New York Times to America: Stay the Course in Iraq

On Sunday March 16, the Times Week in Review observed the fifth anniversary of
the Iraq war with two separate commemorations: an essay by John Burns (former
chief of the Times Baghdad bureau) that looks back from the devastation of 2008
to the hopes of March 2003; and a symposium on the progress of war, with short
comments by nine strategists, pundits, officials, and soldiers.

Burns wrote his piece in a mood both chastened and festive, and he begins with
an awestruck rhapsody on the "shock and awe" bombings -- "40 minutes, followed by
a break, and then another 40 minutes" -- a new kind of evening at the Cineplex.
Even "Iraqis yearning for their liberation," writes Burns, "called it, simply,
'the air show.'"

Yearning. What a weight of paternalism that word conceals. How many Iraqis
exactly did Burns hear speak of the destruction of a sizable portion of their
city and its infrastructure as "the air show"? Was this the expression used by
Iraqis who saw their friends or relatives killed in the bombing? His repetition
of the phrase suggests an utter dissociation of moral judgment from aesthetic
pleasure -- a tendency given free rein when he passes to a hushed reverence at
"the sheer, astonishing, overwhelming demonstration of power, more like an act
of God than man." Whatever truths he may have told in the past, John Burns will
surely be remembered for that sentence, so charmed and so light-headed, so far
beyond truth and falsehood.

John Burns is English; but he writes here largely as a friend of Americans and a
comforter. All of his presentation is designed to persuade American readers that
the Iraq war has been a tragedy of good intentions. And yet, to judge our own
intentions against what we suppose to be their imperfect fulfillment, is a way
of thinking that leads back to self-justification. A saner way of judging
anyone (including ourselves) is to infer the content of the intentions from the
content of the actions.

Talk of our own good intentions is an American addiction, and Burns administers
the drug in a heaped measure. The looting of Baghdad, he says, was a phenomenon
of "palaces and torture centers, along with ministries, museums, and hospitals."
Notice the order: they went after the torture centers first, then the museums
and hospitals. In all but the words, this resembles Donald Rumsfeld's comment
that freedom is "untidy." But did they really go after the palaces and torture
centers first, thereby leading the occupying army to make a natural mistake?
The weasel-words are "along with."

So, too, Burns speaks of a "failure to find weapons of mass destruction" (not
the finding that there were no weapons) and "the absence of a plan" after the
invasion (rather than a planned absence). In Abu Ghraib, "America's intentions
were betrayed by its troops in more personal ways" -- but "betrayed by its
troops" offers a scandalously false suggestion. It supports (without answering
for) the Defense Department explanation that the atrocities were merely the
personal acts of a few bad soldiers. The truth is that we know -- not suspect but
know -- that the atrocities of Abu Ghraib were the predictable effects of a new
policy of torture, and of an urgent directive that the interrogators obtain
actionable intelligence by any means. The authority conferred on General
Geoffrey Miller to "gitmoize" Abu Ghraib was something more than a "personal"
outrage committed by "troops." All of these familiar facts, Burns takes care to
press out of his account, in order to sustain his chosen theme of good
intentions.

He administers a moral salve to Americans by alluding, generically, to "that
terrible sense, familiar to anybody who has experienced war, that nothing, or
almost nothing, can justify its wounds." "Almost nothing" is a trimming touch,
meant to please everyone; and it is of a piece with Burns's canting hope that
America "ultimately finds a way home with honor, and without destroying all it
went to Iraq to achieve." This begs the question, How much has been destroyed
already? And what did we go there to achieve?

Burns's diagnosis of "what went wrong" lightens the blame by finding a reason
buried so deep that it satisfies every conceivable demand of self-acquittal. We
have to probe, says Burns, "beneath the carapace of terror" (the metaphor labors
as the conscience unloads); but, when once we probe, we "uncover other facets of
Iraq's culture and history" which made the defeat of America's good intentions a
foregone conclusion. Iraqis, thinks Burns, were "deeply traumatized" by the
regime of Sadaam Hussein; and this hidden trauma created "deep fissures" (very
deep -- so how could we know?) in the psyche and society of Iraq. The fissures
only showed on the surface when the American effort mysteriously failed.

If our good will is not to blame, neither is our intelligence. Anyone might be
pardoned for having overlooked those traumas and fissures. After all, they had
been "camouflaged by the quarter-century of Mr. Hussein's totalitarian rule." A
tragedy, then, and like all tragedies, inevitable. (In his next article, Burns
will call it "Greek.") Is there anything left to say?

