Over the last few years, I've become an increasingly more reluctant supporter of this war. Initially, I am ashamed to admit, I really didn't think that the administration would use classified information to lie to the American public, and I really did believe their claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I listened carefully to Colin Powell's UN speech, and I believed him. Based on that, although I did not think that Hussain would give his weapons to terrorists, I did think that he was too unpredictable and dangerous to be allowed to continue to have those weapons. Obviously, I was a gullible fool, and totally wrong.
Since then, I've continued to support the continued presence of troops in Iraq. I recognized relatively early that every damn one of the justifications used to get us into the mess, but I did not think (and do not) that packing up and walking away would be an ethical thing to do. Colin Powell lost most of his credibility with me after the gaping factual problems with his UN policy became clear (and most of the rest when he stayed on until the 2004 election), but I do think he got it right with the "Pottery Barn" rule of warfare - you break it, you bought it. We broke the country (it was cracked to begin with, of course, but we shattered the thing), and with that we bought responsibility for fixing it. I don't think about my position every single day, but every time I do I find it harder and harder to support.
That's because, I think, the "pottery barn" rule of international affairs is being overcome by the "Humpty-Dumpty Affair" reality on the ground. Iraq is broken but good, and it looks less and less likely that it's repairable. Bush talks about our strategy being "victory," but it's clear that he has no idea of how to "win," or even what "winning" would look like. When the "decider" is so clearly clueless, it becomes harder and harder to muster the will needed to continue to support the situation.
Despite that, I did. I continued to support the occupation because I could see no morally acceptable alternative to staying. Unfortunately, I failed to consider something else - the morality of staying. I was so locked into the idea that we had to stay until we had fixed what we had broken that I did not stop to think about the effects that our continued presence was having.
At the moment, I no longer know where I stand. I think that our continuted presence in Iraq is bad for us, and I think it is bad for Iraq. I just don't know whether it's worse for Iraq than pulling out would be. A strong argument can be made that it is, but I think that a strong argument can also be made that pulling out would be worse for Iraq. (Because we broke their country, I think that the harm that our presence in Iraq does to us shouldn't be our main concern when figuring out what to do.)
I don't know what the right thing to do is, but I'm pretty sure that the president is shortly going to announce that we will be doing the wrong thing. 21,500 more troops are off to Iraq, and I don't know if anyone has any idea of what they are going to be doing there. This increase in forces goes against the advice of damn near everyone in the universe at this point. It's unclear as to what he thinks he's going to accomplish there, but one thing, at least, is clear. He's going to get a hell of a lot more people killed. Unless he has some super-special, super-secret plan up his sleeve - and, boy, would that be a first - the Democrats should do whatever they can to block the increase. They probably will not succeed, but they should at least try.
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Bravo! Your initial position was reasonable (though it was not mine), but you have not allowed yourself to be locked into it. Reason wins at last.
I wish I knew if leaving was the right thing for all concerned. I often think it is, but I'm not sure how much of that is because it's the right thing for *us*. I just can't be sure we can accomplish anything by staying.
I only know we can't by staying the course. Change is needed, and "more troops for more years" isn't a change; it's just an intensification.
Would that Bush and his circle had the clarity of sight you have. But then, they're the ones who lied to you, so that outcome is, I fear, doubtful.
i second the bravo!
A coworker who served in the Army for a while said that the rules of war state that if you invade a country, you are responsible for maintaining order in that country. We obviously failed to follow our own rules after we invaded Iraq. The sad fact is that restoring and then maintaining order in Iraq would require not 20,000 additional troops, but probably more like a total of about 500,000 by our own generals' estimations (2 per 100 of population). That simply is not going to happen since it would scatter the shards of our already-broken bank and commit virtually our entire military to occupying Iraq. So in reality we are left with two unacceptable alternatives: 1) continue for the foreseeable future essentially as we are, 2) leave Iraq now and let the chips fall where they may. I think Bush intends a third option: send more troops for a while and hope that we can hang on long enough for him to get out of office intact.
Thank you for this wonderful, thoughtful essay.
What would help, in my opinion, is easing of certain aspects of the patriot act so that Iraq refugees can claim asylum here in the US. We broke the country; we should at least take in the bystanders who are getting caught up in our actions, no matter what we do there.
Well done Mike. Too bad our leaders lack your intellectual integrity.
In case the president's plan is not horrific enough, keep in mind that approximately 14% of the proposed new troops are merely replacing the dead.
We need to get out now.
Gwangung, your suggestion that the US accept waves of Iraqi refugees is going to make Virgil Goode freak out !
Virgil Goode being the US representative (R-VA) who somehow linked the election of the first muslim representative with expected future infiltrations of islamic immigrants...
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Way to go, Mike D. I know that many (heck, most) americans welcomed the US invasion of Iraq, but many non-US observers were much, much less thrilled to see the US throw its weight around on flimsy justifications. Now, with half a million Iraqi dead, a civil war underway, and an Iraq no longer able to protect itself against Iran militarily, much less politically, a lot of americans are having second thoughts, albeit slowly.
The US military is being streched thin, and US military comittmen elsewhere in the word are being neglected. Tours of duty are being extended, and then extended again, as you are painfully aware.
The perception of many non-US observer, is that US troops are being made to fight not to "win", but to "save face" for a small number of politicians. They pretend to be trying to maintain Us prestige, but they are just damaging it further and further.
Sorry for the rant. I hope the US can disengage itself from the US problem they helped create without deliberate bloodshed. The US president speech leads to house-to-house fighting in Baghdad in the immediate future.
3) Get help. If the other major powers pitched in, maybe the situation could be salvaged. Of course, this will require a wholly different sales pitch, more along the lines of 'We f*cked up big time. We don't have the capacity to fix the situation. Please, please send some troops to save the Iraqi people.'
Naturally, this will require a different cabinet, since so much of the world sees Bush et al as pathological, self-serving liars. And even then it might not work. There are plenty of revancists around the globe who would love to see the US stew in Iraq, irrespective of the damage done to the Iraqi people.
4) Stripping every warm body from deployment in Europe might also work.
5) Alternatively, the US could ask other countries to take over obligations in less - ah - interesting parts of the world to free up capacity.
Both of the latter would probably require a new face in the White House as well, though, since cries of 'why are you helping out that cretin?' will be hard to answer for a lot of the politicians involved.
- JS
JS, I said "in reality." The option I think Bush will take will allow the US to pursue some of your possibilities. Maybe.
JS, the W government has so thoroughly pissed off France, Germany, Spain that there is no chance for them to willingly accept to be involved in the Iraq mess.
One possibity for the US military in Iraq, would be to withdraw to a handful of bases in Iraq, and, basically, let the Civil War run its course. Their presence in IQ would serve only to deter an IRan military invasion, since the Iraqis are defenseless, (no armor, no artillery, no planes).
Of course the US would be blamed for the raging Civil War,and for *DOING NOTHING* to prevent it.