EFFin’ Unsound

– posted by thehim 

Eric Earling has shown recently that he possesses a necessary skill for any Bush-defender.  He is gifted in the fine art of polishing a turd.  He’s no Tony Snow, mind you, but he can hold his own.  These days, the king of turds goes by the name of “surge”, and it will be dropped in front of the American public Wednesday evening.  Recent surveys have shown that only 11% of Americans support this plan, so Earling better have some extra supplies in his shed.  This morning, he tried to gear up his arsenal. 

There has been ample discussion in the local and national press about Bush’s upcoming Iraq policy announcement. In follow-up to previous posts on the topic (here, here, here, and here), let me offer some thoughts for consideration prior to the announcement since the post-announcement debate is already shaping up with some clarity.

This post will probably be a little light on the snark for me, as this is a serious subject, and Earling is doing what he can to be serious about it within the parameters he has to work with (being unable to admit the very obvious fact that no one in their right mind should be supporting this).  For a very succinct take, please read Josh Marshall.  In Earling’s previous posts, he somehow thinks that this situation is a quandary for Democrats, even though roughly 80-90% of the country agrees with them at a very basic level that sending more troops to Iraq is a bad idea. 

First and foremost, it seems clear many critics of the pending “surge” either don’t understand the change in tactics involved or are deliberately muddying the discussion.

The change in tactics Earling refers to here involves having American soldiers take a more hands-on approach to security in Baghdad.  This is an approach that President Bush said in June 2005 would undermine our strategy.  The typical talking point around that time was that we didn’t want the Iraqis to be reliant on American forces, and so they’d stand up as we stood down.  Now, all that’s changed.  What’s going to be different about the inevitable transition back to the Iraqi forces once the escalation is over?  I have no idea.  Some people seem to believe that putting more troops on the streets of Baghdad will magically achieve stability in a country where the populace overwhelmingly wants us to leave.  I guess some people also believe that pro wrestling isn’t scripted.

The change involved here seems to be a marked difference from past practice of clearing an area of insurgents and other nefarious folks with the US military, then leaving Iraqi security forces to hold and revitalize the area itself.  The New York Times provides a thorough run-down of how the clear-and-hold strategy using that formula did not work, and how likewise neither did the strategy in 2006 to empower the Iraqis to take control. They clearly proved incapable of the task in the current environment, for a multitude of reasons.

It would be nice to explore those reasons because some of those reasons would still apply to having American troops doing the job as well.  The primary reason among them being that the Iraqis have lost patience with our occupation, and regardless of who is there to keep the peace, it will be seen by many as the cause of, not the solution to, the problems Iraqis face.  This will unfortunately be the case until we find a way out of there or until a magic fairy changes the minds of every Iraqi. 

Yet, the Reid/Pelosi letter from last week is calling for a short-term emphasis on Iraqi capabilities rather than US forces, an effort that already failed in 2006:

…we believe the way forward is to begin the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months, while shifting the principal mission of our forces there from combat to training, logistics, force protection and counter-terror. A renewed diplomatic strategy, both within the region and beyond, is also required to help the Iraqis agree to a sustainable political settlement.

These are the very tactics, including the emphasis on political settlements, the US has been pushing for many months.

So what do we have?  We have Bush’s plan that won’t work and a plan put forth by the Democrats that won’t work, but does get us closer to extracting ourselves from the mess.  We already know what the American people want, but Earling still thinks that Iraq is like a video game, where someone finds the magic key behind a door and we win.  The question we’re faced with is, do we do things now to prepare ourselves to leave Iraq, or do we do things now to get ourselves more entrenched?  Bush is increasingly alone in wanting to do the latter, but Earling cheers him on (why not?  He’ll be watching from a safe distance).

The Iraqis have proven incapable of handling the requirements of security in notable areas, and maddeningly slow in achieving the political consensus necessary to move the country forward.

So how does Bush’s escalation overcome that?  How does putting an increased number of American troops in Baghdad make it easier for the Iraqis to handle security or to achieve the political consensus necessary to move things forward?  This is the military equivalent to the Underpants Gnomes, the South Park spoof of dot-coms where step 1 was Collect Underpants, step 3 was Profit, but no one had any idea what step 2 was.  We keep doing the same thing in Iraq.  Step 1 is send troops.  Step 3 is victory.  But no one seems to have any real idea of what step 2 looks like.  And it’s been this way since the beginning.

Yet Democrats are essentially proposing a gloss-upped version of what didn’t work in 2006. Talk about not changing the course. 

But what Bush is proposing is no different than where we were in 2003, which also didn’t work.  The entire Joint Chiefs of Staff know that more troops is not the answer, but I guess Eric Earling knows more about military strategy than they do.

Such irony is regrettably common. A popular criticism of our involvement in Iraq, including from many liberals, is that Western-style Democracy can’t be foisted upon a non-Western country with great ease.

