Blaming All Americans for Bush's Debacle in Iraq?

Take a look at the September/October 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs and you'll find a fascinating article by James Dobbins: "Who Lost Iraq? Lessons From the Debacle." An Assistant Secretary of State under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Dobbins candidly admits that Bush's invasion of Iraq qualifies as a "national catastrophe," and notes that the changes made thus far, including the so-called "surge," have not "reversed a worsening situation." But his main objective is to assure that the "current debate over the United States' failure in Iraq�yield[s] constructive results" for future administrations.

Thus, he recommends -- presumably tongue-in-cheek -- against "invading large hostile countries on the basis of faulty intelligence and with the support of narrow, unrepresentative coalitions." Yet, Dobbins is too subtle by half when he observes, "other nations will never be prepared to exempt the United States from internationally recognized restraints on the unprovoked use of force." Indeed, naked aggression is the worst of war crimes.

More troubling, however, is Dobbins' willingness to dismiss the evil wrought by America's neoconservatives. If their warmongering was merely a matter of "excess," then so was the similarly despicable warmongering practiced by their predecessors -- the Nazi propagandists.

Nevertheless, Dobbins is quite constructive when he recommends: (1) electing leaders willing to encourage "disciplined dissent," (2) the "better use of existing structures for policy formulation and implementation," which means the avoidance of future cabals of the Rumsfeld-Cheney type, (3) the retiring of "'preemption'�from the lexicon of declared policy" and (4) the reevaluation of nation building and democratization.

He also recommends that the "war on terror" be "reconceived and renamed." For although "the Bush administration's rhetoric since 9/11 has accentuated the warlike character of the terrorist threat�most of the tangible successes in the 'war on terror' have come as a result of police, intelligence and diplomatic activity."

But, Dobbins' constructive recommendations go astray when he concludes: "Above all, Americans should accept that the entire nation has, to one degree or another, failed in Iraq." This astonishing recommendation is based upon two seemingly indisputable facts: (1) "the United States went into Iraq with a higher level of domestic support for war than at almost anytime in its history and (2) Congress authorized the invasion by an overwhelming bipartisan majority."

Yet, to refuse to acknowledge the efforts of experts, politicians (mostly liberal) and the millions of Americans who either argued against the war or protested the invasion before it occurred is to engage in a whitewash of the evil committed by the scoundrels and dupes who wanted war.

Granted, in addition to the scoundrels calling themselves neoconservatives and the criminals occupying the White House, many feckless congressmen -- Democrats and Republicans -- merit blame for fostering Bush's war. Democrats merit blame, because many ducked their responsibility to challenge the warmongers. Thus, they violated a norm of American political life: "Regardless of which party holds a majority of seats in Congresses, it is almost always the opposition party that creates the most trouble for a president intent on waging war." [William G. Howell and Jon C. Pevehouse, "When Congress Stops Wars," Foreign Affairs, Sept/Oct. 2007].

Two additional observations by Professors Howell and Pevehouse also point to the pre-invasion political irresponsibility of many congressional Democrats: (1) the "media regularly follow official debates about war in Washington, adjusting their coverage to the scope of the discussions among the nation's political elite" and (2) "the airing of more critical viewpoints led to greater public disapproval of the proposed war."

Thus, all three observations by Howell and Pevehouse support Dobbins assertion that "primary responsibility for opposing or at least critically examining the case for war falls on the opposition party." It's not only a responsibility that many Democrats ducked during the run-up to war in Iraq; it's also a responsibility they should keep in mind, when Bush/Cheney push for war against Iran.

Nevertheless, Dobbins' attempt to blame the "entire nation" still doesn't wash. Although hardly alone, I was not among those who, "to one degree or another, failed in Iraq." In fact, on 24 September 2002, I went on record - in an Op-Ed published by the Philadelphia Inquirer -- opposing Bush's just-released National Security Strategy enshrining preemptive war as national policy.

