Sunday, August 27, 2006

Smoking Crack in Iraq (Still)

I had to say one last thing about the Iraq situation before leaving on a short vacation.

Saturday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki again called for an end to sectarian violence in that country. The same day, police found 20 bodies in various districts of Baghdad. Sunday, Reuters reports, a car bomb killed nine people in central Baghdad. This was after a car bomb attack on the offices of the government owned newspaper al-Sabah that killed two people.

All this occurred in the middle of a major security operation being conducted in Baghdad by U.S. and Iraqi troops.

Bombs also exploded on Sunday in the Iraqi towns of Khalis and Kirkuk.

In late June, Malaki proposed a 24 point national reconciliation plan that included an amnesty offer to insurgents who had not been involved in terrorist attacks. This was interpreted by many to mean that insurgents who had only fought U.S. and other coalition occupying forces would not be considered criminals. As of late August, according to Reuters, no major Sunni rebel group has signed on to the reconciliation plan.

Earlier this week, young Mister Bush said, “We’re not leaving [Iraq] so long as I’m the president. That would be a huge mistake.”

"Not leaving" is the closest thing Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their yes sir generals have come to expressing a coherent strategy in Iraq. Don't be taken in by talk that the administration just isn't good at explaining the strategy to the American people. The administration is good at explaining everything from ignoring treaties to justifying torture to ignoring the constitution to exposing the identity of a CIA agent to…

They can't explain the strategy for "victory" in Iraq because there isn't one.

Last October, I identified the top Ten Bad Reasons to Stay in Iraq. You still hear some of these bromides bouncing around the echo chamber, and they sound every bit as ridiculous as they did ten months ago.

But what we're hearing more and more lately is something I call the "testosterone challenge." If we leave Iraq now, we'll show that Americans are weak, don't have the stomach to do what needs to be done, are lacking in resolve. Lacking in resolve… Brother. I've said it before: getting in a bar fight over a girl you just met shows resolve. Waking up in jail with two missing teeth and three broken ribs shows how stupid you are. Going back to the same bar and getting in the same fight over the same girl is utter insanity.

What we're doing in Iraq right now is even worse than that. We're standing in the middle of somebody else's bar fight, and our political leaders are trying to convince us we're all a bunch of sissies if we don't stay in the middle of it.

Staying in Iraq won't prevent the country from falling into a civil war. It's already fallen into a civil war, one that's spiraling into near-total Hobbesian conflict (which we can't prevent either.) The war hawks warn us that if we leave Iraqi the chaos may spill out into the rest of the Gulf region, but our presence there certainly isn't preventing that from happening. We can't contain the violence within Iraq itself--if it spreads across the borders, there's nothing we'll be able to do about it.

So if we can't stop the violence inside Iraq and can't keep it from spreading, what are we doing? There is no military solution, and no amount of American "political will" can change that reality. What we need is the kind of political will it takes to say, "enough is enough."

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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:54 PM

    Just some logics:

    If your president said:
    “We’re not leaving [Iraq] so long as I’m the president. That would be a huge mistake.”
    then just throw him out of office and get rid of Iraq.
    Is impeachment possible in America now? Maybe after November's mid-term elections?

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  2. As much as I'd like to be, I can't get too enthusiastic over the prospects of impreachment.

    And, my word, who would that leave in charge?

    Jeff

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  3. I'll miss your commentaries while you're gone, but I'm glad you can take some time away from the madness. To do otherwise is to court profound despair.

    As far as impeachments go - you can go quite a ways down the line of succession and not find a satisfactory candidate, but would we really be worse off? That said, isn't it sometimes necessary to act on principle, to demonstrate to other potential tyrants that we will not stand for such malfeasance(s)?

    Even if the only result of impeachment(s) is to raise our standing and credibility in the world, that could be of great value. I am personally ashamed of our country's world presence, and feel that to be a great loss. It does not enhance our national security in the least to act without an ethical base and to use our military strength to intimidate and yes, terrorize, those weaker than we are.

    When our leaders behave like the worst sort of imperialists, and speak of (and direct) crusades, and endeavor only to wield the biggest stick against all comers and picking fights on false pretenses, we the people are made to look like asses for letting them persist. That and our complicity in the crimes being committed in our names (and on our dime) should sicken all of us. Impeachment is the only remedy we have in our arsenal.

    Anyhow, we all do need a break now and then, because burnt out we are useless. Take care, Jeff, and do your best to leave all this behind for your short reprieve.

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  4. Kathleen,

    Yes, a week off is just what the head doctor ordered. Have you seen the Isikoff article on Armitage's role in the Plame case? How in the wide world of sports and arts is this just coming out now?

    I tend to lean toward Mus's views regarding impeachments. Everything Bush has done was covered by a legal opinion from Berto or Ashcroft or one of their boys. I'm sure that was a Cheney touch--remember who Cheney used to work for.

    Yeah, I know it's a dodge, and Mus doesn't like the analogy, but I liken it to being to get off anything by hiring a lawyer to tell you it's okay.

    "But your honor, my attorney said it was okay to drink and drive."

    Ah, well.

    Elections are coming, and things are likely to get wild and wooly after Labor Day.

    See you all then.

    Jeff

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  5. I don’t think it is fair or accurate to label those who support impeachment proceedings against Bush as being a partisan stance, or as taking revenge for Clinton’s impeachment trial (stupid and overreaching as it was).

    Speaking for myself and those with whom I have discussed this at length, there are plenty who support Bush’s impeachment based strictly upon cause: he has broken the law and has violated his oath of office and is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands, and the torture of untold numbers. My opinion of the man is irrelevant in the face of the evidence against him.

    And, are these fellows “partisans”?

    “[President Bush] presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law, [and if he] maintains this disregard or contempt for the coordinate branches of government, it’s that conception of an omnipotent presidency that makes the occupant a dangerous person.”
    - Bruce Fein, former associate deputy attorney general under Reagan, quoted by Lewis Lapham in Harper’s Magazine, March 2006.

    “I think that if we’re going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed.”
    - Norman Ornstein, scholar at the (conservative) American Enterprise Institute, quoted by Lewis Lapham in Harper’s Magazine, March 2006.

    Personally I think Bush and Cheney belong in the dock of the Hague, but as Americans, we're limited to impeachment as a course of remediation.

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  6. Anonymous2:43 PM

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RUMSFELD?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-08-29-02-29-12

    Thought this was interesting. Typical response to those not down with the war.

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  7. Rummy. I could just vomit.

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