Wanted: Grown-Ups

by hilzoy

Sorry not to have written for the past few days. Every once in a while something awful happens, and I just can't think what to say, or face writing about it, so I go off and do more pleasant things that don't involve dealing with the news, like cleaning behind the refrigerator or having dental work. This time, of course, what sent me off into a frenzy of sanding plaster was the killing in Iraq.

Every time things get worse, it feels as though this is as bad as it could get. I mean: after 220 killings in one day, a major assault on government ministries, and reprisals in which people set other people on fire, it feels as though it couldn't possibly get worse. And yet, of course, I know that it can and probably will; and that while I can say what some of the worse things are -- other countries invading, attacks on our supply lines -- there are others I won't imagine until I read about them. (The present role of power tools in the sectarian violence was like that: for some reason, I never imagined torturing people with drills.) And the certainty that I will, in a few months, learn exactly what the next round of even worse horrors will be, even though it feels as though things couldn't possibly get worse, just makes me want to hide under the covers.

I don't have anything interesting to say about what we should do, other than: leave in as non-catastrophic a way as possible, maintaining enough troops in the vicinity (Kuwait? Kurdistan?) to prevent other countries from invading, and to be in a position to prevent some genuine humanitarian disaster. (Yes, of course it's already a disaster, but while we can't stop the ongoing carnage, we could and should intervene if one group were to begin systematically massacring all members of another, the way, say, the Hutu did.) -- I've always seen comments about the Democrats' not having a plan, when made by the administration or Republicans in Congress, as being exactly like this: someone is driving a car towards a cliff. You point out that there's a cliff ahead. He says: that's not a cliff; it's a transformed Middle East! You try to persuade him that it's a cliff. You offer to drive. You do everything you can think of, to no avail. Eventually the car goes over the cliff. As you hurtle towards the densely populated plains below, he turns to you and says: well, apparently you don't have a plan either! -- In some situations, all the non-disastrous options have gone glimmering, and the person who got you into such a situation isn't really in a position to complain that you can't figure out how to avoid catastrophe.

I do wish, however, that people would stop saying things about Iraq that are just stupid. This means you, John McCain. McCain says that we need to put more troops in Iraq, and yet he must know as well as I do that we don't have more troops to put there. According to Robert Reich, he said that he was saying this because it's "important for the morale of the troops." This is ridiculous: for one thing, if Senator McCain was really concerned about the morale of the troops, he should have tried to persuade his fellow Republican Senators to exercise real oversight over the administration's conduct of the war, and if he failed, he should have spoken out about what he saw as its shortcomings. Real leadership, and a real effort to make sure things go right, makes a bigger difference to morale than playing "Let's pretend". For another, much as the troops' morale matters, the country has a greater need for honest discussion of Iraq just now; and by substituting what he knows is a fiction, Senator McCain does us all a disservice, the troops included. It seems much more likely to me that he's saying this in preparation for 2008. He knows that what he's proposing is in fact impossible, but by insisting that this is what we need, he can say that the administration didn't take his advice, and thus that he is not responsible for the failure of our policy in Iraq, when he runs for President.

I once had real respect for John McCain. I disagreed with him on all sorts of things, but I respected him. That respect was already fraying pretty badly as a result of his groveling before the religious right, but it has now been shattered once and for all. You don't put politics above something as important as this. You just don't.

Likewise, I heard someone on Late Edition -- I think Henry Kissinger, but the transcript isn't up yet, so I could be getting confused -- say that if we pull out of Iraq, we will be seen as weak by al Qaeda. Well, yes, we will. And this will be a very bad thing. However, the time to consider that problem has passed. We should have thought about it before deciding to invade Iraq in the first place. I think that everyone who is so much as considering advocating any war should consider very seriously the possibility that that war might end up with us having to pull out, and people concluding as a result that we can be beaten. It's always a potential downside, one that is not shared by the much-derided air strikes and cruise missiles, which no one expects to go on indefinitely, and which can therefore be stopped without anyone's being tempted to say: ha ha, we forced them to stop.

