Megan McArdle (April 11, 2008) - How responsible are we for Iraq?

It's your fault and what do you mean "we," paleface?

Posted by Taunto | April 11, 2008 12:27 PM

By this arguement, are you in fact accepting repsonsibility for your "hidden law" torture?

Posted by xpistofep | April 11, 2008 12:30 PM

By this arguement, are you in fact accepting repsonsibility for your "hidden law" torture?

Posted by xpistofep | April 11, 2008 12:30 PM

Megan,

Although this isn't directly related to the point above, just war theory is pretty clear about how responsible we are for Iraq. Under most circumstances, the aggressor bears the moral burden in war because all the chaos and destruction and death that accompanies war flows from the decision to initiate hostilities. Your bomb-setting chap has a greater opportunity to commit that act because we dismantled the Iraqi state. Is he morally culpable? Yes, of course. But the fact that those acts would have the space to occur was something that should've been factored into our decision to go to war and they pretty clearly weren't.

The question of how to handle our responsibility is a difficult one. In a perfect world, we'd behave like a morally upright nation and stay until we've managed to repair the damage we've done to the region.

That seems unlikely to happen. What we're looking at are mounting costs that are not producing the outcomes we'd like in the hoopty car that is Iraq (a new transmission costs how much?!). Compounded with the all the misstatements and obfuscations that the Bush administration used to sell this losing war, it seems possible (even probable) that a Democratic president will simply hang this albatross around Bush's neck and make the economically sound decision to ignore sunk costs and get out.

As for the refugees, that's a no brainer and one of the most cost-effective and direct ways to address the suffering that we've caused.

Posted by Statler | April 11, 2008 12:33 PM

We are taking responsibility. That's why we're still there. We also pay families for innocent lives we took by accident. Obviously if we "get out now" we'd be shirking a responsibility, although it still may be the right decision.

Now make up your mind. Which do you want more. For us to leave? Or for us to take responsibility?

I'm not going to say which is the right choice. It's up to the American voters because neither choice is perfect. The best we can do is come to a consensus as a nation and move on with whichever decision is made.

Posted by Nelson | April 11, 2008 12:34 PM

Have a spare bedroom? How much room is there at Crawford? You are responsible (as noted above pale face). I hope the efforts to create new Iraqi neighborhoods are focused on areas that were most strongly for Shrub and your debacle. This is not our mess. This is your mess.

Posted by Cascadian | April 11, 2008 12:39 PM

Megan,

If we are to count all the death and damage made possible by our invasion, shouldn't we also count all the harm prevented by the same invasion?

The problem here is that it is easy to count deaths that happen--because they happen. How do we count all the people not gassed, not fed feet-first into chippers etc? Further, aren't we directly responsible for all the lives saved by taking power out of the hands of baathists, and yet only indirectly responsible for the lives that continue to be taken by same?

Posted by David | April 11, 2008 12:46 PM

Nelson wrote:

"Which do you want more. For us to leave? Or for us to take responsibility?"

Well when you put it like that... I may just stop beating my wife and go take responsibility for some Iraqis! kthxnbai!

Posted by rickm | April 11, 2008 12:47 PM

We are responsible but in a way like the guy who drives drunk and smashes into a family on the way to dinner. You don't expect the drunk driver to actually perform the surgery to fix the resulting injuries. He can't and is ill-equipped.

We smashed into Iraq but there is nothing we can do to fix the mess we made. The current US policy is little more than denial of the absolute mess we made by pretending we can hang around and fix it. It is a fiction. And we will spend untold billions just to keep ourselves from acknowledging the full scale of the horror we helped bring about.

Posted by Marcus | April 11, 2008 12:50 PM

Our invasion created the conditions in which bombings, kidnappings, and so forth that weren't taking place before, now are.

No, this is just wrong. The main "condition" that has lead to most of the "bombings, kidnappings, and so forth" is sectarianism. And the United States didn't create sectarianism in Iraq.

Moreover, I don't know why Megan uses the straw man argument that those arguing against her conception of responsibility believe that the US is "absolved of all responsibility". Has anybody said that the United States has no responsibility for what's happening in Iraq? That's ludicrous, so maybe she can point to an actual example of someone making that argument (since, you know, she doesn't actually link to anyone making that argument).

So maybe Megan can engage the actual argument instead of setting up a gigantic straw man to knock down.

Iraq is riven by sectarianism which long predated the US invasion. The proximate cause of most of the violence today (as well as other problems, like displacement of people) is that sectarianism. Prior to the US invasion, sectarian violence of the type we see today was controlled, to some extent, by Saddam's government (which itself was sectarian, and used violence in a sectarian manner, but we'll leave that aside). But Saddam's government wasn't going to last forever - whether we eliminated it or it fell in some other manner, eventually it would have gone away. And then you'd still be left with intense sectarianism and no genocidal, fascist government to keep it in check - meaning that, in all likelihood, we'd be seeing the same sectarian violence in Iraq whether or not we had invaded. The only thing we affected was the timing of that sectarian violence.

Posted by Al | April 11, 2008 12:50 PM

As far as refugees go, it still may not be the right choice to let them in:

If they are refuges because we did something to them, some of them may want to take revenge.

Therefore it would be imprudent to let them in. Even if only 1% would prove harmful, it is too much. It's not a nice "morally perfect" thing to say, or reason to base actions on. But better safe than sorry. We could compensate other nations to let them in, or we can make it safe for them to return to Iraq. But our citizens would never forgive a president who let in a group of probable malefactors because it makes him (or her!) "feel better" about the war.

Now for the ones seeking refugee status because extremists killed their families so they helped our forces counter the extremists but are fearful for their own lives after we leave... *those* refugees we should welcome with open arms.

Posted by Nelson | April 11, 2008 12:52 PM

Actually, Al, the main "condition" that has lead to most of the "bombings, kidnappings, and so forth" is a lust for power. And the US did not create a lust for power in Iraq. So the US is not responsible.

