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Iraq: The Morning After Commentary (Updated)
As I wrote last night, I rather liked the president's speech and thought it showed proper respect for the sacrifices made and for President Bush. Others on the internets had different things to say.
1. Andrew Bacevich says "The United States leaves Iraq having learned nothing." I disagree. I think we have learned a lot, tactically, operationally, and strategically, and I think the American people will in the future be more wary of the kind of military adventurism that led to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Bacevich should take heart in this. But honestly, does anyone out there see a U.S. administration ever embracing the kind of neo-isolationism that Bacevich is apparently demanding? And is it just me, or is he crankier than normal lately?
2. Someone sent this post by Jennifer Rubin at Commentary to my mother, who forwarded it to me, asking, "I thought Obama did a great job in the speech last night, showing great respect for the military and the sacrifices that have been made. Am I wrong?" No, mom, you are not wrong. But Rubin is kind of like the anti-Bacevich: the president could have announced he was re-invading Iraq and marching on Tehran in the spring, and she still would have written a post denouncing him as a weak leader who coddles our enemies. (Interestingly, John Podhoretz liked the speech.)
3. Max Bergmann at the Center for American Progress takes a swipe at CNAS and writes that the president has effectively implemented a 2005 report written by scholars at the Center for American Progress. I'll let others decide which think tanks are the most influential on Iraq policy, recognizing that no one outside the 202 area code really cares. But for those of you unfamiliar with the Center for American Progress, let me just say that it is a great think tank filled with some wonderful scholars whose reports I read with interest. It has a different mission and focus than CNAS, but I have many friends there and value their opinions and analysis. I particularly liked this last report by Caroline Wadhams and Colin Cookman, the latter of whom sends out an invaluable email each morning with news articles and analysis on events in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
4. Fred Kaplan was underwhelmed by the president's speech and wonders where Iraq is headed next. One answer might be found in the rather excellent analysis provided by the man at the Pentagon with day to day responsibility for Iraq. Colin Kahl, an alumnus of the Little Think Tank That Could, is a professor on leave from the security studies department at Georgetown, and he always brings welcome scholarly rigor to his policy analysis.
UPDATE: And on a day when the pathetic Washington Post is ripping off TBD.com's feed to cover the hostage crisis at the Discovery Channel HQ, Anthony Shadid redeems the MSM with one of the best newspaper articles you will ever read in the New York Times.
You are much, much, much too
You are much, much, much too easy on Bergmann here. His post is almost certain to be one of the stupidest things written about Iraq all week. (Well, I say that, but Bergmann's bit isn't really about Iraq. It's about partisan politics, and think-tanks jerking themselves off with delusions of influence. But it's terrible.)
As a victory celebration
As a victory celebration over CAP, CNAS's ex-Tier 2 and 3 types, like Fick, et al. should wear nothing but UDT/Recon shorts and PT in from of CAP. You guys won because you had the brains and balls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI
That basically summed up my reaction during the President's speech last night.
We've learned a lot? The US
We've learned a lot?
The US has learned nothing or the latest escalation in Afghanistan wouldn't have happened.
On Bacevich, you may be
On Bacevich, you may be right that the U.S. military has learned from the experience, but I don't think the military was the root of the problem in Iraq anyway. Overall, I would say that most of our military leaders and service members have done the best they can with the situations they have been given. The root of the problem was more the political establishment coupled with a public hindered by apathy and/or ignorance. I am afraid Bacevich might be closer to the truth on the U.S. public as a whole. We may in fact have learned, as you say, "tactically, operationally, and strategically," but what about politically? I think that's more of an open question. And not having had to make even the slightest lifestyle sacrifices through these last nine years, I fear it will be all too easy for many Americans to just brush off the whole experience without ever really even thinking seriously about it, to decide 'mission accomplished' and that's that.
I also think it's a bit extreme to accuse Bacevich of 'neo-isolationism.' Saying that our motives for invading Iraq were suspect, that we did not have clear aims, and that we should acknowledge that even those aims we developed were altered or unmet is not isolationism. Maybe I haven't seen or read enough of him, but I don't see anything in Bacevich's work calling for isolationism, just for thoughtfulness and accountability when so many lives are at stake.
