Years Late in Changing Our Tactics in Iraq
Basically, Hillary Clinton was right. We need to combine hard military power with the soft power of our attraction (that she refers to at the end of her speech) into a smart power strategy. We failed to do that in Iraq. We lacked adequate forces to suppress the looting and the outbreak of the insurgency in May 2003. It is difficult for AID to build schools and clinics when workers are under fire. We are doing somewhat better in Afghanistan, but the Administration foolishly diverted resources away for the mistaken invasion of Iraq. I argued six months ago that the current "surge" was likely to produce some military improvements, but that success would depend on major political compromise among the three main factions. There is little sign of this occurring, and thus the military gains are not likely to last. We are years late in changing our tactics. We also need to learn to avoid dangerous illusions about invasions transforming the Middle East. It would be nice to think we will never have another war, but that is unlikely. Thus we will need a strong military, better tactics, and greater wisdom about how to combine our hard and soft power into a smart strategy.
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Why does the left has a such a need for everything to fail and look bad?
Its sad.
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It's not a need to fail and look bad....it'
Because only ignorance is bliss?
Children who were in junior high when the U.S. invaded Iraq are now eligible to be shipped off to die there. This, in a war that Rumsfeld said would not last six months, and in which the Oval Office orangutan declared major combat to be over four and a half years ago.
And now, running out of troops, the warmongering Republicans are starting to talk about a draft. If this nation takes the advice of the right wingers, then, four years from now, we'll have the pleasure of reading the trolls' posts about how we must elect Republican nominee Jeb Bush to the White House so he can enact his "splurge" plan of escalation to win, win, win, win, win, win, win in Iraq.
So if you parents and grandparents would like to see your elementary school children dying in Iraq, you go right along with the right wingers.
ProfessorDuh: Are you really a professor because you sure write like one. Loved that "Oval Office orangutan comparison. I'm with you buddy. One point tho. It won't be just four years of a Bush clone. If the Dems don't get their heads out their asses it'll be eight and then we'll see Ol' Jeb for a reprise of the Bushies dynasty. What are your thoughts on that premise?
You aren't ACTUALLY trying to reference THOMAS SOWELL in a fact based conversation? I am both shocked AND awed.
Because EVERYTHING in the BUSH AGENDA does fail, fall, look and IS bad and the left sees it already beginning. If you don't believe me just ask me. BUSH success rate? AWFULLY HIGH. He smeared up the face of our nation to ruins for generations and smeared it ugly like this all over the world.
I'm noticing a change of tone here on the Huff. I love the courageous comments on this article, as well as the absence of trolls. It's enough to make me think they might actually accept my comments on the next Dershowitz article!
I understand your issue with the censorship .. it has happened to me too, most recently with a post regarding this article. Seems that massive deaths are OK, but it is considered unacceptably impolite to challenge the reasoning and motives of such a august person as Professor Nye, another scared cow no doubt to the censors at Huffington.
The drama that is being played out before our eyes day in and day out is mostly for show. Yes, there is genuine opposition to Bush's "handling" of the war, as well as to his domestic agenda, but make no mistake about it, the Democrats want the results of this war as much as the Republicans. One cannot oppose it, in theory, if you are a capitalist.
We are, out of necessity, expanding the free market (thus the desolving of the Iraqi infrastructure), and the war is only partly to hand Big Oil more control over their product. The real purpose, following on the heals of NAFTA, is cheap labor to compliment global corporate expansion (thus amnesty for illegals here at home).
By dissolving the Iraqi infrastructure, we have created a starving populace, who will take a slave-labor wage job. Democrats want a "strong economy" as much as the Republicans, and while their tactics may have differed in their means of achieving this end, these wars would have happened regardless of who won the past two elections, or whoever wins the up-coming one.
What all the politicians are upset about right now is the "mismanagement" of the war - i.e.: we can't install Western corporations and reap the harvest of the cheap labor for risk of their investment getting blown to smithereens. Neither Saddam nor the Taliban were willing to bow to Western corporatism. In the former case, he was a control freak (to put it simply - not to mention he was jerking the oil markets), and in the latter, they were Islamic fundamentalists who opposed the cultural changes, based upon their religion, that would be necessary for capitalist reform.
So, was Hillary pandering? Was she just showing the millitary Hawks that she could play ball, positioning for the general election? No! This is American foriegn policy.