A reporter who writes like this has given up argument and evidence. Trauma and
traumatized are weapons of the last resort in the analytic arsenal; they go off
when you run out of facts and surmises. These words are among the indefeasible
descriptors about which historians rightly say: "With that kind of license, you
can bag any game." Iraqis must have been traumatized, declares Burns. What else
but a previous trauma could account for the fact that they disliked the
invaders of their country and deplored the effects of a catastrophic war?

Even so, Burns thinks (he is not quite done), we may overrate the apparent
reaction against the United States. It is true that every recent poll shows
Iraqis saying they want the Americans to leave their country. But, says Burns,
he has learned to discriminate the Iraqis who speak their minds from those who
don't; and among those who "felt secure enough to speak with candor," he has
noticed that an overwhelming majority want the Americans to stay. "Secure" is
the tricky word here. Does Burns mean the very rich, the very safe, or just the
very courageous? Does he include persons in the pay of American forces?

John Burns's elegiac meditation on the Iraq war is offered as a sort prelude to
the March 16 "Week in Review" symposium of experts. And here, we may truly say,
what the American Enterprise Institute sowed, the New York Times has reaped.

In the selection of commentators on this fifth anniversary, nothing has been
left to chance. Care was taken not to invite a comment from a single person who
judged the war wrong from the start. Evidently the Times did not even think it
useful, not even for the sake of appearances, to include more than one writer
-- Anthony Cordesman -- whom the years since 2003 have brought to conclude that
the Iraq war was worse than a temporary and tactical setback. Three out of the
nine commentators -- Richard Perle, Danielle Pletka, and Frederick Kagan--are
actually fellows of the American Enterprise Institute. This is a good deal like
convening a symposium on World Religions and having three of your nine comments
issue from professors at Notre Dame (but the comparison does an injustice to
Notre Dame).

The AEI is the neoconservative think tank from which many of the policies here
under scrutiny are known to have emerged. The newspaper of record thought it a
fine thing to ask the architects of the policies to give their sincere opinion
on their own handiwork.

Kenneth Pollack, the neoliberal advocate of the bombing and invasion who threw
his support behind "the surge" in a Times op-ed last summer, offers a short and
self-serving comment that puts all the blame on the Bush administration. Did the
Times count Pollack as a moderate--even, somehow, a skeptic? Their own record of
publication was there to prove otherwise. Another apparent moderate, Anne-Marie
Slaughter, regrets the Baghdad looting, but joins the consensus of responsible
advisers who, she says, "debate whether it will take 10 to 15 years" to repair
the damage. The innocent question asked by Slaughter as by Pollack, is, how so
big-hearted an act of international benevolence as the bombing and invasion of
Iraq "has gone so wrong."

L. Paul Bremer is the only contributor to express personal regret. "I should
have pushed sooner," he says, "for a more effective military strategy"; but,
adds Bremer, thanks to the wise reconsiderations of the president, we now have
that strategy. The co-author of the surge, Frederick Kagan, is summoned by the
Times to praise himself. He gives thanks to "our soldiers and marines" who "use
their firepower to the full" while minimizing "collateral damage." We are now,
says Kagan, fighting a war of "skill and compassion," and he repeats the word
compassion, as he also repeats "precision": our soldiers have been taught to
mount "high-precision operations" using only "precision-guided weapons." (This
is in many ways a schoolboy essay.)

A soldier's experience of the invasion is recounted by Nathaniel Fick, who
remembers the fear that Saddam Hussein might unleash chemical weapons, and asks
whether better intelligence could have obviated some tactical errors early in
the war. A retired major general, Paul Eaton, now an adviser to Hillary
Clinton, repeats the judgment of General Eric Shinseki that too few troops were
allotted for the task assigned.

And Richard Perle? Can no quantity of errant judgments and measurable wrongs to
the country remove a person from the establishment list? Newsweek awarded
a column to Karl Rove as soon as it was clear that Rove had dodged indictment
by a grand jury; the Times, not to be outdone, here brings back Perle,
principal of the venture-capital security company Trireme and alumnus of Donald
Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board. Perle asserts that the U.S. should have cared
less about democracy. Rather, once Saddam Hussein was gone, we should have
"turned Iraq over to Iraqis." He means of course that we should have turned it
over to the right Iraqis; and that means Ahmed Chalabi -- the protege of Perle
who (when elections were held in December 2005) received less than one percent
of the vote. Richard Perle is permitted by the Times to utter the mystic phrase
"Iraq to the Iraqis" without ever mentioning Chalabi.