Lastly, I think if I had lost a son to the Iraq war, as Bacevich did, I would be pretty angry (or cranky, if you wish), too, that no one was ever really held to account for putting him there in the first place. Further, he seems to feel that even what more worthwhile goals were developed for our presence in Iraq were shuffled aside for expediency's sake or co-opted into lesser aims, and what does that say about what his son and so many others gave their lives for? I don't agree with Bacevich all the time, but I do find him consistently thoughtful and I can certainly sympathize with his position.
Not everyone who went to
Not everyone who went to Iraq made out like you did, Mr. Exum. All gave some, Some gave All, and some just moved to DC to make bank over all this mess and become superstars.
1. Isolationist, nothing neo
1. Isolationist, nothing neo about it.
2. The US has been dragged into a series of wars, against the instincts of the citizenry at large.
3. You can begin with anglophilic Eastern elites that pushed us into WWI and positioned us for entry into WWII.
4. On December 6, 1941, the vast majority of the US middle class either was a member of or supported the aims of America First.
5. Their support was rooted in a living memory of the civil war. Many of them were refugees from warfare on the continent. WWI was viewed as feckless adventurism, our casualties as pointless sacrifices.
6. The prevailing mood was: do not become involved in the foolishness occurring in Europe.
7. Our present day aversion to losses and exasperation with the duplicitous behavior of most foreign leadership mirrors that of our grandparents.
8. Bacevitch's "having learned nothing" has to do with our leadership's willingness to engage in foreign adventures.
Iraq was not costly enough blunt our taste for such.
9. Doubt me? Look at an operations map of Centcom and contingency planning for Africom and Southcom.
10. The extent any of this relates to national survival is debatable.
11. Am certain most of my fellow citizens lean toward #1.
12. What else could Mr. Obama say? Speech Okay, not a barn burner.
V/R JWest
Zooming in and out of the
Zooming in and out of the ME/Iraq makes a good VdH piece:
The truth about the results of Iraq War is that, for all the tragedy and loss, Great Satan's military did a major miracle. After nearly seven years, a semi constitutional gov is in place.
23 of the writ thingies for war passed by the Congress in 2002 — "...from enforcing the Gulf I resolutions and stopping the destruction of the Kurds and Marsh Arabs, to preventing the Iraqi state promotion of terrorism, ending suicide bounties on the West Bank, and stopping Iraq from invading or attacking neighbors or trying to acquire WMD" — were satiated and satisfied by Great Satan's military appetite to devour enemies - not some fanboy outreach to confusing 'shared interests'.
Libya gave up WMD witchcraft; Dr. Khan’s new clear Walmart was shut down; Syria split Lebanon; and American troops in Wahabbi Arabia, put there as an Iraqi deterrent, unassed - thus dynamiting one of al Q's memes.
In a world hot! for oil - S'Ddam "....might have been more or less free to do what he pleased again in Iraq. (The verdict is out on Iran; playing a genocidal Hussein regime against it was morally bankrupt. Currently, Shiites participating in consensual government could be as destabilizing to Iran in the long run as Iranian terrorists are to Iraq in the short run.)
The suspect NIE 2007 says Iran freaked and halted all new clear chicanery - for fear Mullahopolis was the next stop for Great Satan's ME Tour.
Killing off al-Qaeda in Iraq dissed the entire idea of radical Sunni m'hammedist terrorists, and killing thousands of foreign radical m'hammedists in Land betwixt the two rivers was sweet blowback for Great Satan's security — inspite of goofy incantations that Great Satan conjured them out of thin air by defeating the largest Arab army in history in only 20 days.
Kurdistan proves ppl can get it and run with it - prepping for this life instead of racing off to the next. Before Op Iraqi Freedom - Kurds were always on the endangered list in B'Aathist Iraq - threat of genocide by their own gov; today it is a booming economy.
All these things would have been impossible without Great Satan doing Iraq.
Yet the REAL lesson of Iraq is that Great Satan is crazy and unpredictable. She is liable to go off and go anywhere and do anything - anytime she wants:
Nation building and Counter Insurgency Ops are bloody, time consuming heartbreaking tasks and, in contrast:
Annihilating entire regimes over a few weeks is easy, fun and reliably doable.
"Nation building and Counter
"Nation building and Counter Insurgency Ops are bloody, time consuming heartbreaking tasks and, in contrast:
Annihilating entire regimes over a few weeks is easy, fun and reliably doable."
