The U.S. is fighting two wars: Afghanistan and Iraq. It is helpful to keep them distinct.
The Afghan war, launched in response to the 9-11 attacks, is a fight in self-defense against al-Qaeda and their Taliban hosts: the War on Terror. This conflict is waged with broad popular support and the assistance of NATO allies. The Republicans have proved themselves soft on this war and on al-Qaeda: they moved on before the fight was won, have not captured Osama bin Laden or destroyed his organization, have not defeated the Taliban or secured Afghanistan, and have left us with a continuing stream of terror plots. We should focus on this war, and win it.
The Iraq war is a bid to control the second-largest oil reserves in the world. This fight has no connection to 9-11. We fight, largely alone, for a model of imperial control of resources whose time has passed. The Republicans are gung-ho. They misled the country about weapons of mass destruction to start this war, have spent over $300 billion to wage it — a good part funneled to crony companies — and have no realistic plan to end it. We should withdraw our troops starting immediately and turn over the country to the Iraqi government established to succeed Saddam Hussein.
Two wars, two issues, two responses.
Forgive me from repeating Jacob Weisberg’s analysis (which I posted elsewhere) and contrasting it to Bob’s:
<
p>
Weisberg:
<
p>
<
p>
Yes, yes, yes. This is the reason Bush’s approval ratings are so low.
<
p>
<
p>
Yes. This is the only hope of the Republicans.
<
p>
Bob:
<
p>
1. “We fight, largely alone, for a model of imperial control of resources whose time has passed.”
<
p>
How do we “control” the Iraqi oil?
<
p>
As long as they sell it, it doesn’t matter who they sell it to, so long as there is supply on the world market. The more your critique is “these evil guys did it for the oil!” instead of Weisberg’s view above, the less credible you are to moderates, though admittedly you fire up your left-most base.
<
p>
2. “We should withdraw our troops starting immediately and turn over the country to the Iraqi government established to succeed Saddam Hussein.”
<
p>
Fine. But then complete the sentence….”We should turn it over, even if it results in brutal Shia-v-Shiite massacres at 100 times the current killing rate, and even if it results in a government that is much like pre-invasion Afghanistan or current Iran, and even if it costs us a lot of “soft power,” such that Iran feels emboldened to push its nuclear weapon agenda. Let’s make a calculated gamble. We have 2 unpalatable choices – stay or go. Let’s bet that our withdrawal helps the situation, and we’ll bear the consequences if we’re wrong.”
So many of us on the left seem to think that because they opposed it to begin with and were proven correct, all sorts of unreasonable ideas now are still correct as long as they’re consistent with opposition.
Afghanistan is deteriorating by the day. Short on support, resources, and a clearly defined mission, the forces left over their fumble their way through a poorly articulated and inexpertly executed post-Taliban slog. Our abandonment of the effort there is truly emblematic of this Administrations inability to not only remain focused on a definable goal, but also to refrain from outrageous overreaching. Afghanistan will revert to its pre-invasion status before long.
<
p>
As for Iraq, this $180,000-per-minute debacle is simply shameful and embarrassing. As Iraq devolves into intractable civil war, we are shoveling teaspoonfuls of sand against the tide. The Iraqi government, such as it is, must be forced to take responsibility for its nation. Infantilizing both the government and the people accomplishes nothing except to foster their dependence and inflame their anger. Theyre adults. They can settleor choose not to settletheir sectarian problems themselves. If they need help, they are free to ask, but we are not the ones to assist given that we are an occupying nation about as welcome as a skunk at a lawn party. Our presence is counterproductive; its time to withdraw.
not “over their.” Preview is you’re (sic) friend.
and for everyone every single day, too. Sometimes I wonder how the hell I can be an activist on any other issue (e.g. universal healthcare reform) when there is any war going on, much less the debacle of distortion and lies, and the infrastructure destruction, and the maiming and death of countless Iraqi’s and Amercian’s that is the U.S. war in Iraq. I mean, if ones cares about promoting health and quality of life, then isn’t working to stop war pretty much the epitomy of that value?…
<
p>
Knowledge is power and that’s why the average Amercian is so powerless, I think. And its why our government has pretty much had free rein to commit such atrocious acts and not get called on them in any substantive way by the populace. Not yet, at least. We’ll see what the fall elections bring.
<
p>
Our “media outlets” sure don’t serve the purpose to inform the citizenry, as BMG posts have discussed of late. And folks are usually so darn pooped at the end of the ratrace workday that seeking out alternative media is too much effort, it appears… But it’s not too much effort to tune in to American Idol or whatever the latest ultra-popular mind-numbing show happens to be. Who’s fault is that and what’s to be done about it?