Posted by rickm | April 11, 2008 12:53 PM

Of course, I don't expect Al to take the next logical step, which is to recognize the fact that Iraq's brutal sectarianism is a product of the fact that three historically unconnected regions were welded together by the British Empire, and that the only time the "country" of Iraq has not been riven with internecine warfare was during a time of stability enforced by a brutal dictator. (A brutal dictator who, it should be noted, was armed, funded and diplomatically defended by the United States for decades, a point which no historian, conservative or liberal, seriously disputes.) And I really don't think that Al will take the next step after that, which is to realize that perhaps what's really required in Iraq is for Western superpowers to stop trying to enforce their visions on the country and to allow the people of the country to control their own destiny, for good or bad, as we do for the large majority of the nations on earth.

Posted by Freddie | April 11, 2008 12:59 PM

If we are to count all the death and damage made possible by our invasion, shouldn't we also count all the harm prevented by the same invasion?
The problem here is that it is easy to count deaths that happen--because they happen. How do we count all the people not gassed, not fed feet-first into chippers etc? Further, aren't we directly responsible for all the lives saved by taking power out of the hands of baathists, and yet only indirectly responsible for the lives that continue to be taken by same?

Posted by David

Actually, Al, the main "condition" that has lead to most of the "bombings, kidnappings, and so forth" is a lust for power. And the US did not create a lust for power in Iraq. So the US is not responsible.

Posted by rickm

At least Megan is being dragged, kicking and screaming, to the point of confronting her complicity and enabling. These two? Jeebus! I can find Nazi propaganda that is almost verbatim. Do these two "geniuses" have any idea that most Germans thought the invasion of Poland was in response to "Polish aggression" until the end of the war? Probably not. Had to be done to protect the German people and anyone sympathetic to the Nazis. Poland was full of Jews and communists. Pathetic. Pardon me while I vomit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Himmler

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident

Posted by I'm going to be sick | April 11, 2008 1:06 PM

I'm with Al. I don't think we caused the sectarian strife, but rather triggered something that was going to happen sooner or later in any case (e.g., once Saddam died, perhaps after an interregnum when one of his sons ruled).

Think Yugoslavia: whole groups itching to get at each other, but prevented from doing so by an iron boot on their necks. Once the iron boot is removed, it's on.

Laying the blame for what happens on the party that removed the iron boot seems a bit harsh. Blame Churchill and the British (for including three mutually antagonistic groups in one country), blame the groups themselves, blame the Iranians (for stirring the soup and arming the terrorists) and then blame us. Our motives are the closest to pure that we're going to find in this.

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 11, 2008 1:08 PM

"Our invasion created the conditions in which bombings, kidnappings, and so forth that weren't taking place before, now are."

Add to that list, of course, the U.S.'s torture of detainees, many of whom are innocent, and almost none of whom have been granted fair trials with which to determine their actual culpability for crimes or acts of violence.

"It seems ridiculous to me to say that we have no responsibility for the innocent people who have been terrorized..."

Especially when "we" are a prominent center-left journalist who actively supported the aggressive and optional war, and whose support enabled the war's prosecutors to describe the war as a bipartisan action whose supporters constitute a broad consensus from across the political spectrum, and even moreso whenwe" write articles defending torture in certain circumstances, such as:

"If terrorists must be tortured -- and I am unwilling to state that there is no circumstance ever under which I could condone it -- then it should happen in dark rooms..."

http://www.janegalt.net/archives/004028.html

Sure, Megan, under those circumstances, I'd agree that "we" bear some responsible for what follows.

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

Posted by Patrick Meighan | April 11, 2008 1:11 PM

Of course, I don't expect Al to take the next logical step, which is to recognize the fact that Iraq's brutal sectarianism is a product of the fact that three historically unconnected regions were welded together by the British Empire, and that the only time the "country" of Iraq has not been riven with internecine warfare was during a time of stability enforced by a brutal dictator.

Well, the sectarianism wasn't created by the British Empire, only the fact that the sectarianism is within the same country. If the British hadn't cobbled together Iraq into one country, does Freddie think that the various sects would all be getting along harmoniously? If the British hadn't done so, we might have violence among three or more separate countries instead of ethnosectarian violence among three amin groups within one country. (After all, there was, what, a million killed in a war between Shia/Persian Iran and Sunni-led/Arab Iraq.)

So I don't know why the British are supposed to primarily responsible for the violence by cobbling together Iraq into a single country.

Posted by Al | April 11, 2008 1:15 PM

A brutal dictator who, it should be noted, was armed, funded and diplomatically defended by the United States for decades

Oh, and this is asinine and false. Saddam was "armed, funded and diplomatically defended" primarily by the Soviet Union, not the United States. I mean, even a basic grasp of the facts would be helpful.

Posted by Al | April 11, 2008 1:18 PM

Oh, and this is asinine and false. Saddam was "armed, funded and diplomatically defended" primarily by the Soviet Union, not the United States. I mean, even a basic grasp of the facts would be helpful.

At least until the fall of the Soviet Union. When was that? I forget. A basic grasp of the facts would be helpful.

Posted by Russia | April 11, 2008 1:21 PM

"How responsible are we for Iraq" you ask?

By "we" I assume you mean those who supported the invasion to begin with (like yourself), right?

Because my conscience is perfectly clear.

Posted by Gillette | April 11, 2008 1:22 PM

...And Freddie just about hits it out of the park.
The fact is that the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites in Iraq will be much better off in the long run if we just get the hell out of their way. Yes, in the short run it will be a disaster. But right now, a short-term disaster is preferable to a long-term one.

Not nearly enough attention is paid by Americans to the effect that arbitrary line-drawing by the European imperial powers has had on the rest of the world. The fact is that because of the arbitrary line-drawing by those powers, there are relatively few real nations in Asia and Africa - just a lot of countries composed of bits and pieces of nations.

Posted by Mark | April 11, 2008 1:23 PM

At least until the fall of the Soviet Union. When was that? I forget. A basic grasp of the facts would be helpful.

Are you trying to say that we "armed, funded and diplomatically defended" Iraq after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991? Really?

