Perle and Frum lay out a bold program to defend America--and to win the war on terror. Among the topics this book addresses:
--why the United States risks its security if it submits to the authority of the United Nations
--why France and Saudi Arabia have to be treated as adversaries, not allies, in the war on terror
--why the United States must take decisive action against Iran--now
--what to do in North Korea if negotiations fail
--why everything you read in the newspapers about the Israeli-Arab dispute is wrong
--how our government must be changed if we are to fight the war on terror to victory--not just stalemate
--where the next great terror threat is coming from--and what we can do to protect ourselves
An End to Evil will define the conservative point of view on foreign policy for a new generation--and shape the agenda for the 2004 presidential-election year and beyond. With a keen insiders' perspective on how our leaders are confronting--or not confronting--the war on terrorism, David Frum and Richard Perle make a convincing argument for why the toughest line is the safest line. posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 12:06 AM on December 31, 2003
After the amazing success Iraq turned out to be I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to goto war with half the world with an over-extended military funded by a country that is 500 or billion in the red. Neocon optimism is a scary thing indeed. posted by skallas at 12:17 AM on December 31, 2003
David Frum and Richard Perle make a convincing argument for why the toughest line is the safest line.
Finally! An end to "terror." Can they next please wage war on nausea. I'm feeling that pretty much round the clock. posted by squirrel at 12:34 AM on December 31, 2003
madness.
+
power
=
???
These guys are a real and credible threat to security of the planet. Please, somebody, anybody, do something!
(I suggest voting, not violence...) posted by hoskala at 12:41 AM on December 31, 2003
I'm actually really glad to hear this. This will rip the republican party in half. The hawks against the actual conservatives. Whether or not Bush decides to go on with this, well, kill-crazy global rampage, he is bound to lose face with some of his current followers--either for being too dovey or too hawkey. And any voter cooled toward Bush is a another ray of hope for an end to this madness in November. More weight, Pearle! posted by squirrel at 12:51 AM on December 31, 2003
David Frum and Richard Perle make a convincing argument for why the toughest line is the safest line.
everybody all together, now!
"HOW CONVINCING WAS IT?" posted by quonsar at 3:37 AM on December 31, 2003
Such steps, with luck, will prompt China to oust its nominal ally, Kim Jong-il, and install a saner regime in North Korea, the authors write.
Hope is not a plan. posted by anewc2 at 4:14 AM on December 31, 2003
I'll look at the book, but when a poster begins with the premise that Iraq is not a significant success...my word, how detached from reality are you! Unbelievable. posted by ParisParamus at 4:22 AM on December 31, 2003
Everybody, all together:
GROW UP; RESOLVE YOUR PERSONAL AUTHORITY ISSUES; AND START PROPOSING SOME POLITICAL SOLUTIONS WHICH DON'T SHOUT "COLLEGE SOPHOMORE.
So, now we know, FreedomParamus is really George Will.
An End to Evil will define the conservative point of view on foreign policy for a new generation
Neocon Likudniks are NOT conservative. They're crazy and that is the only definition they will have for a new generation.
BTW, I didn't see Ariel Sharon listed as an author. And will the book discuss the apartheid wall being built in Israel with US taxpayer dollars? Inquiring minds want to know. posted by nofundy at 4:44 AM on December 31, 2003
I'm interested in finding out just what their suggestions are for "changing" the government. I have a feeling it involves taking it away from large assemblies of debate (such as Congress) and giving it to one supreme commander (surrounded by hand-picked, unelected advisors). That sounds awfully familiar to me.
No, not that one. More like the Roman Republic transforming itself into the Roman Empire. That's a far more appropriate comparison. Far too appropriate, if you ask me. posted by GhostintheMachine at 4:48 AM on December 31, 2003
The Roman Empire? Maybe, but without the empire, and without all the bad stuff. posted by ParisParamus at 4:57 AM on December 31, 2003
(Actually, not totally true: I'm not sure substituting various reality shows for gladiators is much of an improvement...) posted by ParisParamus at 5:02 AM on December 31, 2003
>>GROW UP; RESOLVE YOUR PERSONAL AUTHORITY ISSUES; AND START PROPOSING SOME POLITICAL SOLUTIONS WHICH DON'T SHOUT "COLLEGE SOPHOMORE.
At the risk of being accused of attacking the arguer rather than the argument, at the chance of having my well-thought-out and if arguable nonetheless strongly-felt beliefs about the balance between what is right and what is merely expedient held up for ridicule, at the outside hazard of sounding like a ranting ninny as opposed to an amused if involved arguer with a rogueish glint in his eye, I am compelled to say :
....
(ah fuck it, ParisParamus isn't worth the bile. [Delete] and carry on. You make yourself more of a joke with everything you write, PP. No help (or, god forbid, rebuttal) is required from me.) posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:10 AM on December 31, 2003
Rebuttal is required. The arrogance of the Left... posted by ParisParamus at 5:30 AM on December 31, 2003
It's really cute when Paris gets so excited that he posts replies to himself. posted by Armitage Shanks at 5:51 AM on December 31, 2003
Oh, I think Perle and Frum's ideas are great. 'Course, to implement them we're going to have to reinstitute the draft - not enough soldiers in the armed forces now to police the world in this manner, of course. And sure, it will cost tens of billions of dollars. And the treatment of France as an adversary may well mean making adversaries out of the rest of "old Europe" and Russia as well. Maybe even Great Britain.
But look at the alternative - more terror attacks! Maybe!
Howard Dean ought to be bringing this up at each and every campaign stop. posted by kgasmart at 6:24 AM on December 31, 2003
Nothing in Washington is as it appears.
Several hypotheticals:
1) What if the book was solicited, to send a message to a foreign power(s)?
2) What if the book was solicited, to send a message to the democratic party or parts of the government?
3) Never assume people with the same boss (Powell, Pearl) are automatically at odds with each other. Suspect "good cop"/"bad cop".
4) Why talk peace when war has given several desirable outcomes (in the broad sense)?
5) The book *had* to be vetted by the security services and they apparently found it "nihil obstat." In other words, nothing they said impressed the CIA and others as endangering national security. Hmm.
6) Could this be one corner of an effort to create a "foreign policy triangulation?", that is, a carrot and stick approach to the rest of the increasingly small uncooperative world. posted by kablam at 6:46 AM on December 31, 2003
David Frum's December 14th blog entry (at The National Review Online) is interesting :
"My take on the capture of Saddam will appear in tomorrow’s National Post.....For now, let’s say that while the President’s opponents have made much sport of the idea that God called George Bush to the presidency, it’s becoming increasingy difficult to doubt that God wants President Bush re-elected"
God wants Bush to be re-elected.......Now some might believe this. OK. What's bizzare to me is NOT the fact that Frum holds this view. No - what looks to me like a sign of delusional thinking is that Frum is so bluntly open about it. He's very cagey in terms of the other ways he rhetorically advances the Bush agenda. But the fact that God is on George W. Bush's side is so manifestly obvious to Frum that he feels quite safe in shouting out this obvious truth from the mountaintop over at NRO.
This is yet another demonstration of how the benzene tinged fumes of power that waft from the corridors of power in DC gradually rot the minds and judgement of spiders such as Perle and Frum as they spin away at the American Enterprise Institute and other such lairs, constructing towering webs of rhetorical vision designed to advance an American neo-empire, garner immense profits for their military industrial complex cronies, support the Israeli hard right, and bring on the millenarian apocalypse of American fundamentalist wet dreams.
Very interesting post, Ignatius. I was just now talking to a colleague about the next developments regarding the war on terror. Some of the book's premises seem a bit too cut and dried and populist (France=Saudi Arabia???), but it will help to bring the war on terror back to its proper context, i.e., that of the historical struggle against barbarism. posted by 111 at 6:48 AM on December 31, 2003
Ah, I think Frum's kidding, and that doesn't bother me.