Immediately after Bush's mad invasion, I called it "murderous and illegal," and wrote that the world was now confronted with the phenomenon of "an arrogant, willful, and, arguably unconquerable hegemon capable of breaking things around the world to the enthusiastic applause of its 'famously ill-informed' citizenry." [Walter C. Uhler, "Undone by current events," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2003]

By the summer of 2004 I was quoting Gen. Richard Myers, Bush's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who on May 12, 2004 told a Senate committee, "there is no way to militarily win in Iraq." I did so, because I took seriously the observation made by renowned military historian, Williamson Murray and (Ret.) Major General Robert H. Scales: "As has become apparent over the past two decades, intelligence gathered by thinking human beings, with their ability to interpret local languages, customs, and cultures, is a depressingly weak link in America's attempt to grasp the nature of its opponents and their capabilities." [The Iraq War: A Military History, p. 182]

While quoting Gen. Myers, I publicly endorsed the sobering admonition of Murray and Scales, writing that unless the technological superiority of America's military "is soon coupled with intelligent thinking, 'improved technologies will ensure only that political and military defeats will come later, and at greater cost.'" [Walter C. Uhler, "Preempting the truth," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September/October 2004]

The expert insights of Murray and Scales found support two days ago, when the New York Times published the collective observations of six U.S. Army sergeants and one specialist from the 82nd Airborne Division, just returning home from a 15-month deployment in Iraq. They claim "we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear." [Buddhika Jayamaha, Wesley D. Smith, et al, "The War as We See It," New York Times, August 19, 2007]

Consequently, when the criminals and liars in the Bush administration (aided by politicized Generals) try to persuade you and the Congress, in September, that the surge is working, keep in mind the words of these seven combat-tested grunts: "We are skeptical of the recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day." [Ibid]

Bush's illegal, immoral war against Iraq should never have been fought. But it was quickly lost in the wake of his "Mission Accomplished" speech. Credit the defeat to his administration's gross strategic incompetence -- which allowed the insurgency to develop - and (to quote Murray and Scales) its inability "to grasp the nature of its opponents and their capabilities."

Finally, if we genuinely seek to assure that the current debate over the United States' failure in Iraq yields constructive results, we must ignore the advice of James Dobbins to blame all Americans and begin the painful and potentially disruptive process of racking and stacking. After all, in America's so-called meritocracy, the people who got it wrong should pay a price. Public humiliations, remedial training, demotions, resignations, dismissals, newsroom shakeups, think-tank purges, criminal indictments, congressional investigations and impeachments, where warranted, would mark the beginning of genuine accountability.

What better way to yield constructive results for future administrations than to expose the arguments of, and render justice to, the ideologues, pundits and politicians who either mongered for an unprovoked war or acquiesced in it?

Comments

[cornflower]

Anyone who read newspapers in the 90s, and apparently Hillary and John Kerry are among those who did not, should have known that that Bush's claims that there were mounds of weapons in Iraq was patent nonsense. Because part of the collective ignorance and culpability is our forgetting of the UN weapons inspections regime. Remember those UN inspectors who spent years locating AND DESTROYING Iraq's weapons caches after the first Gulf War. So anyone who did not forget this history and heard Bush et al. claim that there were huge stockpiles in Iraq should have thought, as I did, that his claims were highly suspect at best. Then, of course, the inspectors returned in Nov of 2002 and said, "There is nothing here!" This fact was reported in the media. They asked the US to tell them where to find something if they had intelligence showing that something was left to find and destroy. That didn't happen and the readmitted inspectors had to high tail it out when Bush's war started. Are the public and Dem members of Congress partly to blame for Iraq. You bet they are!

[jhNY]

Sadly, as citizens responsible for the conduct of our government-- it's a democracy, remember?-- we are all responsible for the instigation and ongoing conduct of the war. And when we as citizens had opportunity to be rid of the administration that orchestrated the greatest American foreign policy debacle in history, we re-elected the bastards. UNLESS of course, the election was rigged, in which case, we're guilty of standing around whining and wringing our soft little hands when the big boys took our democracy away.

