I am, as readers know, generally of the opinion that the Iraq War has been a clusterbomb of badly made decisions leading to even worse outcomes. And those who opposed the war had every right to become frustrated and angry when the war's more gung-ho supporters refused to acknowlege evidence that things were going very, very badly.
Lately, however, the anti-war side is beginning to sound a lot like the boosters they were so angry at. This is the particular example that caught my eye, but there is an increasingly rich body of blog posts and other writing that are the collective equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and chanting "La la la la la la la I can't HEAR you!"
Look, data from Iraq are bad. Bad, bad, bad. We don't know to any reasonable degree of certainty how many civilians have been killed, how many are displaced, how many are now living abroad; how the material condition of Iraq's many millions has changed since the war; or how many have lived or died because of the secondary effects of our invasion. We will never know those things well, but right now we don't even really know them badly, because it's very hard to gather data.
So one has to be cautious in making any statement about conditions in Iraq, and whether they are getting better or worse. But the best collection of data we have is Brookings' Iraq Index. To be sure I find a lot of their data kind of sketchy--David Petraeus may be a swell chap, but I'm not sure I want to rely on a powerpoint presentation he gave to Congress as my sole source of information about Iraqi civilian casualties. However, in the cases where the data is sketchy, they're nonetheless the best we have.
So while I wouldn't make any definitive statement about many of these data individually, collectively, they present a pretty powerful case that things in Iraq are imrpoving rapidly. All the indicators are going in the same direction. Yes, there could be some explanation for reverse refugee flows other than the obvious, which is that people love their country, and want to live there if it is not too dangerous. Any of the improvements could be explained away. But taken as a group, the various quibbles are easily sliced by Ockham's Razor.
The improvement may not last. And even if it does, there's still a fine argument to be made that the suffering which preceded it made the invasion a terrible, terrible idea. But the current strategy of ignoring the news from Iraq, or quibbling with it, doesn't lay a sound foundation for making that argument.
The United Nations raised new concern Wednesday about a possible cholera outbreak in Baghdad ahead of the rainy season, saying the capital accounts for 79 percent of all new cases despite a national decline.
The Iraqi Health Ministry reported that two boys in a Baghdad orphanage died of cholera this month and six other children there had been diagnosed with the disease, which was first detected Aug. 14 in the northern city of Kirkuk.
The U.N. Children's Fund said 101 cases had been recorded in the capital, most in the past three weeks, making it the source of 79 percent of all new cases. It said no single source for the outbreak had been identified, but the main Shiite enclave of Sadr City was among the areas hardest hit.
"While national caseloads are declining, we are increasingly concerned about a possible outbreak in Baghdad," UNICEF said in a statement. "UNICEF is working with WHO to try to limit the spread in the capital and treat the sick as Iraq's rainy season sets in."
The humanitarian organization said it was providing oral rehydration salts and water purification tablets for families, as well as jerry cans at water distribution points. It also was transporting 47,552 gallons of safe water per day to Baghdad's most affected districts, including schools and other institutions.
UNICEF said the recent case in the orphanage "raises concerns for all children in institutions and schools in Baghdad," and it issued an urgent appeal to "Iraq's government to clean water storage tanks in all institutions as one preventive measure."
The World Health Organization has confirmed more than 3,300 cholera cases in Iraq and at least 14 deaths from the acute and rapid dehydration it causes.
The outbreak has now spread to half of the country's 18 provinces.
Cholera is a gastrointestinal disease typically spread by drinking contaminated water. It can cause severe diarrhea that, in extreme cases, can lead to fatal dehydration. It is preventable by treating drinking water with chlorine and improving hygiene conditions.
"In general, Iraq's water and sanitation networks are in a critical condition," UNICEF said, estimating that only one in three Iraqi children can rely on a safe water source, particularly in Baghdad and southern cities.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071129/ap_on_he_me/iraq_cholera&printer=1;_ylt=Ah8nA66oHDk8jW_rn7GQ_RNa24cA
news to be ignored...or, Hey, what's a little cholera among friends, right?
I'd agree - there has been some improvement, although at a cost. However, that's partly simply because things got SO bad that eventually improvement had to come.
In other words, being in the current state is pretty bad. It's just a little bit less bad than it was.