What does bother me is that I can see this happening. Syria at the very least. In Iran, the earthquake may do as much to topple that regime as anything else, now that the degree to which that country if fucked and the mullahs powerless to do anything for anyone is evident to even the most radical Islamists.
A minute, please. This is a discussion about a book. What matters finally is whether or not Cheney tells Bush to do what these hawks suggest. I would like now to hear what those so against the hawkish line propose to do about what clearly is a growing terror threat throughout the world. That too would simply be "suggestions." till enacted by those in place. As for the size of our military. You will have to wait till a week or so after the election is over. posted by Postroad at 6:58 AM on December 31, 2003
I would like now to hear what those so against the hawkish line propose to do about what clearly is a growing terror threat throughout the world
See, right off the bat I'm going to quarrel with the way you're framing this debate.
First, prove that the terror threat is "clearly growing." It seems to be taken on faith amongst those on the right that the terror threat is exponentially building, and that through our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have definitively forestalled additional attacks. Prove it.
That a bunch of lunatics on 9/11 were able to succeed with the most spectacular terror attack in history does not in fact prove that the terror threat is any greater now than it ever has been. In fact, what it proved was that we were vulnerable to this sort of attack all along, and merely did nothing to protect ourselves from it.
Further, even if we are to establish that there is a greater threat of terror attacks now than ever before, how much of that is specifically linked to our new preemptive policy? Some 400 Americans are dead in Iraq, which we've chosen to define as a front in the war on terror; would 400 Americans have been killed by terror acts in the past year had we not gone in there?
Conservatives are taking this as a matter of faith, but I don't see how it's possible to do this.
Second, my "suggestion" would have been to spend the $87 billion on additional safeguards here at home. Greater airline and port security, that sort of thing. Of course additional money has been spent on such safeguards since 9/11; but if the resources made available for war were made available for this, you can make a clear case that Americans on the whole would be safer than we have been as a result of our new strategy of preemption.
And beyond that, I find it ludicrious that consevatives seem to believe that we can somehow wipe terror from the face of the earth. How many nations have been plagued by terror throughout history? We are going to do now what no other nation has ever been able to do?
And the idea that we may accomplish this through sheer force of will and military might, the rest of the world's objections literally be damned, seems to me to be the single most dangerous path we might take. posted by kgasmart at 7:14 AM on December 31, 2003
GROW UP; RESOLVE YOUR PERSONAL AUTHORITY ISSUES; AND START PROPOSING SOME POLITICAL SOLUTIONS WHICH DON'T SHOUT "COLLEGE SOPHOMORE.
Grow up, resolve you're typing issues and let the shift key be free from the oppression of your flat thumb. posted by jonmc at 7:14 AM on December 31, 2003
Meanwhile - back in Kablam's land of rational discourse - I agree with some of your points, K. But what of the fact that the neocons telegraphed their intent several years ahead of it's implementation (In "Rebuilding America's Defenses.....") ? "while Iraq provides the immediate pretext, Iran may constitute the larger threat...." (from "Rebuilding.."). This necocon grand vision, laid out at the Project For a New American century, has not changed.
Now, perhaps the Neocons - Perle, Frum, et al., have perfectly anticipated how the many actors on the world stage will react to these thundering blasts of intent. Perhaps the Neocons think they have it all precisely gamed out. If so, they are bigger fools than I've taken them for, but I strongly suspect that they are just making it up as they go along. The lack of planning, on the part of the Bush Administration, for the all too predictable realities that the US troops invading Iraq would encounter on the ground seems to support this hypothesis.
As they play with they world with such experimental glee, these neocons are like adolescent boys with chemistry sets (the old style which used to come with all sorts of exciting chemicals) randomly combining elements, setting off explosions, releasing clouds of toxic gasses.... They are boys with toys, but it's time now to send them to their rooms without supper, so the adults clean up all the dangerous messes they have left in their wake.
111 - The problem I see with the notion of the "struggle against barbarism" is that it is all of a piece with the Bush Administration's "War on Evil" and "Good vs. Evil" themes. Such simplistic manichean outlooks tend to cause distortions in judgement which lead down the primrose path to the methods of the Inquisition, to bloody crusades, and to wider war. Self professed crusaders against evil quite often wind up, in their righteous zeal, assuming the mask of the demonic - as the methods by which they would 'cleanse' the world come to resemble those of their 'evil' foes, or worse.
Only God can parse the world into good and evil. But neither Mr. Perle or Mr. Frum are as gods. All too human, they are - although strangely unaware of this fact. posted by troutfishing at 7:22 AM on December 31, 2003
what kgasmart said so well--there's always been terror and terrorists--and none of them in this or the past century were iraqi, btw. If we truly want to stop terrorist attacks, we protect ourselves at home and at entry points and vulnerable areas without trampling on the constitution, and work internationally--and peacefully--to raise hopes and freedoms around the world, lessening the population of angry, frustrated young people who might otherwise be willing to join a terrorist group and die for their cause. Starting wars against people who did nothing to us only makes the problem worse, and raises recruitment for terrorist groups a hundredfold. posted by amberglow at 7:23 AM on December 31, 2003
This book sounds like a dangerous pile of hubris, but in fairness to Frum, I must admit that I did enjoy How We Got Here. His neo-con point of view shows, but he still makes some interesting points.
But this sounds just plain clueless. I was as angry about 9/11 as any human possibly could be and I despise terrorism of any sort, and I believe the military has a role in bringing those behind it to justice. But, as amberglow said, attacking Iraq (run by a despicable man, but not the man behind 9/11), one causes needless sufferring for both the Iraqi people and American GI's and two, increases anti-American sentiment and actually helps terrorists.
Believe me, I understand the anger of some of the hawks and on some level share it, but there's a time to use your head and this is it. posted by jonmc at 7:33 AM on December 31, 2003
"...the cavalry charged, and the indians fell. The cavalry charged, and the indians died. The country was young then, with God on it's side." - Bob Dylan
Over 30 years ago, Dylan wrote what has become America's new national anthem, enshrined shortly after September 11th.
"With God on their side...." posted by troutfishing at 7:46 AM on December 31, 2003
trout, wasn't 9/11 enough as a reminder of the true nature of fundamentalism? How long will liberals be satisfied with calling Osama Bin Laden a "militant"? Saddam and the other psychopaths from the Middle East are not human beings defending a cause; these are evil maniacs who sacrifice their kids' lives and use chemical weapons against their own people for the sake of some irrational cause.
If you renounce the use of your own faculties and common sense, this kind of dumb relativism ends up destroying you. So it's not Bush's war at all. We may not be entirely good, but islamic terrorists are verifiably, transparently evil. Appeasement against fanatical hate does not work.
ps: also beware of people who try to dismiss books without reading them. Those are likely to be the same naive folk who consider Michael Moore and Al Franken non-partisan, even-handed authors. posted by 111 at 7:50 AM on December 31, 2003
ps: also beware of people who try to dismiss books without reading them.
I wish Frum would go back to Canada and quit meddling.
On preview I wonder if troutfishing will deem it worth his time to do his usual thorough refutation of 111's comments ... stuff I can't wait to read. posted by nofundy at 8:10 AM on December 31, 2003
XQUZ, except for Frazer ( from whom I read only the Golden Bough's first volume), I read all of those people thank God. Not everybody is semiliterate, you know. posted by 111 at 8:10 AM on December 31, 2003
"With God on their side...."