We should also have thought about this when we were planning the war. We should have said: we really, really do not want this to end with our being forced to leave without having achieved what we set ourself to achieve. How can we avoid that? Obviously, by doing absolutely everything in our power to ensure that we succeed in doing what we set out to do, even if unforeseen catastrophes strike. This, of course, would have required doing serious planning for the post-Saddam phase of the war, recruiting the best possible people to implement those plans, and so on. No 23 year old Heritage Foundation interns placed in charge of the Baghdad stock exchange, no failure to develop plans for maintaining order after the fall of Saddam, no 'oops, we forgot to disarm the militias', none of that nonsense.

However, having failed to consider the possibility of being forced out at any of the points at which it might have made a real difference, we are now stuck with two choices. First, we can leave and incur this cost. Second, we can stay in Iraq indefinitely. One might think that at some point -- ten years from now? Fifteen? -- we would be able to withdraw without giving anyone the right to conclude that we can be pushed out. However, staying that long would not prevent anyone from concluding that we were pushed out; it would only postpone it, at an enormous cost in lives and destruction and money. The Israelis stayed in southern Lebanon for eighteen years, if memory serves. Even after all that time, Hezbollah still maintained that it had driven them out, and a lot of people believed them. So there's no particular reason to think that we would ever be able to leave Iraq without al Qaeda, or someone, concluding that we are a flimsy paper tiger.

As I said, the time to worry about this problem was before we decided to invade, and then before we decided that we were just too righteous and awesome to need to worry about niggling little details like planning and foresight. Now, it's too late.

I also wish people would stop talking about this as if it were solely a question of our will. I do think that it was once a question of our will, as I wrote here. While we might well have failed in Iraq whatever we did, the fact that the Bush administration apparently didn't care enough about winning to try to do it right, and that a majority of American voters did not care enough about winning to vote George W. Bush out of office once his incompetence had become clear, sealed our fate. But the fact that people are no longer willing to entrust their husbands, wives, children, or parents' lives to the tender mercies of the Bush administration does not show that we are not willing to do what it takes to win, any more than it would show that we didn't want to win if Bush told us that in order to win the war he needed to publicly behead several citizens a day as sacrifices to the war gods, and none of us volunteered. All it shows is that there are limits to our idiocy.

Most of all, though, what I wish is that when I turned on the Sunday talk shows, I got some hint that the who are making policy for us, and the talking heads who debate it, were mature adults. Mature adults don't pretend that we have more troops to send when we don't. They do not imagine that it's always possible to undo their mistakes. Sometimes, you screw up in a way that cannot be undone; the way to deal with this is to try as hard as you can not to make those mistakes in the first place, not to insist, once you've made them, that there has to be a way to set them right. And they most especially do not go on talking this way when their willful blindness will cost other people their lives.

We have screwed up our invasion of Iraq beyond hope of repair. Moreover, we have passed the point at which there is any hope that our continued presence will do more good than harm. We cannot make good on our real responsibility to undo the enormous amount of damage we have done, or emerge from Iraq with anything like honor. I don't see anything we can do to change that. We can, however, try to confront our situation honestly, and try to figure out the least damaging way forward. That's what a grown-up would do. It's a pity there are so few grown-ups in evidence.

* Footnote: my present leading candidate for the Most Completely Idiotic Comment About Iraq Award, outdoing even the "it's the Democrats' fault" crowd, is here. It begins: "To be sure, if we are forced to leave Iraq and it plunges into chaos, it will be a stain on our honor; but an even bigger stain will spread if we allow ourselves to be the conduits through which Iran and Syria spread their influence."

