Hard Facts About Troop Strength, and the Immorality of Invading Iraq.
From the inimitable Kevin Drum, bloggers' blogger.
You know I was torn on the issue. I am tempted to agree with the Sullivan post Drum links to--that is, with the point that the invasion was immoral because we did it in a half-assed way. But if Drum is right, then there weren't any more troops to be had. Conclusion: the invasion was immoral.
In principle we could have invaded for the right reasons and done it right. In practice, not so much.
From the inimitable Kevin Drum, bloggers' blogger.
You know I was torn on the issue. I am tempted to agree with the Sullivan post Drum links to--that is, with the point that the invasion was immoral because we did it in a half-assed way. But if Drum is right, then there weren't any more troops to be had. Conclusion: the invasion was immoral.
In principle we could have invaded for the right reasons and done it right. In practice, not so much.
posted by Winston Smith at
6:25 PM
21 Comments:
I don't think there is a troop number that would have made the Iraq invasion moral. Simply put, I don't think that you can invade countries to liberate their citizens unless you can guarantee that civilian casualities will be few to none, because THEY DIDN'T ASK YOU! If the oppressed masses of a dicatorship want to throw of their shackles, it is their perogative to do so. If we want to encourage them with sub rose funding and weapons, so be it. But we, as outsiders, cannot make the decision that the deaths that will undoubtably occur as a result of our attack will be WORTH IT. If I am a person in an oppressed land, I can take it upon myself to risk my life in the fight for freedom. A foreign army, on the other hand, has no right to decide FOR ME that my death, or the deaths of my family, are acceptable losses in the battle for my liberation.
Matthew, you know I have come to respect your opinions, but I think you are dead wrong about this.
More when I'm sober.
Well, if you post something tommorrow and I don't respond to it for a few days, don't think you've cowed me into submission: I'm going on a trip Thursday and won't be back until Monday night.
More when drunk.
Hehe. Good one, Mr. C, and so one I won't take advantage of.
My practical opinion is that had the US invaded with the "proper" number of troops, Iraq might have been "locked down", but after the troops were drawn down, we would be facing just about what we (and more importantly, the Iraqi people themselves) are facing now, a bloody interregnum with Saddamists, al-Qaeders, and the vast majority of decent everyday citizens scrambling for power in the post-coalition Iraq.
Like when the ensign on Star Trek fired too late at the undefeatable bloodsucking cloud in the "Obsession" episode, no difference.
Of course, had Clinton intervened in Rwanda, civilians would have been killed. If we intervene in Sudan or Congo, innocent civilians will be killed.
When we liberated France from the Nazis, civilians were killed. When we liberated the Jews from Buchenwald, many were killed. When we freed the Pacific Rim from the Rapists of Nanking, many of civilians were killed.
There is always a justification for The Pilate Syndrome--wash your hands, walk away, and preserve your moral innocence.
Pilatism is not moral. IMHO.
Not gone yet:
I knew these examples would be used, and every one is an example of an ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing, or the ending of an ongoing occupation.
Iraq is different than every one of those instances in that there was no genocide going on in Iraq before our invasion. There was also no occupation of a foreign land. You'll notice that the vast majority of the humanitarian justifications for invading Iraq dealt with genocidal and invasive actions that had occured in the past and had little likelihood to occur again (after the Iran-Iraq war and the Persian Gulf war, Saddam was in no shape to invade anyone else, dishonest Hilter comparisons to the contrary; as for genocide, the put-up Kurds had set up their own autonomous zone after the Persian Gulf war, so little bothered by Saddam's forces that they were able to have a protracted internecine civil war during the 90s). The country we were invading was not free, it contained daily abuses of human rights (the same, of course, could be said for dozens of nations who did not, for some reason or another, deserve our humanitarian concern), but the average Iraq did NOT fear death on a daily basis; not to the degree that they did during the bombardment of the air and artillery campaign of the U.S. and certainly not as much as they do in the quasi-lawless state of the country as it is now.
Barring genocidal emergency or occupation, there is an insufficient justification to killing thousands in the name of what you consider to be their best interests.
Even if it didn't, a whole nother question is raised by the selectivity of these kind of unprompted interventions. Why do the people of Iraq deserve our liberating largesse more than the people of the Sudan, or the Congo, or Uzbekistan, or Burma, or Tajikistan, or Cuba, or Uganda, or Central African Republic, or etc. etc. etc.