Posted by Al | April 11, 2008 1:24 PM

Al,

Good to see your intellectual dishonesty on display again. It was not stated that the US was "primarily" armed by the US, only that the US supplied Saddam with arms. Which is unequivocally true. As usual, conservatives show their penchant for lies and intellectual dishonest.

Posted by freddiemac | April 11, 2008 1:25 PM

Yay, Anonymous trolls calling people Nazis and equating toppling an actual genocidal dictator with a war of annexation and genocide.

(And "complicity" and "enabling" removal of said dictator are compared with German support of an attempt to ethnically cleanse all of Europe and make it into a German slave colony and economic self-sufficiency zone!

One wonders if he realizes anything about either World War 2 or the current War in Iraq other than that both are wars, and yelling "Nazis!" makes his friends think he's clever?)

Megan, it's time to close comments or start banning people. Seriously.

It's gotten to the point where it's quite impossible to actually discuss anything like intelligent people, because of all the noise blasting over the signal.

I understand, to a point, your reluctance to do anything about it - but I suggest taking a page from Oliver Kamm's playbook. You don't owe anonymous trolls an audience, and I'm sure The Atlantic has no objection (given the comments policy) to some vague efforts to raise the level of discussion above the lowest possible common denominator.

(And to the original topic, I'm in full agreement - the United States does have responsibility to mitigate the ill results of its actions in Iraq.

I also agree with the various commenters (who did more than call names), in that the US is more an incidental than final cause of, say, Iranian-financed terror bombing or long-suppressed-and-inflamed sectarian or tribal conflict.

In summary, I find no moral culpability for that strife, but that doesn't affect a moral duty to mitigate it.

To extend the troll's comparison in a useful way, the Allies were not culpable for damage caused to the towns of France in its liberation ... but were still morally bound to help mitigate the suffering where possible.)

Posted by Sigivald | April 11, 2008 1:25 PM

Oh, Please! Only with that Occam's Clown Beard on could anyone consider this poor twit to be a "center-left journalist". She's an American libertarian, for chissakes! To the right of always wrong.

Posted by Occam's Moustache of Misunderstanding | April 11, 2008 1:26 PM

Sigivald,

Blow me.

Go back to Stormfront.

P.S. I'm keeping your money.

Posted by Ron Paul | April 11, 2008 1:33 PM

Al wrote:
" If the British hadn't done so, we might have violence among three or more separate countries instead of ethnosectarian violence among three amin groups within one country."

Which makes sense, if you think that there's a lot of violence between the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

People tend to live at lot more peacefully when they're not fighting over the same power structure.

Posted by Mark | April 11, 2008 1:38 PM

If I tell you to walk down a street that is dangerous, am I morally culpable when you get mugged? After all, I didn't mug you. The muggers did.

I agree with the people who say that the muggers are morally culpable than the person who gave the directions--rather, the ones who say that the chap who engages in ethnic cleansing or sets off a car bomb in a crowded marketplace is morally worse than the US.

Well, if I order men to proceed into an ambush, and then years after it becomes apparent it's an ambush I still won't order them to withdraw, yeah - I pretty much am just as responsible for those deaths as the enemy is.

That puts the Bush administration in the driver's seat in terms of responsibility for the US military deaths for the last several years.

So who shares in the moral responsibility of the administration? Everyone who voted for them or cheerleaded for them.

At this point, the question of our moral responsibility to our own citizens and our own armed forces is pretty clear, and the question of our moral responsibility to the citizens of Iraq is murky. Shouldn't we follow our clear responsibility?

Especially since it is precisely the fact that large numbers of Iraqis simply do not trust us to sincerely try to "fix" anything that had made the situation untenable. When the party you claim you are trying to help perceives your "help" as an attack, is it really morally sensible to impose that help on him?

Posted by Brian | April 11, 2008 1:51 PM

As an aside, do you know that most of your recent recap links to old posts features comments literally full of spam? On the LAT Assault Weapon one, there were about a dozen comments, not one legitimate.
Might look into an auto-close for old comments, or a key system (or even a keyword filter, since they were all blatant.)

Comment by Sigivald — 1/3/2005 @ 1:33 pm

Sigivald:

The assault weapons link is to Xrlq’s blog, not mine. I am always interested in learning about old posts of mine that have spam. I have tried implementing an auto-close program, but can’t get it to run. I think my hosting service is weak, and the same error messages that cause people to post comments multiple times also appear when I try the auto-close.

I will gladly accept any help with this that anyone wants to give me . . .

Comment by Patterico — 1/3/2005 @ 1:40 pm

http://patterico.com/2005/01/02/a-very-easy-quiz/

Vee Must Bury Ze Past Because I May Have SPRECHENED SUMZING SCHTUPID! And Shut Down Ze Komments Before I Schprechen Again!

Posted by Sigivald's Big Mouth | April 11, 2008 1:54 PM

"Oh, and this is asinine and false. Saddam was "armed, funded and diplomatically defended" primarily by the Soviet Union, not the United States. I mean, even a basic grasp of the facts would be helpful."

Not to get off on a tangent, but Al ads the word "primarily" on his own so as to go about objecting to something not actually declared.

That said, Saddam's early rise and consolidation of power was, in fact, abetted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, first in the CIA's assistance of Saddam's attempted assasination of then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim in 1959, and then in the CIA's assistance in the Baath Party's cold-blooded murder of thousands of Iraqi communists in 1963.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2849.htm

Presumably, Megan McArdle would tell us that the U.S. assisted in those murders "because our heart is pure."

The above, of course, is in addition to the miliatry intelligence that the U.S. regularly shared with Saddam's regime after Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, as well as Ronald Reagan's June 1982 National Security Decision Directive that the U.S. would do whatever was necessary to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran. (Howard Teicher, who served on Reagan's National Security Council staff: "CIA Director Casey personally spearheaded the effort to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war").

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

Posted by Patrick Meighan | April 11, 2008 1:56 PM

The above, of course, is in addition to the miliatry intelligence that the U.S. regularly shared with Saddam's regime after Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, as well as Ronald Reagan's June 1982 National Security Decision Directive that the U.S. would do whatever was necessary to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran. (Howard Teicher, who served on Reagan's National Security Council staff: "CIA Director Casey personally spearheaded the effort to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war").