You don’t say. 

Many conservatives can agree with that, and the subsequent debate of establishing a basic democracy versus a Western-style democracy is longer than I have time for here.

I actually have no clue what Earling is talking about here, so if someone can explain it to me, I might be able to decipher what he means by “basic democracy” and “Western-style democracy.”  To me, a democracy is when people have a say in how their government works.  Maybe a Western-style democracy is when the people choose to have their government work the way Western governments do?  I have no idea.

The point is many liberals were skeptical of the democracy experiment in advnace.  So, could someone please explain then why liberals seem mortified that the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein did not live up to Western standards (see the New York Times here and here for ample summary of the imperfections of the execution)?

Well, I’ll try, but I think it comes down to one very strong belief in particular, and it’s not a modern liberal one, but instead more of a classical liberal one.  It’s the belief that a justice system that grants basic rights to people is the foundation of democracy.  Many liberals were skeptical about bringing democracy to Iraq, not because we didn’t think that people in the Middle East are capable of it, but because the people who were leading the charge (the neocons) have a very convoluted idea of justice and democracy.  Someone who believes in pre-emptively attacking others because they might attack you sometime down the road doesn’t exactly have a very firm grasp of the fundamental principles laid out by our founding fathers to build the democracy we have here.  The neocons, and by extension, our invasion of Iraq, is seen as being more about power and revenge than about justice, and this is a terrible way to bring democracy to the region.  Neocons see themselves as people who are bringing American justice to the Middle East, but in reality, they’ve brought Middle East justice to America.  This is why the execution of Saddam raised alarm bells among many of us.  Because the cornerstone of why democracy works is having a justice system that exists as an antidote to revenge and bloodlust.

Darryl at Horse’s Ass was quite bothered, though offered analysis that was thoughtful even if one disagrees with it. Stilwell at NPI thought Hussein should have been tried at the Hague.

If you haven’t read Darryl’s post yet, please do.  And I certainly agree with Stilwell, for the reasons I explained above.  Setting an example of how justice should work would have been beneficial for the Iraqis.  But Hussein was tried in Iraq, mainly because the outcome of Saddam hanging from a noose was more guaranteed, a prime example of why the architects of the war get it wrong when it comes to understanding the necessity of promoting justice over revenge in trying to bring Western democracy to the Middle East.

Such analysis is really quite illogical. Does any serious thinker believe a system of justice in the present-day Middle East is going to meet Western standards?

Of course not.  And that’s exactly why it would have been smart to have such an important trial take place in The Hague. 

The system approved by the current Iraqi government is much fairer than much of what passes for criminal law and justice in the region; a fact that should be embraced, not condemned.

I’m not sure what Earling is basing this on.  But having a trial end in what basically looked like a lynching is not “much fairer” than the rest of the region.  The justice system in the Middle East is terrible, but I don’t think too many observers (especially Middle East ones) were impressed by the way this trial unfolded. 

Moreover, does anyone think replicating Slobodan Milosevic’s joke of a four-year trial at the Hague would be prudent?

Yes, I do.  Compared to what happened, an act that essentially turned Saddam’s execution into a partisan act of revenge, even a poorly handled trial at The Hague would have done a better job of moving the Iraqis towards having more trust in Western-style justice than what happened. 

In perspective, the Nuremberg Trials wouldn’t meet modern Western standards either, but there is something to be said for timely justice of publicly visible crimes against humanity that shouldn’t take so long the tyrant dies in custody before facing justice. Mario Loyoa at the National Review’s the Corner reviews:

The scheme of war crimes trials was largely invented by the Americans after World War II, and largely for the purpose of making sure that the crimes of the Nazis were publicized and memorialized to the fullest. The concern was not the due process rights of a band of criminals who had committed their crimes openly and flagrantly for all the world to see. Nobody could doubt their identity or guilt.Some have questioned why Saddam was executed on the basis of less than two hundred murders when he was responsible for hundreds of thousands losing their lives. The answer is not just that the particular crime in question was so easily traceable through documentary evidence to Saddam’s personal agency, but also that it is important for people to see that even a crime this “small” justifies this punishment.

None of this has to do with the due process rights normally presumed for an individual criminal defendant in a state proceeding where there is a vital concern to protect individual rights from the power of the state. War criminals use the power of the state to commit their crimes. By abusing the powers of state, they opt out of the protections of state. The Allies would have been fully within their rights under customary international law to put the senior Nazi leaders in front of firing squads without any judicial process at all. Indeed, among the Allies, many senior leaders worried about the restraining precedent that would be set by the Nuremberg trials, which arguably went far beyond the sensible requirements of humanist and ethical restraint. The Nuremberg trials were show-trials in the best sense. Their purpose was not justice, but publicity, as Eisenhower appreciated.