Yes, I've seen this argument, too. Someone posted something along those lines from Human Rights Watch awhile back (before your, um, tenure here).
It is good that we are aware of each other's playbooks. As a Wilsonian neo-con, I think we should kick the asses of all mass-murderers. But one at a time, in order of our own self-interest and the doability of the thing.
(Sudan is landlocked and far from doable, and an intervention would likely get the Black Hawk Down treatment.)
My only demurral on Iraq is that I'm not convinced Saddam, as a paroled criminal, had reformed. To the best of my knowledge, he permitted the "inspectors" (sorry for the scare quotes) back in only with the invasion force poised on his border.
He dicked the inspectors around anyway.
Again, to my best understanding, he did everything he could to make it appear that he indeed had WMDs, at best guess to impress his neighbors. Bush and Blair took him at that word, rather than his unsubstantiated word that he was clean and reformed.
He and his lovely scions Uday and Attila were still maiming and butchering, altho admittedly, as you assert, in smaller, more acceptable (to the Western world) numbers.
In contradistinction, Kghadddddafffiy (sp?) is being given the sufferance the West traditionally gives to the reformed criminal. But I once again point to my moldy contentionshere and here why Saddam was a special case.
Was it immoral to go into Iraq? Gee, I'm tired of this postmortem, especially since the patient isn't dead yet.
Surely Occam's razor suggests that the strategic control of this intersection of the world's oil resources--Iraq--is the fundamental basis of our attack on Iraq. We most assuredly did not improve the life of the Iraqi people. Ultimately the survivors may have better lives, but that kind of buries a lot of dirt under the rug. What we have at present in the US is an unfit president who decides everything the way most normal folks decide when to go to the bathroom. For George, "he shot at my Daddy" was the surface motivation, with an underlying oedipal issue playing into the throwing of the switch. George's handlers, who sit in their Arlington dens with their Macallan (no Famous Grouse for those lads), see the "big picture."To quote Doris Lessing, "you have to break some eggs to make an omlet." --Beel
You lookin' at ME?????
I love you, man...
This is complete and utter BS:
"Again, to my best understanding, he did everything he could to make it appear that he indeed had WMDs, at best guess to impress his neighbors. Bush and Blair took him at that word, rather than his unsubstantiated word that he was clean and reformed."
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=51202
Even if I stipulate to your rude demurral ( which I do not---if one's going to cite David Kay, they should know what he actually said), Saddam had not reformed, which is the substantive part of my objection.
Unless you wish to present evidence he had. Civilly.
Sorry to hurt your sensitive feelings, but apparently it takes a lot to overcome your ability to believe what you want to believe.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/
To turn a phrase that a certain idiot would love, "absence of evidence is not evidence".
General Zinni also saw the evidence, or lack thereof, and didn't see any threat, which lends credence to Kwiatkowski's charges.
Moreover, they cleverly conflated the real concern, nuclear, with CW and BW to generate their "product", WMD. All the available unfabricated evidence is that there was NO nuclear capability, and the infrastructure was nowhere near able to ramp up again.
To take what was there as a casus belli is criminal, in my opinion.
Since when is the presumption in favor of going to war? The burden of proof is on the warmongers.
Saddam broke parole.
It's obvious you don't read what I write, because I was willing to stipulate the absence of WMDs for the sake of discussion. You ignored David Kay's findings, although your own source (Col. Kwiatkowski) cites him and diminishes her credibility by getting him wrong.
But do you guys even read your own links?
From the CIA report:
Key Findings
Saddam Husayn so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted.
Saddam totally dominated the Regime’s strategic decision making. He initiated most of the strategic thinking upon which decisions were made, whether in matters of war and peace (such as invading Kuwait), maintaining WMD as a national strategic goal, or on how Iraq was to position itself in the international community. Loyal dissent was discouraged and constructive variations to the implementation of his wishes on strategic issues were rare. Saddam was the Regime in a strategic sense and his intent became Iraq’s strategic policy.
Saddam’s primary goal from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while maintaining the security of the Regime. He sought to balance the need to cooperate with UN inspections—to gain support for lifting sanctions—with his intention to preserve Iraq’s intellectual capital for WMD with a minimum of foreign intrusiveness and loss of face. Indeed, this remained the goal to the end of the Regime, as the starting of any WMD program, conspicuous or otherwise, risked undoing the progress achieved in eroding sanctions and jeopardizing a political end to the embargo and international monitoring.