Kinda like we armed the Soviets and fed them intel to keep them from losing war, and for exactly the same reason. That doesn't mean the U.S. necessarily endorsed either country, just that our interests temporarily coincided. Rather like the way that those of the Democratic Party and Islamofascists coincide right now.

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 11, 2008 2:09 PM

Which makes sense, if you think that there's a lot of violence between the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Or Bosnia and Croatia.

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 11, 2008 2:12 PM

"I can't help but feel partly responsible."

Posted by Bart Simpson | April 11, 2008 2:18 PM

Good Lord. I had never heard of Ms McArdle until she decided to take Glenn Greenwald on. Her defense on not reporting more on the giant constitution shredding machine that is this Bush Administration is that she's an economics expert and doesn't feel that she's qualified to comment on much else. That's all and well. Yet, just reading this current page of postings, she dares to hold forth on many other topics other than 'economics'. ('opinionating', the quality and depth of which I could fairly easily type whilst sitting at my keyboard in my underwear)

You'd do better to stick to your chosen field of expertise Megan (and please stop trying to take on 'Glennzilla'; you're like sooo way out of your league)

Posted by tontocal | April 11, 2008 2:22 PM

The US bears a lot of responsibility for what happens going forward. It is an invalid argument to say that the sectarian violence would have happened in any case, once Saddam died or otherwise. That may or may not be true, but it is not certain.

The question at hand is what is the best way to meet this obligation? On this, I can see several different options, but it is unclear which, if any of them, are best. I think a quick, unconditional withdrawl is going to result in an orgy of violence as the different factions vie for control and oil, but will this result in more long term casualties than the US maintaining an effective military presence? This is a tough question.

Posted by Yancey Ward | April 11, 2008 2:26 PM

"Kinda like we armed the Soviets and fed them intel to keep them from losing war, and for exactly the same reason. That doesn't mean the U.S. necessarily endorsed either country, just that our interests temporarily coincided."

The original assertion was not that Saddam Hussein was "endorsed" by the U.S.

The original assertion was that Saddam Hussein "was armed, funded and diplomatically defended by the United States for decades."

And that assertion was true.

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

p.s.: The last sentence of your post is simply beneath contempt, and I don't say that as a member of the Democratic Party, because I'm not one.

Posted by Patrick Meighan | April 11, 2008 2:29 PM

It is an invalid argument to say that the sectarian violence would have happened in any case, once Saddam died or otherwise. That may or may not be true, but it is not certain.

Yancey, I usually see eye to eye with you, but on this one I must respectfully disagree.

The enmity between Sunnis and Shia goes back a millennium and a half, since the death of Mohammed, and violence between them was as predictable as that between Hindus and Muslims when the British left India in 1948, or between Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats after the collapse of Yugoslavia. I think only a miracle would have avoided the paying off of some old scores in Iraq, and the first such payment to extend across sectarian lines would ignite general sectarian violence.

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 11, 2008 2:38 PM

Occam-

It might be worth pointing out that enmity between Hindus and Muslims in India is essentially, oh, about 200 years old. Prior to colonization by the British, communal violence was rare, and always took a backseat to class or tribal conflicts.

Posted by rickm | April 11, 2008 2:43 PM

IIRC, approximately 4% of Saddam's arms came from the US. The vast majority came from the USSR and France (no time to look this up right now, but I too was surprised our proportion was so low).

Why do you take umbrage at the last sentence of my earlier post? It's absolutely true. A clearcut victory for the U.S. in Iraq would be a nightmare scenario for both Democrats and Islamofascists. The Democrats wouldn't get a sniff of the White House for a long time.

Put it another way: are Democrats hoping for and working toward American success in Iraq? Of course not. No one would argue that. Well, neither are the Islamofascists. So their interest do in fact coincide in this respect.

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 11, 2008 2:44 PM

I think Siggy has a point. But why just shut down the comments. Shut down this whole blog. Let The Atlantic ponder their mistake and get someone worth reading in this spot. It might attract a better set of readers and commenters.

Lost in all this back and forth is the fact the Republicans will deal with anyone if it will benefit them politically back home or abroad. That's a bad way to conduct foreign policy. Reagan dealt with Iran. The Same Serious People turned around and supported Saddam in his war with Iran. Then they turned on Saddam because he invaded Kuwait. Initially, Bush I said, "So what?" Something changed that, probably Thatcher. No wonder his kid thought his father was a bigger wimp than himself. Then an Iranian agent, Ahmed Chalabi, sold them several pigs in a pokes over the intervening years and here we are today, having removed Saddam for no other reason than that's what the Iranians wanted. Played like fiddles. Clearly, none of these people should ever be given more governmental power than the local dog cacther, the best elected office for any libertarian.

Posted by LWM | April 11, 2008 2:46 PM

Rick, I'll take your word for it, but it doesn't matter. For whatever reason, when the British left, sectarian violence was as predictable as the sunrise.

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 11, 2008 2:47 PM

The funny thing is that, under this definition, every country that supplied two bullets to Iraq even once over a 25 year period "armed" Saddam. So that includes Canada, France, Germany (West), Spain, Italy, UK, etc.

Yet, somehow the US has been singled out by the left as especially morally culpable for the "arming" of Iraq, even though the US supplied 1% of Iraq's arms from 1973-2002 while France supplied 13% and the USSR/Russia 57%.

Posted by Al | April 11, 2008 2:48 PM

I think a quick, unconditional withdrawl is going to result in an orgy of violence as the different factions vie for control and oil, but will this result in more long term casualties than the US maintaining an effective military presence? This is a tough question.

Yeah. Unfortunately it is. I fundamentally find it difficult to believe that the US can accomplish anything of great value in Iraq. I think the plausible scenario that makes the strongest case for US troops staying would be a scenario in which, if we leave, Iraq turns into Lebanon, whereas, if we stay for another 10-30 years, it turns into the Philippines -- a weak, poor country with ethnic strife, rampant corruption and a ruling class too Americanized to have a strong stake in the success of their own nation, but better off than Lebanon with its perennial civil war.