I think it's also because things got so bad that many of the genuine Iraqi factions have decided that cooperating with each other and the Americans is less bad than the alternative. The other nations in the area, too, are finally realizing that a wholly lawless and chaotic Iraq might not be in their best interests, no matter how much they enjoy the Americans struggling with it - that it will come back to bite them.
Perhaps we've turned a corner. I hope so. However, things are still an absolute mess - just no longer a mess that's getting worse.
Well, I think people are right to quibble with the news of an improving Iraq, at least to the extent that such improvements do not yet include that key necessary ingredient: political reconciliation. Of course, lack of political reconciliation is just what the doctor ordered if you want to argue for the desirability of an indeterminate, large scale US occupation.
I also think simple politics (if like me you want the GOP out of the White House in '08) dictates plenty of quibbling, too, along the lines of "Has it all been worth it?" You're right that improvements to the lives of ordinary Iraqis are to be gratefully welcomed. And it looks like things are indeed getting better (although there's still plenty of misery, such as the situation for women in Basra).
But those of us who desperately want a change of course in American political leadership have to keep the pressure on, and so we have to keep reminding people that, whatever improvements at long last we're beginning to see, the operation as a whole has probably been the single worst foreign policy disaster in US history.
Even if Iraq becomes a stable, secular, prosperous democracy - which is still a long long way off - the question will remain whether the war was worth the cost.
An equally important development is the news that Iran apparently halted its bombmaking activities in 2003. How many times have opponents of the war in iraq argued that invading Iraq tied up our armed forces and actually emboldened Iran? That argument, which admittedly seemed to have some merit at one time, now seems untenable.
The invasion of Iraq evidently frightened the Iranian clerics, their international bravado notwithstanding. It does opponents of the war no credit to refuse to admit this. Does that necessarily mean the invasion was a good idea? No. Perhaps, after a final accounting, the costs will still look greater than the benefits. But a true accounting requires an honest look at the benefits, not just the costs, of the war.
All the indicators are going in the same direction.
I see. The oil law, the truth and reconciliation commission, the Kurdish independence referendum, the constitutional amendments, the revisions to de-Baathification laws are all on track?
sadly, no.
we have apparently temporarily achieved a substantial reduction in violence THAT NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO FLARE UP IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Measuring the current status of Iraq against the President's standard of victory -- a peaceful, multi-ethnic, democratic, secular partner in the war on terror standing as a beacon of promise in the Middle East -- we have a very long way to go.
Tacitus: "They make a desolation and call it peace."
It might be that sufficient ethnic cleaning has occurred that there's no one left to kill.
Some success!
"But the current strategy of ignoring the news from Iraq, or quibbling with it, doesn't lay a sound foundation for making that argument."
When people don't "quibble" with the news, the news becomes administration propaganda. By all means, I sincerely hope that large numbers of people vociferously quibble with the news.
1. War is hard -- really, really hard.
2. We got it right at first.
3. We didn't get it right in the middle.
4. We seem to be getting it right now.
5. War is still hard, so there is room for more error.
6. Why is any of this puzzling, or evidence of stupidity, chicanery or evil?
7. In the end (probably 20-30 years from now), Iraqis will in all likelihood be free and prosperous, as are the Japanese, the Germans, the (South) Koreans. That freedom and prosperity will distinguish them from Iranians, Palestinians, Syrians, etc.
Shorter Megan McArdle... (get it? world's tallest female econoblogger? oh never mind... anyway)
Shorter Megan McArdle.... Here's your shit sandwich Mr. and Mrs. Iraqi! You oughta like this one much better, its got less shit!
Njorl, I'm fine with the quibbling. But quibbling with the details, while ignoring the big story, is the same strategy that enraged war opponents when war boosters did it.
the operation as a whole has probably been the single worst foreign policy disaster in US history.
Oh yeah, much worse than Vietnam. I won't even go further back in time.
if like me you want the GOP out of the White House in '08
Absolutely, provided Dems won't move in :-D
Robert-
The startling fact that your pro-war argument hinges on what may, possible, just might, happen 30 years from now shows how intellectually fatuous your side is.