<
p>
I tried without success to get a link to last night’s 8/14/06 NECN Chet Curtis interview with Noam Chomsky on the multi-factited situation in the Middle East. The facts, as much as any history can be “factual”, as stated by Chomsky shed immensely valuable light on what geopolitical dynamics are at play in the Middle East, with U.S. aggression and arrogance and domination topping the list–not Chomsky’s words but mine after listening to the interview for 20 minutes or so. If anybody can get a link I’d like to listen to the complete interview. It’s germaine to this post so fits in this thread. Thanks in advance if it can be done.
<
p>
In March 2003 when we dropped the first bombs to start the war in Iraq I was sickened and outraged and remain so to this day. At the time I thought about Afghanistan and how starting a different war in Iraq likely meant turning our backs on what we had begun in Afghanistan and what was still urgently needed to accomplish there. One way I dealt with my outrage was to donate to the American Friends Service Committee’s (AFSC) program to supply sewing machines to the people of Afghanistan. Maybe some of you would be interested in learning about this and other AFSC humanitarian aid programs in Afghanistan. See 3rd paragraph down for the sewing machine info.
<
p>
Peace.
According to Chomsky, the US is responsible for everything bad in the world that’s happened ever, even stuff that happened before we existed as a nation.
<
p>
Seminal linguist, obviously, but his opinions on global politics trend from ivory-tower and hopelessly-naive to just-plain-anti-american.
but thankfully we’re each entitled to our own opinions. To be honest I’m not familiar in detail with Chomsky’s work but what I have read and heard I respect and can relate to.
<
p>
In my prior comment where I referrenced Chomsky’s recent interview on NECN with Chet Curtis, I had been impressed with Chamsky’s knowledge and ability to clearly articulate what appeared to be many important facts about past middle east peace talks, their outcomes or lack thereof and why, past military actions and diplomatic actions by many of the countries in the middle east and the U.S., and other very useful peices of information required to gain a better understanding of what’s happening there now.
<
p>
Sadly, I too think the U.S. carries a heavy responsibility and culpability for a huge amount of bad things (gross and simplistic understatement) around the world. As far as the distant past goes, I guess what many of our ancestors did to the Native American Indians on these lands was before we existed as a nation. Is this what the above comment is referring to or is there more?
is that the world is a really rough place, filled with lots of bad people, and bad things are going to happen. The US, similarly, is very large economically and generally you can trace everything that happens in the world to us in some way shape or form.
<
p>
That situation leads some to believe that:
<
p>
A) The US has control over everything that happens in the world (We don’t).
B) The US is somehow responsible or should be held accountable for everything bad that happens in the world (We aren’t).
<
p>
Now, I only took 2 classes on middle eastern history (1 from a prominent Israeli leftist, #97 on the Meretz list, who had common sense and was far superior to chomsky, however), and Chomsky probably can rattle off more facts than me about the subject. However, that doesn’t make him right and every time I hear him talking about US global policy, he commits multiple sins of omission that make it sound like everybody else is just trying to get along until we came along being imperialist and trying to conquer countries for oil or something. It’s way off base. The rest of the world fights much harder and rougher than we do because they’re hungrier than we are. In the middle east for example, we’ve tried to broker peace multiple times, hell, Clinton even torpedoed Barak’s government by coercing him into offering Arafat all that land in 2000. What do you hear from people like Chomsky about the subject? The ‘bantustan’ garbage that I debunked in another thread the other day. Or that we were trying to ‘conquer’ somalia in 1993.
<
p>
But on the rare instance we’re not involved? We should have been! How about Rwanda, 94. I bet Chomsky’s taken the US to task for NOT preventing that one. Chomsky’s a reductionist, which is a horrible way to think in today’s highly complex and connectionist world. He wants to boil things down to 1) US is powerful, 2) World is cruel, 3) US is culpable. It’s not that simple. The reality is there are always multiple actors in a given area, usually pursuing their narrow self-interest, and the US is almost always more selfless and humanitarian than everyone else. We’re also almost always involved in anything of import so when things go badly, Chomsky thinks it’s our fault. I think shit happens. Not that we shouldn’t always be striving for better, but lets not get carried away into fullout anti-americanism here.
because as you point out, world events are almost always multifaceted, multifactoral and complex in this “connectionist” world of ours (that’s a new phrase for me–is connectionist a real word or your creation?).
<
p>
I will beg to differ about “The rest of the world fights much harder and rougher than we do because they’re hungrier than we are. In the middle east for example,…”
<
p>
Isn’t it true that many countries in the middle east are extremely wealthy, and maybe even wealthier per capita than the US because of their oil? The fact that U.S. power brokers collude with other unethical and greedy power brokers around the globe in pursuit of goals that hardly can be called altruistic/selfless/humanitarian does not make the actions and policies carried out in the name of the U.S. any less culpable in my analysis.