Iraq is a war crime, folks. Every step our soldiers take there a war crime, every drop of blood we spill, every wall we knock down. What are you going to do about it?

[outnow]

Nixon tried to end the Cold War which dates back to 1945 but he was forced out of office in 1974 after meeting with the Soviets.

Rumsfeld and Cheney, then under Ford, started "Team B" to dispute CIA intelligence that the Soviets did not have certain weapons and technology but with Wolfowitz' assistance, the Cold War spending leaped upward with domestic programs falling off. Reagan went along with it. There was more fear-mongering back then and huge profits for the corporations that manufactured the armaments. The USSR allegedly had "non-acoustic sonar" that could secretly track our submarines and laser cannons in 1977, allegedly, according to Team B and the Clear and Present Danger guys.

Star Wars had begun.

Terrorism was the next threat and the GWOT has produced huge profits for some corporations. Plus we have "security interests" in controlling the oil.

This "two-for-one" motivation over-determined the ultimate decision to invade Iraq. The "guys who attacked us" rhetoric yields lots of adrenaline for the "let's go get somebody types," even if its the wrong guys.

There will be perpetual war for resources due to over-population on the planet. I don't see the US ever changing course because the financial interests that control us run too deep in our political system and in the media.

Rumsfeld and Cheney and Wolfowitz, Feith, Pearle are still pushing the interests of community of the technical intelligensia, weapons designers, and counter-insurgency experts and planners of the empire and they are assisted by the Democrats.

[djarvis]

This is a good article and there have been a lot of good comments about it.

In my opinion, we did do the right thing by going after al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Our mistake in that conflict was not going after Osama bin Laden and finishing the job.

The war in Iraq, however, was completely unjustified. In my opinion, almost all of the blame for our invasion of Iraq falls on the Bush administration. In the time leading up to our attack on Iraq, we now know that the U.S. did have intelligence (based on what former CIA director George Tenet said) indicating that Iraq did not have WMDs and that there was no direct link between the government of Iraq and al Qaeda.

But despite warnings from Tenet and others, the Bush administration used the media to push their case for war and deceived not only the American people, but Congress as well into invading Iraq. The American people are somewhat to blame for believing the lies, but that is the only blame we have.

[GodBlesstheGrass]

Having started the comments with lessons from the Holocaust, let me bring up one more:

"Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander." -–Holocaust Museum

The numbers of those who now discern the truth have grown. The Stevelagains and Rush Limbaughs must shout louder and angrier and sillier to even maintain their OWN self-deception.

The paradox, however, is that as a country, we seem to have become even more paralyzed in inaction, apathy and fear. We are the guy walking by the Seine in Camus' "The Fall" afraid to redeem ourselves by jumping in and trying to save that drowning lady. It seems we can do little but watch as bystanders or blog about our terrible situation. The antidote, however, exists and it is, (along the lines of the Nike slogan) "just doing something". We absolutely most stop being bystanders. We can save ourselves but we absolutely must stop making excuses about the water being too cold and icy.

[charon]

I'm not surprised that this post has garnered a lot of responses. Many of us were attracted to Huffpo precisely because because it gave voice to war opponents at a time when little was heard from them in the traditional media.

Several observations. First, in a certain sense all Americans share a little guilt in allowing Bush to commit the crimes he did, just as all non-jewish Germans must share a little in responsibility for the Holocaust. Granted, we were too weak to stop him, but our failure is still our fault. This being said, that failure is not criminal, whereas the warmongerers and their supporters are actually criminal, whether or not they have the power to escape punishment.