Interesting comment, conned. But do you really think "these wars would have happened regardless of who won the past two elections"? I'm not being confrontational, I really want to know what you think. Because from the soberness of your argument, which I am in no position or mood to countrovert, I should think that you might think it would have been difficult to go war-mongering in Afghanistan and Iraq without a) Bush in the White House (especially re: Iraq, of course) and b) 9/11. Even with Bush in the White House alone, pulling off an invasion of Iraq would have been a daunting task (that is, convincing enough Americans that it was necessary) without some other dramatic event to spin into justification (9/11). I remember a Democrat friend, long-time NPR employee, who when I told her I was horrified about impending war in Iraq, replied: We've known all along that this administration was going to go back there no matter what. The subtext was: There's nothing we can do about it. Which is exactly the kind of passiveness ANY leadership the world over counts on to get done what they want to get done. They count on their citizens' penchant for assuming they can do nothing about anything. Pathetic, really...a
"It would be nice to think we will never have another war, but that is unlikely. Thus we will need a strong military,"
It would be nice to think we will not START another war, but that may still be unlikely. If our military was weaker, we would be less likely to start that war, and we could still be stronger than anyone else and safe from attack by any other country, not just because of the strength and modern weaponry of our military, but also because we have most of the world's stockpiles of WMDs.
Every politician who voted for the invasion of Iraq or trusted bush to do the right thing has shown us that their judgement cannot be trusted and that they have no business seeking the nomination for president.
I don't know about that one, Ahoon. I wonder how many women would have handled her husband's public infidelity as well as she did, considering her husband was President of the United States at the time. I think she showed a very deep strength that most men wouldn't have in that situation.
If our biggest problem was Bill Clinton's love life then I would agree that Hillary is the one to handle it.
We have a trillion dollar middle east problem that could destroy the Republic. We need someone who can pull back and cut the defense budget.
That is Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Ron Paul or Mike Gravel. Sure isn't anyone getting money from defense contractors like Hillary, Guiliani, Obama or Mitt Romney
Utah's Morton-Thiokol makes all the fuel for all our missiles. More missiles, more rocket fuel.
that has nothing to do with the fact that her policy positions are in line with the same brutal and murderous imperial policies as bush. her economic agenda is nearly identical as well. take Ahoon's advice. don't go aswoon just because she is a woman. the reason she didn't leave billy after numerous affairs is because she has bigger ambitions. her, "handling", of that situation is irrelevent to whether or not her policy positions reflect the will of the people. her policy positions are relevent and that is what Ahoon is warning you about. we aren't voting for prom queen. we are voting for president of the US.
I was against this war from the start- 1) It wasn’t absolutely necessary. War should always be the last resort 2) Anyone who ever read a book on Iraq or studied the region knew of the sectarian strife that would occur from removing Saddam- Bush41 clearly knew this and took a lot of heat for not marching on to Bagdad.
Anyone commenting that this is as simple as just get out- end the war, doesn’t have clue as to what the situation is in Iraq today. It is a complex formula of sectarian civil war that will not end, and in fact will greatly increase, as soon as we leave. And there are grave consequences which will follow our retreat- both in Iraq, in our struggle with militant Islam and our overall strategic standing in the world. And despite the horrific circumstances that exist there today there are large components of Iraqis who would still not turn the clock back- certainly not the Kurds (yes they are Iraqi and are very glad we got rid of Saddam), and though they wish they had done the job themselves and want us to leave now the majority of Shiites would not turn back the clock as they, as the majority, had taken the brunt of Bathist brutality. They believe that their time has come and will not stop the violence until they have inherited what they feel is rightly theirs.
Unfortunately the Sunnis believe they can somehow regain their power, and yes you have the Islamic fighters (yes Al Queada wasn’t there before but they are sure there now), and then of course there is the tribal and criminal element that has thrived in the chaos we have created. Unfortunately, as a recent article in Foreign Affairs stated, history has shown that usually the only way these sectarian conflicts end is when enough blood has been spilled and someone cries uncle and surrenders out of exhaustion- often over a decade.
So please stop whining- you are supposed to learn from the past, not live in it.
"So please stop whining- you are supposed to learn from the past, not live in it."
Come now-- if it weren't for the whining, the only thing left would be pretentious and supercilious bombast! And even a little of that goes a LONG way.
If we are supposed to learn from the past then please tell me why we went into Iraq in the first place.Ever
I agree, as I prefaced in my post, it was both tragically ignorant and immoral. Again war must always remain an absolute last resort.
What really got me is when Jon Stewart played an old clip of Rumsfeld laying our clearly and succinctly the reasons why Bush41 did not march on to Baghdad- in sum it would open a hornet's nest.
In a way I blame Bush43 less in that I truly believe that, while he is in no way as dumb as some make him out to be, he is certainly lacking the requisite knowledge and critical thinking skills needed for his position. Not an excuse for his actions but perhaps a reason.