Love it!
Bacevich didn't learn any
Bacevich didn't learn any lessons either - but the story here goes something like this, starting back in the 1950s when British and French colonialists were trying to reassert themselves in the Middle East, post-WWII. The U.S. moved in with some new deals and kicked out the British and French (Suez still smarts).
The first American model was the Saudi deal cut by FDR, much to Churchill's consternation. No military pressure was used - FDR just invited the King to talk. This resulted in a long-term friendly relationship that persists to this day.
The second American model was the overthrow of the democratic government of Iran (Persia) by neocolonialist British and America interests - the same dirty actors who worked for the Nazis in the 1930s were involved, namely the Dulles Bros., who then turned to Guatemala. This is a nice example of how U.S. foreign policy shifted in tactics and policy - Dulles would have just deposed the Saudi king and installed a puppet, not cut a deal with him. The result was the rise of an American-hating insurgency in Iran which eventually won control of the country. Stupid neocons.
In the early 1970s, seeing a weakened post-Vietnam United States, the Arab states and non-communist oil producers formed their famous cartel, leading to the great oil shock. Now, here we have some history that many are unaware of - the petrodollar recycling deal that involved Henry Kissinger and the Saudi Royals and the Bush clan, along with a whole host of oil companies, engineering firms and financiers. In exchange for military and political support, the Arab regimes would use their petrodollars to purchase American military equipment, American engineering services, etc. Yes, the British got a cut, with the energetic Margaret Thatcher overseeing, what was it, Al-Yamama, aka the biggest bribery scandal since the Japanese arms scandal of the decade before.
At the same time, Carter is making noise about energy independence and so on, like every other President since then, although he may have been ignorant of these deals, his proto-BCCI insiders certainly were not. BCCI was a financial outfit with all manner of shady ties linked to arms sales commissions etc., but the real beneficiaries were Wall Street. So, the U.S. renewable energy industry is torpedoed to remove competition c. 1979-1981 all funding is eliminated by the DOE and Congress.
Then, the Iranian revolution changed everything. All of a sudden, a center of global oil production was in the hand of bearded fanatics. Beirut, the "Paris of the Middle East" was about to become the Warsaw of the Middle East - and the U.S. threw its support behind two major efforts: one, an effort to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan by clandestinely supplying the proto-Taliban with weapons and logistics, and the other an effort to drive out Iran from the Persian Delta oilfields - and their tool was an ambitious young Baathist named Saddam. Here's the full video of Rumsfeld meeting with Saddam, from Saddam's spy cameras:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTldYbqlJc8
At that time (1983) Saddam didn't have much in the way of biological or chemical weaponry - but by 1985, that was no longer true. Was the Rumsfeld meeting the catalyst for the development of Saddam's WMD programs? Rumsfeld was employed by the pharmaceutical sector at the time, and it's no secret that many in the British and American biowarfare sector had opposed Nixon's closure of the program in 1969.
However, at the same time we were backing Saddam, this other group under Reagan was engaging in arms-for-hostages swaps with the Iranians. At this point, Saddam had largely stalemated with the Iranians - and now, our pet monster went off the leash and attacked Kuwait, which lead to the effective repulsion of Saddam from Kuwait.
There was of course concern about a "power vacuum" that Iran might rush in and fill if Saddam was entirely driven out of power - or, alternatively, Saudi (Sunni) rebels might make a move of some kind - or Iran might sweep in to support Shiite rebels in the south. This is the same problem we face today, isn't it? A power vacuum, fighting Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds... Iranian influence... damn. Isn't there some party that can keep all these elements in control?
Well - the Baathist party has a good record of holding this fractious country together. In fact there's an ambitious young Baathist in Iraq right now, a tough guy, true, but willing to work with us. Let's throw our weight behind this guy, and once he's in power, he can eliminate that troublesome Parliament and cut an oil deal directly with us. His name? Haddam Sussein!
if no one lost his job
if no one lost his job because of 9/11, no one should have his feelings hurt because of Iraq. That's what "showing proper respect for President Bush" is really all about.
