obligation to serve.
Which is in not meant facetiously at all. I mean, the Army has to serve the larger American society, all the Cambridge and Berkeley types too. And everyone who has some sense of how they want to use the Army — which is, pretty much, everyone, except for the stone cold pacifists — has some service/respect obligation, which they’re going to think about how to fulfill, and go ahead and do. It sounds like Reihan’s trying to do that. Maybe he could do it better or worse but I’m less sure than you what that would entail exactly. I try in my way too. But what are you doing? And don’t say, bitching on behalf of pore pore Private Schmedlap, because sooner or later they’ll send him out to do what you want him to do, and maybe he’s going to hate that.
— Sanjay · Mar 21, 09:03 PM · #
Maybe I should go join a Baptist Church while I’m at it? I hear Jews are under-represented in those.
Seriously, Sanjay, that’s beautiful, but the Army sure as hell doesn’t serve all of America; it serves the President, full stop. That’s right there in the Constitution. I’d think the last 5 years (Happy Anniversary, Iraq Quagmire!) should be sufficient proof of the de facto-ness of that bit of de jure.
— Bo · Mar 22, 02:12 AM · #
Bo, your Baptist example is too stupid to comment on.
Don’t give me “Seriously, Sanjay, that’s beautiful,” you smarmy, ignorant young pup, until you get your facts straight. The de jure is that military commissions are voted on and awarded by Congress, for whom the military works, and they’re executed by the President in his role as C-in-C. It’s Congress, for example, that approved use-of-force in Iraq, and without it the President would have had an interesting time with that war, so there. Officers do not swear allegiance — and this is deliberate — to their command chain, so if he President asks an officer to commit a violation of Congressionally-made statute — like torturing in violation of the Army field manual — that officer can disobey and he/she has legal cover, and if he/she is shown to have broken the law, even on Presidential order, then that officer is screwed. And the de facto part is that all the military I know are pretty sure they work for the American people, and die for them. For you, although you’re welcome to believe Private Schmedlap is just deluded. And it’s a damn good thing Army feels that way, too: armies are dangerous things.
Because they are dangerous things, I don’t think anyone can seriously argue with the proposition that you want an army that “looks like America” — even more than you want a Congress or a civil service (say) that “looks like America.” (Well, with some caveats: Quakers and Amish and the like are wonderful folk to have in our culture but they are unfortunately not real real “Hooah,” and although the statutory prohibition on homosexual service is boneheaded, it’s there, so we can’t have gays in the army really until that gets fixed, which should’ve happened yesterday.) There’s any number of repulsive political extremists out there, but I have more respect for the idiot who thinks half of Americans are “Socialists” (and Reihan is not among such idiots) then for one who goes on to voice the idea that those half shouldn’t be in the army. Yet you do hear that opinion from all over the political spectrum: there are certainly people who think that there are ideological or (God help us) religious constraints on who should be serving. If you happen to belong to that class, I don’t know what to tell you, although I don’t know why anyone should listen to the ideas of anyone who so does not understand what governments or armies are, as to believe that it’s a good thing — or even acceptable — for the army to be alienated from a large chunk of the civilian populace.
If you don’t, then, well — the “chickenhawk” argument is a tough one, and I don’t dismiss it out-of-hand, nor do I much respect those conservatives who seem to think it laughably stupid: it’s not. But walk around a military base and you’ll find that at any rate, militant conservatives are doing their bit contributing to the makeup of the armed forces. Coastal liberals may not be. And because that “looks like America” criterion is so important, that’s a real, serious need for the army, the country, and maybe the larger world. It sounds like you’re better able to make a difference there than Reihan.
So, seriously: why don’t you consider serving? I mean, at least consider it. From the discussion it sounds like Reihan has thought, at least, more about it than you, and from your Baptist example it sounds like you think the idea that you have an obligation to serve is laughable or stupid. I can’t understand why that should be so.
— Sanjay · Mar 22, 08:00 PM · #
_Coastal liberals may not be. _
Evidence, please.
— Freddie · Mar 22, 09:23 PM · #
Look, Sanjay, this is only complicated insofar as you try to to obfuscate it. If I joined the army, would my job be 1) to broaden the minds of my fellow soldiers or 2) to fight the Iraqi War? Hint: the answer is 2.
And really, people should take jobs that specifically violate their principles for what reason exactly? So that the fighting the Iraq War will be nicely divided between people who think its good and people who think its bullshit? Should people who hate math be properly represented among engineers? People who hate computers among programmers? Vegetarians in slaughterhouses? Atheists in the priesthood? The army is ideologically different than the America in general because the Army’s purpose is ideologically different than America’s purpose. And that’s true of the Army every bit as much as Microsoft, GE, Perdue, your local public school, your local church and even your local drug dealers.
I mean, you even brought up Quakers and the Amish, so you must understand this at some level. Why aren’t Quakers properly represented in the Army? Wouldn’t they really provide a unique perspective? Wouldn’t a similar percentage to the general population make the Army look “more like America”? Surely what’s keeping them out is nothing but an ideological difference, and one that needs more representation in the Army to boot.