A different view of the relation between democracy and neoconservatism comes
from Danielle Pletka, billed here as "vice president for foreign and defense
policy studies" at the AEI. Pletka's comment is entitled "There's No Freedom
Gene," and it is the story of the disappointments that have made her a sadder
judge of political things. In 2003, Pletka "felt secure in the knowledge that
all who yearn for freedom, once free, would use it well"; but she found "I was
wrong." All who yearn -- "yearning" -- dangerous, tremulous emotion; mixing desire
and idealism with the invitation to war. Pletka draws a direr lesson than John
Burns about the yearning both imputed to the Iraqis who have since disappointed
them. "There is no freedom gene," she writes.

And there we have it pure and uncut, the AEI doctrine on the Middle East. Under
all the sorrow at misjudged yearnings, it is the age-old racist idea, the idea
by which, sooner or later, all empires are rationalized. Some people don't have
it in them to be free. They aren't born with the right genes. It isn't in their
blood, their roots, their race, their religion. Nevertheless, freedom is a gift
of God, of civilization, of the West; and we who have the gene must give it to
those who lack it. We must "foster appreciation of the building blocks of civil
society." But that will take time. So, it might seem that the choice, for Iraq,
is to be free as we tried to let them be, or unfree in their own way as people
lacking the gene are fated to be. Yet that is not what Pletka and the resident
fellows at the AEI have in mind. Having failed the genetic test, Iraq must now
submit to be unfree under American supervision, while Americans climb the long
trail (so much steeper than we thought) toward making them free like us.

Such is the message from the New York Times to America on our Iraq anniversary.
A message from the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American Enterprise
Institute, and assorted agreeable others. The United States must stay in Iraq,
for however long it takes. Takes to do what? Many significant actual repairs
are beyond our means in the visible future; and it is telling that none of the
Times contributors says a word about the destruction of Iraq's available supply
of water and electricity -- a disaster that was a planned not an accidental effect
of American bombings in the 1990s, in 2003, and after. This was the meaning of
shock and awe to the inventor of the phrase and the method, Harlan Ullman. You
give a stunning shock to the system of the people you intend to dominate, by
taking the system away. You put a country out of commission very fast, and make
the people very scared, and they are completely dependent on you. The rest is a
matter of after-planning.

American troops are being asked to stay in Iraq for something other than the
renovation of the country. The megalithic embassy in the Green Zone, and the
half-dozen superbases, have been built to last, while "the building blocks of
civil society" were less rigorously attended to. The purpose for which those
bases and that embassy were built is inseparable from the word Iran: a word
that surfaced neither in John Burns's commemorative piece nor in any of the
symposium comments the Times published last Sunday. And yet, one can't help
feeling that Iran had much to do with many things that were said, and with many
other things that were carefully left unsaid.

The Burns essay and the Iraq symposium are part of a consistent effort by the
Times -- the Pollack-O'Hanlon puff for the surge and the double endorsement of
McCain and Clinton were part of the same effort -- to shift legitimate opinion
toward acceptance of a large and permanent American force in the Middle East.
Among lawmakers, only Russell Feingold, Chuck Hagel, and Ron Paul have drawn
sustained attention to the commitments we are entering into. For a major paper
to do the same would be an act of candor. The New York Times, by its elaborate
contrivance of a sham debate, and by the transparent omissions of its analysis,
has done a conspicuous disservice to public discussion.

Comments

[ajax2]

The course in Iraq as set forth by the WH, PNAC and Multi Nationals is to keep Iraq in a colonial state where the assets of the country can be divided up among the occupiers and their business associates. The bases in Iraq must remain to remind other mid east countries that state assets can and will be taken by force.

[appleknocker]

Does anyone remember the last time the NYT published an op-ed piece by someone who was right about the war from day one?

[GPRogueCowboy]

Who is credited for the following statements regarding Al-Qaida in Iraq?
"Al-Qaida in Iraq, which did not exist as a coherent group before U.S. troops invaded in March 2003, probably now numbers no more than 6,000, according to U.S. intelligence estimates. It may have been closer to 10,000-strong before the severe pummeling it took last year, when it lost its main bases of Sunni Arab support."
Prior to yesterday the maximum number of Al Qaida in Iraq was reported to be 6000 and in January of 2007 just before the "SURGE" the number reported was less than 2000. So what am I to believe? Are there 4000 more bad guys in Iraq now than before the "SURGE"? When did the number of Al Qaida in Iraq reach 10,000? According to the news reports the "SURGE" has resulted in the capture or killing of about 1000 Al Qaida in Iraq. Does that mean there were 7000 Al Qaida in Iraq in March of 2007?
If the "NEW" numbers are accurate we have 165,000 Allied Troops and 400,000 Iraq Security Forces battling 7000 bad guys for a year and has only managed to eliminate 1000. Now I understand the Generals comment that they will "NEVER" be able to eliminate them all implying US Troops will be needed FOREVER.