With that said, there is no shortage of other things wrong with President Obama's speech last night. Look, for example, at how he spoke of the iraqi political leadership to the American public: they've made great sacrifices, are taking over the country's security and destiny and, hummana hummana, need to come together to form a government some day. Impact of this in the United States: close to zero, because since the war got moved off television news by the recession and the oil spill, few Americans recognize any Iraqi politicians. Impact of this in Iraq: also close to zero -- which is a problem, because whatever you think about American policy in that country the risks for Iraq without a government are greater than they are for Iraq with a government. As far as faction leaders in Baghdad are concerned, they can settle when they settle, without pressure from the Americans.
Is that really the tack Obama and other administration officials should be taking toward Maliki, Allawi and other Iraqi politicians? We need to be moving toward the exits, which is what Obama's speech was intended to celebrate, but the small-mindedness of all these grubby Iraqi politicians risks getting the smaller American force in Iraq caught in the middle if Iraqi factions eventually decide to try to break the political stalemate through force of arms. We need a little more public urgency on this subject, but Obama devoted his comments last night to giving Iraqi political leaders a reputation to uphold. If this approach was likely to work, it would have worked already.
A couple of thoughts. One,
A couple of thoughts.
One, AM, you seem to have linked to Kahl rather than Bacevich (so that you link to him, in total, twice).
Two, AM, I'd put the onus on you to specify what the US has learned over the last seven years. Needless to say, you're not compelled, and I imagine it'd make a good working paper rather than a good blog post. Just a thought.
Three, in a way, I wonder, as with all with purported (and/or actual) rhetorical gifts, whether one should let the style of Colin Kahl overshadow the substance (or lack thereof) of what he writes or says (more the latter than the former). That said, this:
The vast majority of Iraq's major parties, factions, and communal groups -- including many former militants -- are now heavily invested in the political system. As Vice President Joseph Biden often remarks, "politics has broken out" in Iraq. It is often messy, as it is in even the most developed democracies, but the Iraqi commitment to the political process is real. Democracies are prone to heated rhetoric, and we have certainly seen that in the period before and after the most recent Iraqi national elections. And, as we have witnessed in recent weeks, violence will continue to challenge this process. But as long as Iraqis stay committed to resolving their differences through the force of words rather than the force of arms, Iraq is unlikely to sink back into widespread violence.
runs counter to Zathras as follows
"We need to be moving toward the exits, which is what Obama's speech was intended to celebrate, but the small-mindedness of all these grubby Iraqi politicians risks getting the smaller American force in Iraq caught in the middle if Iraqi factions eventually decide to try to break the political stalemate through force of arms. We need a little more public urgency on this subject, but Obama devoted his comments last night to giving Iraqi political leaders a reputation to uphold. If this approach was likely to work, it would have worked already."
I know what Stephen Walt and Tom Ricks (appear) to think; I remember reading in "The Gamble" that David Kilcullen (or some other superluminary) feared the conditions for a military coup were in place. Aside from the fact that he enumerates nicely, has nice charts and numbers whose aberrations he can elide with ease, why should one take Colin Kahl at his word, and not disregard his position and the fact that he works (more or less) directly for President Obama?
Conversely, is there any reason to think that "Iraqi factions [*will*] eventually decide to try to break the political stalemate through force of arms. Finally, I'm confused by reputation as a conflict-avoidance or dampening mechanism. I suppose I can see it in the international sphere, but there it's usually - if wrongly - used in a hawkish way ("if we back down..."), and I suppose by extension its logic will manifest itself in the domestic sphere. I'm just still confused that giving the Iraqi reputation will or will not/would or would not have allayed actual violence (as opposed to peaceful electoral competition).
ADTS
I think it's called grief.
I think it's called grief.
We need a good puppet,
We need a good puppet, that's the problem... did Iran get there first? If Chalabi really was an Iranian double agent... well, that would be something.
Hey, remember this, from the New York Times, held up in Cheney's grubby fist in response to questions about the hard-to-find Iraqi WMDs?
Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert
By JUDITH MILLER embedded with the 101ST Airborne, south of Baghdad, Iraq, April 20
A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program for more than a decade has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began, members of the team said."
"They said the scientist led Americans to a supply of material that proved to be the building blocks of illegal weapons, which he claimed to have buried as evidence of Iraq's illicit weapons programs."
"The scientist also told American weapons experts that Iraq had secretly sent unconventional weapons and technology to Syria, starting in the mid-1990's, and that more recently Iraq was cooperating with Al Qaeda, the military officials said.”
