At the risk of making the mistake of responding to some anonymous "entity" that commented to my post on
Iraq Today, I feel it necessary to do so. The gentleman/woman who posted the third comment to my short answer had this to say:
Splendidly devoid of content, or of consequence. And I don't believe for a second you actually attended law school.
First, whoever you are, you have already lost all credibility. You have no arguments, you resort to insults. By trying to belittle me you show that you cannot engage in rational debate. For this reason alone, I shouldn't continue on. But I will.
And yes, I did graduate from law school,
with honors, thank you.
That you can answer one objection to the war (viz., that the failure to internationalize the war effort has made it needlessly costly, in dollars and lives, to Americans) with the _wonderful_ observation that the justification for war, this time around, was not all that compelling as compared to the '91 operation---well, it brings a tear to the eye of educators everywhere.
Perhaps you should read my post again. I was merely making the point that this time there was no
obvious reason to go war. There is a difference between what is easy to perceive and what is compelling. I believe there is a compelling reason to take action in the Middle East to strike a blow at the collective psychology of both the twisted oppressors who rule those countries and the feeling of impotence of the citizenry who are held in the death grip of totalirianism, economic ruin, rancid misinformation, and a culture of death and violence. You and I could argue all day, provided you promise not to hurl personal insults at me, where and when the best time would be take action against those who enslave their own peoples. But I will not fault the President for taking the action he did. No American leader has taken the fight to this region where long-standing political instability and pathological religious zealotry has finally brought death and destruction to our own shores. Maybe you feel comfortable that 9/11 was an isolated event and that the hatred of America felt by radical Islam is confined to Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. I personally do not feel this way. Saddam was the loudest in a chorus of Middle Eastern leaders who called for and supported the deaths of Americans and Israelis. I'm glad to have him in a box rather than plotting our destruction. So I move on to your questions to try to enlighten you...whoever you are.
Let me ask you, as I'm genuinely bewildered: How is it that pro-war folks can respond to a seemingly straightforward question (was the war worth it), in endless repetitions and recombinations of the same old argument, without ever, not _once_, connecting the following four necessary elements of the answer:
1) What goals you hoped to accomplish;
Like I mentioned both in my original post and above, I hope for a change in collective psychology and culture. Perhaps you are a professor or professional student. If you are the educator I caused to cry earlier, I apologize. If you are either of these, or perhaps had been one at one time (you did use "viz." nicely), then you might also be the type of person who believes that the world's problems are our fault or perhaps legacy of the countries that once colonized depressed regions around the world. Yes, colonization has had quite adverse consequences in many parts of the world. But at what point do the people in those places take responsibility for themselves? Perhaps you are also of the mindset that Western culture is spoiling everyone else's cultures in the third world. Fine. I have heard that one too.
But there are some cultures or collective psychologies that are not compatible with the peace, freedom, and liberty that most individuals on this planet would like to enjoy. Maybe you read today's Wall Street Journal article about the brisk market for beheading DVD's in Iraq. Or you have seen the video of children wearing mock suicide vests, receiving fake grenades and machine guns as holiday gifts, or even kicking and beating the corpses of dead Americans in Fallujah. Horrific stuff! But all done with the encouragement of the culture, of the leadership, and of the warped reading of the religion of Islam by the zealots. As an example, a professor of mine in law school (yes, I did go AND graduate...with honors) visited Iran to meet with contemporaries in the Iranian legal profession. He reported to us that every day, the complimentary Iranian newspaper outside his hotel was filled with stories of the American and Israeli conspiracies to commit nearly every terrible event that occurred the previous day. Al Jazeera and the like perpetuate these same myths about Americans and Jews. And we are supposed to feel safe? That this forced feeding of virulent misinformation will not come back to bite us, say in the form of planes crashing into New York, DC, and Pennsylvania? Should we sit back and let the hatred spread? To let the mythological information become the ingrained reality? The prism through which these people are forced to view the world? That is the proverbial powder keg.
It is exactly that mindset that must be smashed. Maybe you would argue that we should educate them. Reason with them. Unfortunately, the UN, France, Germany, and Russia are not in the forefront of the movement. In fact, they participated in corruption as full partners with Saddam, and these missing "allies" were the main suppliers of his military machine. You might also remember that the majority of the 9/11 attackers were well educated by Western universities.
So to answer your question, I hope that in the long run, the collective psychology and culture can be changed, so that East and West could come together as full partners in progressing as a race of men, rather than, as warring factions, reducing each other to dust.
