There are two remarkable articles on The Washington Post website tonight. The juxtaposition of the two also is startling. There is an article by George Will titled "Bleakness In Baghdad" and another by Secretary Donald Rumsfeld titled "What We’ve Gained in 3 Years in Iraq". Their views of what is happening in Iraq could not be any more different.
George Will writes about the conditions on the ground:
Conditions in Iraq have worsened in the 94 days that have passed since Iraq’s elections in December. And there still is no Iraqi government that can govern. By many measures conditions are worse than they were a year ago, when they were worse than they had been the year before.
Secretary Rumsfeld writes about the conditions on the ground:
The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq. I believe that history will show that to be the case.
…
Today, some 100 Iraqi army battalions of several hundred troops each are in the fight, and 49 control their own battle space. About 75 percent of all military operations in the country include Iraqi security forces, and nearly half of those are independently Iraqi-planned, Iraqi-conducted and Iraqi-led. Iraqi security forces have a greater ability than coalition troops to detect a foreign terrorist’s accent, identify local suspects and use force without increasing a feeling of occupation. It was these Iraqi forces — not U.S. or coalition troops — that enforced curfews and contained the violence after the attack on the Golden Dome Shrine in Samarra. To be sure, violence of various stripes continues to slow Iraq’s progress. But the coalition is doing everything possible to see this effort succeed and is making adjustments as appropriate.
George Will sums up the effort to bring democracy to Iraq:
Three years ago the administration had a theory: Democratic institutions do not just spring from a hospitable culture, they can also create such a culture. That theory has been a casualty of the war that began three years ago today.
Secretary Rumsfeld opines on the same effort:
The rationale for a free and democratic Iraq is as compelling today as it was three years ago. A free and stable Iraq will not attack its neighbors, will not conspire with terrorists, will not pay rewards to the families of suicide bombers and will not seek to kill Americans.
What is going on here? Why such starkly different views of the same situation? Is the situation in Iraq much better than the vast majority of the media and punditry would lead us to believe? Or is the Administration refusing to face some very uncomfortable truths about the results of its policy? I am not on the ground in Iraq, I cannot say for certain. However, I can make a best guess based on the information available to me from the Administration and the various media outlets. The preponderance of evidence based on the Administration’s own assessments over the last three years and the information from the media leads me to believe, and I believe common sense suggests, that the situation in Iraq is not going well.
I suggested in two earlier posts today that in order for the Administration to salvage the situation, it needs to be more forthright with the American people. (You can read the posts here and here).
The first two paragraphs of Secretary Rumsfeld’s article are very telling:
Some have described the situation in Iraq as a tightening noose, noting that "time is not on our side" and that "morale is down." Others have described a "very dangerous" turn of events and are "extremely concerned."
Who are they that have expressed these concerns? In fact, these are the exact words of terrorists discussing Iraq — Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his associates — who are describing their own situation and must be watching with fear the progress that Iraq has made over the past three years. [Emphasis added by me]
As long as this Administration continues to equate any views that do not correspond to theirs with the views of the terrorists, they cannot begin to have an honest discussion of the situation. In any situation, including a war, when one side is objectively losing, and it is clear to everyone, including the enemy, that one side is losing; it does not negate the objective truth of the loss. We may loathe the fact that we are losing, but it does not change that truth. Certainly, voicing the fact that we may be losing does not make the speaker, e.g., George Will, an agent of the enemy.
On this third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War, I hope we reflect on where we are honestly and move forward positively. The American people are resilient and can handle the truth, regardless of where it might lie. It is time to level with the American people and regain their trust and support. I hope we have reached the bottom of the curve, and things do genuinely get better for us and the Iraqis from here on out. We have lit a powder keg, and my hope is that the very smart people within the Administration, including the Secretary of Defense, will find a way to contain the fallout.
quoting you (above):
“As long as this Administration continues to equate any views that do not correspond to theirs with the views of the terrorists, they cannot begin to have an honest discussion of the situation.”