The NYT coverage of the past few days has not referred to that story - not even once - but everyone knows that their corporate shareholders and executives wanted to sell the war as badly as Cheney did.
Democracies are prone to
Democracies are prone to heated rhetoric, and we have certainly seen that in the period before and after the most recent Iraqi national elections. And, as we have witnessed in recent weeks, violence will continue to challenge this process. But as long as Iraqis stay committed to resolving their differences through the force of words rather than the force of arms, Iraq is unlikely to sink back into widespread violence.
Right-wing conspiracy theorists such as myself have long known that since the days of Dean Acheson, the super-secret Seventh Floor of the Truman Building - on which no human being not fully reconstructed by the Bilderberg Group has ever set foot - has been devoted entirely to two purposes.
One (north side of the building, for line-of-sight communication with Russia): Communist espionage. Some think the KGB went out of business. Au contraire. They just moved their HQ.
Two (south side, for carefully calibrated doses of natural light): high-grade genetically-modified cannabis cultivation. The CFR is to cannabis as NSA is to cryptography: twenty years ahead of private industry. America's foreign-policy establishment has forgotten more about diploid indica-ruderalis crosses than High Times ever knew.
So the only question is: when we hear a sentence like "But as long as Iraqis stay committed to resolving their differences..." - let alone Prof. Kahl's incredible exhalation - which are we listening to? Owen Lattimore Jr.? Or the new, amped-up, blue-green Seventh Floor PowerPoint 420 strain?
Because it certainly has nothing at all to do with the real country in which Nuri al-Said was ripped to shreds in the street. Now and for the foreseeable future, political power in Iraq comes down to the question: which mafia's death squads can kill more, faster, better? Bullets beat ballots every time.
Abu M, I couldn't finish the
Abu M,
I couldn't finish the NYT story about the Baghdad morgue. Funny, that. And I'm a pathologist and everything.
I haven't done an autopsy in years. It was never a task that I cared for. How shocking it was to emerge from darkness of the morgue into the bustling hospital above. You always felt that there was nothing so magical or beautiful as a living breathing human being after that gloom.
But it is important. It's the last thing that you can do for the deceased and their loved ones. Ensure the truth. Make sure the family knows what happened.
I'm glad you highlighted the article, painful as it is.
Atleast he was buried in
Atleast he was buried in Najaf. He'll be closer to God there.
Obama was gracious towards
Obama was gracious towards GWB, because he was trying to make sure that no one would remember or figure out that both wars were supported faithfully by the vast majority of congressional democrats.
i'm not particularly
i'm not particularly squeamish, but the sights and smells of an iraqi morgue are not easily forgotten...same goes for the cemeteries.
anyone been in the WWI-era british cemetery, across from the turkish embassy? it's like getting punched in the face by rudyard kipling.
Wow, Exum, do you realize
Wow, Exum, do you realize that you didn't even mention the president's take on Afghanistan. Remember Afghanistan? It's that country where your theories, and those of your precious cutesy 'Little Think Tank That Could', are being tested in real time. Why does it seem as if you are changing the subject?
Quite the revealing omission.
The backhanded swipes
The backhanded swipes directed at Bacevich reminded me of a quote from Tucker Carlson regarding Canada:
"Canada is a sweet country. It is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him on the head. You know, he's nice, but you don't take him seriously. That's Canada."
- Tucker Carlson on the December 15, 2005 edition of MSNBC's The Situation with Tucker Carlson.
Anyone that thinks that we should not have military bases from Korea, to Guam, to Italy, to Bahrain, to Okinawa is a TOTAL ASSHOLE and should not be acknowleded in serious company. Only serious thinkers allowed, like Ken "Threatening Storm" Pollack and Samantha "Save Darfur" Power.
Bacevich's thoughts must be ridiculed as isolationist lest people actually begin to take him seriously. Kinda like that guy Markopolous who figured out Bernie Madoff 7 years before his Ponzi scheme went bust.
Poor Markopolous was ignored and ridiculed by the SEC, IRS, etc ..... he was tagged a kook, someone with an ax to grind. Ends up the guy was right all along. If someone took him serious before it was too late, billions of dollars may have been saved.
Just like Bacevich. If someone listened to him early, before the coming disaster .... Iran ....