But it's just as likely that a US presence isn't making much of a positive difference at all or is in fact having a strong negative effect on the country's ability to resolve its political composition in a sustainable way that's based on authentic internal interests, rather than outside American interests. It's entirely possible that the presence of US troops has prolonged Iraq's civil war and that the whole thing would have been settled 2 years ago, without any greater violence than has actually occurred, if US troops weren't interfering.

Posted by brooksfoe | April 11, 2008 2:49 PM

Occam

My point is that communal violence in India was predictable after the British left largely because one of the ways that Britain controlled the subcontinent was by doing everything in their power to create solid religious identities and then to pit those identities against each other. And that really prevents India from being analogous to Iraq, I think.

Posted by rickm | April 11, 2008 2:51 PM

It is an invalid argument to say that the sectarian violence would have happened in any case, once Saddam died or otherwise. That may or may not be true, but it is not certain.

I don't see how it not being "certain" matters. It was damned likely.

Posted by Al | April 11, 2008 2:52 PM

IIRC, approximately 4% of Saddam's arms came from the US. The vast majority came from the USSR and France (no time to look this up right now, but I too was surprised our proportion was so low).

That would be "officially". Neither you nor I will ever know how much and through whom.

Although official U.S. policy still barred the export of U.S. military equipment to Iraq, some was evidently provided on a "don't ask - don't tell" basis. In April 1984, the Baghdad interests section asked to be kept apprised of Bell Helicopter Textron's negotiations to sell helicopters to Iraq, which were not to be "in any way configured for military use" [Document 55]. The purchaser was the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. In December 1982, Bell Textron's Italian subsidiary had informed the U.S. embassy in Rome that it turned down a request from Iraq to militarize recently purchased Hughes helicopters. An allied government, South Korea, informed the State Department that it had received a similar request in June 1983 (when a congressional aide asked in March 1983 whether heavy trucks recently sold to Iraq were intended for military purposes, a State Department official replied "we presumed that this was Iraq's intention, and had not asked.") [Document 44]
(...)

Conclusion

The current Bush administration discusses Iraq in starkly moralistic terms to further its goal of persuading a skeptical world that a preemptive and premeditated attack on Iraq could and should be supported as a "just war." The documents included in this briefing book reflect the realpolitik that determined this country's policies during the years when Iraq was actually employing chemical weapons. Actual rather than rhetorical opposition to such use was evidently not perceived to serve U.S. interests; instead, the Reagan administration did not deviate from its determination that Iraq was to serve as the instrument to prevent an Iranian victory. Chemical warfare was viewed as a potentially embarrassing public relations problem that complicated efforts to provide assistance. The Iraqi government's repressive internal policies, though well known to the U.S. government at the time, did not figure at all in the presidential directives that established U.S. policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. The U.S. was concerned with its ability to project military force in the Middle East, and to keep the oil flowing.

Most of the information in this briefing book, in its broad outlines, has been available for years. Some of it was recorded in contemporaneous news reports; a few investigative reporters uncovered much more - especially after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. A particular debt is owed to the late representative Henry Gonzales (1916-2000), Democrat of Texas, whose staff extensively investigated U.S. policy toward Iraq during the 1980s and who would not be deterred from making information available to the public [Note 2]. Almost all of the primary documents included in this briefing book were obtained by the National Security Archive through the Freedom of Information Act and were published in 1995 [Note 3].

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

Write trash. Attract flies.

Posted by LWM | April 11, 2008 2:53 PM

I fundamentally find it difficult to believe that the US can accomplish anything of great value in Iraq.

What about Afghanistan? Is it your opinion that the US can not accomplish anything worthwhile there either? If not, what distinguishes the two countries? If so, do you also support an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan?

Posted by SG | April 11, 2008 2:58 PM

brooksfoe,

I am on the fence when it comes to a continued US presence, but I would openly support it if someone would lay out a cogent plan that resulted in a much more peaceful Iraq that arises from this continued presence. I have always thought partition of the country is going to be the outcome when we leave, but a bloody partition that is going to leave losers nursing grudges for generations. If someone would lay out a plan that leads to a more peaceful, equitable partition, then that is a plan I could get behind. To date, no one in power has offerred this.

Posted by Yancey Ward | April 11, 2008 3:00 PM

That would be "officially".

There is nothing in the exceprt you post at all about the United States "arming" Saddam's government. The excerpt appears to discuss how vigilantly the US enforced its export control laws over foreign government's efforts to prevent a foreign subsidiary of a private company to sell helicopters.

Posted by Al | April 11, 2008 3:00 PM

"Why do you take umbrage at the last sentence of my earlier post? It's absolutely true. A clearcut victory for the U.S. in Iraq would be a nightmare scenario for both Democrats and Islamofascists."

I take umbrage with it because:

a) It seems to imply that the Democrats are hoping for the murder of innocent people, which I find an ugly implication to make.

b) I find it no more plausible than the notion that the Republicans' interests coincide with the Islamofascists. A terrorist attack in the U.S. between now and November would be a godsend for the "tough-on-terror" candidate, John McCain, and would dramatically improve his chances of victory. But I'd be no more gently disposed to those trying to make political hay out of the observation that the GOP's interests are interlocked with the Islamofascists than I am with your attempt to score a political point against the Democrats with the assertion that their interests are aligned with the Islamofascists.

"Put it another way: are Democrats hoping for and working toward American success in Iraq? Of course not. No one would argue that."

But some would argue that Democrats (some of them, not all of them, or perhaps even most of them) are working for an end to American bloodshed in Iraq, and an end to the American shedding of Iraqi blood in Iraq, and that both of those goals are more important goals to work for than the goal of "American success in Iraq" (whatever it is that goal is supposed to look like, exactly, and notwithstanding the question as to whether "American success in Iraq" is even possible).

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

Posted by Patrick Meighan | April 11, 2008 3:05 PM

Did you get banned from Drum's blog or are you lost again, Al. Did the scent of decaying flesh bring you here? Where there's rotting waste, that insect will lay some eggs.