[Brittle, despairing laughter] Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! [/Brittle, despairing laughter]

Personally, I have a lot less equanimity about losing than the author seems to. I think that we have lost the war, and that the combination of having invaded and having lost is a disaster that it will take us decades to undo. (And that's without even getting into how long it will take Iraq to recover.) But what's really amazing is that the author does not seem to know that we became the conduit through which Iran spread its power the day we invaded Iraq. If not helping Iran spread its influence was such a priority for him, he should have opposed the invasion from the outset.

Comments

[jcricket]

And doesn't that sort of contradict the original, rather feeble criticism?
In normal world (tm)? Yes

In bizzaro land, where we still argue with the right-wing about evolution and global warming being "real"? No. Logic need not apply.

In normal world, those who claim journalists are just "making stuff up" or "uncritically accepting what the Iraqis say" would read what Roberts wrote (and remember the experience of people like Jim Carroll & Brian Williams) and retract their claims. Here's more on-point from Roberts about how the media is choosing to not even present the rawest, most real, form of what's going on:

When you get there and you see it on a personal level, when you watch somebody die before your eyes, it gives you a much different perspective on it than it does being a half a world away, reading about it or watching it on television. Also, you know, the pictures on television are sanitized compared to what they are on the ground.

For example, when we came across that IED attack, we did not shoot pictures that we would show on television of the carnage. We showed pictures of people carrying litters, et cetera, because it's, A...

KURTZ: Too raw?

ROBERTS: ... it's too raw for television. B, it's too personal for the families who were involved, because the fellow who I saw on the ground, Howie, he was ripped apart. And that's just not the sort of thing that you want a family to know.

If a loved one died in Iraq, they died in Iraq. You don't need to show them the graphic pictures of it.

So, to some degree, what we're seeing is sanitized.

So the media is choosing to censor itself because the American public can't handle reality; out of deference to the loved ones of those killed; or sometimes out of deference to the military (same as in Vietnam) - regardless, nearly every reporter on the ground says that Iraq is more awful, in every way, than you can see or even imagine.

Day after day the atrocities and death tolls mount, but that's obviously not giving us an accurate picture. Instead, let's quibble over an individual report here or there as a way to effectively get at the reality being reported out of Iraq. Surely it wasn't 6 people burned alive. It was only 5. So Iraq's not that bad right? Lazy Reporters, Iraq's obviously getting better every day...

Makes my head hurt that this is the way people avoid reality these days.

[Phil]

I'm not going to rehash something the New York Times spent an extensive Editor's Note covering. [in re Judith Miller's prewar sources]

Ok, then. I'm going to give this matter just as much attention that you have.

You know, Slarti, that's awfully damned pissy for someone who threw a minor tantrum over nobody getting his stupid Okinawa jokes. I realize that "Judith Miller Times Editor's Note" is more characters to type than "Murtha Okinawa," but Google will give one results just as quickly as t'other.

Perhaps if you were willing to meet people halfway, this stuff wouldn't happen every damned time. If nine Russians tell you you're drunk, you probably should lie down.

[Josh]

Can I just say that I find the conduct of this thread particularly amusing considering the title of the post it's in response to?

[Slartibartfast]

Interesting that it's fine for others can get pissy with me for doing X, but if I get pissy when they do X, it's bad.

Ah, well.

but Google will give one results just as quickly as t'other

Google had a hard time reading Jon's mind to see what he meant by the reference, so I thought it just might be easier to ask someone who knew what Jon was talking about. Risky, I know, and a highly controversial approach it was.

[Slartibartfast]

I found that amusing, too, Josh.

[OCSteve]

Shining Raven: Thanks for that info. Can you tell me though what USAREUR’s mission is these days? I have not kept up for many years, so it may be simple ignorance when I ask why most units in Germany could not be redeployed if needed elsewhere. A quick web search didn’t shed much light. In my (years old) experience it was a cold-war organization. I’m not sure how it may have transformed since.

[CaseyL]

Thanks, Josh: I was going to copy the title into a comment. In caps.

Iraq is in a civil war: even the MSM says so, though of course Bush & Co. are still rummaging through the poop pile looking for a cuddly quadruped.