That may be true and I’m inclined to agree with it. There are also dozens of other characteristics of the Bush administration that one might cite as obstacles to “an honest discussion of the situation”. Now, true, you didn’t expressly claim that Bush and his junta
_want_ an honest disussion (beyond the confines of their secure conference rooms), but your comment seems to suggest that they might want one or at least _ought_ to want one.
What strikes me about any such notion is that I can’t see _ANY_ indication that Bush and his gang have now or have ever had _ANY_ relationship with anything honest–except a hostile relationship. Bush is at war with any notion of applied honesty to a far greater extent than he’s at war with “international terrorism”.
It seems odd as well that it has taken so very long for rank and file Republicans to begin to grasp the evident dangers which Bush and his cronies pose to any semblance of a free society; and one might suppose that a good many Republicans ought to see some value in a free society worth defending–even against one of their “own” nominal leaders. But Republicans hve allowed Bush and his cronies to inflict immense damage to the most essential democratic institutions. I don’t think many Americans have even an inkling of how very, very much harm has been done in that regard.
quoting you again:
” The American people are resilient and can handle the truth, regardless of where it might lie.”
On the contrary, alas, the evidence is abundant that though they may be “resilient”, Americans _today_ (never mind what past generations of them may have shown themselves capable of) _cannot_ handle “the truth”. Before the war began, millions upon millions of people around the world and dozens of governments (notably leading European nations) and UN officials did their utmost to warn the US government and the American people of the sort of catastrophe they were allowing Bush to lead them into. Those warnings were scorned by official Washington–INCLUDING the Democrats– or simply largely ignored. And, although, you’ll recall, there was in fact a majority of Americans either opposed or greatly troubled by Bush’s designs for invading Iraq, the American people (and an utterly cowardly Congress) did nothing effective to stand in his way. Three years on, the American public is _still_ equivocating and acquiescing in the face of what is nothing less than a literal war criminal at the head of the government they’re pleased to call their own.
An important truth is that all Americans are now complicit in a criminal war three years old, replete with war crimes of the very worst kind–indiscriminate murder; torture, kidnapping; violations of every principle of justice; indefinte and arbitrary detention without arraignment or trial; domestic spying; the “outsourcing” of torture to other thugish regimes and now the violation of every article of our Bill of Rights.
All of this Americans have accepted and are accepting on the ground that, as Bush argues, it’s necessary to do these things to counter and defeat what he calls international terrorism.
There are a great many horrendous truths about themselves which Americans show little or no sign of being ready to “handle”.
One central one is that, howsoever it may please them to think so, Americans today have absolutely nothing in common with the people of two centuries ago had just won independence from Britain and, some believed, were on their way to showing the world what was possible when a free and democratically-based people were allowed to use their genius and their imaginations.
Today, Americans resemble not Paine, Adams, Jefferson or Madison, but, instead, the British Crown and its occupation army in the British Colonies of North America.
You wrote:
” It is time to level with the
American people and regain their
trust and support. I hope we have
reached the bottom of the curve,
and things do genuinely get better
for us and the Iraqis from here on
out.”…
My mother used to say, “You can ‘hope’ in one hand and spit in the other and see which one gets full soonest.” Among the warnings urged–by many including myself in public fora– before the onset of the Iraq war was that in launching this war in this way, Bush was embarking on a disastrous course the harms of which _could not_ be udone later, once they became clear to him or to the American people.
You conclude :
“We have lit a powder keg, and
my hope is that the very smart
people within the Administration,
including the Secretary of Defense,
will find a way to contain the
fallout.”
The central lesson and fact, learned, if at all, too late, is that, indeed, we cannot “contain the fallout.” There is no containing it; there is no “fixing” this problem. It shall go on and on recking havoc on nations of the middle east and, increasingly, on our own domestic politics, poisoning even more, if that is possible, an already poisoned situation.
The warnings were there in the beginning. They were ignored. There’s no use pretending that we’ll just apply some make-up and everything shall eventually be all right again.