Nah, Bacevich is an isolationist, he's not to be taken seriously. Let's listen to Eliot Cohen instead, now he is serious, you know he wrote a great book about war, the presidency, and the president's relationship with general officers. Cohen also wants to bomb Iran and thought Iraq was a great idea.
Cohen is soooo smart.
"Colin Kahl, an alumnus of
"Colin Kahl, an alumnus of the Little Think Tank That Could, is a professor on leave from the security studies department at Georgetown, and he always brings welcome scholarly rigor to his policy analysis."
Whut? That idiotic screed was a LOL a minute! You could do the "policy community" a favor by fisking that thing line by line, using some of that "scholarly rigor" that is notably absent from Kahl's paper. As Moldbug said -- what is that guy smoking?
I didn't understand all of
I didn't understand all of what ADTS was trying to say upthread, but I gather that he believes an Iraqi consensus on resolving political differences through the force of words rather than through force of arms is a done deal.
Maybe, maybe not. Recent Iraqi history is squarely on the side of "maybe not," but people do learn. Or become exhausted and traumatized enough to question fundamental assumptions, which is the same thing. My point earlier was merely that the Obama administration shouldn't take this whole Iraqi commitment to politics thing for granted. The concrete in this foundation won't be fit to stand on until Iraqis are confident the institutions of their state work. That confidence would be a lot easier to build if Iraqi faction leaders formed a government. They might be more inclined to form a government if the American President and subordinate officials laid off the flattery and leaned on them to get moving.
I am seriously befuddled
I am seriously befuddled about what Kaplan's problem with the speech was. He lists a bunch of things tha Obama said, none of which was directly contradictory though they each nod to different imperatives for America and iraq (which, naturally themselves have imperatives of interest that point in different directions, but also some that point similrarly), and says none of them were wrong. But because they didn't all point in the same direction, he says the speech lacked a "bottom line.' Except that the president underlined that we would be completely out of iraq by the end of next year. Kaplan says Obama didn't reckon with Iraq's future, but can any person speak to Iraq's future after direct American involvement is over? Any Iraqi, even? Is that the U.S. president's. Kaplan's bottom line is apprently that he doesn't like presidential speeches that don't simplify U.S. policy toward entire countries into a reductive"bottom line," or that don't feature presidential attempts at future-divination regarding said foreign countries.
Andrew Bacevich is not an
Andrew
Bacevich is not an isolationist. To refer to him as such shows how little you understand his arguments.
Zathras: 1) My writing of
Zathras:
1) My writing of late has not been my finest. My apologies.
2) I don't think anything is a done deal. Most things rarely are.
3) My goal in large part was simply to do what Abu M credits Kahl with doing: laying out alternative viewpoints (yours and Kahl).
4) I think your argument is plausible but I'm not totally convinced by it. For one thing, it's a fairly extended causal chain. I realize that is trite criticism, and it doesn't imply any personal disrespect, but it represents what I think about it.
Thanks for replying.
ADTS
No offense taken (I mean,
No offense taken (I mean, really. I post under a cybernym commenting on writing by people I have never met. The grounds I would have to take offense are pretty minimal).
One thing I hope is clear is that just because I think President Obama has been right to draw down American forces in Iraq, or because my criticism of his plans in this area going forward is that I think we should be moving faster in that direction, doesn't mean I believe a passive, hands-off American posture toward Iraqi politics is a good idea. Iraq could still blow up, it's the Iraqi political leadership's responsibility to keep that from happening, and both the Iraqi and American publics should know that the American government expect that leadership to get moving.
"But honestly, does anyone
"But honestly, does anyone out there see a U.S. administration ever embracing the kind of neo-isolationism... "
So the choice is between military internationalism or none at all.
"Join the Army! Travel the World, Meet Interesting People, and Kill Them. Otherwise stay home"
You should have never left Texas.
Isolationist? Bacevich? Nah,
Isolationist? Bacevich? Nah, I don't think so, although I think it's maybe time for a healthy dose of isolationist thinking, if former military personnel—junior and senior officers alike—think anything that matters to the nation was learned from Iraq. Bachevich isn't writing for former Captain Exum; he's after bigger fish; he's after the nation. He's after guys like me, retired dudes who've been out long enough that we realize that we are citizens first and that all of our military tickets pale in comparison to that.