And the terrorists say, "With Allah on our side...." posted by WLW at 8:13 AM on December 31, 2003
Iraq is not a significant success...my word, how detached from reality are you! Unbelievable.
yoh. paris. remember Afghanistan? when our buddies the mujhadeen chased the soviet occupiers out?.. that turned into a real nice success story for the US. or let me try another one on for size: Chile, when we backed (in fact assisted) the ouster of democratically elected president Allende... and thousands upon thousands were subsequently dirtnapped by our man pinochet. just a couple great examples of our past "successes" brought to you by people like bush, bush sr., kissinger, rumsfeld, perle... etc. posted by specialk420 at 8:18 AM on December 31, 2003
I love the presumptiveness of the title. Unfortunately, I think that even killing all the terrorists *and* Richard Perle will not put "an end to evil". posted by Slothrup at 8:34 AM on December 31, 2003
troutfishing: a small logical error. While the neocons may be "making it up as they go along," or holding to the PNAC grand plan, it doesn't make sense that they do both.
Never assume, or say as much, that your enemies are fools; it is far better to assume they are evil geniuses.
Once again, my darkest suspicion is "What is the purpose of this book?" I doubt it is money, to convert the converted or to inflame their enemies. Even the Telegraph saw an ulterior motive to it, the upcoming election. But I suspect something more. What, exactly, I'm not sure.
The PNAC people are not ashamed of their beliefs. Their website still names their leaders. And yet, Bush is intensely private about the "inner workings" that surround him, and his "strategery", as is Dick Cheney, a listed PNAC member.
The bottom line is that there are some glaring inconsistencies here. Paradoxes. The only reason to maintain airtight security for a year, then cheeky openness for a minute is deception. And clever deception, cunning and guile are not hallmarks of the stupid.
More and more I suspect that the PNAC grand plan is, and has always been the strategy; that more than anything else, unexpected success alone has caught them unawares. That they will not be satisfied until they have crushed every major national threat and "reduced" if not annihilated threatening cultural or religious movements. posted by kablam at 8:40 AM on December 31, 2003
Such steps, with luck, will prompt China to oust its nominal ally, Kim Jong-il, and install a saner regime in North Korea, the authors write.
Read that quote again. Then try to reconcile the notion of American neo-Conservatives actively hoping that still-Communist China will reach into North Korea to install a leader of their own choosing. I tried, but it hurt my brain too much. posted by grabbingsand at 8:47 AM on December 31, 2003
Perhaps Neocon plans are already underway, and they just threw a whopper at Iran with their new Earthquake Machine. posted by DenOfSizer at 9:02 AM on December 31, 2003
I just started digging into Jessica Stern's "Terror in the Name of God" - In which she explores the idea that defeating terrorism requires understanding why and where it came from. So far an excellent but chilling read. Why am i guessing perle and frum "book" does very little on this front? posted by specialk420 at 9:08 AM on December 31, 2003
I'd also point out that some of the ideas postulated in the Telegraph's summary - if truly in the book - are not so radical.
Wealthy Saudis funding extremist terrorist groups? I think we could all agree this is true.
France seeking a way to offset American dominance? This is also generally true.
While I don't think the issue with the French is necessarily a problem that needs solving, and the proposed solution to Saudi Arabia is questionable at best, I can agree with their initial analysis. posted by rocketman at 9:22 AM on December 31, 2003
"but when a poster begins with the premise that Iraq is not a significant success..."
Financially, militarily, and diplomatically the Iraq war has been a dismal failure.
While it may lead to a better life for some Iraqis (which still is in doubt) it has made things worse for the U.S. Iraq was once a terrorist free zone, but it's now a flash point for new recruiting. The coalition we need to effectively fight terrorism has been gutted by the "with us or against us" arrogance that led up to the war. And the poor planning has caused the costs of the war to spiral out of control. Hatred for the U.S. increases. Former allies openly belittle us. War related debt is causing the value of the dollar to plummet.
Next you'll be telling us Vietnam was a significant success. posted by y6y6y6 at 9:53 AM on December 31, 2003
I'll look at the book, but when a poster begins with the premise that Iraq is not a significant success...my word, how detached from reality are you!
To sum up, we are extremely attached to preserving the Kurdish-Arab brotherhood and would be satisfied to keep the common values between them as a principle objective. The future situation of Iraq necessitates the participation of Kurds and Arabs in it in the form of a voluntary coexistence between them, which would take into consideration the particular nature of the people of Kurdistan. The imposition of an unacceptable formula on the Kurdish people should not be thought about in any form or shape, because it would certainly lead to undesired consequences. We would not want the Kurds to resort to other choices.
At least two people were killed and 10 wounded by gunfire in Iraq's ethnically split oil hub of Kirkuk Wednesday during protests over a Kurdish political bid for control of the city, officials said...
Kurds on Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council are proposing that a future, federal Iraqi government grant broad autonomy to the northern zone, with Kirkuk as its capital, and a say over other areas with large Kurdish populations.
That plan is bitterly opposed by Turkmens and Arabs in Kirkuk, some 20,000 of whom took to the streets Wednesday, chanting "No to federalism! Kirkuk is Iraqi!."
The jury would seem to be out: incipient civil war is not a significant success. posted by y2karl at 9:55 AM on December 31, 2003
The john titor link was cool rocketman. thanks. posted by nofundy at 10:01 AM on December 31, 2003
when a poster begins with the premise that Iraq is not a significant success...my word, how detached from reality are you
I would consider anyone who would call Iraq a "significant success" to be, at the very least, premature. posted by wsg at 10:04 AM on December 31, 2003
The World to America says: "Please rein in your government, for the sake of us all!" posted by five fresh fish at 10:07 AM on December 31, 2003
Saddam and the other psychopaths from the Middle East are not human beings...
Thank you, 111, for relieving us of the need to ever again seriously consider your posts. posted by squirrel at 10:19 AM on December 31, 2003
trout, wasn't 9/11 enough as a reminder of the true nature of fundamentalism?
No, it's a reminder of the true nature of terrorism -- and the importance of having a competent government focused on serving rather than plunder.
Saddam and the other psychopaths from the Middle East are not human beings defending a cause; these are evil maniacs who sacrifice their kids' lives and use chemical weapons against their own people for the sake of some irrational cause.
That was as true when we supported them as it was when we changed our minds and decided we didn't like them any more. To claim that we went after Saddam because of his despotism and butchery is belied by the fact that we at best ignored and at worst, condoned it, until he invaded an equally backward and unenlightened neigbor who happened to have a lot of oil. posted by George_Spiggott at 10:21 AM on December 31, 2003
I'm with nofundy. That John Titor link was fantastic, rocketman. posted by stevis at 10:36 AM on December 31, 2003
--how our government must be changed if we are to fight the war on terror to victory--not just stalemate
Step 1: Toss out that danged ole Bill of Rights that keeps getting in the way.
Saddam and the other psychopaths from the Middle East are not human beings...
Um, okaaaay... :::backs away slowly::: posted by rushmc at 10:48 AM on December 31, 2003
y2karl: a few years ago, I would have agreed about your assessment of the Kurds. Trouble in every nation they live, they violently cling to the dream of Kurdistan.
However, in the last few years, suddenly the Iraqi Kurds put forth some very educated and erudite spokesmen as leaders--men who understand and appreciate finesse in achieving goals--and have communicated that to the US.
For example, in the current situation, they understand that to partition Iraq would be a losing deal for them, resulting in violent civil war. However, a "federalist" "semi-autonomous" North Iraq would give them everything they want, save the name Kurdistan. It would be a de facto Kurdish state, and with oil, a reasonably wealthy one.
The Turkmen and Arabs, recent arrivals up North, are really intruders. Put there by Saddam in homes stolen from Kurds, they are the odd men out in the equation. The best they can hope for is, in the above federalist state, that the national constitution guarantees them equal civil rights with the Kurds--and is enforced by the federal Iraqi government. The odds of this happening are small. But otherwise they are a tiny minority in that region.