There are several major notable differences here, however.  The first being the obvious fact that for much of Saddam’s murderous reign, the United States backed him and his regime.  This fact is not lost on most Middle East observers.  It’s widely accepted that the choice of charges against Saddam was strategically chosen so that the murderous acts he committed with American complicity were not a factor.  This seems to be the opposite of what Eisenhower was after - we wanted less publicity of the actual crimes - and just the faster route to the gallows.

Second, while Saddam was no angel, he wasn’t even close to the same category as the Nazis.  He was most certainly a war criminal, but what the Nazi’s did was above and beyond anything done by the Baathist regime. 

Third, unlike the post-war era in Germany, building up the justice systems in the heart of Europe was not quite the challenge that it is today in the Middle East.  The American victory rallied people to the American view of how justice should work, and therefore cutting corners in the Nuremberg Trials wasn’t something that fed into people’s pre-existing mistrust.  There was barely any mistrust back then.  But currently in Iraq, there’s an enormous amount of mistrust over our ability to bring real justice to the region.  This is a result of a number of mistakes, from Fallujah to Abu Ghraib to our failure to provide real security to the country.

That being said, there is much to lament about how the execution of Hussein was handled, and some liberal critics seem to have missed the fact conservatives and supporters of the war of assorted stripes rue the final handling of matters as well. But a smattering includes Rich Lowry, Andy McCarthy, Michael Leeden, and Christopher Hitchens.  The four have varied views on the matter, but all agree the handling of the execution by Iraq’s government could and should have gone smoother legally and politically.

Eric, what is your point then?  Do you disagree with those four opinions?  How is what they’re saying all that different from what Darryl is saying?

The fact remains the very Iraqis who critics of the Bush Administration want to empower further (as the Administration itself was attempting to do with little success last year) are the ones who wantonly botched the handling of Saddam’s execution.

This is a silly claim, and someone who is following Iraq closely should know better than to say something this dumb.  The people who botched the execution were the very people that Middle East experts were warning would take over if the Baath Party was knocked out of power.  Many people (and notice how I’m not saying “those on the left”, because it wasn’t just liberals) knew that the kind of people who would be empowered by an overthrow of Saddam could potentially be a bigger headache for the United States down the road.  And they were right.  For you to claim that it was the critics of the Bush Administration who’ve been empowering them betrays a level of ignorance that I find surprising, even from you.

Indeed, there is a total lack of consistency in the argument of many Bush critics. On one hand they object to the actions and culture of the Iraqis, on the other they now back an essentially re-worded version of the strategy of giving more short-term control of security to the Iraqis, with the addition of a phased withdrawal, that hasn’t worked.

As someone who happily calls himself a Bush critic (and a Democrat now as well, as a result of the Iraq War), let me sort out this little fairy tale you have going.  People who were smart enough in 2002 and 2003 to oppose this war have never objected or denigrated the culture of the Iraqis.  What we objected to was the belief among many Bush supporters that you can change culture through blunt force.  There was a train of thought that went something like “people on the left think that Iraqis are uncivilized and therefore bringing them democracy would be a folly”.  This was never more than a figment of people’s imaginations at the American Enterprise Institute, a laughable talking point deserving to be mocked.  The reason this adventure failed was because the people who were approaching this invasion thought that the key to transforming the Middle East into America was to adopt a more Middle Eastern mindset.  It was folly from the very beginning, and smart people knew that. 

Such a move could be likened to similar blunders by bad investors who buy high and sell low, thus locking in their losses.

That barely even makes sense within the phony strawman caricature you just constructed.  Iraq’s “stock” is not just going to rise magically.  People who support plans similar to what Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have offered up are not supporting those plans because they will lead to victory.  They support those plans because they provide a way for us to get ourselves the fuck out of this mess.  What exactly do you think can happen to turn this thing around?  What magical occurrence is right around the bend to stop the growing civil unrest and collapsing infrastructure?  What color is the sky in your world?

Strategically, and more importantly, politically, there really only seems two choices. 

Really?  Political considerations are more important than strategic ones?  How telling.

Get out as soon as possible, which the Democratic base is clamoring for with great zeal. Or attempt the surge and see if it succeeds or fails.

Gee, Eric, don’t you think you should make the surge seem like less of a crapshoot?   

If it’s the latter, even pro-war conservatives will likely agree it’s time to simply wash our hands of the mess that is Iraqi society and get out in as timely a manner as possible (a process that itself might prove rather messy).

Will they?  That’s not what I get from the President.  To him, leaving is losing.  So when the “surge” fails to find the magical sword that gives you unlimited hit points, but President Bush says we’re staying in Iraq, are you going to oppose him then? 

If it’s the former, the security situation will have improved to where the Iraqi government can handle matters and take the sort of political steps currently held in stasis by sectarian strife.