<
p>
And BTW I have no interest in practicing “fullout anti-americanism”. My interest is in engaging in honest and factual dialogue, and other actions, aimed at constructive and positive ends affecting the human condition both here in the U.S. and in our wider global community. I do realize that pursuing that activity likely requires discussing a number of unpleasant and deeply regrettable actions undertaken in the name of “U.S. interests”.
<
p>
Human nature often leads a person, myself included, to gravitate toward the negative when of course there are countless wonderful and generous acts undertaken around the world by Americans. But I would be ready to argue that our current national government has failed mightily on that score. And to give myself a bit of credit for resisiting “fullout negativity”, I did end my original comment on this thread which I’ll repeat here by giving voice and a link to the very positive humanitarian work done in partnership with the American Friends Service Committee.
<
p>
Thanks for the dialogue, jb
for complex, flexible systems — was a swipe at Chomsky who’s work as it pertains to CS is mostly on regular and context-free grammars that promote a strict, reductionist A -> B and B-> C so A -> C view of the world. I don’t know as much about the linguistics side of his work other than that he pretty much invented the field and a lot of it bled over into early computer science in the 60s. None of which makes him a history or political authority IMO :).
<
p>
And I wasn’t accusing you of being anti-american, I was accusing Chomsky of it. The guy is constantly making us the bad guy in situations where we are by far the least bad guy, which doesn’t mean we’re altruistic. You can make an argument, hey, maybe we should be altruistic, sacrifice some of ourselves, thereby empowering bad actors, to help the little guy, the helpless civilians. Yeah, that’d be pretty good of us but do that a few dozen times over a decade or two and where’s it put the world? Let alone when the bad guys (criminals of any sort) figure out how quickly we fold to protect lives we’re really not in charge of protecting. They’ll play us all day long.
<
p>
Yeah Saudi Arabia and the gulf emirates in the ME are fairly wealthy although nowhere close to a western nation. They’re causing the least trouble right now and historically because the people in power like money and don’t want to rock the boat. They do produce a good number of the sunni extremists although the shi’a are causing more trouble right now — who knows in the long run. They also have no industry whatsoever aside from western firms pumping their oil out of the ground and paying the royals. So the average people aren’t necessarily doing great and at any rate the oil is recent. The middle east is one of the more hardcore places in the world when it comes to the necessity of maintaining an image that you’re hardcore. It’s in the culture there — if you show weakness in public to one person, everyone else will come down on you like a pack of jackals. Think 2,000 years of living in the desert as your reference for “hardcore”. So they have to maintain tough guy image or else. It’s not so much what you would lose by compromising the first time as it is what you would lose when everyone saw you compromise.
Yes, we can and should always strive to do better. No argument there. But you do what you can in the environment you’re in.
<
p>
As for the current government, yeah they’re failures as far as I’m concerned. Domestically, they’re worse than failures, they’re a tragedy. But don’t sell them short, they took the worldwide AIDS fight to a new level. And most of the people dying in Iraq are being killed by their fellow countrymen over grudges a thousand years old exacerbated by 50 years of colonization that we had nothing to do with. Or more accurately, by local politicians riling people up over those grudges for their own gain. Would it be happening if Saddam was in charge? Probably not, they’d just be living under a murderous dictator which is not much of an improvement IMO but it was going to happen eventually. That doesn’t mean Iraq was necessarily the right move in an altruistic or nationalistic sense.
<
p>
But most of the same people clamoring for us to get out of Iraq now (which could very likely lead to a catastrophe for the people who live there), are the same exact people who say we should’ve gotten INTO rwanda to prevent the catastrophe there. I mean, lets focus on doing what the right thing to do is, not what satisfies american egos that got bruised in early 03.
thanks for your thoughts and perspective. I’ll point out being one of the folks that wanted the UN, incl’g the US, to stop the Rwandan genocide that going “into” that country most likely wouldn’t have meant destroying its infrastructure and its people with “shock and awe” bombing. That’s how the US went “into” Iraq.
<
p>
I agree with your goal, I think. So let’s work at identifying what is the right thing to do and then work at getting our government to do it.
First, thanks to WXKS for pimping local lefty blogs.
<
p> I think that up until Monday we were fighting on a third front. With the U.S. suppying arms to Isreal, while Iran was supporting hezbulla with the same, that conflict had the feel of a Proxy war, much like US vs. USSR fueled many fronts during the ‘Cold War’.
<
p> I just thank heaven that world public opinion was so strong and cooler heads prevailed. Now lets see if the UN can hold up their part of this shaky ceasefire long enough to get some sort of workable diplomatic agreement formed.
<
p> I have my doubts.