The only "good" thing about this - and that's for a value of "good" in the nano range - is that it might render moot the latest variation of Stay The Course, and even persuade the zombies in the White House to get our troops out before they have to claw their way out through a general conflagration.

[hilzoy]

Josh: I have been silently amused for a while.

[OCSteve]

Wanted: Grown-Ups

Personally, I have never claimed to be grown up. I hope to make it well into my 50’s or even 60’s before I have to face that prospect :) Call me immature for a middle aged type. How middle-aged is classified until reported by the NYT or unclassified by Bush or Cheney. Oh yeah, Jes: Election Fraud!!!!

JT – help me out here.

OK – I now return you to your serious programming.

[Phoenician in a time of Romans]

Uri: If we do not sacrifice an entire high school to Yog-Sothoth, the terrorists will have won.

Couldn't we just sacrifice ponies?

I believe it is traditional in these circumstances to sacrifice beautiful noble-born virgins.

Has anyone asked George about Barbara and Jenna's social life recently?

[radish]

If nine Russians tell you you're drunk, you probably should lie down.

Of course if nine Russians are telling you you're drunk, there's probably only three Russians in the room, and you've already fallen over anyway.

[liberal japonicus]

Couldn't we just sacrifice ponies?

If we did that, we would be going back to our Indo-European roots. The Irish antecedent is the most lurid (go down to Ekwona), but there is linguistic evidence for it in Vedic myth, among others. It seems wishing for ponies has a deeper meaning...

[Shining Raven]

OCSteve:

I'm not an expert on the US military, and I get most of my information on the current deployment of the US Army from globalsecurity. Model 62 provided a link above to the Order of Battle at globalsecurity. From there you will find that numerous units from Germany have been deployed to Iraq over the past years. I believe there is hardly a unit in Germany that has not already been in Iraq. As I said, the 1st Armored and 1st Infantry division currently have units there or are scheduled to go, and are part of the ongoing rotation.
Even the Headquarters units from Heidelberg have already been there.

My understanding is that the mission of the US Army in Europe is mainly to provide a forward-deployed support base for operations in the Balkans, also in Africa, but most of all in the Middle East. So they are already bearing a good deal of the burden. Since they rely on the infrastructure that is in place on these bases, I don't think there would be much use in moving them even closer to the theater

A very large part of the logistical support for Iraq passes through Germany. Ramstein Air Base is a crucial transportation hub. The Army hospital in Landstuhl near Kaiserslautern is the primary gateway for wounded from Iraq, and most casualties pass through there.

As an aside: When you fly to the US from Frankfurt Airport on an American carrier, you can be sure to be in the company of American soldiers returning from Iraq. The last time I went I had a long talk with a young artilleryman who was standing next in line at the check-in counter (our flight was delayed by two hours). He took out his Nintendo gameboy from his pack and he told me that that was the main thing keeping him sane in Iraq. Kind of brought home to me how young many of these guys are...

My interest in the units from Germany is mainly in the 3rd and 1st Infantry Divisions, since I used to pass by their headquarters in Leighton barracks every day on my way to work when living in Wuerzburg. I thus feel somewhat attached to them and tend to notice their unit designations in casualty reports from Iraq. As I said, I'm no expert, but I wanted to correct your impression that the units in Germany are not yet fully engaged in Iraq.

[sglover]

Nope, sorry. Pretty much wrong all the way through, including the spelling. I shouldn't pick on that, though, because that was the part you did best on.

Uh, no, ace. I went back and looked at your "logic", and my capsule summary was pretty much correct. But I don't blame you for wanting to wriggle away when your fuckwittery is made plain.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"I do wish, however, that people would stop saying things about Iraq that are just stupid. This means you, John McCain. McCain says that we need to put more troops in Iraq, and yet he must know as well as I do that we don't have more troops to put there."