Yes, the surge does appear to be producing good results. But the surge will be ending as we proceed through the year. If the improvement is sustained
once the number of troops is reduced we can then talk about success.
We know that the people behind the insurgents were well aware that the surge could only last so long and that many of them decided to just wait it out -- not an unintelligent action.
Meanwhile all the surge seems to have demonstrated is that we did not have enough troops to begin with to establish security. The major problem remains that the Bush administration tried to fight this war on the cheap and the surge reducing violence just proves this thesis.
The really startling fact is the extent to which partisans will reject objectivity, even to the extent of attacking someone who attempts to advocate it. There is nothing remotely "pro-war" about Robert's post above, rather the reverse. It's "pro-reality". And Megan's point is well-taken. Rooting for the enemy is bad enough, but doing it so obviously is just stupid.
The data from Iraq are indeed "bad, bad, bad". But I challenge anyone to name a time this wasn't true. Under the Ottomans? Under the various flavors of fascism since? Under UN sanctions? It may be helpful to remember that the UN itself says that perhaps a million people, half of them children, died under the sanctions due in large part to the sort of water borne diseases MEH is currently appropriately concerned about. That's nearly ten times as many as the invasion killed even if we count the people killed by our enemies. Then there were the additional millions of victims to wars of aggression, genocide, etc.
Most Vietnam analogies are a superficial crock, but it used to be said of Vietnam that it was such a bad place that, "the wind doesn't blow, it sucks". In this respect Iraq is similar. But in Vietnam we didn't have any vital national interests beyond the ones we damaged by losing. Iraq is different.
When I said "bad" i meant their quality, not the picture they give of the situation in Iraq. that, of course, is also bad, but getting better.
Robert Powell-
Really? Arguing that because war is bad and because Iraq is bad, it Iraq must be bad only because of war and nothing else. This conveniently excludes all the mismanagement, outright deception, and incompetence of those that led the US into war. So, According to Robert's post, Iraq is bad because there is a war there, it would have made no difference if the war was managed poorly or not--all bad things are on the same plane of badness.
This statement ("In the end (probably 20-30 years from now), Iraqis will in all likelihood be free and prosperous, as are the Japanese, the Germans, the (South) Koreans. That freedom and prosperity will distinguish them from Iranians, Palestinians, Syrians, etc.") isn't 'pro-war' its just 'pro-reality'? I'm glad you don't even pretend to be serious. Robert's statement is pure conjecture, and he does more than just suggest that Iraq's putative prosperous future is the end result of the war by the US.
Really, you loose all credibility when you accuse the anti-war crowd of cleverly hiding their desire to see the US loose, only to have their true feelings peek through when their concentration lapses.
Robert Powell: Well Said!
Robert
The important difference you left out in your analysis is, at no other point in history were there AMERICAN forces in Iraq. Yes, OK, Iraq has been a mess since before there was an Iraq. Guess what, it's still a mess, and this time it's US doing the messing up, OUR troops killing and being killed; this to you is an improvement?
On the contrary, in Vietnam there was genuine concern that it was in our vital national interest to halt the spread of Sino-Soviet sponsored Communism. Remember the Domino Theory? Communism was (and is) seen as an existential threat to the United States, just as "Islamofascist terrorism" is seen today. Unless you subscribe to the theory that our involvement in Iraq is really all about oil...
This is great. "While the individual data points cannot be confirmed definitively, I feel confident in making a conclusion because there are so many of them."
You're supposed to be an economist. Do you make economic conclusions based on sketchy, compromised data? If I assume correctly that you do not, why do you feel justified in doing so in this case? If on the other hand you do make such conclusions, then how can economics be classified as a "science" in any but the loosest of terms? And how can this conclusion of yours be considered anything but credulous cheerleading for Our Man Petraeus and his Glorious Surge Plan?
I include mismanagement, deception and incompetence in the phrase "War is hard". There is no way to conduct a war and guarantee a pain-free result. I also tried to compare a future Iraq with Japan, Germany and South Korea -- three areas in which the U.S. suffered ghastly losses(to our own forces, the civilian populations and enemy forces), and appalling military reverses before ultimately bringing stability, peace and prosperity to the regions. And it took many years and much mismanagement, deception and incompetence before determination, resolve and perseverance won out.