The introduction of the Oil-For-Food program (OFF) in late 1996 was a key turning point for the Regime. OFF rescued Baghdad’s economy from a terminal decline created by sanctions. The Regime quickly came to see that OFF could be corrupted to acquire foreign exchange both to further undermine sanctions and to provide the means to enhance dual-use infrastructure and potential WMD-related development.
By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support. Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime, both in terms of oil exports and the trade embargo, by the end of 1999.
Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of capabilities to that which previously existed. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.
To maintain that the actual possession of WMDs was the only causus belli is not accurate.
Persons of good conscience can disagree whether it would have been prudent to wait and see what Saddam would do (although it appears obvious), or imprudent to wait, as Bush and Blair concluded. Pejoratives like "warmonger" shed heat, but no light.
(And yes, I am sensitive. I will not climb down in the cesspool. I sign my name to what I write. If I am indeed deaf, yelling will not help.)
"To maintain that the actual possession of WMDs was the only causus belli is not accurate."
Your Latin spelling isn't accurate, and in fact WMDs was the only significant argument made for the war in the political sphere. Yes, Bush wanted to show up his dad, and do some nation-building, and try out Rumsfeld's theories, and funnel a lot of money Halliburton's way, and take full power on Capitol Hill - but WMDs, and more accurately nuclear weapons, were the reasons the public got behind the war to the extent that it did.
Of course if adults had been running the govt., they would have noticed that the weapons inspectors were shredding that argument.
Forgot the real reason for the war - to replace the permament bases in Saudia Arabia which Al Qaeda made us give up - and indirectly the oil fields in the region.
Quibbling over spelling mistakes is the last refuge of the scoundrel. It doesn't even rise to the level of sophistry.
Why would I discuss anything with a person exhibiting such insincerity if not malevolence?
I admit I don't get the internet sometimes.
Jeez, tvd, it was funny that you misspelled something in your stuffy sentence quibbling with the fact that WMDs were the selling point of the war, and it's funny that you've switched from stuffy to huffy now.
Nice selective quotation. However, here are the real money quotes, from the 'Key Findings':
"Saddam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf War. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program."
"Although Saddam clearly assigned a high value to the nuclear progress and talent that had been developed up to the 1991 war, the program ended and the intellectual capital decayed in the succeeding years."
"As with other WMD areas, Saddam's ambitions in the nuclear area were secondary to his prime objective of ending UN sanctions."
Oh, and "Saddam broke parole". OK, I'll play.
So therefore:
1. The vigilante (US) arrogates to itself what is the provenance of the justice system (UN) which originally established the 'parole', namely determining the degree to which Saddam 'broke parole', if at all, and then determines the punishment.
2. It embarks on a war which kills thousands of Iraqis and kills or wounds thousands of US servicemen, after prematurely extirpating the investigation (UNMOVIC)to determine whether, and to what extent, Saddam violated 'parole'.
3. It gives Osama Bin Laden (remember him?) a propaganda gift which he could previously only have imagined in his wet dreams.
Among other adverse consequences. Read Odom's essay for the cheery details.
And as for Kwiatkowski's credibility, let's just say it's orders of magnitude better than Cheney, Bush, Feith, Wolfowitz, Gaffney or any other assorted warmongers out there.
And Rilkefan, the incorrect Latin grammar was originally mine. I stand corrected.
Anon, you were right by the standards of normal English writing, giving the nominitave form.
Personally, I don't much care for making the UN the arbiter of law, given its weakness and the frankly despotic countries that have a strong voice in it. The US is the only possible agent for interventive good in the world at the moment.
Rilkefan,
The UN is far from perfect, and your position I suppose is a defensible one.
However, we can't claim violation of their 'parole' terms as a justification for our preventive war, whether interventive good will result or not. To me, that is a separate question.
And in fact, I think the UN's inability to intervene, or force intervention, when necessary is one of its biggest shortcomings. But at this point, I find it hard to believe that any noble intentions were the true motivation for Bush's intervention in this case. Too much evidence to the contrary.
The most generous interpretation, at this point, is Richard Clarke's statement that they (the neocons) wanted to use it (9/11) as an excuse to test out their theories.
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