Argh. Why didn't we raise recruiting levels in 2001? Or at the very least 2002? The US could easily have returned to 75% or 100% of Reagan-era troop levels with Congressional authorization and a pay increase. The answer is that Bush apparently wanted the trappings of a war-time president without bothering to actually work at doing things right.

Bush--Argh--Spit.

[hilzoy]

Seb: I suppose it would be rubbing salt in the wound to say something like:

But that would have prevented people from responding to 9/11 in the official, Bush-approved way, namely by going shopping!

[Jon H]

"Couldn't we just sacrifice ponies?"

I understand it's traditional to inter a body, perhaps while alive, in the foundation of important new construction.

I'd like to see some neocons installed in our fabulous, overpriced, soon-to-be vacant, embassy in Iraq.

Or perhaps in the Iraq War memorial, whenever it gets installed on the Mall in DC.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"But that would have prevented people from responding to 9/11 in the official, Bush-approved way, namely by going shopping!"

The problem with Bush's shopping comment is not that it is ridiculosly stupid--as an immediate reaction it wasn't bad advice to tell people to go on with their lives--until we came up with something constructive and useful for our citizens to do. We didn't need overreacting neighborhood watch programs prying into the lives of every Muslim in the US.

Bush's problem was he didn't do anything afterwards.

[Bruce Baugh]

I actually agree with Sebastian here - the message "don't let your lives stop because of this" is a very worthwhile one. It just should have been followed with "To protect everyone's ability to do that, here are steps you can take with us", with a major recruiting push for the armed forces, huge incentives for language mastery there and elsewhere in the government, and like that.

[Dantheman]

"It just should have been followed with "To protect everyone's ability to do that, here are steps you can take with us", with a major recruiting push for the armed forces, huge incentives for language mastery there and elsewhere in the government, and like that."

And for proposals to increase taxes and cut spending elsewhere to provide the means to pay for it. And for other divisive issues to be swept under the rug for the duration of the crisis.

[Jesurgislac]

Hm. Apparently Chait wasn't being ironic.

[matttbastard]

Good lord. I too assumed he was making a (very blunt) Swiftian point.

Chait is (apparently) a buffoon with a perverted notion of what constitutes 'liberalism'.

(Hint: Installing strongman dictators is, by definition, illiberal.)

[spartikus]

An update from AP about Capt. Jamil Hussein.

[Jesurgislac]

Interesting to contrast this paragraph of the AP story:

However, the U.S. military said in a letter to the AP late Monday, three days after the incident, that it had checked with the Iraqi Interior Ministry and was told that no one by the name of Jamil Hussein works for the ministry or as a Baghdad police officer. Lt. Michael B. Dean, a public affairs officer of the U.S. Navy Multi-National Corps-Iraq Joint Operations Center, signed the letter, a text of which was published subsequently on several Internet blogs. The letter also reiterated an earlier statement from the U.S. military that it had been unable to confirm the report of mmolation.

with this paragraph:

On Tuesday, two AP reporters also went back to the Hurriyah neighborhood around the Mustafa mosque and found three witnesses who independently gave accounts of the attack.

and this:

The witnesses refused to allow the use of their names because they feared retribution either from the original attackers or the police, whose ranks are infiltrated by Mahdi Army members or its associated death squads.

Quite possibly "Jamil Hussein" is not the police captain's real name - but that evidently doesn't mean that he's an unreliable witness.

[matttbastard]

Nice to know Orson Scott Card is still certifiable (and Glenn Reynolds is still a shameless hypocrite).

[matttbastard]

Shameless hypocrisy here.

[Anarch]

PITOR: Has anyone asked George about Barbara and Jenna's social life recently?

According to the Daily Show, they've been visiting Argentina for their 25th birthday and, um, apparently their visit has been so... traumatic? that both the Argentine government and the American consulate there have suggested that perhaps they should curtail their visit...

[spartikus]

Given Mr. Flopping Aces seeming direct line to Centcom, one wonders if he and others were simply dupes, willing dupes...or something a bit more formalized.