I like Bacevich. He's a colonel who knows what's really important, none of which includes being a military junkie when you're retired. Bacevich is important, specifically because he understands the soldier is unimportant compared to the state. And Bacevich finds the state lacking. He thinks—and I agree—that the American people really haven't learned anything from Iraq. They're still as jingoistic, fearful and stupid as they were before. Which will always make them easy prey for the next president with a bright idea. The military guys are just along for the ride. But the one saving grace is that the American people have extreme money issues right now. For the past nine years, many of them—aided by disreputable politicians—have somehow mentally separated monies spent on foreign adventures from those spent elsewhere in the budget. Like there's a money tree for war expenditures, but that domestic stuff has to toe the budget line. Military people are particularly susceptible to this way of thinking. Military people are amazing in this regard. With a lot of them, it's kind of like they don't live in the same country as the rest of us. They live on the Big Rock Candy Mountain. What we all have to hope is that our economic situation in the coming years will somehow penetrate into enough American skulls that the people won't support any more dandy little wars.
Exum says a lot's been learned tactically, operationally and strategically. Tactics? Tactics is what you do to get the job done. Tactics is what people screw up when they've over learned lessons from the past. Who cares about tactics? This is fundamental stuff. Did it take a trillion dollars to learn tactics? Preoccupation with this stuff is a losing proposition. In Vietnam, we inherited a lot of neat WW2 and Korean War tactics. Right. Operational? That gets important, but exactly where has anything been learned? One thing I've learned from Iraq and Afghanistan is that the Army now has two fairly important branches—FA and armor—with the death rattle in their throats. From where I sit, the Army has regressed operationally, specifically because of the "small wars" nature of what they're doing. This Army will need a major overhaul before it's in optimum condition to fully discharge its Title 10 responsibilities. Any Army would, after what our Army's been through. It'll be worse for the U.S. Army because of its state of deep denial.
Strategy? The Army don't do strategy. Nor does the U.S. There is no military or grand strategy in Iraq. There is a political strategy. Politics is driving the withdrawal and reality informs us that odds are good for an Iran-Iraq alliance in the not so far distance future. There is kind of a half-assed strategy in Afghanistan. It's something like we knock the shit out of the Taliban, and Al Qaeda will know we mean business, and all of this will result in Pakistan actually giving a shit about what we want. Oh, and we'll build schools and women will get the vote and everybody will live happily ever after.
We accomplished nothing in Iraq. Status quo ante would have an oligarch in charge, but an oligarch under our control. That oligarch served as the counterbalance to Iran and did not frighten all of the neighbors. Now we have an Iraqi government bound to ally with Iran, which means we have nothing but frightened Gulf states. How to blow a trillion dollars. We will also accomplish nothing in Afghanistan.
So maybe Bacevich is wrong. I've learned a whole lot over the past nine years.
ouch, gian p. gentile called
ouch, gian p. gentile called you a dumb ass.
Zathras: I think we're both
Zathras:
I think we're both fine, and polite and respectful blog posters to boot.
Regards
ADTS
@Publius, You are right that
@Publius,
You are right that our citizenship comes first before our military service. I disagree with the formulation that the State comes before service - I would have put it as the Constitution and are rights and duties as citizen come first.
But I am not unsympathetic to the argument. Nor do I consider Bachevich an isolationist. He's anything but. He just can't accept that if you wanna run the world for it's own good, you're gonna have to conquer it first.
However lines like this: "They're still as jingoistic, fearful and stupid as they were before. " lost you at least one sympathizer to this argument. In fact old man I'm downright insulted.
You claim to be retired. If that's true than you sucked at that tit for at least 20 years, and still are sucking on it.
If I'm such a stupid jingo mail the check back, you hypocrite.
And the American people would be stupid NOT to be fearful, both of our foreign enemies and our out of control bankrupt govt. There's plenty of money trees and people living on Free Candy mountain - in fact that pretty much describes most of our govt at all levels.
Wow, Exum, Buy cheap battery
Wow, Exum, Buy cheap battery and charger from http://www.gpbattery.co.uk do you realize that you didn't even mention the president's take on Afghanistan. Remember Afghanistan? It's that country where your theories, and those of your precious cutesy 'Little Think Tank That Could', are being tested in real time. Why does it seem as if you are changing the subject?
Quite the revealing omission.
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