Could George W. Bush be right?
Der Spiegel‘s piece is very interesting, as they make some rather astute comparisons between what Bush has done for freedom in the Middle East and what Reagan did for freedom in Eastern Europe. Both were criticized and accused of being “arrogant cowboys” for their commitment to freedom – yet when the Iraqis waved their purple fingers triumphantly and the Berlin Wall came crashing down, both these “cowboys” turned out to have been vindicated by history. The article makes a very trenchant point:
This, in fact, is likely the largest point of disagreement between Europe and the United States — and one that a President John Kerry likely would not have made smaller: Europeans today — just like the Europeans of 1987 — cannot imagine that the world might change. Maybe we don’t want the world to change, because change can, of course, be dangerous. But in a country of immigrants like the United States, one actually pushes for change. In Mainz today, the stagnant Europeans came face to face with the dynamic Americans. We Europeans always want to have the world from yesterday, whereas the Americans strive for the world of tomorrow.
The European system constantly tries to push for the status quo – dynamism, democracy, and change are all in large part eschewed in European society. The EU is a body that attempts to remove much of the decision-making power from the electorate and place it in a transnational framework that is less likely to be swayed by popular opinion. In countries like the UK and Sweden, popular referenda have set back the Euro integrationists. The EU’s “democracy deficit” is both intentional, and worrying.
Some of these attitudes are understandable. The specter of the Third Reich and the Great War still looms large in European consciousness – it is hard to fully embrace popular rule when popular rule led to the most destructive war in human history. However, the European system with its reflexive anti-Americanism and ossified welfare state continues on the verge of collapse. The concept of tolerance, a concept embraced by Europe, is being undermined from within as radicalized Muslim immigrants threaten the peace from Paris to Amsterdam. The synagogue attacks in France and the murder of Theo Van Gogh were indications of a larger problems that continue to grow in places like the Sarcelles and the Finsbury Park Mosque.
Europe is facing a major case of cognitive dissonance. The European press has constantly and deliberately painted Bush as an utter rube and Iraq as a disastrous attempt to do nothing more to steal oil. Now the party line has been shown to be utterly wrong. How Europe react to this will be telling — while it’s too much to ask for the Europeans to drop their reflexive anti-Americanism, the sort of cooperation on issues like Lebanon that we’ve been seeing in the last few months may increase. If Der Spiegel can ask the unthinkable, one wonders what is going in the minds of European policymakers in Paris, Brussels, and Berlin.
yet when the Iraqis waved their purple fingers triumphantly
I’m sorry, on what planet do purple fingers justify the deaths of thousands of American lives?
Yesterday I found out that two guys from my hometown – one of them was my best friend growing up – were killed in Iraq by an IED. And I’m supposed to feel ok with that because Iraqis got to dip a finger in purple ink and make a near-meaningless mark on paper? Don’t forget they had elections under Saddam, too. And that they were about as meaningful then as they’re likely to be now.
If Bush wanted to invade Iraq so that they could have the vote, that should have been the justification. We should have had the debate, and decided as a nation if that’s what we wanted to do. But what we got were aluminum tubes, yellowcake, and mobile weapons labs. None of which turned out to be true.
I’m glad the Iraqis can vote. Everyone should be able to vote. But I want my fucking friends back.
Nice article Jay.
CH: Seems to me a lot of the soldiers believe deeply in the cause they are fighting for. I am deeply sorry for the loss of your friends, and I am humbled by their sacrifice.
In the end though, Ipot.co believe in the cause as well.
I only post here very occasionally, but read often. You comment often, but honestly I’m not sure what your goal is.
I agree with you that we should have a broad debate on whether to go to war. I disagree with your conclusion that we did not. I remember a list of reasons laid down by the Bush administration, and the deliverance of Iraq from tyranny played highly in my agreement with re-convening hostilities.
Tellingly, the choice to focus on WMD was unanimous among the Democrats supporting the president, including Kerry and Kennedy among many others.
The focus of he debate then was decided upon by a certain political expedience that our system tends to distill every debate down to: What is the shared point of easiest agreement?
If I were a Democrat, I’d be particularly embarassed that my representatives didn’t make the freeing so many people from tyranny the central argument. As a conservative, I am particularly proud to have voted for the man who did make such arguments, despite your tunnel-visioned recollections.
