The Decrease in Iraqi Violence/Democrats and the Surge
Here it is, in words and graphs, at Back Talk.
Engram is pretty rough on liberals and Democrats here, but I think one has to be. Bush and the Republicans got us into this mess. The large majority of the blame for this disaster lies with them. But--as I've been more-or-less delicately trying to point out here for awhile--the leading Democrats completely screwed the pooch in their response. First, of course, they sheepishly authorized the use of force in Iraq, but that's a different issue. Second, instead of pushing the more complicated case against the war, they went for the simplistic case based on actual results--that is, based on the fact that the war wasn't going well. In fact, they even sometimes went beyond that to declare defeat inevitable. But the war would have been--all things considered--unjustified even if it had gone well. So focusing on actual results was an error.
But Democrats in the main were wrong about the surge. The surge was a gamble, but it was worth a try. And it has had good results.
What the Democrats should have said--what was true--was that Bush deserved to be impeached for lying us into a disastrous war that allowed the man behind 9/11 to escape, and that planning for the aftermath of the war had been essentially non-existent, and that that was also the administration's responsibility, and that the surge was unlikely to work, but that it was the best of a bunch of bad options, so we had to try it. And that even if it worked, Bush deserved little credit. If your stupidity, pig-headedness and dishonesty sets us on the road to horrific disaster, and at the last minute you make a desperate gamble that keeps it in the realm of merely awful disasters, you don't deserve any appreciable credit.
But no. What the Democrats did was authorize an incompetent president to undertake an ill-advised war at the worst possible time, and then when things went to hell, they fought against the only strategy that might have kept things from turning into an even bigger bloodbath.
Among all the other more significant grounds for being disgusted with Democratic leaders here is this relatively more trivial reason: they've given Bush a fig leaf behind which to hide his responsibility for this mess. Now, by pointing to the success of the surge, he can make himself out to be the hero of this tragedy. But, again, that's far from the worst thing one can say about them here.
As you know, according to the stereotypes, Republicans tend toward being brainless warmongers and Democrats tend toward being gutless weenies. If one were inclined to try to defend those stereotypes, one would find plenty of ammunition in the sad tale of the invasion of Iraq.
Here it is, in words and graphs, at Back Talk.
Engram is pretty rough on liberals and Democrats here, but I think one has to be. Bush and the Republicans got us into this mess. The large majority of the blame for this disaster lies with them. But--as I've been more-or-less delicately trying to point out here for awhile--the leading Democrats completely screwed the pooch in their response. First, of course, they sheepishly authorized the use of force in Iraq, but that's a different issue. Second, instead of pushing the more complicated case against the war, they went for the simplistic case based on actual results--that is, based on the fact that the war wasn't going well. In fact, they even sometimes went beyond that to declare defeat inevitable. But the war would have been--all things considered--unjustified even if it had gone well. So focusing on actual results was an error.
But Democrats in the main were wrong about the surge. The surge was a gamble, but it was worth a try. And it has had good results.
What the Democrats should have said--what was true--was that Bush deserved to be impeached for lying us into a disastrous war that allowed the man behind 9/11 to escape, and that planning for the aftermath of the war had been essentially non-existent, and that that was also the administration's responsibility, and that the surge was unlikely to work, but that it was the best of a bunch of bad options, so we had to try it. And that even if it worked, Bush deserved little credit. If your stupidity, pig-headedness and dishonesty sets us on the road to horrific disaster, and at the last minute you make a desperate gamble that keeps it in the realm of merely awful disasters, you don't deserve any appreciable credit.
But no. What the Democrats did was authorize an incompetent president to undertake an ill-advised war at the worst possible time, and then when things went to hell, they fought against the only strategy that might have kept things from turning into an even bigger bloodbath.
Among all the other more significant grounds for being disgusted with Democratic leaders here is this relatively more trivial reason: they've given Bush a fig leaf behind which to hide his responsibility for this mess. Now, by pointing to the success of the surge, he can make himself out to be the hero of this tragedy. But, again, that's far from the worst thing one can say about them here.