Jim Frego

[MikeDu]

"...ultimately finds a way home with honor, and without destroying all it went to Iraq to achieve."
--

That's like saying we should stick with the plan after our bank heist has turned into a police hostage standoff because doing otherwise would be 'dishonorable'. Besides, nobody's ever explained to my WHY we went into Iraq - except maybe for a little generic 'retribution'. At one point the rule of engagement said that if a citizen on the street dared to look you in the face as your convoy passed you were to shoot them down like a dog 'just in case'. So much for American honor.

[Stirner]

Thank you for mentioning Ron Paul. He is the only reasonable Presidential candidate the Republicans have, but, of course, being neoconned, they have suppressed him in favor of that wacky war-mongering McCain. As a registered Republican, I will NOT vote for McCain. If he runs I can only hope that he will lose.

[aront54]

When I read the John Burns article, i send off the following letter to the NY Times. Of course it never got published:

John Burns writes: "Back in 2003, only the most prescient could have guessed that the...the toll would include tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, as well nearly 4,000 American troops; or that America"s financial costs, by some recent estimates, would rise above $650 billion by 2008, on their way to perhaps $2 trillion if the commitment continues for another five years..." Only the most prescient? Millions of protestors around the world and here in the U.S. not only "guessed" this, but laid out in great detail exactly what the invasion would cause. Quite sadly, we were almost entirely correct. But here in the U.S. we were called "naive" at best, "traitors" at worst. The mainstream media, including the NY Times, helped beat the drums of war, something you have yet to fully apologize for. Burns' words seems to justify your behavior: "how could we have known?" Well you could have and should have.

It is beyond me how those who were so arrogant towards the war's opponents five years ago and were totally mistaken in their analyses, can continue to peddle the same old failed policies as "the only alternative." To argue, as Burns does, that we have to stay in Iraq "to ensure stability," is a continuation of the same false and delusional approach that got us into the mess in the first place. It is our continued presence there that guarantees continued instability. Yes, there will be more blood letting when we leave, but the situation will stabilize. Unfortunately, the Iraq that will emerge in the aftermath of our leaving will be far from our misguided hopes, or what might have emerged had the Iraqis overthrown Sadaam Hussein themselves.. That is one price we will pay for our arrogant invasion. Staying will not achieve something better. Five years is enough time to prove that. We must let the Iraqis solve their own problems. We should never have gone in and we should get out now.

[ProfessorDuh]

Wow. That's the time I've been called "the most prescient," and by the New York Times no less. And oddly enough, I was far from alone. By this standard, there are millions of super-prescients out here in the real world. Spooky, eh?

[aga6943]

The New York Times believes (Like the Neocons) that US policy in the Middle East should be to support those of Israel, whatever they are. Israel is run by a group of their own Neocons that want the US to copy their mindset of permanent military occupation of the Middle East. The NY Times has no objectivity in reporting on the occupation of the Palestinians or the war in Iraq.

[ProfessorDuh]

You're right, Mr. Bromwich. The article was a particularly unctuous piece of warmongering.

[thebeerdoctor]

Outstanding article from David Bromwich. I was particularly struck by the phrase: "an utter dissociation of moral judgment from aesthetic pleasure..."; just this very morning I was thinking about abstract expressionism and how still, so many people say they find paintings by Pollock, Kline, Motherwell, Newman, incomprehensible. When in fact, so many Americans live lives of nearly total abstraction. Thus we have fellow human beings being tortured, maimed and brutalized at the cost of billions of dollars, while so many others only worry about the cost of gasoline to power large, inefficient automobiles.

As for the New York Times, it makes you wonder what kind of delusional cloud that Rupert Murdoch floats under, when he purchased the Wall Street Journal to be a right wing counter weight, to the left leaning NYT. If the paper of so-called record is considered liberal, then it becomes a neoconservative talking point. But if it is called neoliberal, a phrase not used much in this country, but one that is,as writer Arundhati Roy has pointed out, easily understood around the world, then it becomes apparent why the New York Times would endorse Senator Clinton. Translated for the "pain at the pump" abstracted citizen: those Burger Kings in Iraq are there to stay.