An interesting note will be if the Kurds can pull it off. Because Turkey and Iran will have populations that either want to leave and go to Iraq, will want to secede, or will want very close relations with their border neighbor; things neither Turkey or Iran want. posted by kablam at 10:50 AM on December 31, 2003
Out of all this, the most frightening thought, is that there are people out there like 111 who really believe all this good versus evil crap. Once you have that kind of justification, there's really nothing to stop you. The Bush administration is capable of so much worse than we've already seen. Beware. posted by Outlawyr at 11:26 AM on December 31, 2003
Shear madness and pure evil. posted by Bag Man at 11:50 AM on December 31, 2003
Out of all this, the most frightening thought, is that there are people out there like 111 who really believe all this good versus evil crap.
Clearly, not every Arab/Muslim/Middle Easterner is evil, and to paint with too broad a brush is to obfuscate.
That being said, I am startled by the contrast between the voluntary contributions to the Iranian earthquake group(s) and the cheering and jubilation in the streets of Palestine at the death of thousands of civilians at the hands of the 9/11 hijackers.
Do you think that celebrating the slaughter of civilians is not an act of an evil person or culture? Do you think the way women in many fundamentalist nations are treated isn't symptomatic of evil? What about genocide? Think that's evil?
Because I do. It's no less evil than slavery, or Japanese Internment camps, or the horrors fosted upon the Native Americans.
But there's a difference. I think an overwhelming majority of Westerners see the evils of our predecessors for what they are. I'm not convinced that the majority of Middle Easterners feel the same way about their (substantially more recent) transgressions. I could be convinced otherwise (troutfishing? y2karl?), but until then, "those guys" are more evil than "our guys". posted by trharlan at 11:58 AM on December 31, 2003
the cheering and jubilation in the streets of Palestine
You mean the video which showed about ten to twenty people (while dozens more passed by in the background) celebrating? What about the candlelight vigils in Palestine the next few days after the tragedy? It's really not so simple as you would like it to be. An "evil" culture exists, but it has no national base, it is worldwide. Yes there are those who gave to the Iranian victims, but in my own office here in the "not evil" lands, I heard a few jokes already about the plight of those poor people. Not exactly jubilation, more along the lines of "they deserved it for being backwards and primitive".
It's no less evil than slavery, or Japanese Internment camps, or the horrors fosted upon the Native Americans.
To bring your point full-circle, do you think the treatment of the Palestinians over the past 50 years (ethnic cleansing, internment, theft of property, state terror) is evil? And what of the nation that finances it and supports it? Do the majority of Americans feel this way?
It seems to me that evil is often in the eye of the beholder. Take the treatment of women-- what of the fact that murder, toture, sexual slavery, prostitution and rape of women is much more common in the liberated West than in the 'fundamentalist' East, where women are socially oppressed. Which is more evil? Again, evil is all around us, there is no national base. There is no "those guys" and "our guys". In my opinion at least. posted by cell divide at 12:29 PM on December 31, 2003
Interesting point divide--except that the nature of consentual relationships is so much more primitive in the non-West that you're assertion is little more than a semantic one: more rapes in the West? Hardly.
There are those evil governments; and us. posted by ParisParamus at 12:48 PM on December 31, 2003
There are those evil governments; and us.
But at what point did it become the responsibility of the United States to appoint itself arbiter of these things and traverse the globe toppling these evil governments? And to what end are we willing to go in order to accomplish this goal?
You can make a very good case that killing civilians with bombs that were dropped in a war that in large measures was sold to the American public on the basis of false pretexts isn't going to be found in the dictionary under "virtue." I wouldn't call it evil, but I see tremendous danger in annointing ourselves as this beacon of light in a dark world with the responsibility of enlightening the rest. That, my friend, is the ultimate manifestation of hubris.
I am not interested in a crusade. And if we're going to define this conflict in these terms, then that's exactly what it is. posted by kgasmart at 12:55 PM on December 31, 2003
There is no such thing as "evil." Or the "dark side." Time to grow up and get a more sophisticated worldview for some people. posted by rushmc at 1:23 PM on December 31, 2003
I read all of those people thank God. Not everybody is semiliterate, you know.
right. and you stand as proof that many people remain as enlightened as a slab of concrete despite the abilty to read. posted by quonsar at 1:40 PM on December 31, 2003
It's hard to ignore that those who decry Saddam's use of poison gas against Iraqi civilians have been for the most part silent about his use of it against Iranian soldiers, which use the United States aided, abetted and covered up. posted by y2karl at 2:09 PM on December 31, 2003
why everything you read in the newspapers about the Israeli-Arab dispute is wrong
How the hell do they know what I read? Is the Total Information Awareness program farther along than I thought? posted by namespan at 3:24 PM on December 31, 2003
I can't believe that I payed $20 for this book, but I'm reading it now. The general childishness of the tone in the early parts is mind-blowing. Perle and Frum aim foremost to rhetorically moon anyone who disagreed with their Iraq policies. posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 3:30 PM on December 31, 2003
It's hard to ignore that those who decry Saddam's use of poison gas against Iraqi civilians have been for the most part silent about his use of it against Iranian soldiers, which use the United States aided, abetted and covered up.
What does it matter now? Those could be Kurds, not Iranians for all you know. Regardless of what the US Gov't may have done in the past, It is a known fact that Saddam had used these weapons. Why does it make it wrong to do something about it now? It's going on 20 years since Reagon was in power, give it up.
Saddam was a strategic threat after 911. and he was dealt with. Iraq is and will continue to be a work in progress.
Japan wasn't turned around in under a year either, it took alot more than 10 years. posted by WLW at 3:54 PM on December 31, 2003
There are those evil [people]; and [me].
posted by ParisParamus at 12:48 PM PST on December 31
This is, I think, how Paris thinks. posted by five fresh fish at 4:16 PM on December 31, 2003
if your starting point in thinking about the entire world is the basic concept that Israel is, by definition, Good, then you will have to invent books, theories, doctrines, ideas, terminology, etc etc etc etc. to Make It So. posted by chaz at 4:26 PM on December 31, 2003
Financially, militarily, and diplomatically the Iraq war has been a dismal failure.
But now that we are there, isn't it worth trying to make the place better for everyone?
If we concentrate on making Iraq and Afghanistan success stories, it might eliminate the need to pursue future conflict because it might give hope others in the area. I don't think that anyone can really predict what is going to happen next, but we have a chance now to do the right thing in these two countries. We need someone other than Bush at the helm (his track domestic record alone makes that clear), but I don't think it's entirely hopeless.
I'm trying to find the silver lining in all this mess. I've been against the war since the start, but Saddam is gone and there's a chance for a better Iraq. Maybe that should be the goal rather then trying to determine which nation is next on the list. posted by john at 4:37 PM on December 31, 2003
Maybe that should be the goal rather then trying to determine which nation is next on the list.
Great points in this thread by many, including y2karl, cell divide and kgasmart.
john, I think it's important that the US continue to fail in Iraq. I have two reasons for this: principled and practical.
On principle, our nation-building failures in Iraq must send a message to future US administrations and other countries that the way we did this really, really doesn't work. From the lying and cover-ups to the cowboy bravado to the... well, everything. It sucks. This is to say nothing against our excellent military, whose expertise and might simply has been misused.
If, as you suggest, things take a turn for the better in Iraq without our withdrawal, I can promise you that in 5 years, all the fucked-up bullshit perpetrated by this administration will be glossed over and revised into heroism. Iraq will become a template, and we will see all this again.
Practically speaking, the sooner we stop shooting ourselves in the foot and shot ourselves in the leg, the sooner we get out of Iraq. Then the place can be recognized not as the central battle in the war on terror (for fuck's sake) but as a humanitarian tragedy that requires humanitarian aid, not military occupation. Iraq needs the help of the UN, and they're not going to get it as long as we're running the show. posted by squirrel at 5:02 PM on December 31, 2003
squirrel: You have serious problems. What you just wrote goes beyond any kind of reasonable argument against war in general, or against the war in Iraq, or against Bush, or against the USA, almost to the point of aberrance.