As you know, according to the stereotypes, Republicans tend toward being brainless warmongers and Democrats tend toward being gutless weenies. If one were inclined to try to defend those stereotypes, one would find plenty of ammunition in the sad tale of the invasion of Iraq.
posted by Winston Smith at
10:03 AM
8 Comments:
"But the painful and inescapable truth is that they openly supported a plan to stand back and allow genocide to unfold before the horrified eyes of the world, and they knew exactly what they were doing. Being the decent people they are, they felt OK about it because they knew the blame would be placed on Bush. They were right about that, of course, but that doesn't excuse them for what they did. The American public may never awaken to all of this (because of the media we have), but if the success continues -- and no one can say for sure that it will -- history will record where the Democrats stood when Iraq was suffering through its darkest hour."
But they had the moral high ground, and that's what really matters.
But one also has to remember that it was Bush & co. that created the conditions that set the mass murders in motion. That, too, is relevant.
Thing about conservatives, they don't usually get all that upset about genocide unless they have a dog in the fight, as here. that, too, is relevant.
So Bush put the genocidal conditions in place, and the Dems were going to let them play themselves out.
It's more complicated than that, but that's the jist of it.
Boy, this isn't the America I was taught about as a lad, that's for sure...
But one also has to remember that it was Bush & co. that created the conditions that set the mass murders in motion. That, too, is relevant.
Why?
So Bush put the genocidal conditions in place, and the Dems were going to let them play themselves out.
It's more complicated than that, but that's the jist of it.
How is that morally defensible? Sounds like the Pontius Pilate solution.
Tom, are you stating that Saddam was actively practicing genocide at the time of the invasion?
In the North, a de facto independent Kurdistan had been in place 10 years at the time of the invasion. In the South, there was an ongoing no-fly-zone. As I understand it, that is what 'containment' means.
There was the additional problems of ongoing shortages within the country. But those fall short of genocide, and might well have been handled by other, less expensive, means.
At the time, active genocide was never listed as a reason to go to war. The reasons I remember are:
1. Active weapons program, with existing stockpiles.
2. Threat of nuclear weapons, with intent to use them in a surprise attack. (Smoking gun = mushroom cloud.)
3. Support for terrorists, including Al Qaeda, and haven for a terrorist camp that was actually in Kurdistan.
4. General belligerence, with various warmongering efforts from (laughable) mobile CW labs to (laughable) UAVs that might threaten the "motherland".
The argument that 'things will eventually improve' is not a valid reason to go to war. When things are bad, they WILL almost always eventually improve, whether or not there is a war. Statistically it's called regression to the mean, and psychologically its called optimism...
ctd..
Signed, mac
Well, my personal take is that declaring "success" based on levels of violence is not particularly valid. The whole point was the political progress, of which there has been none. The "surge" doesn't seem to have changed the fact that as soon as American troops leave Iraq -- no matter how long we stay, although at this point we can't maintain surge levels past March or so, which is common knowledge -- the various factions will get right back to the civil war they were starting before the surge. So while I'm not asinine enough to claim that lowered violence, even if temporary, isn't a good thing, I don't see anything in these reports of decreased violence that indicates anything I'd call "success".
That said, your criticism of the Democratic leadership is pretty much spot-on. I won't even quibble with the phrase "gutless weenies", since that's pretty much how I feel about them most of the time, too. Even if they opposed the surge, they certainly didn't make any attempts to actually stop it from happening. And they have a pathological aversion to, you know, doing their job by impeaching Bush and Cheney for their crimes in lying us into the Iraq war in the first place. So basically what I'm saying is that they can take a long stroll through a Baghdad market without body armour, for all I care.
Joshua--
No success at all? Nothing? Nada? Zip? 0?
I can't agree with that. Decreased violence is huge, even if it's political progress that's needed in the long term.
Tom, are you stating that Saddam was actively practicing genocide at the time of the invasion?
No, Mac, I'm saying that Democrats pulling our troops out of the way so the Iraqis could butcher each other seems to be facilitating genocide, unless we want to say that Pontius Pilate did the right thing.
A very serious charge, I know, and I'm loath to make it. But it does seem to be supported by the facts.
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