Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

George W Bush’s drive-by presidency continues to haunt the world. This week finds Mr. Bush in the unlikeliest of places. After driving us into a quagmire in Iraq, Mr. Bush took a holiday in another American quagmire - Vietnam. His visit to Vietnam, however, did not suffer from the common touch:

President Bush likes speed golf and speed tourism — this is the man who did the treasures of Red Square in less than 20 minutes — but here in the lake-studded capital of a nation desperately eager to connect with America, he set a record.

On Saturday, Mr. Bush emerged from his hotel for only one nonofficial event, a 15-minute visit to the Joint P.O.W./M.I.A. Accounting Command, which searches for the remains of the 1,800 Americans still listed as missing in the Vietnam War.

There were almost no Vietnamese present, just a series of tables displaying photographs of the group’s painstaking work, and helmets, shoes and replicas of bones recovered by the 425 members of the command. He asked a few questions and then sped off in his motorcade.

Mr. Bush conducts his state visits like he conducts his presidency - with little understanding and an aloofness underpinned by ignorance. He has famously said that he does not do nuance, indeed, lacking an understanding of the issues nuance is hardly possible. From his elitist flyover of New Orleans to his frat boy antics at the G-8 summit, we have learned of his accidental, often comical, style of management. Therefore, I find it noteworthy that Mr. Bush would dabble in a little bit of historical analysis while in Vietnam.

Vietnam was a strategic disaster for the United States. It was an ideologically driven war with no clear objective. It was a war of choice.

It has generally been accepted that a primary lesson of Vietnam is that the United States should not commit military forces abroad unless the national interest and the objective were clear. This lesson was ignored when Ronald Reagan committed American Marines to Lebanon. Since that mission, the lesson has been further refined and articulated by the likes of Casper Weinberger and Colin Powell:

After 241 American troops on a pointless mission in Beirut were killed by a suicide bomber in 1983, the Reagan Administration struggled to draw lessons from the disaster. The next year, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger offered a checklist for evaluating the future uses of military forces abroad. Such actions should be necessary to protect vital national interests, he advised, and permit the use of powerful force to achieve a decisive victory. The objective must be clear and attainable by military means, and it must be supported by Congress and the people.

These lessons become known as the Weinberger Doctrine and the Powell Doctrine. In both doctrines, the use of force was an option of last resort. In other words, wars of choice and wars lacking public support were off the table.

Enter the Bush Doctrine. Wars of choice were in vogue again. A President who was historically challenged ignored history. Or so we thought.

In Vietnam this week, Mr. Bush graced the world with the lessons he learned from Vietnam while serving gallantly in the Texas and Alabama Air National Guards:

Asked what lessons the war in Vietnam offered for the war in Iraq, Bush’s response suggested a need for patience and determination—a nod toward the U.S. decision to abandon Vietnam after a protracted and unsuccessful war there.

"We’ll succeed unless we quit," Bush said.

…

"We tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take awhile," Bush said. Calling the Iraq war a "great struggle," he said: "It’s just going to take a long period of time for the ideology that is hopeful, and that is an ideology of freedom, to overcome an ideology of hate." [Emphasis added by me.]

The Vietnam War, or the Second Indochina War, saw the deaths of over 1 million Vietnamese and over 58,000 American service personnel. What exactly would have been the shape of "success" or "victory" if we had not quit?

The American objective in Vietnam was spelled out in the National Security Action Memorandum 52 as follows:

The U.S. objective and concept of operations stated in report are approved: to prevent Communist domination of South Vietnam; to create in that country a viable and increasingly democratic society, and to initiate, on an accelerated basis, a series of mutually supporting actions of a military, political, economic, psychological and covert character designed to achieve this objective.

These objectives should sound vaguely familiar. Replace "Communist" with "Islamist" and "South Vietnam" with "Iraq", and these objectives sound very much like Mr. Bush’s last remaining rationale for our presence in Iraq:

The rise of a free and self-governing Iraq will deny terrorists a base of operation, discredit their narrow ideology, and give momentum to reformers across the region. This will be a decisive blow to terrorism at the heart of its power, and a victory for the security of America and the civilized world.