Robert-
In the cases you mention, did the occupation of the US forces fuel the instability and violence?
I agree we should keep our eye on the big picture instead of the quibbles. The big picture is - what are the odds the the net improvement in our security, prosperity, position in the world or whatever arising from Iraq will be worth more than a trillion dollars and many thousands of lives? This is in the pigs-might-fly category. The big picture is that Iraq is a catastrophic failure.
Looking forward, the big picture is - how do we get out? It's astounding that we're in a war in which no one really knows why we started it and no one really knows what will end it (other than pipe dreams about all the factions, warlords, etc. coming together like the founding fathers in Philadelphia).
Besides, the link Megan provided - asserting that refugees were returning because they are being forced out of their host countries - is hardly a quibble. The difference between 25K and 60K returnees is a quibble. The difference between wanting to go back and being forced to go back is not.
7. In the end (probably 20-30 years from now), Iraqis will in all likelihood be free and prosperous, as are the Japanese, the Germans, the (South) Koreans.
What would you have predicted for 30 years into the future, had Saddam Hussein stayed in power? Do you have the confidence to say there was zero chance that they could have moved from Brezhnevian stasis to a bright future, and that the current post-ethnic-cleansing chaos is a much better starting point?
Brittain33:
30 years? How long was Saddam in power, and how much progress was made in that time? I can't say "zero chance", but the Iraqi people could only hope for the bright sunshine of "Brezhnevian stasis" under the thugocracy that was Baath party rule. So, yes, the current situation is a much better starting point, and as a bonus, fewer people are dying on a daily basis now than under Saddam.
"You're supposed to be an economist. Do you make economic conclusions based on sketchy, compromised data? If I assume correctly that you do not..."
Liberalrob, I wonder how much economics you've studied. The Federal Reserve is frequently making decisions based upon sketchy data--anecdotal, incomplete, etc... The data are never as good as we would like them, which is one reason it is so difficult to predict whether the next year will bring recession, for example.
"What would you have predicted for 30 years into the future, had Saddam Hussein stayed in power? Do you have the confidence to say there was zero chance that they could have moved from Brezhnevian stasis to a bright future..."
But that's the whole point Brittain33. Deciding whether invading Iraq was a good idea requires a rational person to consider the counterfactual: "What would have happened had we not intervened?" And the truth is that no one knows the answer to that with any satisfactory measure of certainty.
Thus, it is impossible to tell, at present, whether the invasion of Iraq will turn out to have been beneficial or not. And those who pretend otherwise, whether the few remaining neocon enthusiasts for war, or the growing chorus of peaceniks, show only their own shallowness and ignorance.
rew-
Right. Because the ultimate moral position--the one that insures we will be preventing from having our hands be tainted with the blood of others--is to retreat into a perpetual state of equivocation.
Very little. My assumption was that it would at least attempt to use principles of scientific research such as peer review, empirical study and reproducible results to arrive at its conclusions. This bald statement that "Iraq's improving, deal with it" based on completely arbitrary and dubious evidence would seem to be completely unjustified. Megan herself is uncomfortable with it, hemming and hawing and equivocating at length before somehow arriving at her preferred conclusion anyway.
Yes, and when they do we criticize them for it as well.
hundreds of thousands of innocents dead or maimed...
Because we didn't invade and occupy?
Republican mantra:
'surge is working'
'surge is working'
'surge is working'
Rickm, as a philsopher pointed out some time ago, to the rash the wise and courageous man looks cowardly. Similarly, those who rashly exaggerate the certainty of their own judgments will call more jusdicious and delberate men "equivocators."
Sometimes the evidence is contradictory, sketchy, uncertain... And in those cases it is wise to be cautious in making judgments. Better equivocation than a spurious certainty.
Policymakers do not always have the luxury of withholding judgment. But those of us who are outside of government do. And we do not really know how Iraq will turn out. We ought to be wise enough to recognize that.
liberalrob, there is no peer reviewed data in most of these categories; and moreover, the length of the peer review process is such that any data that we did have would now be hopelessly out of date for the purposes of actual decisionmaking.
When you don't have good data, you have to use whatever you can get. We don't know that Iraq is getting better beyond a shadow of a doubt, but that's clearly by far the best explanation for what we see.