First, you are deluded if you think that what the US is doing in Iraq is failing. The US, and the 90 nations helping it, are doing wonders not just for Iraq, but for the whole region. The war was a smashing success, that minimized the loss of life, even of enemy combatants, far beyond what any war has done, ever. Most of the nation is at peace, with repair and development happening at a staggering pace.
And even those towns in the Sunni Triangle opposed to the US have realized that they must be part of the new government if they are to have a prosperous future.
The US is so confident that it has stated a date on which it will shift authority over to the government of Iraq, elected or otherwise, and take a back seat to the restoration efforts. Such confidence!
Iraq is becoming a showpiece of freedom, prosperity, and civil liberty to dozens of nations in the middle east and Africa--a terrible blow to dictators who hate and fear what Iraq will soon represent, and who now live in fear that their own people will learn from Iraq's example and depose them and their corrupt systems.
And as to the swinish Franco-Germans and others who stood in support of the murderous tyrant, humiliation. Humiliation and shame at their cowardice, their greed and treachery, their lust to regain the spotlight as world powers. For they too were given a glaring example of what courage, honor and righteousness can do, even on its own. And they came away wanting. And slowly, even they are starting to realize their shame.
So while the number "50 million" is being bandied about, 50 million who if not yet entirely free, but are freed from Saddam and the Taliban; 50 million who now have a chance to be free; they, like eastern europe, will remember that the USA, and ONLY the USA, consistently stood up for them when everyone else would let them live in slavery.
NOT Europe, NOT Asia, NOT Africa, NOT South America, and NOT Canada or Mexico. And most especially NOT the UN.
So snivel about how the US isn't more like Europe, or isn't a good partner to the UN. How it isn't internationalist enough or Canadian enough or whatever. Maybe throw in a nice racist invective as to how those ignorant peasants just don't appreciate their dictators enough.
Maybe those ignorant peasants just don't appreciate your opinions enough. posted by kablam at 5:46 PM on December 31, 2003
What squirrel wrote is the epitome of the fucked up rationale that a lot of anti-war leftists hold nowadays. Not only do they choose to gloss over any success that is a result of the war and over-emphasize the failures, they even go to the lengths of actively wishing that there will be further failure.
These are the kind of people that secretly laugh with glee every time a coaolition soldier dies, or an Iraqi complains about something about the occupation, and totally ignore the staggering progress that has been made in a short few months of time. It took decades to rebuild Japan, Germany. It took even longer for America itself to get to where it is now. Why should Iraq be instantly rebuilt overnight, and anything less is considered a failure?
Squirrel is the ultimate in cognitive dissonance. He started with the assumption that the war was bad, therefore anything that results from it must be bad. Any current events coming out of the occupation that resulted from the war must also be read as bad, and given the chance, he would do everything he can to jeopardize the current operation in order to make sure that anything that happens in the future of Iraq is bad as well.
And these are the same people who laughed when France and Germany are denied bids for the rebuilding project due to security risks? I am just beginning to understand how serious the adminstration was when it made that announcement. posted by VeGiTo at 6:22 PM on December 31, 2003
If, as you suggest, things take a turn for the better in Iraq without our withdrawal, I can promise you that in 5 years, all the fucked-up bullshit perpetrated by this administration will be glossed over and revised into heroism. Iraq will become a template, and we will see all this again.
You can't be more contradictory, man. If "things take a turn for the better", the adminstration wouldn't be perpetrating "fucked-up bullshit", would it? Unless you defined "fucked-up bullshit" as anything that doesn't agree with your world view. I can only think of one thing that needs to be revised if Iraq turns out to be a success, and that's the "fucked-up bullshit" that is perpetrated in your head.
And what is wrong with using a successful operation as a template anyway? posted by VeGiTo at 6:37 PM on December 31, 2003
if your starting point in thinking about the entire world is the basic concept that Israel is, by definition, Good
I don't know whether Israel is "good" or not, but they sure do a lot of bad things. posted by rushmc at 6:39 PM on December 31, 2003
VeGiTo: The ends don't justify the means (not that the ends in this case will turn out to be predominantly positive, but even if they did). That's pretty basic stuff. posted by rushmc at 6:41 PM on December 31, 2003
The ends always justify the means, if you account for all the side-effects resulting from the means, perform a postmortem cost/benefit analysis, and obtain a positive result. posted by VeGiTo at 6:46 PM on December 31, 2003
Financially, militarily, and diplomatically the Iraq war has been a dismal failure.
Do you really wonder why the MetaFilter=Wacky-Raving-Left-Wing-Werewolf stereotype exists? Unbelievable.
It's no less evil than slavery, or Japanese Internment camps, or the horrors fosted upon the Native Americans.
First of all, slavery still exists and proliferates in many nations and cultures. The Greeks and Romans had slaves. Every advanced culture on earth at one time or another had slaves. Western democracies had the foresight and moral courage to *outlaw* slavery.
The Japanese "internment" camps were absolutely necessary during a time when countless thousands of Japanese Americans on the West Coast renounced their U.S. citizenship to support an antagonist and enemy regime which declared war on the United States. The camps also existed for the protection of patriotic Americans of Japanese descent, as well as anti-American sympathizers of German and Italian descent, but you don't hear much about those pro-totalitarian traitors these days.
If you renounce the use of your own faculties and common sense, this kind of dumb relativism ends up destroying you.
Exactly. Evil does exist not only in the manifestations of the rheumy, bloodshot eyes and conspiracy-sick flailings of bent Islamic fundamentalists, but also in the perverted ideations and guilty equivocations of the free, prosperous, evil Western enemy within.
As to the "horrors" foisted (?) on American Indians; I cannot find a group of more patriotic and proud Americans. From the military men who fought at Iwo Jima, to the American Indian pundits, there are none better. posted by hama7 at 8:17 PM on December 31, 2003
Iraq is becoming a showpiece of freedom, prosperity, and civil liberty to dozens of nations in the middle east and Africa--a terrible blow to dictators who hate and fear what Iraq will soon represent, and who now live in fear that their own people will learn from Iraq's example and depose them and their corrupt systems.
As the U.S.-led governing authority in Iraq attempts to build a security force of 220,000 in the next few months, the competing priorities of speed and thoroughness have prompted shortcuts in the recruiting and training process. The consequences are starting to become apparent.
According to investigations over the past four months by a newly formed internal affairs unit at the Interior Ministry, more than 200 Iraqi policemen in Baghdad have been dismissed and dozens of others have had their pay slashed for crimes ranging from pawning government equipment to extortion and kidnapping.
In addition, roughly 2,500 people on the payroll of the Facilities Protection Service, which guards government buildings, either do not exist or have not been showing up to work, investigators say. And a number of Border Patrol officers have been disciplined for accepting bribes in exchange for allowing people without proper identification to enter Iraq.
The United States has backed away from several of its more ambitious initiatives to transform Iraq's economy, political system and security forces as attacks on U.S. troops have escalated and the timetable for ending the civil occupation has accelerated.
Plans to privatize state-owned businesses -- a key part of a larger Bush administration goal to replace the socialist economy of deposed president Saddam Hussein with a free-market system -- have been dropped over the past few months. So too has a demand that Iraqis write a constitution before a transfer of sovereignty.
With the administration's plans tempered by time and threat, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and his deputies are now focused on forging compromises with Iraqi leaders and combating a persistent insurgency in order to meet a July 1 deadline to transfer sovereignty to a provisional government.
"There's no question that many of the big-picture items have been pushed down the list or erased completely," said a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq's reconstruction, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Right now, everyone's attention is focused [on] doing what we need to do to hand over sovereignty by next summer."
