For the Record: The Surge
I've been checked out of the world for about a month now, so what I'm about to say here should in no way be construed as anything other than what it is: merely putting myself on the record so that my memory doesn't fool me if/when everything goes to hell:
To surge or not to surge?
I'm gratified to be able to answer promptly: I don't know.
If you held a gun to my head, I'd still say I didn't know.
Even when I was really paying careful attention to what was going on I didn't know. Now I super-duper extra-heavy-duty don't know.
If I had no other option than to make the decision right this second, without consulting the experts and without thinking any more about it, I'd give the surge the green light, for all the obvious reasons.
I realize that this, as Mark Kleiman quips, makes me the enemy of all right-thinking people, but there it is.
Now that I'm connected to the world again, I might change my position (if you want to call it that) by tomorrow.
But anyway, there it is, just for the record.
I've been checked out of the world for about a month now, so what I'm about to say here should in no way be construed as anything other than what it is: merely putting myself on the record so that my memory doesn't fool me if/when everything goes to hell:
To surge or not to surge?
I'm gratified to be able to answer promptly: I don't know.
If you held a gun to my head, I'd still say I didn't know.
Even when I was really paying careful attention to what was going on I didn't know. Now I super-duper extra-heavy-duty don't know.
If I had no other option than to make the decision right this second, without consulting the experts and without thinking any more about it, I'd give the surge the green light, for all the obvious reasons.
I realize that this, as Mark Kleiman quips, makes me the enemy of all right-thinking people, but there it is.
Now that I'm connected to the world again, I might change my position (if you want to call it that) by tomorrow.
But anyway, there it is, just for the record.
posted by Winston Smith at
4:06 PM
9 Comments:
Yeah, doing the opposite of what this administration recommends would have been a winning strategy so far...
But even a stopped clock is blah, blah, blah...
But, the rational presumption is that this is a bad idea until proven otherwise.
Well, no, the rational presumption is to evaluate each idea on its merits, regardless of the source.
Granted, this is difficult in terms of the Bush Administration's ideas, because they've shown time and again that they'll simply make up shit about the merits of an idea.
Altho I like the Kobayashi Maru philosophy, that there's always a way to win, that there is always a "right" and successful course (and therefore "wrong" becomes synonymous with unsuccessful), it is fiction, I'm afraid.
The "surge" is probably the last attempt to secure a successful outcome for the Iraqi people. If we are genuinely interested in a doing the right thing and pursue a "just" peace, we must try this.
I, like most Americans and I think our troops as well, am skeptical and admit to a despair in the Iraqi people themselves, or to be more circumspect, the Iraqi culture. Very soon the only reasonable alternative will be to step back, "redeploy" if you're fond of euphemisms, and let them kill each other to their little hearts' content.
Uh, we aren't trying this, the troops will be trying this, as they are ordered to do. They will die, perhaps a number that will shock all of us, then Bush will leave office, then we will bring the troops home.
Freakin' brilliant. Iraqis aside, this is going to kill a whole lot of Americans, and nothing will change.
I think everyone knows this. How can you ask a man to be the last person to die for a mistake? We are asking a lot of troops to do that right now. This is not going to end in anything other than a mess and a lot of deaths on all sides. It seems to me that we should minimize this, not "try this" with a recognition that nothing is going to work out well.
It is deeply, deeply immoral to advocate for "trying" things that all experience shows will not work, and that will result in a lot of deaths, especially deaths of American troops. It just is, this isn't a thought experience, this is people getting killed. Dead. Forever.
I think it's important to point out that the 20,000 troop increase was chosen not because military experts were asked "how many more troops are needed in Baghdad to secure order?" and answered with a resounding "Twenty thousand!" 20,000 just so happens to be the number of extra troops that the military can physically scare up at this point in time. The Surge is not a new strategy, the mission that these surging troops will be doing is not new (see the failed "Operation Together Forward" from last year), and the number of troops being proposed is simply the most available. That, to me, suggests that this is largely an attempt by Bush to look like he's doing something and delay the public turning completely towards demanding expedient withdrawl, not a considered strategy with a significant chance of success.
- In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to “dismantle the militias.”
Why does Rep. Reyes hate America?
Again beginning by noting my ignorance, let me just spew out the main idea behind my inclination to be pro-surge:
Nations have obligations. If one f*cks up something important, one has an obligation to try hard to fix it. I suppose the question is "how hard?". I suppose my inclination is to think "at least one more surge worth of hard" in the case at hand. If that doesn't work, then we're out.
We've already failed miserably in Iraq because of the administration's multi-dimensionally idiotic conduct of this whole mess. The only question is whether we can cobble together something that can be plausibly thought of as something like a success.
I think America owes the Iraqi people one more try--IF AND ONLY IF there is a reasonable chance that it will succeed.
I also think that *abject, unequivocal* failure in Iraq will embolden some very, very bad people and have even more disastrous strategic consequences for the U.S. and the West in general.
I've read parts of the AEI report, and so I currently have a *very weak inclination* to think it's worth trying a surge.
Nobody should listen to me on this...I'm just stating my (very tentative) position.
The impression I've had of the situation in Iraq is that the instability is coming from competing militias (Sunni, Shiite, Kurd) rather than simply one unified front against America. So including the United States there are four separate interests pressing each other for the support of Iraq's non-militia population.
With this in mind, I feel the troop surge could turn out okay, although it probably won't, and this is why (I welcome corrections): the Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish factions are competing with America as much as they are with each other, although perhaps in a different way. There's no real reason for any of them to work with America to establish a secure state.
I feel a diplomacy option would work best: use the surge of troops to play enforcer, demand that everyone get to the diplomatic table to talk it out, and make it so the cost to the faction is too great for them not to be willing to make diplomatic concessions. Unfortunately, this assumes a few things that may not be true: a) that America can just kick everybody's ass into shape with the surge to the point where they HAVE to rely on diplomacy, b) that the Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds can actually work out a stable relationship that won't crumble as soon as someone sets off a car bomb, and c) that America can offer the carrots necessary to bring everyone to the diplomatic table.
The tricky thing about this is that you have to do all this without making the Iraqi factions one unified faction of America-haters with guns, because then as soon as America leaves they're going to start hating each other again.
""We don't have the capability to escalate even to this minimal level."...Reyes, who met with Bush on Tuesday to review the plan, said sending more troops removes any incentive the Iraqi government had to take responsibility for the safety of its own citizens.
— El Paso Times, January 11, 2007
Sweet.
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