The difference between that explanation and reality is as likely to be measured in light years as not. You have no real basis for your explanation other than it is the one given by the administration. You as much as say so! Yet somehow you can't help yourself, you just have to say it's getting better. Why?
Even if true, the fact that by some measures Iraq may have improved is no justification for the horrors that have been unleashed by the Bush admin's reckless policies. Trying to paint a sunny picture (or even just a possible break in the clouds) opens the door for war proponents to exultantly say "see, we said all along, just give it time and it would work out." That door should remain slammed securely shut.
Then I go research the Brookings Iraq Index and what do you know, it's compiled by war-cheerleader Michael O'Hanlon. Quel surprise. Perhaps this look at O'Hanlon's past work by Think Progress is worth reviewing.
If you want some first-hand, relatively unbiased information on how Iraq is going today, check out www.michaeltotten.com
Totten is doing the kind of reporting that we really need more of: go look at what is actually happening; go back later and see what is actually happening; assess progress based on reality. Sometimes, he agrees with one side, sometimes with the other. But all that appears to mean is that both sides occasionally are correct. "Even a blind pig gets an acorn now and then."
Oh I don't know, I'd say I'm as sure of that as Megan is that things are getting better there; and I'd bet my basis for my statement would be just as valid if not moreso.
Since I have nothing on the line, let's prognosticate, shall we? I'd say there's a 50/50 chance of either of the following ultimate outcomes in Iraq:
Option A) partition into 3 areas, Sunni, Shia, Kurd. The Kurdish area is invaded and occupied by Turkey within days of its declaration. The Shia area becomes a de facto Iranian client state.
Option B) ramshackle "unity government" becomes a de facto Shia state. Shia militias fight an outnumbered and outgunned Kurdish insurgency for several years, possibly with Iranian and Turkish assistance, until the Kurds are subdued or annihilated. Sunni tribes are temporarily bought off with promises of control of the Kurdish oil regions passing to them. After the Kurds are suppressed, the Shia government reneges on the deal and takes the Kurdish areas for itself; unless the Sunni tribes are able to secure Saudi assistance, their fate is sealed. Iraq becomes a de facto Iranian client state.
Notice that both options wind up with Iran in control of all or part of modern Iraq. I see that as inevitable at this point. We're not going to stay there, and the minute we leave, the old animosities will reassert themselves. As they always have.
Notice that both options wind up with Iran in control of all or part of modern Iraq. I see that as inevitable at this point. We're not going to stay there, and the minute we leave, the old animosities will reassert themselves. As they always have.
Okay, Nostradamus. You know what's going to happen. But those of us who must look at the actual evidence see a much cloudier picture.
I think there is still some chance that Iraq can stabilize (and as noted above, the prospects here have been getting a little brighter lately). If it does, it seems possible that Americans will look upon the invasion of Iraq the way most of us look at the Korean War--not an unmitigated success, but a net positive, on balance, despite all the pain (And of course, Iraq has been much less costly than Korea was).
"Holders of Iraqi bonds are giving President George W. Bush a vote of confidence. The country's $2.7 billion of 5.8 percent bonds due in 2028 returned 15.2 percent since July."-Iraq Bonds Rally on U.S. Troop Surge, Oil Earnings, Bloomberg, via Mankiw
Those who are familiar with bond markets will recognize that this jump in the value of Iraqi bonds is important evidence that things are improving in Iraq, implying that liberalrob's grim assesment of the situation there is unlikely to be correct.
Iraq has a reasonable prospect of success, but might also still fail. This implies that one ought to be willing to purchase the country's bonds, but only with a significant risk premium in the yield.
The invasion of Iraq evidently frightened the Iranian clerics, their international bravado notwithstanding. It does opponents of the war no credit to refuse to admit this. - rwe
Uh...the invasion of Iraq could have had two effects on the Iranians. On the one hand, it might have convinced them that it was more important to get a bomb quickly, so that they could share the fate of North Korea (have bomb, US no invade) and not the fate of Iraq (no have bomb, US invade). On the other hand, it might have convinced them to abandon their bomb-making efforts and communicate to the US and the IAEA that since they had stopped trying to make a bomb, there was no reason to threaten them.