Finally and hardly least, we’re no longer a free and democratic people in even a theoretical sense. We’re a rogue nation in league with the very worst of them. It’s just that we’re still convinced that, what with our proud past and all, everyone ought to admire and respect us.
Wrong.
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We must not be surprised that “the Administration has decided to give no quarter”. This is entirely in keeping with their behavior from the first.
Within the closed-door conferences of the White House, there is, of course, some discussion of how reality does not conform to the official Bush line. Some inside do of course recognize that there have been colossal policy blunders all over the Iraq-war.
But it’s forbidden–until matters become so cryingly obvious to all–to ever concede that they’ve been fatally stupid, squandered lives and billions of dollars and failed miserably to understand some of the most basic facts about what they were getting us all into.
They do, also, make policy “corrections” from time to time; always clumsily and too late, and always without an admission that these corrective measures are the consequences of having badly screwed up.
I want to emphasise that my criticisms here are not really of you and your central points of view, which I share, but, rather, of the Bush administration and its doctrinaire stupidity.
My sole criticism of your analysis is that it seems to me that you tend to give the Bush junta rather a good deal more of the benefit of a doubt, that you seem to extend to them credit for having better intentions than I think there is any good evidence for supposing.
For the rest, I largely agree with you and commend you for this website.
P.
Thanks proximity1 for your comments. I welcome your criticisms of my analysis. I am posting on the web to not only express my views, but also to hear what others think. I have always felt that you learn more from criticism than praise. So, keep the comments coming.
I largely agree that the American public as a whole has tended to accept this Administration’s views on things at face value for longer than an ordinary person might. But, I also think that is natural since public opinion by its very nature has immense inertia and usually is not a leading indicater, but more of a trailing indicator. However, when the ship of state does turn course, no amount of spin is going to compensate. So, my advice to this Administration is to heed the public wisdom or be left, as they love to say, in “the dustbin of history”.
There is very little doubt that our present course of action on the international stage is destructive, to our interests, and world stability in general. But, I hope (think) that this is an anamoly and not the norm. America has not always done the right thing, and it has done some downright horrible things in the past. But, no society or country has entirely clean hands. But, on balance, I believe that America has been and will be a force for good (inspite of our present direction).
I still think any country that has this constitution, with the Bill of Rights, at its core has as good a chance as any to overcome the evils of men. I grant that our system of checks and balances are under immense stress at this moment, with the executive on a power grab, the legislative abdicating its oversight duties, and the judicial under political attack. It will be a true testament to this system, if we come out on the other side without lasting damage.
To end, I share Robert Kennedy’s hope when things don’t look so good: “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not? “
I consider myself a Republican. I considered the war in Iraq to have, at first sight, value based motives. However on second sight it most obviously was motivated by greed.
Where is the congressional investigation of the links between the vice president and the companies winning contracts in Iraq?
Where is the congressional reports of how the oil profits are helping to rebuild the country?
While the executive is failing by making poor decisions with the post-war Iraq congress is failing to report a clearer picture of the environment.
Are we supposed to rely on the media to supply us with the economic, military, and social sitiuation in Iraq? What media in this country is capable to open doors and get real answers or non-partisan at that?
I am quite unhappy with the situation in Iraq, as all are. But more importantly I am dismayed by such a moral leader alllowing the attrocities of the patriot act and quantanomo bay.
Where is my real president, John McCain?
” Where is my real president, John McCain? ”
Hall, if Senator McCain is your preferred choice for president, if he is your hope for correcting the course the United States are now
on, then –just as you were previously, in thinking that the Iraq invasion was motivated by
respectable intentions–you are headed for another disappointment should your candidate McCain find himself in charge of the mess in Iraq.
His publicly-stated position is that one most problems in Iraq spring from Bush’s having allowed this war to open with too few boots on the ground. For McCain, the immediate need is to send even more soldiers to Iraq.
That’s compounding the problem.
For another take on Senator McCain, you could have a look at Paul Krugman’s essay on how McCain is _not_ a moderate–available free at the website http://www.truthout.org
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