December 08, 2005
A Touch of Arrogance
from - smijer
I guess I'll have to look elsewhere for a candidate to support in the 2008 primary. It seems my erstwhile favorite, W. Clark, has become infected with a case of Big Head. He thinks that, under his brilliant leadership, the U.S. can win the war in Iraq without first ending the occupation.
The time is long past when American influence on the Iraqi political system can be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the Iraqis.
A commenter asked what Clark had in mind for a fallback position. His answer begins this way:
As for a fallback position, what I've laid out are three sets of military tasks that must be accomplished in order to get this right. As the tasks are done, it is possible to draw down troops...
In other words, there is no fallback position if those three "military tasks" cannot be accomplished. However, ...
...if the Iraqis ask us to leave, then we would simply execute a phased withdrawal, absent other compelling reaons to stay and recognizing that to remain inside a sovereign state against its will is tantamount to a continuing invasion and unsuported by law.
Well, here's a newsflash: The government won't ask us to leave until we tell them to. The people, on the other hand, already want us gone. So here's another question for General Clark: who speaks for Iraqis? They, themselves, or their political leaders?
I don't think it's too late for gestures of good faith toward the Iraqis. I don't think it's too late to earn back some good will. But we can't do it while we are at war with them. The first gesture of good faith is to end the occupation, give up the reconstruction contracts, and start paying for the reconstruction through reparations to the Iraqis. Then, if we comport ourselves as partners with rather than daddy to the Iraqi people, we might even earn enough good will to have some advisory influence in the new political process. Wouldn't that be nice.
It is going to take someone who recognizes that continuing to dig the hole is not the answer to lead our country out of these problems... General Clark is too ambitious to recognize such pessimistic truths.
::Posted by smijer at December 8, 2005 07:50 AM
Good luck in your search for an anti-war candidate. Please list any and all such candidates that you find. I will be glad to give them my consideration.
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Posted by Buck on December 8, 2005 08:28 AM Link to comment |
Trusting the results of this poll is like trusting a "secret military poll" that suggests 65% of Iraqi's believe it's better to die in a car bomb than live to a ripe old age and die peacefully in their sleep. The results are so outlandishly illogical and senseless, not to mention derived in "secret" that I'm surprised it doesn't carry a Weekly World News byline.
To suggest that 65% of Iraqis support attacks on Allies and 1% or less of Iraqis believe Allied help is improving security in their country suggests the citizens are completely unintelligent savages, which if I were an Iraqi I would be insulted.
If you poll two people whether the sky is blue, and one says yes and the other says no, it's pink polka dotted - you wouldn't conclude that 50% of the people think the sky is blue, you'd conclude 50% of the people are nuts. But the Iraqi's aren't nuts, and they aren't stupid. So how in the world can you believe this poll?
Don't grasp for straws on every random poll you might run across - you have to think these things through logically.
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Posted by Barry on December 8, 2005 10:18 AM Link to comment |
Well, this poll is a little older, but it essentially says the same thing.
I don't remember Iraqi approval for U.S. presence in Iraq polling above 50 since the weeks after the war.
The fact that they don't trust us does not mean they are ignorant savages... It means we haven't done a good job of treating them as equal partners capable of shaping their own destiny.
That's not surprising. It's a rare thing in history that a foreign power invades and occupies a country and the people there view them with trust and good will. That doesn't mean that people are ignorant savages.. It doesn't mean they are nuts. It's the natural reaction... There are nuts in Iraq, but they don't really compare with Don Rumsfeld and his ilk.
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Posted by smijer on December 8, 2005 10:58 AM Link to comment |
Barry as you already know I am a little slow on the uptake but do you believe that a majority of the Iraqi people want our troops to stay in Iraq and that a majority of the Iraqi people believe that our presence there makes them safer?
If your answer is yes did you arrive at that conclusion by reading other polling data?
I distinctly remember reading reports that the Iraqi government even wants us out but I also remember reading reports where the Iraqi government wants us to stay.
There are mixed signals coming out of Iraq and I have no way of knowing what the majority of the Iraqi's want, polling or no polling.
The only thing I can be sure of is what I want and of course nobody cares what I want.
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Posted by Buck on December 8, 2005 12:13 PM Link to comment |
Senator Russ Feingold is positioning himself as an "anti-war" candidate for the 2008 primary.
FWIW..
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Posted by joe public on December 8, 2005 12:22 PM Link to comment |
There's a big difference between Iraqis wanting us out of their country eventually, and wanting us out of their country now.
Of course they want us out of their country eventually - that's a given. 100%, probably, want the US out of Iraq. When their armies and government are strong enough to resist the former Baathist and current foreign terrorists that are wreaking havoc. But that caveat isn't added into the poll results. You assume they mean right now, and any Iraqi that wants peace and freedom who believes if we leave them now - to the tender mercies of fundamentalist Islamics like Al Quaeda and the remnants of Saddam's regime - that it would be preferable than us staying, would have to be deranged...
So yeah, it's a matter of when. Later is fine, is great. If anything, that's the only way to interpret that poll.
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Posted by Barry on December 8, 2005 12:55 PM Link to comment |
I hate to be argumentative, but also from the 2004 article:
The poll's findings appeared consistent with one taken about the same time in Iraq by USA Today, CNN and Gallup, which found that 57 percent of Iraqis wanted foreign troops to leave immediately.
Again, this doesn't prove that 57% of Iraqis are insane...
I understand your pessism about the ability of Iraqis to resist the insurgency on their own. But, I also question whether - without the fuel of U.S. occupation to engender fear and anger - the insurgency would have enough steam to continue on its own.
Maybe the Iraqis feel they can better deal with the the Baathists on their own terms without the U.S. stirring up more hostilities. Maybe they feel they can bring the tiny minority of foreign terrorists under control more easily without U.S. involvement... After all, what Iraqi will give support or aid to the foreign terrorists when there are no quasi-legitimate U.S. targets there?
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Posted by smijer on December 8, 2005 01:22 PM Link to comment |
Not to try and back you into a corner, but do you think we would be looking at 5 years or more or are you thinking more like late next year?
When we decided to leave Vietnam it took us 90 days to get out so even I do not believe it is possible to get out of Iraq by tomorrow.
If it could be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the overwhelming majority of Iraqi's wanted us out and wanted us out NOW do you think we still have a moral obligation to stay to protect the non-delusional minority?
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Posted by Buck on December 8, 2005 01:25 PM Link to comment |