But it would have made no sense for them to react to the US invasion of Iraq by abandoning their efforts to get a bomb but taking steps which clearly indicated to the US and to the IAEA that they were still trying to build a bomb! Like perfecting their uranium refinement cascade, denying IAEA inspectors access to some facilities, and so forth. Yet this is what actually happened.
I don't understand Iran's actions regarding its nuclear program over the last 4 years. But it makes no sense to argue that they abandoned their nuclear program as a result of the invasion of Iraq. That is clearly not what happened.
Robert:
"7. In the end (probably 20-30 years from now), Iraqis will in all likelihood be free and prosperous, as are the Japanese, the Germans, the (South) Koreans. That freedom and prosperity will distinguish them from Iranians, Palestinians, Syrians, etc."
This is nonsense. The best model for the future of the American occupation of Iraq is the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. 40 years in, there is little freedom and prosperity to be seen.
We do? The alternatives are to make decisions based on data which are systematic, complete — and years out-of-date; or simply to choose a monetary policy and stick with it, ignoring whatever seems to be happening in the economy.
The data from Iraq are indeed "bad, bad, bad". But I challenge anyone to name a time this wasn't true. Under the Ottomans? Under the various flavors of fascism since?
No, no, no. This is the wrongheaded argument.
First: the data from Iraq were good in the 1960s and 1970s. GDP and wages were up, universal education was kicking in, people were prospering, health and longevity were rising. The country was authoritarian for part of that, totalitarian for some of it, but political freedom is only a part of what one should be measuring on the human development index.
Second: the argument that things look better in Iraq now than they did 6 months or a year ago should not be extended into an argument that things are better now than they were in 2002. First of all, hundreds of thousands of people are dead, and millions have lost their homes, due to the war; that must be factored in. Secondly, on all kinds of indices, the country is still poorer and less healthy today than it was in 2002.
The Vietnam analogy is actually quite useful at the moment. There are some good analogies to be made to South Vietnam in 1970-71. The insurgency has been suppressed or coopted, perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently. But none of the structural political problems afflicting the country have been addressed. Meanwhile the US public has turned against the war, and no longer even wants to think about it; and large reductions in US troop levels are inevitable. The question is: what will happen as those troops come home? The government, we know, remains a shambles. Power is localized in the commanders of rival militia (as it was in the hands of ARVN division commanders in South Vietnam) and of tribal chieftains and religious figures. As the US draws down, will the country settle into an uneasy truce? Or will the struggle for total control erupt again? Will a residual US force be enough to maintain a weak, corrupt central government, lacking any real constituency, in power? In the long run, will we wind up with a corrupt, dependent US flunky state? Or will the country implode and turn into Lebanon, or Somalia, or be conquered by a powerful Shiite movement? The only thing we're sure of is that the US public is rather sick of such questions, and is unlikely to want to invest much more in Iraq, no matter who is President.
That said, yes, it's very good news that significantly fewer people are being massacred every day in Iraq, and that many people are resuming some semblance of normal life. And, clearly, the counterinsurgency advocates, like Petraeus, Nagl, McMaster, Krepinovich et al, knew what they were talking about, and the US military ought to be transformed to fight this kind of war.
We will be at war with a significant percentage of the population of the Persian Gulf as long as our principal interest in the region is to facilitate oil extraction, and the population of the region is not self-governing, and thus has not freely chosen to participate with us in said extraction, and benefit from it. While everything else may not be trivia, it's isn't too far from it.
J.B. Shearer:
Gaza and the West Bank don't look at all like an analog of Iraq -- Iraq is not insanely comitted to our destruction, as the Palestinians are to Israel's. We have no ambition to control Iraq, and our struggle there is not existential, for us, as it is for Israel. (The larger war against Islamofascism may be existential for us.)
Iraq is not trying to destroy us, and we are not there to steal their oil. Iraq and the U.S. are allies, not mutual enemies.
rwe i wish I would have been selling you some of that unsecured 'secure' sub-prime mortgage debt last year... Bloomberg was still pushing that junk back then too. Neck deep in the Big Muddy and all the fools say keep pushin' on.
ZZZzzz-- Huh? What? Good news, you say? Okay.
