12.05.2005

The anti-Churchill party

Now I know Dean is a nutcase, but he is the head of the DNC. His guaranteeing US defeat is a little unseemly is it not?

Saying the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years.

Dean made his comments in an interview on WOAI Radio in San Antonio.

"I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening."

While I think Ann Coulter is a nutcase as well, doesn’t this make her charges that anti-war liberals are tip-toeing on the borders of sedition slightly more credible? (And believe me, I'm glad no one like Ann is the head of the RNC)

UPDATE: Kerry intimating that US soldiers in Iraq are behaving unprofessionally – almost as if they were terrorists (If plumbers plumb; terrorists ________)
-- probably doesn’t weaken Ms. Coulter’s argument either.

Kerry: “there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs. ...Iraqis should be doing that.”

Ok so I now think that 2012 is probably the soonest I won’t be pants pissingly terrified of Democrats being in charge of national security. Anyone who views occasional lapses in cultural etiquette as reason enough to turn over a country with incalculable oil wealth to the next new-and-improved Taliban cannot be taken seriously.

UPDATE: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi claims over half of house Democrats favor "speedy withdrawl" (much to the consternation of the other half).

UPDATE: Dean changes his mind (again)
"We can and have to win the War on Terror." "We can only win the war -- which we have to win -- if we change our strategy dramatically. ... if we want to win the war on terror we cannot pursue the failed strategy we've pursued..."

UPDATE: This can be filed under Murtha’s “Democrats not sure what they believe at any given moment” category. Delaware Sen. Tom Carper seemingly criticized much publicized pro-withdrawal comments by Howard Dean and other Democrats after returning from a tour from Iraq which I first thought was a rare display of candor.

"I wish more of my colleagues, and folks like Howard Dean, would try going to Iraq to see the situation there for themselves"

Great! So he’s implying that what they said was poorly informed and incorrect. Err no.

“Anyone who has visited Iraq and talked to the people there, he said, is not going to come back thinking this thing is going to be won militarily. It's not."

Huh? Isn’t that exactly what Howard Dean said? (see above)

Has Rove figured out a secret weakness in the liberal mind that causes pandering engines to engage simultaneously in forward and reverse inevitably causing a full logic meltdown? Will we see Dean interrupted in a future speech on the necessity of the Iraq war by a rebellious left hand attempting to make a peace sign?

UPDATE: So while conservatives are actively trying to allow democracy to take hold in Iraq liberals are exporting well worn tactics to discredit democratic elections through claims of disenfranchisement.

Juan Cole: ”The only way the vote will happen at all is that the US military has forbidden all vehicular traffic, so everyone has to walk for the next few days. This tactic prevents car bombings from disrupting the elections, but it is a desperate measure and not a sign of an election that could be certified as free and fair.”

Goodness that’s sounds almost as bad as Ohio. Everyone knows inconvenience = Jim Crow unless you happen to be in country with a tin-pot socialist dictator and then it isn’t inconvenience but a valid cultural preference we’d be arrogant and ignorant to judge. Just ask Jimmah.

UPDATE: Holy cow. I was totally joking about the Iraq/Ohio comparison and Eric Alterman is actually making the comparison....seriously.

5 comments:

Ben said...

I find it damned unfortunate that the two "leading" Dems are Deaner and Kerry. I kind of like having two strong political parties to choose from. Options are nice, they give you flexibility. These fellows are edging their party towards political irrelevance at when the other guys need a kick in the pants. Actually, the other guys (whoever they may be) should always have the threat of a solid kick in the pants to keep 'em honest. Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit every now and again, tosses up a Kerry quote from a while back that was his response to the "exit strategy" question. It was, "the only exit strategy is victory." What victory means should be discussed and debated, but leaving Iraq in a state where it is by any stretch insecure (another term that should be debated) is unacceptable on basic humanitarian principles. That "you break it, you bought it" meme applies accross the board. Not just where Republicans are involved.

Joe said...

You may be right that the "pull out" people are cynical. But saying, "ok, we tried our best. This isn't working and it's not getting any better" IS a legitimate point of view to hold. It's ok to change one's mind when new evidence comes to light. The longer the insurgency lasts, the more evidence there is that this isn't going to work.

I think Ben may be right that we have to stay on moral grounds, but that is predicated on the premise that our presence doesn't make things worse (which is the salient issue in the PR war that Andrew seems to dismiss). I certainly don't know the point at which our presence begins to hurt more than it helps, but I think that point does exist.