Second, the fact that so many Dems in Congress voted to allow the war to go forward is a flaw in democracy. Had they voted to oppose it, they would have probably lost hugely in 2004. Morally they would have been right, but they would have been shut out of power by 2005 and would have lost whatever voice in Congress they had. Politics in our form of government creates this problem. Sure, they should have fallen on their swords, but then with a supermajority in 2005, what would the Republicans have done? We would have lost either way.

Third, "nation-building" and "democratization" in foreign countries is a sign of fatal hubris, a sort of neo-colonial mindset, that we not only know what's best for everyone else, but that we have a right to impose our own structures on them. This didn't work for Teddy Roosevelt, and it won't work for Bush.

Finally, given the number of military actions the US has carried out over the last 100 years, how can anyone conclude that America and its military is anything but a tool of the corporations to maintain control over large areas of the world. How are we not corporate fascists and thugs?

[Doofus]

Once 'the People' take up the 'right to alter
or abolish' their own government, they own the
responsibility to see to it that their government
behaves properly, particularly on the world scene.

A minority of US can find slight solace in insisting
that GWB was elected by those other people,
but in the end, that's insufficient.

He was 'elected', he was re-elected, and he's
our problem, unhappily shared with the whole world.

[xenofile]

amen.

[Balloonman]

BUSH was NOT elected. He for sure stole the first election and likely the second. Why is it we refuse to bottom line on this? This man and his thugs are committing murder in the cause of a false named WAR ON TERROR. They, these horrible, horrible people (ROVARIAN TEARS so what? Even thugs cry) order out our deaths, will do ABSOLUTELY anything to retain power and to perpetrate their, in my view, traitorous deeds. Anything!

Oh, some might say, puleeze! You have so lost it! Soooo conspiratorial. So lefty left left left. Way, way off the deep end. Nuts. Well, no. Behaviour is the proof, and it ain't so far from empirical evidence to connect dots.

These thugs, this administration, their CONGRESS if you will, are the lowest form of AMERICAN. Folks in power doing dirty work for Party and personal agendas. Holding not only, we the people in contempt, but everybody everywhere. Except their cronies. And there is quite an army of them. These people who will send us off to WARS, have us kill and be killed, noble sacrfice ourselves for their MONEY CAUSES, for their personal agendas. Couched, oh sure, in we be doing our duty, TERROR FIGHTERS, patriots breaking down IRAQI doors. And if we are not thinkers who believe these terrorizing break in early mornings and nights are justified in the name of defending us over there so they won't SCUD up a missile with ballbearings, glass, and a long fuse and come over here with it, then we, s majority, who see thru this nightmare of one subtrefuge and BIG LIE after another, are oh so naive. We, lots and lots of ordinary folks, become almost the traitors. Slimed with this double-bac­k-on-itsel­f double double speak. It's like a quadruple spy agent, where do we begin to get to the real agent, to the first cause, smothered confused in doubletalk. Instead, the think thru thinkers and real heroes become the misguided and liars. It's madness.

[disgustedcitizen]

I do not consider myself a political or military genius, but even I saw that attacking Iraq was not only unwarranted, but as we were, at the time, in Afganistan fighting the people supposedly responsible for 9/11, (I say 'supposedly' because after all, can we really believe anything the cheney/bush administration tells us?), it seemed ill-conceived to suddenly invade another country which had nothing to do with 9/11. I believed it then, and still believe it, that this war was launched for Halliburton and the oil companies.

[TherapyDoc]

We're all feeling guilty, hypnotized by fear, and wish we could have simply voted Bush out by referendum. A recall, of sorts. The is it 2008 poster's day is near, and what have we?

[dandman]

What amazes me is the effectiveness of this administrations control over our once proud 4th branch of government. The media are truly lapdogs, that coo to every royal "press" release. The troll posting here today clearly shows us the by-products of Kool-Aid and O'Riley.