According to more than half a dozen CIA operatives, including former clandestine DO officials, "Agency people became aware that Chalabi had probably been a long-time agent for Iran," in the words of one. These sources, including Whitley Bruner, say that Chalabi was long ago working for Iran in Lebanon, even before the agency recruited him in 1991 and stuck him in as head of the INC. Bruner said of Chalabi: "He never gave the agency any intel on Iran, never submitted to being debriefed.' adding, "He was Iran’s guy."
Bruner and others claim that Chalabi "wanted to start low-intensity war with Iraq. He hoped we would get sucked in." The plan was that the INC would "appeal to US benefactors and we would rescue our proxies."
Former CIA agent, Bob Baer who went into Kurdistan in 1994, said that Chalabi always came into Kurdistan from Iran, where he had a villa. He said Chalabi was very close to Iranians, and covert operators said IRG folk were often at his house in Salauddin.
The INC was totally penetrated by Iranian and Iraqi agents but the CIA didn't care. Chalabi was never entrusted with any secret operations. He was be the day to day manager of INC which was putting out anti-Saddam gray propaganda. We wanted Saddam to know about the INC just to keep the pressure on him.
In 1996, the CIA was trying to organize a serious attempt to overthrow Saddam using the INA, headed by a former Saddam hit man, Iyad Allawi who had broken with Saddam and walked in to work for MI-6 in the late 1970s. The Brits eventually brought him to the CIA in 1992. Allawi had assets inside Saddam's military but Chalabi betrayed the coup out of jealousy. The INA was the preferred CIA instrument, its intelligence was being checked out by technical means, and its success would have meant the end of Chalabi's funding.
In any case, Chalabi got caught fabricating information and the CIA cut him off. He merely went to the Pentagon and the checks kept coming because his fabricated intelligence on Iraq's WMD was so essential to selling the war, this from a man who had already failed four CIA polygraphs so that the agency had issued a "burn" notice on him by the late 1990s.

In 2004, Chalabi betrayed to Iran the fact the NSA was listening to mail belonging to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Milt Bearden called me in real distress the day the Iranian channel went off the air. But Chalabi's real goal was to get rid of the Baathists in Iraq, and get rid of the army. In spite of promises we had made to senior Iraqi military, some of whom facilitated our entry into Iraq in 2003, Bremer, Wolfowitz and Chalabi broke all those promises and the Iraqis joined the insurgency.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2007/05/richard_sale_on.html

Played. There are one too many Chalabi like maggots here.

Posted by LWM | April 11, 2008 3:15 PM

"The funny thing is that, under this definition, every country that supplied two bullets to Iraq even once over a 25 year period "armed" Saddam. So that includes Canada, France, Germany (West), Spain, Italy, UK, etc. Yet, somehow the US has been singled out by the left as especially morally culpable for the "arming" of Iraq, even though the US supplied 1% of Iraq's arms from 1973-2002 while France supplied 13% and the USSR/Russia 57%."

a) There have been certain assistances provided Saddam and his regime for which the US has, in fact, been especially morally culpable. This includes the U.S. providing the Baath Party with a list of thousands of Iraqi communists in 1963, knowing full well that those thousands of Iraqi civilians would be detained and executed by the Baathists without trial (which is what, in fact, happened). That list wasn't given to Saddam by the USSR. It came from us.

b) I'm an American, and as such I focus on the actions carried out by my nation, with my tax dollars, in my name. That's 'cause I don't want crimes carried out in the past by my nation, with my tax dollars, in my name, to be repeated in the future by my nation, with my tax dollars, in my name.

Were I a Canadian, or a Spaniard, or a German, I'd be on a Canadian or a Spanish or a German blog, pissing and moaning about crimes carried out by the government of (whatever country I belong to), and urging others to join me in assuring that those Canadian/Spanish/German crimes not be repeated.

But, again, I'm an American, which leaves me with a special responsibility to be alert to the actions of the American government.

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

Posted by Patrick Meighan | April 11, 2008 3:15 PM

"... Taking in some of the people who have been forced to flee the violence seems like a no-brainer."

In the sense that only somebody with no brains would support it maybe. The same fine judgement that caused you to to support the war has led you to believe that admitting millions of undesirable potential terrorists to the US is a good idea. It is not. And even worse this time the victims will be Americans when the suicide bombers start attacking US trains, subways and busses.

Posted by James B. Shearer | April 11, 2008 3:21 PM

"If I tell you to walk down a street that is dangerous, am I morally culpable when you get mugged? After all, I didn't mug you. The muggers did."

I think Megan got the analogy wrong. Let's try one with more accuracy:

If Megan said you are in immediate danger from the infestation of diseased rats next door, is she responsible your ill-though reaction gets you arrested and sued? After all, she didn't burn down your neighbors house. You did.

Yes, she did insist you had to do something right away. Yes, she spoke against those who questioned your plan. Yes, they were right and the rats weren't full of aids and cancer.

Maybe there's more rats now that the house is damaged, but this isn't Megan's fault.

She was speaking her mind. She's saying something different these days, so you can't hold her responsible for what she said in 2003.

I think that analogy fits your "hidden rules" of behavior.

Posted by mr. sigh | April 11, 2008 3:27 PM

I think the focus on culpability is unproductive because it assumes that we should do nothing or something to help people who need help simply based on guilt. Meanwhile, there is a refugee crisis that needs to be addressed and sorted out. The US, especially with the assistance of Iraqi govt oil funds, seems to be in a position to work towards this effort. I would not go so far to say that we need to give visas to everyone...that's probably not even possible. But we need to have a system in which people's basic needs are met, and then go from there to sort out how they might either be repatriated or whatever. I don't think this can be a black and white issue, but it seems some people would rather take potshots from their ideological camps rather than figure out feasible solutions for a problem that is actually happening right NOW.

Posted by kristi | April 11, 2008 3:46 PM

Taking in some of the people who have been forced to flee the violence seems like a no-brainer.