Your dismissive attitude towards free Iraqi elections is sad. I truly hope you learn to find more joy in the demonstration of individual freedoms.
I am deeply sorry for the loss of your friends, and I am humbled by their sacrifice.
They were both helluva guys.
I remember a list of reasons laid down by the Bush administration, and the deliverance of Iraq from tyranny played highly in my agreement with re-convening hostilities.
I submit that you have redacted your memory. I remember the characterization of Saddam as a brutal dictator, which he was, but that was always presented in the context of how dangerous he was to us, not how dangerous he was to his own people. He had, after all, been doing the same thing for 10 years with nary a peep from Republicans.
I truly hope you learn to find more joy in the demonstration of individual freedoms.
As I said, I’m glad that they were able to vote. But what about my friends? They’ll never get to vote again. As many as 100,000 Iraqis weren’t alive to vote, as a direct result of our occupation. Voting wasn’t worth that, and it wasn’t worth the lives of my friends.
We’ve lost a lot of good soldiers in this war. We should never forget those sacrfices.
I agree. We made a mistake over a decade ago in not removing Hussein from power. But leaving him to rule would have only compounded the mistake.
This is bigger than Iraq. Look at what is happening in the Middle East now. Lebanon is demanding freedom from Syria. The Egyptians are beginning to call for democracy. The Iranian student movement for democracy contines to fight their government. The Middle East is beginning to resemble Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and we all know how that turned out.
I remember as kid going to the small town my family comes from and seeing the rows of white crosses every Memorial Day for all the members of that town of 800 in rural South Dakota who died in wars from the Civil War on. Was there sacrifice worth it? Did all the kids my age who died in World War II die for nothing? 3,000 soldiers died off the beaches of Slapton Sands in a training accident for D-Day. We didn’t even know the truth of what happened for 50 years.
They died not because Hitler could have attacked the US in 1944. They died to spread freedom and liberate a people in bondage. The soldiers in Iraq are continuing that tradition.
The people who are fighting in Iraq are fighting because the only way we can maintain our freedom is if the Middle East becomes free. Even if tomorrow Osama bin Laden were caught along with the rest of the al-Qaeda leadership, we wouldn’t be safe. Until we deal with the tyranny of the Islamofascist movement as whole, another would just take our place. The events of January 30th were the result of the work we and the Iraqi people have done in the past three years.
In a few years when the wave of democracy has transformed the Middle East, we’ll better understand the cause that over 1,000 Americans and thousands more Iraqis have died for.
Is the cost of freedom worth the lives of our friends? There are times when I have my doubts as well. However, if we had taken such an attitude 60 years ago we could not even begin to imagine the consequences. There is no greater cause to fight for than the cause of freedom, and those who paid the ultimate price in that conflict, be it on the beaches of Iwo Jima or the dunes of al-Anbar Province gave their lives in the service of a cause that was noble, just, and honorable.
krakatoa, of course the choice among Democrats in the lead-up to war was to focus on weapons of mass destruction. The threat potential another nation poses towards one’s homeland is certainly the most prominent part of any discussion that would lead to war. With that in mind, Kennedy, Kerry, myself and other Democrats were obviously “unanimous” in focusing on the rhetoric about Iraqi WMD whether we ended up supporting the war on not. What we didn’t count on was the person best equipped to inform us on the status of the WMD’s would be vile enough to manipulate intelligence figures that led so many in both parties to vote in favor of abruptly moving forward with a poorly planned war.
While the Iraqi elections went off far better than many of us expected, the gloating and irrational exuberance of the war apologists is wildly premature. It would still surprise me if Iraq can avoid the eruption of a civil war in the next five years. It would surprise me even more if the American government isn’t made to regret its decision to dump all of its military resources in Iraq when actual threats to our homeland still exist.
Bottom line: America is in Iraq because doing so ensures a higher percentage of global resources will flow into our borders. To disguise our operations there as anything else is little more than the usual situational ethics that have afflicted conservatives (and many liberals to be fair) for centuries.
CH: Thanks for taking a guess at the quality of my memory. No prize for you though. These are the words that I took to heart:
From Bush’s Sept 12 2002 address to the U.N.:
and
From Bush’s 03 SOTU:
You said: [Saddam] had, after all, been doing the same thing for 10 years with nary a peep from Republicans.