A war once again driven by ideology over national interest is taking place in the sands of Iraq and in the mind of George W Bush.

The American military operations in Vietnam began with General Westmoreland’s "search and destroy" operations:

In 1965, Westmoreland developed the aggressive strategy of ’search and destroy’. The objective was to find and then kill members of the NLF. The US soldiers found this difficult. As one marine captain explained: "You never knew who was the enemy and who was the friend. They all looked alike. They all dressed alike." Innocent civilians were often killed by mistake. As one Marine officer admitted they "were usually counted as enemy dead, under the unwritten rule ‘If he’s dead and Vietnamese, he’s VC’."

The American military involvement in Vietnam ended with the policy of "Vietnamization".

And so it is with Iraq. The strategy of finding and killing an endless supply of insurgents is giving way to the policy of "Iraqization", or, "we will stand down as the Iraqis stand up". Our Iraqi misadventure is following the same arc as our misadventure in Indochina. Now, as it was then, we are fighting an insurgency in the middle of a civil war. The goals are unclear, the enemy is hard to find, and "peace with honor" is the catalyst for more killing.

The United States underestimated the nationalism of the Vietnamese. While America was fighting communists, the Vietnamese were fighting invaders. The United States military could not kill Vietnamese fast enough to stem the tide of nationalism. Ho Chi Minh laid out the math that ultimately proved correct:

"You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win"

Ultimately Vietnamese nationalism defeated the United States, and it was Vietnamese nationalism that has led to unification.

 Similarly, the United States in Iraq has consistently underestimated Iraqi nationalism. While America was fighting al Qaeda in Iraq, the insurgency was fueled by nationalism. Long after the United States has left Iraq, it will be Iraqi nationalism that will have the best chance of putting out the fires of sectarianism.

The war in Iraq is lost for the Americans, it never was winnable. We can kill more Iraqis and we can sacrifice more of our soldiers for ideology. Reality suggests that we leave now.

So, while Mr. Bush relearns the lessons of Vietnam, the rest of us need to get our men and women out of Iraq. We cannot sacrifice our soldiers while an addled schoolboy belatedly learns his lessons.

Daniel Pipes gave an interview yesterday to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review entitled "Pipes calls war a success". In it Pipes calls Iraq a success:

Q: How will we know when the occupation or the invasion of Iraq was a success or a failure?

A: Oh, it was a success. We got rid of Saddam Hussein. Beyond that is icing.

According to Pipes, the real lesson in Iraq is not the failure of American policy, but the ingratitude of the Iraqi people:

Q: What is the biggest lesson you have learned from the Iraq war?

A: The ingratitude of the Iraqis for the extraordinary favor we gave them — to release them from the bondage of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny. They have rapidly interpreted it as something they did and that we were incidental to it. They’ve more or less written us out of the picture.

I am really sorry the Iraqi people have hurt Mr. Pipes’s feelings. Clearly, the Iraqis failed to throw the requisite amount of roses at our feet for the favor we did them.

Mr. Pipes thinks that we should lower our expectations in Iraq. According to Mr. Pipes, we should only concern ourselves with destroying societies not rebuilding them. We’ve got smart bombs we should use them. The blue collar work of rebuilding a society that we bomb to oblivion should be left to the lowly Europeans or some other bleeding heart types:

Q: Does that mean a significant change in what we are doing now, in terms of policy. Should we announce withdrawals?

A: The number of troops is not my issue. It’s the placement and role of the troops. For three years now I have been protesting the use of American troops to mediate between tribes, help rebuild electricity grids, oversee school construction, which seems to me to be a wrong use of our forces, of our money. The Iraqis should be in charge of that. We should keep the troops there, in the desert, looking after the international boundaries, making sure there are no atrocities, making sure oil and gas goes out, otherwise leaving Iraq to the Iraqis.