— Bo · Mar 22, 11:58 PM · #
I should also point out that you are not correct about the officer’s oath. The oath of enlistment, which both officers and enlisted soldiers must take, includes the line “and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me”
— Bo · Mar 23, 12:56 AM · #
Hi, Freddie. Anecdotally, it’s more than obvious that’s true to me when I spend time with (reasonably fairly sampled) military personnel. But you want statistics. I suspect those’re out there, I can look.
Bo: the one fact you tried, is wrong. Officers don’t swear to obey “the orders of the officers appointed above me,” nor the President. Period. Your source, if there is one, is wrong. Google “form DA 71” before making up more stuff about officers’ oaths.
If you genuinely believe that there are soldiers out there fighting wars that they don’t think are BS, again, you’re flat wrong. Problem is, you don’t believe that. If you did, your concerns about long deployments or breaking the army would be goofy — it’s what they want, no? Reihan’s ideas about invading or not invading, in your picture, are moot, because Army all wants to go fight Iraqis, man, hooah!
I think most military would say actually your job — certainly as an officer — would be what you called (1). Educate, mentor, train. Certainly educate soldiers (meaning, enlisted soldiers). And how does being in the Army violate your principles? Are you thoroughly nonviolent? Do you believe in no use of force, ever? Quakers would answer, yes, and they have a legitimate out. Would you? If you believe that laws and ideas need an enforcement mechanism, or that the state should try to maintain a monopoly on violence, then, there’s a cost associated with that.
The Army’s principle is, you do in the end what the civilian government tells you, even if you think it sucks. That’s the army’s ideology, and its only one — that civilian rule trumps, and might, which the military has in spades, does not make right — which is why America has gone astonishingly long without a military coup. To argue then that the “Army’s purpose is ideologically different than America’s purpose” is just plain stupid. The Army’s purpose is to serve, to the greatest measure, civilian rule. If you think the poor kids who’ve died or worse — and there’s a lot worse — in this current war did so because to a man they thought it was a great idea, I don’t know what to tell you. They gave what they did for the principle that you get to rule yourself, instead of them doing it, even though they easily have the might to. That is the genius of America’s military, such as it is.
Alright, enough of you. My point is made, and I think it’s pretty clear to readers that (1) you got no business telling Reihan what he owes the military, as you have no understanding of it or indeed of our government, and (2) you are a smarmy, ignorant fool with a contempt for the people who are getting the crap kicked out of them — and will continue to — to protect your right to be a dick. There’s a valid chickenhawk argument but guys who say “Hey Reihan, you really ought to join the army with the other assholes” aren’t really to be taken seriously.
— Sanjay · Mar 23, 02:18 AM · #
If you genuinely believe that there are soldiers out there fighting wars that they don’t think are BS, again, you’re flat wrong. Problem is, you don’t believe that.
Well, Sanjay, I will say that I think soldiers should also be allowed to resign at will. You seem to be implying that lots of soldiers are gladly fighting BS wars when they’re in point of fact threatened with jail or worse if they try to not fight them. Combine that with the other various Stop Loss procedures, and, well, it sure doesn’t seem like a very fair way to treat the people who defend us. So no, I don’t believe they’re assholes; tragically, many of them are currently stuck in a bad predicament because a bunch of people who do support the war feel like holding them prisoner to that end. I won’t name names, of course, but some of them have commented in this very thread.
BTW, on that subject, I would appreciate it if you would only put things in quotes in when you’re actually quoting me, not when you’re stuffing words in my mouth. It’s a bad habit, even if in this case it was laughable enough to be more revealing than dishonest.
And really, do you actually believe that because we haven’t had a successful military coup yet, that proves that the army works for the citizenry? That’s about as low as I can imagine setting the bar. I mean, if I called someone for a character reference and the best I got was, “That person never tried to kill me.”, I probably wouldn’t hire the guy. I mean, not to go all historical on you, but have you heard of the Pentagon Papers from the Vietnam War? The Business Plot from 1933? Eisenhower’s Farewell Speech? The Civil War even? After all, Robert E. Lee was a US general until he decided to lead a rebel army. Flashing forward, do you understand that currently the DoD gets fully half of our government’s discretionary income, and that a coup could only dampen their institutional voracity? I realize that, given the argument you’ve decided to advance, your best bets probably are calling names and channeling imaginary soldiers, but do try thinking about this rationally instead of falling back on lazy pieties for a second.
— Bo · Mar 23, 05:26 AM · #
Freddie, the geographic side of that evidence is here:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda05-08.cfm
although I think the important issue is the ideological balance, and I can’t find anything recent effortlessly beyond my own sense that, damn, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen A Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker….
— Sanjay · Mar 23, 02:26 PM · #
That link is fascinating, Sanjay; for example, did you realize that New Englanders (my peeps) are 30% underrepresented, Pacific Staters (obviously, the inferior coastal liberals) are 5% underrepresented, … , and that Asians are 200% underrepresented, easily the the largest underrepresentation found in the whole article on any axis? I have to admit I was not expecting that.
— Bo · Mar 23, 05:24 PM · #