The new approach, U.S. diplomats said, calls into question the prospects for initiatives touted by conservative strategists to fashion Iraq into a secular, pluralistic, market-driven nation. While the diplomats maintain those goals are still attainable, the senior official said, "ideology has become subordinate to the schedule."
Given the adminstrations' ambitons for 2004, the occupation has always been about force protection--we are cutting and running and calling it a victory. Th invasion to stop Saddam from giving weapons of mass destruction to the terrorists has been repainted as the glorious liberation of the Iraqi's from Saddam's yoke and, as they want us top get the hell out, we are getting the hell out. And declaring victory. So much for your freedom, prosperity, and civil liberty--Catching Saddam was the easy part. Now get ready for the Islamic Republic of Iraq, which will most likely come after civil war. posted by y2karl at 8:22 PM on December 31, 2003
Well said, and superbly cited as usual, Y2K. hama7 and VeGiTo, your incomprehensibility speaks for itself. I don't know where you're coming from with talk of racism and my supposed glee every time a soldier dies. That kind of left-field ad hominem doesn't rise to the level of engaged retort. For the record, you couldn't be more wrong about how I feel. My brother is an active duty soldier, and I don't want him to fly into Richard Pearle's religeo-fantasmical meat grinder. Stick to talking about things you know almost nothing about. posted by squirrel at 8:52 PM on December 31, 2003
but also in the perverted ideations and guilty equivocations of the free, prosperous, evil Western enemy within.
??? enemy within? posted by mcsweetie at 9:02 PM on December 31, 2003
"But at what point did it become the responsibility of the United States to appoint itself arbiter of these things and traverse the globe toppling these evil governments? And to what end are we willing to go in order to accomplish this goal?"
I don't think we've decided to become the arbiter. What we've decided is that non-democratic societies give rise to groups which are threatened by democratic ones, and as the biggest and most powerful one, the US is going to become the target of such group's hatred. And the only possible solution is to force those non-democratic societies to change. posted by ParisParamus at 9:08 PM on December 31, 2003
(and the weaponry now available to such groups makes it essential that we go further than we did before).
To not recognize this is to be in a supreme state of denial. And thankfully, most Americans have more sense than that. posted by ParisParamus at 9:19 PM on December 31, 2003
??? enemy within?
I haven't made it to that point in the Frum/Perle book, but I'm pretty sure that they're about to argue that purging liberals from the culture is step 5 or whatever for winning the War on Some Terrorism. posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 9:51 PM on December 31, 2003
"We wished that Saddam would leave without a war, but unfortunately this didn't happen," Dr. Moosawi said. "So we Iraqis came to a place where we said, 'We will have to sacrifice something to have our freedom,' and the war fought by the Americans was the price."
When American advance columns arrived in Baghdad on April 9, he said, and appeared on television assisting in the toppling of Mr. Hussein's statue in Firdos Square, there was joy among the Moosawis that there had not been since Mehdi disappeared.
"I went to my brother to congratulate him", he said, speaking of Salih, Mehdi's father. "It was like we were dreaming. There were tears and smiles. Everybody was laughing and crying."
But in the months since, the mood among the Moosawis has soured, and not only because of the bitterness of learning, after weeks of visiting virtually every secret police station in Iraq, and scanning lists of political prisoners posted on lampposts and trees, that Mehdi would not be coming back. The Americans, Dr. Moosawi said, have failed the high expectations of Iraqis and have sunk so low in popularity that most cannot wait to see them go home.
"It is freedom the Americans have given us, but it is not good freedom," he said. "Yes, we wanted freedom against dictatorship, truth against lies, education and progress instead of pushing the intelligentsia down. But what have we got? There is no law, we live in the dark without electricity, there are no police to stop the thieves, nobody to control the traffic, no gasoline.
"In those respects, we say, 'Things were better under Saddam.' "
An avuncular rumination from How Disappearance in '84 Blighted Family in Iraq--which is a story of the family of one of disappeared. It comes with three disturbing thumbnails taken from a videotape of Medhi's execution, so avert your eyes, do not click. I regret that I did. 1984 was when Saddam was still our bad guy, let it be noted in passing. And so who's our bad guy now? Whose crimes do we look away from now? posted by y2karl at 9:55 PM on December 31, 2003
one of the disappeared, to be sure. Nnn, uh, tuh. posted by y2karl at 10:01 PM on December 31, 2003
And the only possible solution is to force those non-democratic societies to change.
Yes, because the democratic ideal is all about forcing others who disagree with you to do what you want.
Such arrogance. Such mindblowing hubris. posted by rushmc at 12:23 AM on January 1, 2004
Is that arrogance? On some level, yes. But no more so than saying murder or torture is wrong, or that education is better than ignorance and censorship.
The more salient question, rushmc, is what agenda leads you to make this comment? Do you want to live in Saudi Arabia? If you could wave a magic wand and make all those vile, coercive Mullahs vanish, would you not? Would you protest a US invasion of North Korea? posted by ParisParamus at 4:44 AM on January 1, 2004
Iraq was a worse place pre-invasion than it is now. Saudi Arabia, Syria, North Korea, and China (as well as many other places) are odious places of oppression and ignorance. It's arrogant to say so? No, it's pathetic to have no principles, or a set of "principles" which say that there is no morality; everything and everyone is equally right, and that no one has the right to defend himself; or that one only has the right to defend himself at the point a gun, or a knife is, literally, inches, seconds away. posted by ParisParamus at 4:49 AM on January 1, 2004
y2karl: yes, I too read that *one* article you cited, about how the US is giving up all its grand ideals, cutting and running. Please note that it is almost unique in its negativity, so much so I question its veracity. You'll note that quotes are taken solely from "unnamed" individuals.
Written by Jason Blair perhaps?
And your second citation, from an Iraqi, how old is that? He complains about a lack of electricity, a problem that has been solved for several months now, along with others he complained about, such as no police. Even his search for kin is no longer hunt-and-peck, as an Iraqi missing persons NGO has already compiled a huge list of the murdered and missing, added to daily with data scoured from the endless mass graves unearthed by the US.
Yes, if you hunt far and wide, you can still find things in Iraq that are so not like Canada. By January 1st, perhaps they are only up to the standards of Mexico; but all told, that isn't too bad a shape in the world today. But at their current pace, even six months down the road will leave Iraq in far better shape then any other country in the region, perhaps even including Israel.
Still not Canada, though. posted by kablam at 5:52 AM on January 1, 2004
No, it's pathetic to have no principles, or a set of "principles" which say that there is no morality; everything and everyone is equally right,
You mean what the government schools are teaching the children is wrong?? But... I thought multiculturalism was real.. (*shudder*)
L. Paul Bremer, Coalition Provisional Authority Administrator - Opening Remarks (this one is great) A sample:
Six months ago there were no functioning courts in Iraq.
-Today nearly all of Iraq’s 400 courts are functioning.
-Today, for the first time in over a generation, the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
Six months ago nearly all of Iraq’s schools were closed.
-Today all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
-Many of you know that we announced our plan to rehabilitate one thousand schools by the time school started—well, by October 1 we had actually rehabbed over 1,500.
Six months ago there was no freedom of expression. Satellite dishes were illegal. Foreign journalists came on 10-day visas and paid mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for “minders” and other government spies.
-Today there is no Ministry of Information.
-Today there are more than 170 newspapers.
-Today you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.
-Today foreign journalists and everyone else are free to come and go.
No amount of whining or equivocation can undo the inexpressible good that has come to the Iraqi people.
As someone said, rather succinctly: “We will wage the war on terror until it is won.” posted by hama7 at 6:34 AM on January 1, 2004
hama7, how about facts on employment, and freedom of movement, and elections?