…

Q: Is there anything major that the Bush administration should do now to make things go smoother?

A: We did something good in getting rid of the Taliban and getting rid of Saddam Hussein. That is really the extent of our role, to get rid of the hideous totalitarian regimes.

In any event, the theory is good. It’s the implementation that has gone wrong. Mr. Pipes’s theory has withstood the test of reality:

Q: Do you generally agree with President Bush’s Middle East policy — its goals and its methods?

A: I agree with the goals much more than the methods. I just gave an example of Iraq, where I believe the goal of getting rid of Saddam Hussein and trying to have a free and prosperous Iraq are worthy goals. I criticize the implementation. The same goes with democracy. I think democracy is a great goal for the region. I criticize the implementation; I think it’s too fast, too American, too get-it-done yesterday.

Lest you start thinking that Mr. Pipes is unhappy that the implementation of his theory might have led to unintended consequences, think again. He, like Charles Krauthammer, loves a good civil war. Mr. Pipes enumerates all the good things a bloody civil war can do:

Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition’s responsibility nor its burden. The damage done by Saddam will take many years to repair. Americans, Britons, and others cannot be tasked with resolving Sunni-Shiite differences, an abiding Iraqi problem that only Iraqis themselves can address.

The eruption of civil war in Iraq would have many implications for the West. It would likely:

• Invite Syrian and Iranian participation, hastening the possibility of an American confrontation with those two states, with which tensions are already high.

• Terminate the dream of Iraq serving as a model for other Middle Eastern countries, thus delaying the push toward elections. This will have the effect of keeping Islamists from being legitimated by the popular vote, as Hamas was just a month ago.

• Reduce coalition casualties in Iraq. As noted by the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Rather than killing American soldiers, the insurgents and foreign fighters are more focused on creating civil strife that could destabilize Iraq’s political process and possibly lead to outright ethnic and religious war."

• Reduce Western casualties outside Iraq. A professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Vali Nasr, notes: "Just when it looked as if Muslims across the region were putting aside their differences to unite in protest against the Danish cartoons, the attack showed that Islamic sectarianism remains the greatest challenge to peace." Put differently, when Sunni terrorists target Shiites and vice-versa, non-Muslims are less likely to be hurt.

Civil war in Iraq, in short, would be a humanitarian tragedy but not a strategic one.

It all makes sense to me now. We misunderstood Mr. Pipes when he said Iraq was going to be a cakewalk. When he said "cakewalk", he meant that defeating Saddam would be a cakewalk. The resulting chaos was not part of his thinking. In fact, the resulting chaos is not even our problem. It is all making sense to me now.

Before you dismiss Mr. Pipes as some right wing chicken hawk on the lunatic fringe, you might want to consider that he does have the ear of the President of the United States. The notion that America should rampage through the world without a care for the devastation this rampage may cause the societies which face our wrath is not a fringe notion - it has significant support within the Administration. In fact, it is the primary driving force behind Mr. Bush’s stay the course policy in Iraq. If you genuinely do not care about the consequences of your actions, it is much easier to label your misadventures as successes. This, I think, in large part explains the strange and often disconnected versions of reality that come from the President and the Vice President. After all, according to Mr. Pipes:

We are engaged in a war, a profound war and long-term war, in which Afghanistan and Iraq are sideshows. The real issue is the war that radical Islam, a global phenomenon, has declared on us and that has already been underway for many years, and we’re still at the beginning of it. That’s the really major issue.

Now, if only the Iraqis understood their rightful role in this war of civilizations; if only they understood that they are cannon fodder in the cause of the greater good; if only they understood that Mr. Pipes, from his perch in front of a television screen, thinks the slaughter of innocents is good theater; then and only then, would they be more grateful to the United States for this great favor we have done them. Instead, they continue this nonsense of caring more for their own lives than the greater glory of Daniel Pipes’s small but influential little mind.