Wake me up when the Mahdi Army is back in action.
zzzzZZZZ...
There are some good analogies to be made to South Vietnam in 1970-71.
I feel there is something missing from these analogies: namely North Vietnam.
Robert:
"... Iraq is not insanely comitted to our destruction, as the Palestinians are to Israel's. ..."
Let's see how the Iraqis feel after 40 years of occupation.
J.B.Shearer --
How did the Germans, Japanese, Okinawans, Koreans, etc. feel after decades of occupation?
Robert -
The Iraqis are more like Palestinians than Germans, Japanese, Okinawans or Koreans.
Re: Let's see how the Iraqis feel after 40 years of occupation.
We would probably only get to see that if we could travel to alternate time lines, considering the fact that the US only was an occupying power in Iraq relatively briefly before turning the government over to a provisional Iraqi government that later turned over power to a democratically elected government.
EIf you mean "40 years of having a very large and active American military force in Iraq", well that's possible but very unlikely.
Brooksfoe - Re: "There are some good analogies to be made to South Vietnam in 1970-71. The insurgency has been suppressed or coopted, perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently."
The "native" southern insurgency may have been fairly repressed by its losses in Tet back in 1968, but the losses where replaced by a combination of new guerrilla fighters, combined with main force NVA units from the north.
And almost none of the insurgency was co-opted.
In Iraq you don't have an NVA. Sure Iran, and other foreign nations have supported insurgents, but they haven't sent large numbers of their own army to fight the Americans, and they aren't likely to in my opinion.
Also the insurgency in Iraq, esp. what is left of it, doesn't have the numbers, effective control over territory (well it doesn't any more, it did at times in the past), or the super power support that the communists in Vietnam, or mujehadin fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan, enjoyed.
Has this been mentioned here yet? It seems to be the right response to the post.
Robert, you and Mr. Fowler (whose knowledge of Vietnam War and Iraqi history is seriously flawed) are both correct in that history will tell the tale, and it will prove both of you to have been incredibly pollyannish about the goals and motivations of the Bush/Cheney adventurist cabal. Your inability, and theirs (draft dodgers most of them), to accept the reality of actual history, i.e. the strategic global political reasons for our failed Vietnam excursion, is indicative of your trumpeting a fantastical future history of Iraq. When Iraq becomes the peaceful and free Garden of Democracy you imagine it will in 20 years or so, is that when we get the garlands of flowers and dancing in the streets?
It's Bush.
If you hate Bush, you want the news from Iraq to be bad; hell, you would personally burn Baghdad to the ground if you thought Bush would take the blame for it. If you don't hate Bush, you may and may not like the war but at least are willing to keep an open mind.
The awful, delicious irony is that the people who hate Bush (and thus aid the terrorists) would be the first ones against the wall if Sharia law ever actually happened in this country: "But...but I supported you against the evil Bush!" "Silence, infidel!" (CHOP!)
Dude you're cracked! Is the BDS argument so persuasive to you that is all you can think about? Have you read any of these posts all the way through? No one is even really talking about Bush. They're all talking about the results of the actions taken by his administration. Whether they support those actions or not is what we're talking about here my friend. And your idea that somehow Sharia law would ever be enacted in the US, where a return to the witch hunts of the Puritans is much more likely, is beyond laughable. You live inside your head in a comic book world man. I know politeness is important and I'm sorry to be so blunt but you really need to step back and take a good look at yourself. The word Bush can be found ten times in this thread. Four times it is in the context of the 'Bush administration,' not personalized. You use his name SIX TIMES in your post. Now that's what I call Bush Derangement Syndrome!
Ms. McArdle, what exactly is wrong with the post you linked to? It shows evidence that many of the Iraqi refugees now returning to Iraq are actually forced back by their host countries. It agrees with you that things are a little better in Iraq than last year, so the refugees now see it as marginally the best of bad options instead of marginally the worst. Do you disagree? Based on what?
Your objections really seem to have to do with tone, not substance. But conservative denial of reality extended far beyond tone, so your comparison is inept. I think that if you bothered to read the posts that offended you, you would find that very few deny the reality. The ones I have seen say:
1) Yes, but things are still very bad, and
2) We're still making no long-term progress.