But the political steps that the Iraqi government needs to make are only partially a result of the poor security situation.  Major factions of the country simply don’t recognize the power of the federal government no matter what.  The Iraqis don’t accept our authority to be occupiers any more, so any agreements that are achieved during the “surge” will be unanimously rejected by the people as something imposed on them by us.  Do you really not understand this?  Is this very simple fact going over your head somehow?   

All that means we could commence an orderly transition to Iraqi control of security coupled with a steady and significant drawdown of American forces.

And ponies for everyone!

Indeed, the surge may not work.

Heck, it may even lead to some American soldiers dying. 

Some conservatives like the idea. Even Rich Lowry, one of the Bush’s harshest critics in analyzing the last couple years in Iraq, likes the recent steps Bush is taking as a hands-on commander-in-chief.

Did you just say that Rich Lowry is one of Bush’s harshest critics?  Are you high?

And of course, some conservatives have reservations about the surge. Those are understandable since the surge itself is no sure thing.

Some conservatives?  How about over 80% of the country? 

And if it fails, lots of conservatives will be in the same boat Tom Friedman is in now: “As Saddam’s hanging underscored, Iraqis are doing things their way. So maybe it’s time to get out of their way.”

Why don’t we just skip the part where you idiots figure out what everyone with an IQ over 20 figured out a long time ago and start getting out now?

Either advocates of the surge are right, or the Tom Friedmans of the world are right. 

If there’s anyone who Eric could have used to make that comparison seem more ridiculous, I don’t know who he could have chosen.  Friedman has completely destroyed his reputation over the past 4 years trying to give the Bush Administration the benefit of the doubt on Iraq.  The fact that he’s now seen as the anti-Bush position should give you an idea of exactly how far into outer-space the Bush Adminstration has gone on this. 

There isn’t a middle ground on this, yet that seems where many elected Democrats are trying to go on Iraq, doing a delicate dance of catering to their base while avoiding looking terrible on national security (a dance already covered here).

If they don’t want to look terrible on national security, they should just stand next to a Republican. 

Meanwhile, Republicans are obviously in a massive bind since some observers, mostly on the left and in some corners of the media, interpret the 2006 election as a signal for rapid withdrawal from Iraq rather than as a result of broader unhappiness with Republicans that is not so easily pigeonholed into an anti-war box.

He’s actually right.  The current Republicans have been incompetent on a number of fronts.  Going back to the post from Josh Marshall that I linked to above, what exactly has anyone in the Bush Adminstration done that would inspire our confidence to trust them with the lives of more U.S. soldiers?

As such, any support for continued war may be costly, most definitely if a surge doesn’t work.

Gee, you think so, Einstein?

In reality, it seems quite difficult to have a thoughtful, emotion-free discussion of the Iraq issue anymore.

Not really.  Come to Drinking Liberally some time.  I won’t lie and say the discussions we have there are emotion-free, but it’s much more thoughtful than the tired old garbage you keep trotting out here. 

Some Bush critics seem no longer capable of thoughtful commentary on the matter, and are blind to the fact there is a difference between offering criticisms of the conduct of Iraq policy (which conservatives have done) versus embracing a Vietnam-era mentality of “let’s get out now” (which conservatives for obvious reasons aren’t too enamored with).

Um, yeah, Eric.  One is a criticism of what’s been done and the other is a suggestion for what to do next.  I don’t think anyone’s having trouble seeing the difference there, sport.

Concurrently, some Republicans are running so scared of the political ramifications they’re having trouble offering cogent thought as well.

Hmm, I wonder why that is?  I mean, the surge is such an obviously brilliant strategy with absolutely no chance of ending up with large numbers of dead American soldiers for no reason.  How could they possibly be hesitant?

At the same time, some Republicans are so focused on not bowing to the left they’re not able to think creatively about adjusting policy to fit a difficult situation.

These people are referred to as the Bush Administration.

In the end, we’re going to see a ton of commentary locally and nationally after the Bush announcement, and no doubt a hefty battle in Congress.

No shit.

In the midst of the noise of political debate, it will be difficult to discern clear thinking in search of real answers rather than that seeking mere political points. It would seem the best advice is actually wait and see what Bush has to say.

The suspense is killing me.  And our soldiers.

If he produces a plan that is candid about reality on the ground, offers a clear path forward, presents tangible goals to achieve, and includes realistic benchmarks for success that will trigger future troop withdrawals then Democrats will have a tough time stopping the plan in Congress, short of the universally bad idea of cutting funding for troops in the field.

So four years after we invaded, we’ll finally have a plan? 

If such a plan is devoid of such components, Democrats won’t have to worry about stopping it, because outcry from even pro-war conservatives is likely to be robust. And of course, local reaction is likely to be interesting as blood sport goes.

And I’ll be ready to ridicule your dispatch from Cuckoo-town.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 8th, 2007 at 8:23 pm and is filed under TheHim. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.