You are so right..but knowing all of that..what is your solution. We can stay forever and those situations will not change without some compromise between all of the factions..
Our invasion was a war crime. Our occupation is a war crime. We have dishonored our servicemen and women by subjecting them to participate in this lawlessness. Over half a million Iraqis have died while we elongate our criminality with pointlessly brutal troop surges and half-hearted symbolism in the form of toothless admonitions on the floors of our legislature to an executive branch that couldn't care less.
We need real change. Of national consciousness, of leadership, of our basic posture in the world. We don't need more political pandering to AIPAC, militarism or the treacherous "Center" in American politics, where everything decent goes to die. We don't need Hillary Clinton.
great post! very well said.
Count me in with cuddltuffy jhNY. Anybody seen the new intelligence estimate that just came out? Quite interesting you know.
Unjustified invastion, fraudulent intelligence, torture, profiteering, and war crimes are not 'tactics'.
Amen!
Mr. Nye still believes in the American Empire.
If we need to combine hard military power with the soft power of our attraction (that she refers to at the end of her speech) into a smart power strategy. And If we manage to make Iraq an economic colony of the USA dealing exclusively with Exxon-Mobil, Chevron and British Petroleum then the Logic of Empire will only force us into a similar war in Iran.
Empires never stop expanding until they overextend and lose. I was hoping the sweet land of liberty would be different. I thought when the Russian gave up and withdrew from Eastern Europe we would withdraw from Western Europe happy to have a peace dividend.
Clinton's Kosovo war broke my heart. We now are building bases, not only in Iraq, but in most of the Soviet ex-Satelite countries like Poland , The Czeck Republic, Bulgaria and Romania.
The US is looking to build new small bases, which the Pentagon calls "lily pads", in places such as Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Qatar and Djibouti.
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Does anyone wonder why Mr. Putin is getting a little edgy?
Yeah. And now Putin's looking to re-establish military bases in Syria. Nice conflagration building up again.
[C]heshyre, drkazmd65, freedomis, NABNYC, and researcher nail it. I'm proud to join their chorus.
Hillary and the rest of the corporatized, warmongering political elite of BOTH parties are so obsessed with establishing their militaristic bona fides-- popping, exposing, and swinging their War Boners-- that they neatly avoid the deeper, and prevailing, truth that this military action is not merely incompetent, it is illegal and immoral.
All of this earnest discussion about how to make the best of an intolerable status quo is analogous to a group of thugs gang-raping, sodomizing, torturing, and maiming a woman, then sitting down at the kitchen table to discuss how to make the relationship WORK.
I have no doubt that Hillary and her cohort have some really good ideas for turning a bloody and shredded sow's ear into a coin-filled silk purse. And once they get things squared away, they'll have a better idea of how to repeat their success with the NEXT sow's ear.
OMG!! Not that I disagree, but...OMG!
The foreign policy of interventionism is the problem. The next fiasco will be Iran and Hillary will be a cheerleader for that war too.
Eric2: Only if the war with Iran is worth fighting. As we all know, there's no winner or losser in a war; but I guess if you're a soldier in a war and you're still alive at the end, you might considered yourself a winner -- I will bet you won't feel like a winner though -- having experience a war.
I'm sorry but Hillary Clinton is not right. We have no business being in Iraq and her imperial arrogance is disgraceful and utterly stupid. She thinks we can change puppets in Iraq and things will get better and she is wrong.
Reality check:
1.- It is not a war, it is an invasion and occupation.
2.- The POTUS is Dick Cheney, GWB takes his orders from him.
3.- Iran is non-complaint with American style capitalism and it is next; Carlin was right: if you are brown and have oil you are a target.
4.- The invasion and occupation of Iraq will continue with the next POTUS in the future. The Clintons are already in the pocket of big business, Edwards is too and Obama can be bought. All GOP candidates are bought already.
apduncan, Try looking at Bill Richardson's campaign. Not perfect by any means but then who is? As to the R's. Hell some of those guys don't even believe in the law of gravity. Gives me the cold shivers to look at this and know that if HRC/Obama are the Dem nominees one of these idiots will be replacing "King George." Your thoughts would be appreciated. Thanx
I can't think of a single case in modern history where the occupation of a people didn't want to be occupied has worked. We will eventually lose. Some strategies may extend our occupation, but we will leave eventually. You are living in a dreamworld Neo.
George was going to plant democracy in the middle east and watch with fatherly delight the germinations flourish into a sea of resiliant turd-blossoms. (Must be that Texas LadyBird influence).
But was there anyone in the halls of govt who considered the history of separate cultures and their reliance on the Sharia as a serious impediment to "the plan". Seems way beyond stupid to me.
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