Yesterday on CNN, according to script, Hugh Hewitt was out chastising the media for misleading the public about the war in Iraq. He was up against Nic Robertson of CNN and Michael Ware of TIME magazine. You can read CNN’s complete transcript here. Here’s the exchange:

HUGH HEWITT, CONSERVATIVE RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Anderson, I think the coverage of the Iraq invasion right from the start, all of the way through to the present day, has been abysmal in the mainstream media.

I think that it goes back even further than that. In April of 2003, Eason Jordan, executive with this network, admitted that CNN had for years covered up atrocities that Saddam had committed because they were afraid for their reporters.

That history of bad coverage in Iraq began in the invasion when it was declared a quagmire on the third day because of the sandstorm and through all the three elections of last year.

A lot of new media that goes to Iraq, whether it’s Michael Totten, whether it is Michael Yon, Bill Rosio (ph), whether it’s Victor Davis Hanson or Laura Ingraham or especially Robert Kaplan, whose book "Imperial Grunts," is a must reading on this, report back enormous progress being made in the country. The sort of report that we simply never get because good reporters like the two I’m sharing this time with, do have to cover what Candy Crowley called, "The Boom." But just covering "The Boom," does not represent what is going on in that war. 

COOPER: Nic Robertson, what do you think?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I do think that we’re able to get to some of the good stories, if you will, power plants being built, water plants being refurbished — covered those last week.

If you look at our coverage, Wednesday, the new parliament being formed, by everybody’s assessment, political step forward. Good news by most people’s assessment, yes.

We would have been derelict in our duty if we didn’t report that there’s still a lot of — a long way to go before they actually form a government. That is a big issue.

The day after Operation Swarmer, touted as being a great shining example of how the new Iraqi army were performing. Covered that big time. I think we do get to the so-called good stories. But also there are the so-called bad stories that are a very important part of what’s happening to this country. And we wouldn’t be doing our job and we would be failing our audiences if we didn’t — if we didn’t bring to them the stories that are relevant to how this is going to play out in the future.

I look back to the summer and fall of 2003 when we were covering stories about an insurgency. The military spokesman here at that time, was saying no, no, there isn’t an insurgency. This is bad news. It proved we were proven correct.

COOPER: Michael Ware, you’ve spent probably more time with insurgents and insurgent groups than anyone I know. What do you think? Do you cover "The Boom" too much?

MICHAEL WARE, "TIME MAGAZINE": Well, I think it’s a matter, Anderson, of trying to reflect the reality on the ground. That all of these critics who are saying that we’re not telling the good news stories, I’d like to know just how many of them have spent any time here on the ground. Or any of these people who are reporting the good news from within the belly of the U.S. military, how much time have they spent on the Iraqi street? I mean, what do you think ordinary Iraqis are talking about? Do you think they’re talking about the unfurling of the flag of democracy or that they’re grateful that the Americans have unveiled a new electricity plant, when they have not had electricity in their house for four days. When they have to queue (ph) at a gas station for two days. When the marketplace is blowing up with car bombs. When their cousins are showing up dead in the morning as a result of sectarian death squads through the night. What do you think is the refining experience for an Iraqi family?

COOPER: Hugh Hewitt, what about that?

HEWITT: Well, I asked Michael Yon about that today. I tried to contact Mr. Ware in Baghdad from my radio show. We spent three hours on this. And Michael Yon simply disagrees with Mr. Ware. He’s also spent a lot of time in the war zone, often with the military, sometimes without. Michael Totten’s done the same, so as Robert Kaplan. So I think there are many, many people with on the ground experience, who simply reject what Mr. Ware is saying.

COOPER: Hugh, can I..

HEWITT: Important thing I think, though…

COOPER: OK.

HEWITT: … is that it’s not what’s going on today alone. It’s about the context. Because five years ago, you would not have the story of kidnapped people and torture that Eason Jordan referred to.

Five years ago we did not know what the quality of life for the Iraqis was. But it was a dismal, totalitarian regime, from which escape is not possible. And So while "The Boom" matters and while those conditions are certainly desperate in many parts of the country, and Baghdad is a dangerous place, compared to what, Mr. Ware? Compared to Baghdad under Saddam? Are you arguing that Iraqis are worse off today than they were four years ago?