And it's impossible to ever win the war on terror--a child knows that. posted by amberglow at 7:52 AM on January 1, 2004
It's also impossible to win the war on crime, but New York is a pretty comfortable place these days. posted by ParisParamus at 8:01 AM on January 1, 2004
No, it's pathetic to have no principles, or a set of "principles" which say that there is no morality; everything and everyone is equally right,
who said everything was equally right? that's dumb as hell. posted by mcsweetie at 8:07 AM on January 1, 2004
Paris, no one has ever claimed we can totally win a war on crime, anywhere on earth (which is an imbecilic thing to say about anything bad), or here in New York. People fight crime and that's all they can do...there are always and will always be new criminals and new crimes, much like terrorists and attacks. posted by amberglow at 8:10 AM on January 1, 2004
So why you're previous statement? You just proved my point. posted by ParisParamus at 8:24 AM on January 1, 2004
There will always be terrorism? Fine: bring back 1960's level terrorism, and I'll be happy. And take out the governments of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and NK, and that's what you'll see. posted by ParisParamus at 8:26 AM on January 1, 2004
Is that arrogance? On some level, yes. But no more so than saying murder or torture is wrong
The two things are not comparable at all. It was wrong when Saddam Hussein was murdering people in Iraq, and it would not have been arrogant to say so, though such condemnation was not heard ringing from the halls of our government's leaders. In fact, I would say that a moral person would have not only the right but the obligation to note the "wrongness" of such acts. But you see, when it comes to enforcing one's notion of right and wrong, there is the little matter of jurisdiction. It is one thing to say that the leader of another sovereign nation is violent and corrupt and should be replaced, and quite another to take it upon oneself to go and do it. Would you appreciate and support attempts by any other nation to do so in the United States?
The more salient question, rushmc, is what agenda leads you to make this comment?
The agenda of supporting the idea that any actions my government takes, in my name, should be not only be (arguably) pragmatic but morally defensible. Preemptive invasions of countries that do not pose a clear and immediate threat do not meet this criteria.
Just because you happen to find yourself the strongest kid on the playground does not entitle you to beat up the others to take their lunch money, no matter how you try to rationalize it. posted by rushmc at 8:31 AM on January 1, 2004
I just made up a drinking game for this thread! everytime you see whats detailed at the end of this comment by y2karl happen here or in any link posted within this post, take a sip. take another sip everytime saddam is said to have been a threat to the US. posted by mcsweetie at 8:59 AM on January 1, 2004
hama7, ParisParamus - Isn't the "Iraq is immeasurably better now than under Saddam" (or merely "Iraq is getting better") vs. "the Iraq is falling apart" (or rotting, festering, schisming, conflagrating, whatever) debate really a bit premature or even sort of theological at this point?
The overall picture will likely be far clearer eight or ten months from now and - besides - I hardly think that the US forces working towards reconstruction in Iraq are spending much time worrying about our chatter here on Metafilter - about Iraq, at any rate. I could be wrong.
I could point out that infant mortality rates in Iraq are about three times higher than in the pre-invasion days (I guess Saddam had a soft spot for babies?), but the obvious retorts would be - "Well, the reconstruction will soon deal with that problem", "That's the fault of the Iraqi terrorists anyway", and "Well - nothing's perfect. At least Saddam's not dissolving people in vats of acid any more." - All valid points, I suppose, to which I would then reply "Blah blah blah, blah. Blah!! Blah blah blah?"
You two might want to save your ammo until sometime between August and November. Between now and then, a lot could happen - for better or worse - both within and outside of Iraq.
Meanwhile, about that "War on Evil"......... posted by troutfishing at 9:48 AM on January 1, 2004
And your second citation, from an Iraqi, how old is that?
Um, December 31st of last year?
hama7 cites a variety of government sources. Ah, yes, I remember when victory in Vietnam was imminent--at least , according to the Pentagon briefings. Light at the end of the tunnel and all that.
-Today foreign journalists and everyone else are free to come and go.
When US Central Command has good news to report in Iraq, as it did after troops from the Fourth Infantry Division captured Saddam Hussein on December 13, it adores the media. But journalists say that when there's bad news--a helicopter crash, a mortar attack--they are increasingly being blocked from covering the story by US soldiers, who frequently confiscate and destroy their film disks and videotapes.
This happened to Detroit Free Press photographer David Gilkey while covering the crash of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter carrying thirty-six US soldiers, shot down near Fallujah on November 2. His film disk was erased by a soldier from the 82nd Airborne, who then forced Gilkey and other journalists on the scene to a site twenty miles away. "Listen, I have respect for these guys," Gilkey says of the soldiers. "I truly understand that they are upset, and angry, that they've lost friends. The point is, however, you don't have the right to take disks and clean them. When did that become standard operating procedure?"
Chip Somodevilla, a Knight Ridder photographer, was accompanying two Iraqi fishermen on their small boat in the Tigris River in Baghdad on December 9, when shots from a high-velocity rifle exploded in the water under the port bow of their twelve-foot craft.
"We looked in the direction from which it was fired--a mansion formerly belonging to Saddam Hussein's nephew--and noticed several men waving their arms in the air and shouting," Somodevilla e-mailed to his editors after the incident. He and the fishermen drove their boat toward the group of men. One of them turned out to be an American in civilian clothing who was carrying a high-velocity rifle outfitted with a silencer and scope.
"He asked who I was and what I was doing," the photographer said. The American, who appeared to be some sort of Special Operations paramilitary or intelligence official, "asked me to produce identification and then attempted to destroy my press credentials. He forcefully quizzed me about my assignment and then turned to an Iraqi standing nearby" to verify aspects of the photographer's story.
"After being shot at, I felt very threatened and swore to the man that I was an American and that I was on his side," Somodevilla said. "Yeah, John Walker [Lindh, the so-called American Taliban] made a lot of promises too," the American interrogator snapped back. "What have you done for your country?" He let Somodevilla go with the warning, "We're watching you."
"Our journalists in Iraq have been shoved to the ground, pushed out of the way, told to leave the scene of explosions; we've had camera disks and videotapes confiscated, reporters detained," says Sandy Johnson, Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press. On November 12 Johnson sent a letter to the Pentagon, signed by thirty other media companies, which cited their concern at "a growing number of incidents in Iraq in which journalists are harassed by U.S. troops in the course of covering the news."
The Pentagon has frozen new funds approved for Iraqi reconstruction amid growing allegations of corruption and cronyism associated with the rebuilding process.
Companies eager for a stake in the $18.6 billion in fresh postwar funds that Congress approved in November have been told not to expect requests for proposals from the Defense Department, the first step in the kind of ambitious redevelopment slated for the war-torn country. The freeze will almost certainly mean the United States will not issue new contracts until well after the initial Feb. 1 target date.
"We're on hold and we'll be on hold until we hear differently," Admiral David Nash, the director of the Pentagon's Iraq Program Management Office, yesterday told the Engineering News-Record, a construction trade journal. He gave no further details.
The Pentagon also announced last week it would postpone until early January a conference for companies interested in rebuilding Iraq, according to Robyn Powell of the National Defense Industrial Association, which coordinates meetings between industry and the military.
"I don't know why the conference has been canceled again," Powell told Reuters.
The Pentagon's decision to delay Iraqi reconstruction is another setback for a process already hobbled by political insecurity and, increasingly, concerns over corruption and misconduct. The success of the US-led bid to remake Iraq politically depends largely on efforts to reverse the country's chronic unemployment by repairing it economically. But lawmakers in Washington and businesspeople in Iraq say the bidding process lacks transparency and favors a growing class of monopolists and oligarchs that could overwhelm the country's infant regulatory framework.
Hmm, a growing class of monopolists and oligarchs. Where have we heard that before?
Meanwhile, Iraq’s interim Trade Ministry is investigating alleged corruption of up to $40 million by members of the US-led coalition provisional authority and senior ministry officials, the minister said today. Ali Allawi told AFP that he discovered a month ago that a contract for wooden doors worth about $80 million had been manipulated.