Joe said...

I think the "doing more harm than good" argument isn't about the public service infrastructure stuff. I think it's about how much the insurgency is fueled by our presence (the Rashid Khalidi argument). So, yeah, it's a cost/benefit analysis situation, not just from our self-interested standpoint, but also from the moral standpoint. I frankly have no fucking clue what the relative consequences would be of staying and leaving at this point.

I think it's reasonalbe that our presence in Iraq fuels the notion that the U.S. is an imperialist power, which in turns stokes the fires of islamist extremism in Iraq, which in turn creates more terrorists. Therefore, the conclusion that our presence, at least in part, fuels the insurgency is pretty reasonable, and the further conclusion that the insurgency will not stop as long as we are there is also reasonable.

I also see that it does not follow from this conclusion that the insurgency will stop as soon as we leave, because there are other motivating factors for the insurgents. I just don't know the relative importance of these different motivating factors. Popular opinion seems to be that they are primarily Baathist holdouts, which would seem to indicate that they'll continue fighting regardless of our presence or absence.

Whatever their reasons, I'm pretty convinced that they aren't going to stop fighting any time soon, and we're nowhere close to stopping them from fighting. So, if we have to stay there until the place is stable, we're going to be there for a very long time, thus adding more fuel to the portion of the insurgency that fights because of our presence. If this portion is small, then the effect of our presence on stability will probably have a positive net effect, so, morally speaking, we should stay as long as we're helpful. If the portion of the insurgency that is fueled by our presence is large, however, we should probably get out pretty soon.

Regarding Dean and the bunch, what can I say, they're politicians. Politicians bullshit and pander. It's their nature. But, yeah, it's not very impressive when it happens.

Joe said...

Fantastic ad hominem attack. But you didn't have a factual or logical counter to the argument that people, most of whom are skeptical of us at best, might be even more skeptical, perhaps even angry, that we've invaded and occupied their country, even if it IS better than it was. As you said, people are people, and the arab culture a "festering turdpile."

Bio of Rashid Khalidi
http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/AuthorBiography

"Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Chair in Arab Studies at Columbia University. From 1987 to 2003, he was the Professor of Middle East History and Director of the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago, where he taught. He has also taught at the Lebanese University and the American University of Beirut — and at Georgetown and Columbia universities.

He received a B.A. in History from Yale University in 1970 and a Ph.D. in Modern History from Oxford University in 1974."

I think calling this guy a "hack" is something of an overstatement.

Joe said...

Hey, call away. I was actually impressed by the poetic imagery of "festering turdpile." I think it's an huge overstatement that ignores the contributions of Arabs to culture over the years, but I see what you're getting at, and you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

Regarding Khalidi and academic credentials in general, I will only say this. I have not spent at least 6 years of my life in intensive study of Middle Eastern history, culture, and politics at one of the most academically rigorous institutions in the world, followed by a career where I deal with these issues every day. Nor have I grown up in the Middle-East. Therefore, I will choose to show some deference, (meaning that I will listen to and respect if not necessarily agree with) to people who have done one or both of those things (particularly the former). Given your skepticism of academia, I certainly understand your hesitancy to do that.

On the substantive point, though, I don't think the survey results you cited from Afghanistan (assuming they're accurate, from a well-designed study, etc) are a very good proxy for the situation in Iraq. Life in Afhanistan under the Taliban was unbearable. Life under Saddam was bad but nowhere near as bad as under the Taliban. They are very different places in a lot of other ways, probably most pertinently in that the resistance in Afhanistan was nowhere close to the resistance in Iraq. Also, the survey does NOT ask about Afghani attitudes toward the U.S. presence. It is quite possible, even probable, that people can enjoy the fruits of our actions there while still hating our fucking guts and wanting to blow us up. The survey should have asked,"Do you think Americans are infidels?" "Does it make you happy when Americans die?" "Would you be willing to kill Americans?"

"Making people grumpy" and "hurting their feelings" is a pretty big deal when the result of doing so is a sucicide bomber or an IED. Your allusion to Afghanistan is a weak comparison.

But, you may be right, and I hope you are. But you seem so confident that I will definitely have to remind you if you turn out to be wrong.

Out of curiosity, when do you think we should get out and under what circumstances? Is there any sort of ambient level of shittiness that would cause you to condone a "premature pull-out"? (This is my new favorite phrase connected with the war, by the way).