Fewer deaths while cops flood the streets is not long-term progress. Long-term progress needs political solutions, and there has been no improvement in that regard.
As usual, Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings sums it up:
noting that political reconciliation has not happened is not the "equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and chanting "La la la la la la la I can't HEAR you!"" It's more like this: suppose I had a friend who insisted that he couldn't kick his crack habit because he was under too much financial pressure, so I agreed to pay his bills for a few months, on condition that he use that time to actually try to quit. Liberal bloggers thought this was a bad idea: my friend had no apparent interest in kicking his crack habit, and thus it seemed pretty likely that I was just throwing my money away. No, I assured them: I have made it clear that my commitment is not open-ended. I've said: it's time for you to perform, and I will judge you now less on your words and more on your performance. I'm not just giving this money blindly; my friend has adopted benchmarks for success, and I plan to hold him to them, though I won't say how.
Now suppose that while I paid my friend's bills, to no one's surprise, his financial problems got better, but he made no effort to stop smoking crack. Liberal bloggers said: well, of course it's good that your friend isn't feeling as much financial pressure, but the fact remains that the whole point of this was to let him kick his crack habit, and not only has he not done that, he hasn't even tried. That would not constitute sticking their fingers in their ears and chanting "La la la la la la la I can't HEAR you!", or refusing to take yes for an answer. It would just be basic common sense.
Garrigus:
ZZZzzz-- Huh? What? Good news, you say? Okay.
Wake me up when the Mahdi Army is back in action.
zzzzZZZZ...
GARRIGUS! Wake up!
"Archbishop Imad al-Banna said that Christians in Basra should still pray to mark Christmas but should forgo such celebratory trappings as trees, gift-swapping and family gatherings to protest the deaths of Maysoon Farid, a 30-year-old cashier at a local pharmacy, and her brother, Osama Farid, 33.
They were found dead Monday night, their bodies dumped in a neighborhood controlled by the Shiite Muslim Mahdi Army militia."
Things are getting better in Iraq? They just had to cancel Christmas because of Sadr's militia murdering Christians. Progress?
Les - Its easy to say someone's knowledge of Vietnam is seriously flawed, a bit harder to point out the flaws and than defend the accusations against counterargument. As for my knowledge of Iraqi history being flawed, I don't think I even said anything about Iraqi history here.
"Also the insurgency in Iraq, esp. what is left of it, doesn't have the numbers, effective control over territory" = unsupported statement
"The "native" southern insurgency may have been fairly repressed by its losses in Tet back in 1968" = extremely arguable supposition. Many believe Tet was the beginning of the end for the US 'domino containment' adventure.
Les, Both my statement about Iraq, and my statement about Vietnam are well supported by the facts. The insurgency in Iraq has recently loss control of much of the territory it had controlled. It doesn't have anything like the NVA, it doesn't have support from a superpower. As for numbers, thats harder to prove, but the estimates of its numbers are not extremely high, and if it does have high numbers than its per member performance has been pathetic.
As for Vietnam, maybe many do believe that Tet was the beginning of the end for the US effort in Vietnam, and to an extent that's true. But that doesn't mean that the southern insurgency was not devastated by what happened in Tet. They clearly where and anyone who says otherwise is ignorant of the issue, or blinded by their bias. But despite that it terms of the overall strategic situation is was a loss for the US, because the strategic situation for the US wasn't a purely military issue, or even an issue that was limited to what happened in Vietnam. A certain level of support for the effort from Americans back at home is needed for the US military to win any protracted war, and the support started to erode in a major way starting with Tet. Some blame the US media for this, but while they may have had an anti-Vietnam slant, I don't agree with those who called them traitors or say that "they lost the war". Any time you have a situation where American political and military leaders are creating an oppression that the war is going great and the enemy is on the path to destruction, and then you have an attack as big as Tet, it will cause the effort to lose a lot of its credibility, even if (as was the case) the attack was crushed.
Getting back to your comments, if your going to call someone's understanding seriously flawed you should have a lot more to back it up. Responding with "unsupported statement" just doesn't cut it. "Many believe..." isn't a good response either. To back up a statement like that you should be able to bring to bear strong evidence that the other person's argument is completely wrong, and isn't even vaguely reasonable.
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