Or the Democrats, I might add.
The logical continuance of this thought is that we are forever doomed to repeat the sins of our fathers. This seems a terribly un-liberal point of view to me.
There exists in my mind, and I believe in Bush’s as well, a moral obligation to encourage liberty and face down tyranny in the world.
Mark:
I really don’t think there is much to be gained in discussing your views with you. I’m going to assume you are aware of the many MANY quotes by Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Kennedy, etc., etc., PRIOR to the Bush administration as well as post 9/11 outlining Saddam’s threat to the world. I’m assuming you understand that the Intelligence comittee includes members of both parties, and that George Tenet was President Clinton’s man in the CIA. On the basis of these assumptions and on your inability to objectively see the U.S. campaign in Iraq as the single most lopsided victory in the history of warfare, I can only infer that you’ve made some pretty far-fetched rationalizations to convince yourself that Bush somehow manipulated this whole thing for his own advantage. Such rationalizations as I have witnessed in other venues strains my capacity for suspension of disbelief to the point that I really don’t think we could have a substantive discussion on the issues.
If you weren’t aware of these things, I apologize for those assumptions.
krakatoa, we both appear locked in our existing mindsets over Iraq, so you’re probably right that it is futile for us to debate the issue…but futility has never stopped me before. I am aware that many Democrats were under the assumption that Iraq possessed WMDs. That point has been abundantly regurgitated through the right-wing media and blogosphere echo chamber for months now. The obvious difference is that neither Bill Clinton or Al Gore looked at the WMD intelligence and cherry-picked what favored their political agenda to ensure Congressional approval of a war.
As for the Iraq war being the single most lopsided victory in the history of warfare, I’m sure that’s an easy comment to make from the comfort of your easy chair. The families and friends of those whose blood continues to be absorbed by the Iraqi soil may disagree with your assessment. With $82 billion and tens of thousands of new troops being deployed in Iraq, the word “victory” has yet to register as a noun that is reasonably applicable to the war in Iraq, let alone accompanied with the adjective “lopsided.” In case you haven’t heard, more than 1,200 American troops and scores of thousands of Iraqis have perished since the April 2003 “Mission Accomplished” speech that your needle appears to be stuck on.
When the home team is behind by two runs in the fifth inning, it’s generally not a good idea to declare victory. One would have expected the neocons would have learned this lesson at the end of the first inning when they initially declared victory, then managed to blow a five-run lead.
Thanks for taking a guess at the quality of my memory. No prize for you though.
Yes, apparently it’s your reading comprehension that needs the work. As I said, prior to the war, Saddam was presented as a threat to us. That was what was stressed. Not his threat to his own people. Your quotes prove that.
The logical continuance of this thought is that we are forever doomed to repeat the sins of our fathers.
I’m supposed to believe that Republicans suddenly grew a conscience? Why do I find that rather hard to believe? Your party has never cared about harm to anyone but Americans; that’s why the war was justified by imaginary risks to Americans. This feigned solidarity with the Iraqi people is, and always has been, a smokescreen.
There exists in my mind, and I believe in Bush’s as well, a moral obligation to encourage liberty and face down tyranny in the world.
At what cost? Any cost? Is there any cost too great for this opposition of tyranny that you propose?
Chet:
Yes, apparently it’s your reading comprehension that needs the work.
An insult? I think I hardly deserved an insult. I suppose maybe you meant that as a good-natured jibe. I’ll take it as such anyway, and not dwell.
Yes, Saddam was presented as a threat first and foremost. My point was that there were more reasons given than WMD. My apologies if I misunderstood you, but I don’t think I’ve misunderstood President Bush.
Not his threat to his own people. Your quotes prove that.
I count five paragraphs in my previous post that specifically mention the threats to his own people. Please do correct me if I am mis-reading them.
For me, and I think for many (though I would cede, not the majority) the far more compelling reasons to resume hostilities were direct humanitarian intercession for the people of Iraq, and the indirect effects removing a tyrant from power in that region would have on the broader community.
Certainly we are seeing some very promising developments in the Middle East, and while I by no means think the War on Terror is won (indeed I’d submit it will never be), I think the War in Iraq is over.
I’m supposed to believe that Republicans suddenly grew a conscience? Why do I find that rather hard to believe?