If there are people who left Iraq because they were in imminent danger of being murdered then sure. But that's a tiny minority of the refugees; most just left Iraq because it is a generally dangerous place to live. Well, they should go back to Iraq and help us try to solve that problem.

I also don't think we should take ANY of the Sunnis; if they hadn't support Hussein they wouldn't be in the mess they're in now.

Posted by Dan | April 11, 2008 3:49 PM

If someone would lay out a plan that leads to a more peaceful, equitable partition, then that is a plan I could get behind. To date, no one in power has offerred this.

And at least until January 20th, 2009, they're not going to.

Why is it so hard for you to get behind immediate withdrawal?

-the bloodbath we're supposedly preventing is going to happen anyway
-there is no political solution pony in sight
-the "security forces" we have spent 5 years training still run away rather than fight their sectarian brothers
-the New Model Army won't be able to defend Iraq's borders for at least another 6-10 years, we hear (not months, years)
-meanwhile the steady drip of American troop casualties continues
-in the midst of a recession that nobody knows how bad it's going to be, the President has just asked for another $100+ billion to flush down the rathole

What does it take? 5000 dead American troops? 6000? 10000? 58000?

Posted by liberalrob | April 11, 2008 4:05 PM

Why does liberalrob remind me of someone who would have abandoned the D-Day landings at D+3 hours?

GERMANY NEVER ATTACKED US! HOW MANY DEAD WILL IT TAKE? US OUT OF EUROPEAN AFFAIRS NOW!

The fight is already on.

Win it.

Posted by Jason Van Steenwyk | April 11, 2008 4:11 PM

"What does it take? 5000 dead American troops? 6000? 10000? 58000?"

librob,

it'll take however much the American Middle Class has left to give..

Posted by MEH | April 11, 2008 4:12 PM

"The fight is already on.

Win it."
Posted by Jason Van Steenwyk | April 11, 2008 4:11 PM

JVS,

where are you stationed?

Posted by MEH | April 11, 2008 4:18 PM

Jason,

The fight is indeed already on.

But the fight is a strategic one against those forces in the Islamic world that reject modernity. It is not a fight to prove anything one way or the other in Iraq.

If the way we have fought against rejectionism Islam to date is actually harming, and not helping, our long-term prospects for achieving some sort of Fukuyama permanent equilibrium in the Middle East, it makes absolutely no sense to continue our present course of action merely to satisfy losers with nationalist dicks who might not be able to get it up if they think the US "lost" in Iraq.

I think it is fairly clear that the actions of the Bush administration as a whole serve to justify the worst of our enemy's anti-US propaganda, and that W took every lie ever told about the US and made them true. The FIRST step one should favor, if one thinks "the fight is on", is a hard push on the reset button. Even if that hurts the adolescent sense of national pride of rednecks.

If the interests of a nation were well served by aggressive war, authoritarianism, secrecy, and torture, the USSR would still be around. It's not. Why are we taking lessons on strategic methodology from losers that we bitchslapped up one continent and down another?

Posted by Brian | April 11, 2008 4:29 PM

So, the US armed Saddam?

(rolls eyes)

Riiiiiight.

That is why the Iraqi army was using M-16s, Abrams tanks, Bradleys, F-16s and 155mm howitzers, as opposed to AKs, T-72s, BMPs, SCUDs, various Soviet SAMs (Sa-6,7,8,9,12,18,among others) MIGs and 152mm guns,(and South African G5s).

I would be remiss if I did not mention the Sooper Seekrit chemical weapons program we have continued to maintain after our Nixon outlawed any further research, transportation, and production in 1969, a ban that still remains in effect. This program allowed us to secretly furnish Saddam with those munitions he used on the Kurds.

So far as whether our decision to invade has been a net good for the Iraqis, just maybe you would like to poll the Kurds or the Marsh Arabs.

It is without question that very nearly every shooting war the US has engaged in (and those we have ignored) is a direct result of of having to clean up a mess the Euro colonial powers left after WWII. (Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq anyone?)

Posted by Marcus | April 11, 2008 4:36 PM

"So, the US armed Saddam? (rolls eyes) Riiiiiight. That is why the Iraqi army was using M-16s, Abrams tanks, Bradleys, F-16s and 155mm howitzers, as opposed to AKs, T-72s, BMPs, SCUDs, various Soviet SAMs (Sa-6,7,8,9,12,18,among others) MIGs and 152mm guns,(and South African G5s)."

Freddie's original assertion (that Saddam Hussein "was armed, funded and diplomatically defended by the United States for decades") was, is, and continues to be, true.

Folks here have enjoyed rephrasing the assertion in slightly different words and then contesting their self-selected rephrase. I assume they do that 'cause folks here cannot manage to contest the original assertion, itself.

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

Posted by Patrick Meighan | April 11, 2008 4:46 PM

Patrick wrote:

"Freddie's original assertion (that Saddam Hussein "was armed, funded and diplomatically defended by the United States for decades") was, is, and continues to be, true."

Perhaps you are correct, and I am misinformed. For my own personal enlightenment, list for me the weapons systems, combat platforms, or even small arms furnished to the Saddam regime by the United states.

Marcus

Posted by Marcus | April 11, 2008 5:03 PM

As an afterthought, I can recall one. I leave that question unanswered as an student exercise. :-)

Marcus

Posted by Marcus | April 11, 2008 5:12 PM

Patrick,

I did not mean to imply that the Democrats support murder and terrorism in Iraq. But the Democrats (e.g., liberalrob) want us out of Iraq, and so do the Islamofascists. So their interests do in fact coincide.

That is not to say their interests are coextensive. Islamofascists probably don't have a position on national healthcare, or the minimum wage, or affirmative action. But on U.S. involvement in Iraq, the two groups have exactly the same policy: getting us out.

Is that even debatable?

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 11, 2008 5:13 PM

Patrick Meighan,

I'm glad you are able to see through the deception and intellectual dishonesty that conservatives like Al enjoy typing. It seems that, not having a position that is supported by evidence or facts, the tactic used by Al and other conservatives is to simply lie or misconstrue an argument in a purposeful way in order to create a strawman or red herring or whatever deception to draw the argument away from the fact that he or she is wrong. I believe this is indicative of the bankruptcy of conservatism at the moment, and I've curiously not seen one poster try to argue otherwise.