[Sidewhispers]

We are all to blame. We have grown lazy and we continue to let it hit the fan every time a new Republican injustice comes to light. If we cared about the ongoing illegal war in Iraq, Abu Ghraib and other secret areas of torture, the billions of dollars in taxpayers money that somehow went missing in Iraq, the ongoing corruption with the no-bid contractors, we'd do something about it now. If we cared, we would stop Cheney's and Lieberman's sabre rattling at Iran and Syria before it is too late. If we were awake, we would realize how powerful we are and that we are the greatest threat to the livelihood of this bunch of criminals.

[klmebane]

i can't help but wonder if their plan all along was: keep the majority of the people who disagree with us down because then they won't be able to afford to protest cuz they can't take the time off of work, or write letters because the 3 jobs their working and a few kids zaps everything they got.

[flatus]

Well done, Walt.

Yep, lets stop calling it a war. It only gives the opposition more status. Terrorism should be left the the policing agencies of the world.
If we can't do that then let'd at least call the Iraqi stinkfest an occupation.

I await, with some anxiety, the many overdue frog marches.

[AfzaalKhan]

As Mr. Bush quoted, elections have concequences. Mr. Bush and Reoublican congress were given majority three times by the American people. There is a national responsibility ask any German and they know about it. Americans have to realize that too. If Saddam can be hanged, then the least US citizen can do is demand impeachement for this Preseident. Hold people accountable thats a true American way, i grew up dreaming of that US dream in my native land, what has happened to USA? it hurts me though I am not american, a beacon of freedom and justice now marred due to stupid politicians, but public elected them so they must share the blame

[nippersdad]

We are definitely trying to push our Gov't toward impeachment, but, unlike in Germany, I don't think we will ever be able to ban the Republican Party.

[BuckBurris]

And frankly, I don't believe that impeachment will ever happen either. (If you conclude from this that I do not believe our government to be really ours, what can I say?)

[WOLFWARRIOR]

James Dobbins - Is playing the game - who's at fault - the one that lied - or the one that fell for the lie.

The pure simple truth is bush-cheney had the country scared - mush-room clouds - sadam was the one that did 9/11 - The war will pay for it self - rose's and cake showered upon the liberators - and so on.

The Liar - passes his fault on those that fell for the lie.

I know I did not fall for the LIE and I emailed the white-house on how wrong it was before the invasion..

But still - one can not blaim those who fell for a lie.

The drunk blaiming those around him for his drinking.

The LIAR blaiming those around him - for his LIE's

Bush is having a full court press to save his rep - The biggest liar in History - of the world.

What was this bush-co running for - the devils job?

.......

[Rethymniotis]

Democracy is about nothing if it is not about collective guilt. "We" are responsible for "our" invasion of Iraq, and its horrendous consequences. In the eyes of the world, "we" are all to blame.

Amongst ourselves, however, we are not only free to assign blame more narrowly, we owe it to ourselves to do so. The trouble is that we cannot put it all on the neocons. A goodly portion of our fellow Americans were cheerleading for the invasion. Many of them refuse (like certain presidential candidates we know) to admit they were not only wrong, but stupid. Many of them are just aching to elect another bombastic, ignorant war-monger next year. We must do more than out-vote them. We must denounce them, ridicule them, question their patriotism, and call them cowards. If we are too "nice" to do that, then a mere change of presidents will not accomplish much.

Find a die-hard Bush supporter and tell him (or her!) that s/he is unAmerican. If you can't do that to their face, then sit back and enjoy your share of the world's disgust.

-- TP

[Stevelagain]

Good, I blame Hillary. She and her husband told the US that Sadam had to go and came up with that policy of removing Sadam. Then Hillary voted to go to war and remove him. She then supported that policy for years....only flip flopping on it when she felt she had to in order to get the democratic party nod to run for president.

And she still came out and recently said that we must stay in Iraq, at least for the first four years of "her coming" administration.

So I say, we blame Hillary and vote Republican!

[nippersdad]

O.K., did you both read and comprehend what this guy just said?