COOPER: Michael Ware, do you want to respond?

WARE: Yes, well, I think if you asked a lot of Iraqis, I think you’d be surprised by what the answer is. A lot of them say, what, this is democracy? The judge (ph) is, you call this liberation? And, OK, let’s look at the context, as you suggest. Let’s look at the even bigger picture? What is the bigger picture? Who is winning from this war? Who is benefiting right now?

Well, the main winners so far are al Qaeda, which is stronger than it was before the invasion. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a nobody. Now he’s the superstar of international Jihad. And Iran, Iran essentially has a proxy government in place, a very, very friendly government. Its sphere of influence has expanded and any U.S. diplomat or seeing a military intelligence commander here, will tell you that. So that’s the big picture. Where is that being reported? 

COOPER: Nic Robertson, let me ask you, how easy is it for you to move around? I mean, in — in Baghdad. You know, obviously probably it’s easier than outside the country, but how often are you out with the military reporting stories out on patrol with U.S. soldiers?

ROBERTSON: I would just backtrack a little bit, Anderson. If I go back to my days here under Saddam Hussein, when we would sit around waiting days to go out anywhere because we wouldn’t be given permission — it’s that — if I go to right after the war when we could literally go anywhere at any time and talk to anyone and drive all over the country, that was the best time.

Now our situation now, it’s very difficult because it is not safe for us to go out and walk the streets. We can’t do that. We need to go out with security or essentially disguise ourselves to blend in with the population. We can’t drive around the country because that’s a dangerous thing to do.

If we want to get to other areas of the country, we need to embed, we need to fly with the military. Often times these days I find that very, very accommodating when we arrive, that they will give us much better access than they were ever given to doing a couple of years ago.

They certainly understand the need of our job to talk to Iraqis, and they facilitate that. But it’s not the same. And it doesn’t bring the same results as being able to go around the country freely. It is a much, much tougher environment to work in. You are far more constrained than in any other story I’ve worked on. And that does have an impact on what we produce.

I believe we still perform a very valuable job, having said all of that — Anderson.

COOPER: Hugh Hewitt, we’re almost out of time, but I want to give you the final word. And I just want to ask you, do you believe that it is an intentional misleading by reporters on the ground — not all reporters, but I guess, mainstream reporters on the ground, that they are anti-Bush and therefore intentionally only looking negative? Or do you believe that some of the negativism is just by the fact that it is more difficult to move around, you can’t just go into Iraqi family’s house because of the security situation? Do you make a distinction between it?

HEWITT: Anderson, it’s complicated because there are some fine reporters working there, and Jill Carroll’s in custody tonight. People pray for her, her safe release. And there are people who risk their lives every day to get a story, and I’ve been told by Michael Yon, for example, Michael Ware is a very, very fine reporter who goes in harm’s way to get the story. That having been said, a great deal of American mainstream media is invested in the idea that this is a disaster, that it will bring down Bush, that it was a mistake at the beginning, and disaster for the Middle East. They are pushing that agenda, quite obviously, over and over again, to the exclusion of important stories like the book by Georges Sada, Saddam’s general, like the Philippine — the documents released today, covered in "The Weekly Standard," about the Kuwaiti hostages denied by Iraq having even been there, but now revealed today to have been used as human shields by the matazahadr (ph) sons of Saddam.

There’s quite a lot not being covered because to cover it and to cover it extensively, will not only support the Bush administration decision to go to war here, but make it appear as though one of the wisest he has made. And indeed, investment in the failure of this operation is what is bringing increased contempt for the American media across the land except on the noisy left. And the noisy left doesn’t win elections. [Emphasis added by me]

So, who would you believe? Hugh Hewitt and all the wonderful untold stories (they are hidden in the same place the WMDs are); or, Michael Ware? All you have to do is listen to Michael Ware speak - you can almost feel through him the horrors he sees there.

Reporter 1, Propagandist 0