Posted by freddiemac | April 11, 2008 5:21 PM

In response to Senator Kennedy who was essentially saying it was our fight and not the Iraqis, General Petraeus pointed out that the Iraqi armed forces had recently been taking 3 times the casualties we had in the fight to which might be added a similar level of casualtiies in the Sons of Iraq, the local area defense forces. These forces are fighting for, in part, a humanistic liberty for their country. Once we establish that we are committed to not abandoning them as we did the Vietnamese then the issue you raise is a priority. In the meantime, the suspicious among us see it as a backdoor way to get us to abandon our larger resposibility

Posted by Michael Brophy | April 11, 2008 5:22 PM

Just for the record, between intentionally lying about what Glenn Greenwald said AND being a cheerleader for the mass-murder of over 1 million innocent man, women, children, and babies - Megan McArdle's responsibility (along with all her cronies in the mainstream media) for the mass-murder and torture of innocent Iraqis and US troops is far, far worse. But that doesn't in any way absolve her grotesque lying about the facts Glenn Greenwald pointed out.

Posted by Luther Brixton | April 11, 2008 5:26 PM

Although note that Iraq was a terrible mess in 2003 as a result of a 1991 war and sanctions that we really insisted upon and supported. I think those things were good actions but Iraq was a mess and _something_ -- something _strong_ -- had to be done. "Smart sanctions" would've been nice, a war was evidently not so nice, maybe there's other possibilities -- but I tend to agree with Ms. McArdle on the question of our responsibilities and certainly that's always been a factor for me in thinking about, should we do this war? what do we do now? do we owe the Iraqis something?

In fact I'd be curious to hear Ms. McArdle think aloud on how this idea she describes above influences the larger question of going to war in the first place.

Posted by Sanjay | April 11, 2008 5:27 PM

Although the United States may not have been the primary source of Saddam Hussein's military power, the United States and the United Kingdom provided substantial military aid (including chemical weapons and biological weapons and technical assistance) to Iraq during the war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980's, and the United States (often working through the CIA) used allies in the Middle East, allies in Western Europe, and independent arms dealers to funnel additional U.S. funds and military hardware to Iraq during this same time period. Refer to "Arming Iraq and the Path to War" by John King, U.N. Observer & International Report (31 March 2003) for some of the sources Mr. King used to compile his chronology. Additional information about this topic can be found in "Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam's War Machine" by Mark Phythian (1996).

This information doesn't answer the question about how to resolve the mess we created by invading Iraq, but comments that the United States only furnished "1%" or "4%" of Iraq's military machine must be based on FOX news sources.

Also, comparing our invasion of Iraq to our liberation of Europe in World War II is nonsense. After the United States was attacked by japan at Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on Japan, and then Germany declared war on the United States before the United States declared war on Germany. Ari Fleischer didn't understand this either.

Posted by Blaine Kinsey | April 11, 2008 5:39 PM

Blaine, I'll give you a shot at the same question, to wit...

"...list for me the weapons systems, combat platforms, or even small arms furnished to the Saddam regime by the United states.."

Prediction? Same answer as Patrick's.

(crickets)

Marcus

Posted by Marcus | April 11, 2008 5:50 PM

FWIW: Arms sales to Iraq, 1973-1990 from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Over this period here are the sources of Iraq's arms:

68.9% USSR and Warsaw Pact
12.7% France
11.8% PRC
0.5% U.S.

Sorry, but them's the facts, if you believe that right-wing think tank, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 11, 2008 5:52 PM

"For my own personal enlightenment, list for me the weapons systems, combat platforms, or even small arms furnished to the Saddam regime by the United states."

According to Howard Teicher (who served on Reagan's National Security Council staff), the U.S. "actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing US military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry required."

In 1982, Reagan legalized direct military assistance to Iraq (which is to say, Ronald Reagan took Iraq off the terrorism watch list in March of '82), resulting in more than a billion dollars in military related exports. Over the opposition of several Republican Senators, the Reagan Administration agreed, in December of 1982, to support the sale of 60 Hughes MD 500 "Defender" helicopters to Saddam (the Defender had been used by our nation in Vietnam in various ways, including as an armed scout helicopter equipped with TOW anti-tank missiles, and the U.S. has also deployed an anti-submarine version of the Defender with a search radar, magnetic anomaly detector and the capability to carry lightweight torpedoes). Those "Defenders" were delivered to Iraq by the end of 1983. The Reagan Administration also approved the sale of 8 Bell Textron AB 212 military helicopters equipped for anti-submarine warfare and 48 Bell Textron 214 ST utility helicopters (sold for "recreational" purposes).

http://www.iran.org/tib/krt/iraq_921027.htm

The U.S. also approved the shipment of anthrax strains to Iraq beginning in 1985, under license from the U.S. Commerce Department.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_n4_v62/ai_20452303

The New York Times also reported on August 18th of 2002, in a front-page story headlined, "Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq Despite the Use of Gas" that, according to anonymous US "senior military officers," the Reagan Administration covertly provided Saddam's regime with "critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war."

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E0DB133DF93BA2575BC0A9649C8B63

Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA

Posted by Patrick Meighan | April 11, 2008 5:56 PM

0.5% U.S. in toto. That's it.

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 11, 2008 6:00 PM

Marcus,

That ringing noise in your ears isn't crickets.

Patrick,

Excellent work in quickly providing links. Though it is funny that it wasn't necessary to refute the dishonest Marcus, as Al had already defended the assertion that the US armed Iraq by providing statistics that demonstrate that the US armed Saddam, as did many others.

Nice try playing fancy footwork, but further arguments on this subject only further illuminate the depths of lies and dishonesty that is conservatism.

Posted by freddiemac | April 11, 2008 6:02 PM

0.5% U.S. in toto. That's it.

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 11, 2008 6:05 PM

From

How responsible are we for Iraq?

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