Why indeed do you find that hard to believe? I can only speak for myself and those I know, but in my experience, there are far more people of conscience, both Republican and Democrat, than not.
What separates us historically is method. More recently unfortunately, it appears the left has forsaken their duty as the opposition party to present alternatives. I think the majority of us would agree that ultrafundamentalists, be they Islamic or Christian, are a destabilizing influence.
The solution Bush has settled upon, is that a free people tends to moderate its extremists. Liberty, the ability for self-determination, provides not only a level of fulfillment for the average person, but also conveniently gives aggression a more peaceful means of expression. I personally prefer the cutthroat tactics of big business to the more literal cut-throats of the Middle East.
At what cost? Any cost? Is there any cost too great for this opposition of tyranny that you propose?
Now this is interesting to me. A meaty moral question. Is there any cost too great? My first instinct is to say of course not. Give me liberty or give me death, and all that.
If we were to destroy the human race in the pursuit of destroying tyranny, however, I can easily concede that would be a pointless sacrifice.
The other extreme of course would be to never oppose tyranny, and humanity would suffer endless indignity, and in all liklihood eventually perish with this rock we live on.
I do believe cleaning up the Middle East is worth the price we have paid so far, and lots more besides. 7th Century Islam is a dead-end, not only for it’s own adherents, but for anyone it claims influence over. I see people voting in a free election for the first time in their lives, and I am in awe of the spectacle.
Should we bear the entire burden? I’d be quick to agree that we should not. BUT, if the campaign is just, if the cause is noble, neither should we shirk the task if no-one else will join us.
I don’t know if there is a more noble cause than liberty. I for one am very proud to have played even so tiny a role as I have in bringing liberty to Iraq and Afghanistan simply by pulling the lever for the man that made it happen.
So let me turn the question around on you: What sort of tyranny in the World today do you think is worth fighting against? Did the actions in Bosnia-Herzegovina qualify?
Mark:
That you consider the media to be predominantly right-wing in this country bodes ill for any debate with me. =P
You suggest Bush’s adminstration “cherry-picked” information from the intelligence reports. I’m not entirely sure A: what points they significantly differed on from the preceding administration Or B: why that should even be a concern. Political expediency in a pluralistic government often demands simplification. Everyone seemed to be in agreement that Saddam needed to go. Evidence was abundant on all of the reasons which I personally found compelling.
You yourself cherry pick data to support your position, do you not? “Mission Accomplished” for instance. There’s nothing wrong with cherry-picking data. Fallacy comes into play when you ignore contrary data.
Yes, hostilities continue. As they did for years in Europe, post WW2. As they will when the U.S. military is no longer there. What exactly would you define as the end-point of a war? Saddam is captured. His army decimated. His people freed and voting for their futures. This all sounds very much like a post-war situation.
When the home team is behind by two runs in the fifth inning, it’s generally not a good idea to declare victory.
I agree, insofar as baseball is concerned. However, when it comes to war, declaring victory when you are seriously thumping an already demoralized enemy can be a very effective piece of propaganda. I have to disagree that the act of declaring victory somehow galvanized the Iraqi insurgents and their foreign terrorist allies. I haven’t seen any particular evidence of that anyway. Perhaps you have some you can share.
krakatoa:
“That you consider the media to be predominantly right-wing in this country bodes ill for any debate with me.”
When I made that comment, I wasn’t referring to the entire media being right-wing, I was referring to media institutions and bloggers who are right-wing and constantly justify the Bush adminstration’s miscalculation about WMD based on the fact that Clinton also got it wrong (but curiously didn’t start a war based on his erroneous info). I’m aware that as long as CBS News and the New York Times exist, universally empowered political conservatives will forever portray themselves as victims, doomed for the rest of eternity to rail against the impenetrable liberal media machine. It was not my intention with the above comment to attempt to take that victimhood away from you.
“Political expediency in a pluralistic government often demands simplification. ”
If we were talking about delivering financial aid for tsunami victims or to Californians boating back to what’s left of their homes, I’d agree. But we’re talking about war….where our government’s credibility is on the line among citizens at home being asked to send their sons and daughters into battle, and among the global community. To suggest that haste is the best practice when determining whether or not to go to war is beyond comprehension.