‘‘I think a third of it was stolen,’’ he said, specifically estimating that ‘‘probably around 30, 40 million’’ disappeared. Allawi, who returned from his job as a London investment banker to take up his post in September, said a few ‘‘key individuals’’ were under investigation. The Coalition Provisional Authority could not immediately comment on the case. Allawi said Paul Bremer, who heads the CPA, has asked each ministry to appoint an inspector general.
‘I said, "I thought you knew the plan." He said, "No, we thought you knew." It was like a Laurel and Hardy routine - "What happened to the plans?".’ Albert Cevallos
Planners in London automatically expected a refugee crisis, as there was in Afghanistan 2001. No-one anticipated the hotbed of insurgency which is post-war Iraq.
The brilliant execution of the war has been followed by disastrous prosecution of the peace. But no-one, it now emerges, gave serious thought to the occupation of Iraq. The crisis which British and American troops now find themselves in is a story of man-made incompetence.
On 1 May, President George Bush flew into Iraq behind a banner saying "mission accomplished" to declare the end to the Iraq war. After only 42 days, and minimal casualties on both sides, Saddam Hussein had fallen from power and the country was occupied.
At the same stage in 1945 - the fall of Berlin - a 400-page document was brought out showing the Allies exactly how to deal with the remnants of the Nazi regime and start converting Germany to democracy. But the Iraq conflict, brewing for a decade, had nothing of the sort.
After eight months of occupation, the truth has now emerged: there was a plan in Washington, drawn up by 200 exiled Iraqis and called the Future of Iraq project. But it was never read by the Pentagon, which suspected its authors of talking down the case for war by highlighting the expense of occupation.
Meanwhile, Britain, which has extensive colonial history, was in no fit psychological state to help. Tony Blair was so immersed in political woes that he was desperate not to plan for occupation lest he was seen making secret plans for war.
The plan for peace, and the work of US academics who warned of the need for troops, was discarded. Through investigations by the US media, and inquiries by The Scotsman in London, the full picture is now emerging of how victory turned so sour so soon.
All the shades are drawn in Raba's house on a wide residential street in one of Baghdad's more affluent neighborhoods. Small daughters and nieces streak through a well-appointed living room, leaving giggles and shrieks in their wake, as their young mothers and aunts sip Pepsi from cans and make wry comments in the darkened space. None of these women leave this home, even so many months after the war came to its so-called end. And Raba, a usually spunky twentysomething, is afraid even to stand in her own doorway. "Before the war we were out until 2 o'clock in the morning all the time," she says. "Now I don't even bother to put on my shoes."
Millions of women have found themselves living under such de facto house arrest since the coalition forces claimed Baghdad in April. They have been forced into this situation by a menacing triple threat that has emerged since the war: First, Saddam Hussein threw open the doors to his prisons in October 2002, releasing criminals onto Iraq's tightly policed streets. Then came the fall of the regime and the concomitant crumbling of law enforcement. And now, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) is treating a growing human rights crisis for women as an extracurricular issue at best, leaving women at the mercy of thugs on the streets and the religious parties that have rushed into the political vacuum. Upwards of 400 women have been kidnapped in this city alone, according to various women's groups, and each horror story ripples with alacrity throughout each neighborhood. Raba's story is one of them. As she leans forward to fuss over a tiny niece, her auburn curls part to show a jagged line of black stitches that vertically bisect her scalp. "My wound from the war," she says with a sardonic laugh. posted by y2karl at 10:05 AM on January 1, 2004
Saddam was a strategic threat after 911. and he was dealt with. Iraq is and will continue to be a work in progress.
Comedy Gold! posted by y2karl at 10:07 AM on January 1, 2004
Would I appreciate a US invasion? No. But there's no Saddam Hussein or other dictator resident here. If there was, yes. invade-away. But there you go with moral equivalency.
I still think the root of your point of view is distrust of the United States/Bush Administration. Which would be fine, if such weren't outweighed by the horrors of a Hussein, or Assad, etc. posted by ParisParamus at 10:13 AM on January 1, 2004
Infant mortality rates now higher? That's not impossible, but what's your source for that? posted by ParisParamus at 10:30 AM on January 1, 2004
I still think the root of your point of view is distrust of the United States/Bush Administration. Which would be fine, if such weren't outweighed by the horrors of a Hussein, or Assad, etc.
in other words, you have been scared into submission? posted by mcsweetie at 10:30 AM on January 1, 2004
well great, mcscheweetie, I'm shrimply plashtered now... posted by five fresh fish at 10:49 AM on January 1, 2004
A more accurate measure of reality in Iraq is the color-coded road system. Roads and highways in Iraq are classified by the U.S. military as green (safe), yellow (dangerous; no travel at night) and red (closed to military traffic). There are no green routes left except in the far north; all other routes are usually yellow and occasionally red. Route 1, the road north out of Baghdad, is routinely red. (Latest joke: What does the front desk ask you when you check into the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad? Which side of the hotel do you want: the bullet side or the rocket side?)...
The precautions and Iron Hammer have combined to reduce casualties, from about four dead GIs a day in November to roughly one a day in December. At the same time, however, the soldiers are not exactly out there winning hearts and minds. "The Americans just care about protecting themselves" has become a common Iraqi complaint. The number of U.S. patrols has dropped from 1,500 a day in November to about 500 a day in December. The Army has taken to using local street sweepers to look for roadside bombs. (And the insurgents use local shepherds to plant them.)
From 1,500 a day to 500 a day--did I mention force protection? This administration is haunted more by Somalia than Viet Nam.
Sgt. Jeremy Feldbusch left home in February a fit, driven, highly capable Army Ranger. Two months later, he came home blind... During the two months Jeremy Feldbusch spent recovering at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, his parents lived at his bedside. Charlene Feldbusch remembers one day seeing a young female soldier crawling past her in the corridor with no legs and her 3-year-old son trailing behind.
And for what? The Islamic Republic of Iraq? From Amal Sedy Winter's Buying Up Iraq--
There is every reason to expect that a truly democratically elected Iraqi government will insist on controlling its oil production and little reason to believe that the United States will allow Iraq to elect a truly representative government that would do so. But there is another fundamental contradiction between the Bush Administration's stated goals and the realities of the Middle East. A recent CIA report, submitted to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, that U.S. policy vis--vis Israel is one of the primary reasons for negative feeling toward the U.S. in the region. The United States cannot tolerate Arab democracy at the national level because of its unilateral support of Israel's occupation of Palestine and no freely elected Arabgovernment will support Israel against the Palestinians. If real democracy means letting people have a real voice in governing themselves then there is little hope of this happening in any Arab state, including Iraq.
Those last two sentences are as true as ever. And they put the lie to any of the usual Iraq is becoming a showpiece of democracy... blather.
As for the war on terror, instead of slavering after new regimes for us to change with troops we do not have, perhaps we should attend to this situation:
Subscribe
Perle and Frum lay out a bold program to defend America--and to win the war on terror. Among the topics this book addresses:
--why the United States risks its security if it submits to the authority of the United Nations
--why France and Saudi Arabia have to be treated as adversaries, not allies, in the war on terror
--why the United States must take decisive action against Iran--now
--what to do in North Korea if negotiations fail
--why everything you read in the newspapers about the Israeli-Arab dispute is wrong
--how our government must be changed if we are to fight the war on terror to victory--not just stalemate
--where the next great terror threat is coming from--and what we can do to protect ourselves
An End to Evil will define the conservative point of view on foreign policy for a new generation--and shape the agenda for the 2004 presidential-election year and beyond. With a keen insiders' perspective on how our leaders are confronting--or not confronting--the war on terrorism, David Frum and Richard Perle make a convincing argument for why the toughest line is the safest line.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 12:06 AM on December 31, 2003