[SheepleShepherd]

Brilliant disection of another propaganda piece by the Times. This just reinforces to me the fact that the media no longer cares about truth, but about assuaging the fears and soothing the feeling that our nation is no longer the virtuous nation many once thought we were. So far they have suceeded. Iraq is off the front page , Bush is still in the White House,and Libby and Rove are not in jail. Power, not justice, rules in an incurious nation.

[Doofus]

That's a most impressive analysis. We need to be reminded, even at this late date, that the NYT was always supportive of the War from the very beginning, and seems to have an agenda that staying in it is better than declaring victory and departing that benighted place with as much determination as we went in.

[ricchase]

David For five years there has been no shortage of dissenting opinions to this war and of it's creators. But really, don't you ever get just tired and disgusted that those of us that oppose the war are seemingly ignored? That all of the reality checks and truth we attempt to convey are relegated to and stalled in the progressive blogosphere? Anyone with a thinking, working brain knows all about the treasonous, traitorous lies that led us to Iraq (and Afghanistan!) And we know who the men and women responsible for one of the world's most vile deceptions are. We know about the criminal acts they continually commit and we realize they are dangerous and completely out of control. We know they are quite literally selling out and destroying America. But most of all we know that no one is stopping them. Individually, all we can do is complain. Without honest, heroic congresspersons to act on our (And the majority of Americans) legitimate and urgent concerns, disgust seems to be our only retribution. And as consuming and distressing as our disgust is, for all practical purpose, it seems to be ours alone. This does nothing to satisfy my soul-felt hunger for correction and justice. Have you any earthly idea how immensely maddening all this is? As Thomas Paine observed, "These are times that test a man's soul."

[thebeerdoctor]

ricchase, here is a thought: your post gives me hope. Have you heard this one before?: "give up giving up". My only prayer is thank you.

[Gretchoid]

You can satisfy yourself by doing something about it: Go to Fair.org They have an action-alert going to ask the Times why there were no anti-war voices represented. email addresses included.

[ProfessorVP]

Remember Judy Miller? Cheney would tell her what a threat Saddam was, Judy would put this
garbage in the Times, then Cheney would point to the Times to prove what a threat Saddam was.
Even I, not the world's brightest person, could smell crap a mile away. And don't believe for a second Hillary was hoodwinked. She just believed Rummy would win the war. Am I wrong?

[CharlesMac]

I have never read anything written with more respect for, and command of, the English word.

Add to that a disdain towards those who would subvert it to their ill-will.

[surfcitysteven]

The NYT was leading the pounding along with Faux news in the drumbeat to war. at least with faux news, we new it was rightwing bullcrap. some people actually believe that the NYT is liberal and that belief is what makes the NYT more dangerous. I would say that it would have been nice if the NYT didn't "go along" with the war mongering, but that would imply that they weren't involved in driving it in the first place.

[Doofus]

You'll enjoy the 'on-going' coverage (of the perpetual war)...

'U.S. Adapts Cold-War Idea to Fight Terrorists
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER - NYT - March 18, 2008

WASHINGTON " In the days immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, members of President Bush"s war cabinet declared that it would be impossible to deter the most fervent extremists from carrying out even more deadly terrorist missions with biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.

Since then, however, administration, military and intelligence officials assigned to counterterrorism have begun to change their view. After piecing together a more nuanced portrait of terrorist organizations, they say there is reason to believe that a combination of efforts could in fact establish something akin to the posture of deterrence, the strategy that helped protect the United States from a Soviet nuclear attack during the cold war.

Interviews with more than two dozen senior officials involved in the effort provided the outlines of previously unreported missions to mute Al Qaeda"s message, turn the jihadi movement"s own weaknesses against it and illuminate Al Qaeda"s errors whenever possible.

A primary focus has become cyberspace, which is the global safe haven of terrorist networks. To counter efforts by terrorists to plot attacks, raise money and recruit new members on the Internet, the government has mounted a secret campaign to plant bogus e-mail messages and Web site postings, with the intent to sow confusion, dissent and distrust among militant organizations, officials confirm.

At the same time, American diplomats are quietly working behind the scenes with Middle Eastern partners to amplify the speeches and writings of prominent Islamic clerics who are renouncing terrorist violence.' ...