If you neocons were serious about engaging the American public and the global community in the radical concept of pre-emptive warfare, “political expediency” should have been the least of your concerns. Now nobody will believe Bush the next time he parades his stooges around with charts showing nuclear fissions. The only people who had any interest in “political expedience” two years ago were George Bush and the Republican Party, who only had a short period of time to take advantage of the public’s post-9/11 hawkishness to expand Bush’s “wartime President” credentials and increase the likelihood of salvaging an otherwise doomed Presidency.
“You yourself cherry pick data to support your position, do you not? “Mission Accomplished†for instance. There’s nothing wrong with cherry-picking data. Fallacy comes into play when you ignore contrary data.”
My “Mission Accomplished” reference was made because that was pretty much the beginning and the end of the GOP’s chest-thumping about “the quickest war ever.” Since the summer of 2003, I haven’t seen anyone gutsy enough (if “gutsy” is the right word) to resurrect the “most lopsided victory in the history of warfare” line. Two years, $200 billion dollars and 1,200 flag-draped coffins later, I would look be looking for an alternative soundbyte by now. But hey…that’s me.
“What exactly would you define as the end-point of a war? Saddam is captured. His army decimated. His people freed and voting for their futures. This all sounds very much like a post-war situation.”
You’re trying to have it both ways. If we achieved victory in Iraq 22 months ago, let’s bring the troops home today. According to your logic, the Soviets will go down in history as victorious in their 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. After all, they did seize control of the Afghan government in less than a month…..an initial military victory just as “lopsided” as ours in Iraq.
Victory should not be declared until we’ve accomplished what we set out to do….establish a direct pipeline into the Middle Eastern oil empire, er, turn Iraq into the Arab world’s first democracy. The disintegration of a third-world government was only the first chapter of our stated objective in 2003 Iraq, just like it was only the first chapter for the Soviets in 1979 Afghanistan.
“I think the majority of us would agree that ultrafundamentalists, be they Islamic or Christian, are a destabilizing influence.”
This I would agree with on, but be careful what you wish for. Exit polls showed that were it not for fundamentalist Christians, George Bush would have gotten fewer than 30 million votes on 11-2. And if it weren’t for people who support the war in Iraq based on a belief that this epic struggle in the holy land will hasten the second coming of Christ and the ensuing Rapture, the level of public support for Iraq would stand somewhere between 10-20% right now.
Mark:
Only have time for a quick response, so I apologize for missing anything.
Re. WMD.
I think it’s pretty much a given that Clinton and Bush did not have it wrong. Saddam did have WMD, and had used it previously, this much is a fact. The pertinent question vis-a-vis the UN resolutions is, whether, when and how did he get rid of it? I submit it highly likely that the satellite photos showing long convoys crossing from Iraq to Syria in the months leading up to the end of the cease fire were not carrying figs and olive oil. Do I know for a fact that WMD was transferred to Syria? Of course not. But I don’t find it a stretch to consider it a probability.
You’re trying to have it both ways.
I was a little sloppy. I didn’t mean to imply that I agreed the War in Iraq was over 22 months ago. I do think it is, for all intents and purposes, over NOW.
I think it’s pretty much a done deal calling it the most lop-sided victory. The Baathist would have to be back in power or the rate of casualties would have to go up by a factor of 10 to make me reconsider that.
You do make a compelling historical point bringing up Russia and Afghanistan. I suggest the circumstances are different, insofar as Russia never gave the Afghani people free elections. Contrast that with U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Again I ask you, at what point do you consider it proper to declare a war as over? Let’s face it, if we were inclined, we could claim the UK and Spain were still at war and occupying territories. We don’t
A nit to pick: Israel is the Arab world’s first democracy.
polls showed that were it not for fundamentalist Christians, George Bush would have gotten fewer than 30 million votes on 11-2.
I’d be interested in seeing the source for that. Also, I submit that there is a world of difference in philosophy between that 30 million block of “fundamentalis” Christians, and the more extreme ultrafundamentalists on par with those groups on the left such as ELF, and those in the Islamic world who subscibe to Wahabbism. These are the groups I refer to as “ultra”.
I don’t think I can accept your conclusion regarding the level of public support without some pretty solid statistical evidence.
And even if it were the case, it would leave me in the 10-20% that believes in the Bush Doctrine based on things completely unassociated with religious considerations.