The War in Iraq

I am entirely aware that of all my opinions, my outlook on the war is the most controversial. As such, I'll deal with it immediately and if there are any questions, objections or corrections you'd like to submit, I can address them in future posts.

I have already made reference to my position in yesterday's post, so I'll just paraphrase what I said there. I was against the war from before most people knew it was being considered. In fact, the main reason I marched in protests against the war in Afghanistan is because I knew that it was cover for starting the war in Iraq. Warning to conservative freaks, do not dispute me, you WILL be made to look stupid (mainly because you are).

I am not now, however, in favor of pull-out; immediate, measured or otherwise.

The only possible outcome--and this too, is not available for debate--of premature troop reduction in Iraq is a domino effect of theocratic regime change throughout the entire Arab world. Now, for those of you who do not dispute that, many will dismiss this as their right to choose their own government.

The problem, is that this assumption is blatantly untrue, and so incredibly dismissive of Arab intellect as to be extraordinarily insulting. The underriding assumption is that all Muslims, and particularly Arabs (some of you redneck liberals aren't even aware that there is a difference), are so religious that the only government they would be happy with is the one spelled out in the Qur'an.

Think about this, assholes; do all Italians want the Vatican to resume control of their lives? Do all Americans want their countrymen to stone adulterers to death? What in the names of all the gods makes you think that only Muslims, of all the peoples on the planet are still stuck in the 6th century? Oh yeah. You're easily led. After everything. After all the events of the last six years, you still can't tell what is propaganda, and you're still too lazy to find out truths for yourselves.

Yet the sad irony is that if we do not sustain the current government of Iraq, their next government will be based on Sharia law. Why? For the same reason that if liberals in America cede the field to Hillary Clinton, they will lose the White House again. The conservative forces in this world, be they relative conservatives like Rudolph Giuliani, or true conservatives like Josef Stalin have no reluctance to use violence and intimidation to achieve their goals. They will use whatever means of coercion they can get away with. If we let them get away with intimidation, ethnic cleansing, assassination and, yes, terrorism, they will get the upper hand, they will topple their government, and they will install their own regime. Not because the general population of the Arab world desires it, but because they will be too terrified to oppose it.

SELF-DETERMINISM, the ideal espoused and upheld EXCLUSIVELY by democracy, is not the inevitable result of America steering clear of involvement. Believe it or not, we DESERVE our place as the leader of the free world. In fact, if it were not for our existence, the free world WOULD NOT BE FREE, it would be ruled by monarchs, not even the one generation at a time autocracy of dictators, like Hitler, who by the way would rule the world if we had not intervened.

The right of people, not only here, but worldwide to choose their own leaders, only survives because we protect and even because we actively cultivate it. We need to stop thinking it is such a bad thing to intervene in the affairs of other countries. Granted, we must use caution and foresight in the ways in which we intervene. We must take responsibility for our failures, but for our successes too. We must stop being ashamed of who we are, and begin taking pride in who we are once again.

The thing about Iraq is that it is not Vietnam, or rather, it does not have to be Vietnam. In Vietnam we installed a puppet government, headed by a president in name only, who believed he was a king, who ran his government as a fiefdom and who was aided and abetted by this government in doing so. We were the bad guys. We were the ones denying the Vietnamese the government they wanted, we were the ones terrorizing the people, we were the ones supporting a dictatorship.

Iraq can be different. In 2003 Haliburton invaded. It was given effective monopoly of the construction and oil industries by no-bid contract. The U.S. Army, under the command of William Casey, offered no opposition to the status quo, though as an institution the Army itself has been better than it ever has been before at policing itself and prosecuting criminal soldiers. Casey in fact flatly refused to conduct a 'hearts and minds' campaign in Iraq, just as the commanders of the Army in Vietnam had done. He represents the same 'old school' of military thought that failed to secure Vietnam and failed to stabilize Somalia years later. Sadly it takes thirty years for an institution as old and tradition driven as the U.S. Army to fundamentally change.

But David H. Petraeus is the leader of the new wave of military thought. He has a Doctorate in international relations which he earned by writing his dissertation on "The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam: A Study of Military Influence and the Use of Force in the Post-Vietnam Era". He graduated from West Point less than a year before the end of the war in Vietnam, and he has dedicated his military career to changing the U.S. military's relationship to force. He is also the lead author of the current edition of the Army Counterinsurgency Manual, again an attempt, a highly successful effort to change the way the Army operates in a theater of war. He has fundamentally changed the strategy of the U.S. Army, not just the war in Iraq, the entire army. Not only is the commander directing his troops to win the 'hearts and minds' of the average Iraqi, he is hiring and promoting and offering plum opportunities for the most prominent commands to officers who successfully prosecute this strategy. This is how things change.

The war in Iraq is winnable. This is exclusively because the Democrats won the 2006 election. Almost every person in this country believed that we elected the Democrats in 2006 to get us out of the war. No. We elected the Democrats to do exactly what they said they would do: FORCE THE PRESIDENT TO CHANGE HIS STRATEGY. Why have we lost sight of this? Mainly because the most obvious result of the win was the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, and this happened less than a week after the election took place. IF THE DEMOCRATS HAD NOT WON, RUMSFELD WOULD NOT HAVE LEFT OFFICE. IF RUMSFELD HAD REMAINED IN OFFICE, DAVID PETRAEUS WOULD NOT BE COMMANDER OF MULITNATIONAL FORCES IN IRAQ. Donald Rumsfeld was the architect of Bush Strategy in Iraq, the current strategy in operation in Iraq is entirely the responsibility of David Petraeus. If Democrats had been truly, truly politically savvy, they would have embraced David Petraeus with open arms, saying "Here we have a rational, reasonable, intellectual, highly-educated warrior. Here we have our chance to change course." Let's RESERVE JUDGEMENT, give the NEW STRATEGY a chance to work. We want to get out of Iraq, and this is a possible way forward. If it does not work, then we can reasonably say that we have tried everything we can and pull out with our honor at least intact, even if our pride is a bit damaged.

Instead, they decided to whine for TWO YEARS STRAIGHT about a war they cannot stop. Oh but what if they cut off funding for the troops? Just imagine LA Times photographs of tables full of soldiers, entire mess halls full of American soldiers, and every plate is empty. Just imagine. Would you still vote for Democrats if you saw that? I sure as fuck would not. But the main point is that THE WAR IN IRAQ IS WINNABLE. I know that the end of the Vietnam war has demoralized the American public. You do not really believe, down in your deepest psyche, that we CAN win an all-out war. STOP BEING SUCH A BUNCH OF BABIES! So you got punched in the nose, 30 YEARS AGO! Get up! Fight! Have some self respect! Believe it or not, democracy is the best thing that has ever happened to this world. We want to keep it. And if we want to keep it, which, I assure you we do, we are going to have to fight for it. Like I said, I would not have chosen this fight at this time. But the fact is that you either elected that bastard or you allowed your friends to not vote and therefore allowed that bastard to be elected. GET OFF YOUR ASSES! VOTE in 2008, and VOTE DEMOCRAT, but don't be surprised when the democrat you elect fights on and wins the war. GODS I hate progressive extremism.