2) How, in terms either specific or general, the war would actually accomplish your purported goals;
Like most doubters and defeatists, you take a very short view of conflict. Perhaps you ask yourself what this war means for you personally? I don't look at it that way. I guess I take the longview. Thomas Paine said it best, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." I believe in sacrifice today for the good of all down the road. It needn't be during my own lifetime.
So in general terms, how will this war accomplish my "purported" goals? First, I believe that should we be successful, by bringing the Iraqis the freedom to choose their own destinies through representative government, the world will be one country further down the road toward those benefits for all. A free Iraq is beneficial to the United States in that it removes another unstable, terror-friendly (pardon the oxymoron) state from the map and replaces it with one that hopefully will recognize that participation in commerce and debate on the world stage is the best path to prosperity and liberty. At some point, I would hope that the word gets out that a free Iraq could also be a free Saudi Arabia, or a free Syria, or importantly, a free Iran. Leaving these countries in the hands of heavily armed dictators has not made us safer and has not benefited the people in those countries. Look at Africa, for example. It is a continent largely left alone since the colonial powers abandoned them. Show me the success story. Show me the country with a brutal, violent dictator that has seen him deposed, exiled, or otherwise removed from power and that has replaced that individual with a healthy, stable, representative government. It doesn't exist. And unfortunately, as weapons have become more powerful and tightly controlled by violent rulers, the possibility of an 18th century-style civil rebellion has declined proportionally. Today, the United States has the military might to give the oppressed people of Iraq and other countries the boost they might need to take control of their own destinies.
Only those removed from feeling for his fellow man could look at the hundreds of thousands of everyday Iraqis killed under Saddam and feel that the sacrifices of our soldiers were not worth it for the sake of saving tens of thousands more Iraqi lives.
3) What costs you feared would be attendant on the war; and
What costs? Lives. Thousands of lives were predicted to be lost on the American side in the fight for Baghdad alone. Each one a tragedy. But a person can separate tragedy from honor. Nobody wants war. I am always conflicted by it. For the reasons I stated above, looking to the potential long term benefits, I believe firmly that each and every American life is worth the lives of thousands more human lives both today and in the future. The returns on the lives of each American will be exponential. Already today, thousands of Iraqis a month once destined for Saddam's mass graves, get to continue to walk the earth because of our fallen soldiers. And when Iraq holds its elections, and the people take the power back that rightfully belongs to them and move their country forward, great things can be accomplished. You, Mr. or Ms. Nameless, might not be able to fathom this optimism, since you have already conceeded defeat. Here we just agree to disagree. But I still believe in the long run, Iraqi prosperity, as a result of this war, will be accomplished.
Other costs: several hundred billion dollars in the short term, and into the trillions over the course of our participation in the years to come. But are not lives more important than dollars? Do you still have your SUVs and big screen TVs? Americans are blessed with more wealth than anyone else, the world over. More money is traded daily on the New York Stock Exchange than most countries produce in an entire year. I have been in a third world country and those memories will always be burned into my brain. It is madness to compare the relatively miniscule military costs of this war to the poverty, the horror, and the death attendant to living not just in a failed country, but one lorded over by a sadistic madman. Will I trade some of the luxuries of my American life to give life itself to a destitute and broken people? Without a moment's hesitation.
4) Whether the benefits of achieving your objectives outweighed the costs of your chosen method of pursuing them.
You, Whoever You Are, are undoubtedly familiar with the impotence of the United Nations. You are aware of the corrupt ties with Saddam that many in the UN, France, Germany, and Russia had. As a consequence of 9/11, you are aware of the consequences of limited military action combined with appeasement of broken, terror supporting states in the wake of several terror attacks on US interests over a period of more than 20 years. My objective is the reordering of a mentality and a way of governance in an historically unstable and strategically important region of the world. It is a mentality of violence, death, and hatred fueled by propaganda. It is ingrained, and the only reality that many of these people know. Combine the mindset with the ease of transport of weapons and terror devices, with the shrinking of the world through advances in transportation and the recipe for horror within our borders is set. In a perfect world, perhaps a campaign of reason and debate would accomplish my goal over the extremely long run. But this is a critical time, and we do not have the luxury to wait. 9/11 reminds us of that. Unfortuntely, the use of our overwhelming military strength is best method we have available to change minds through the aid of the liberating power of the lightning quick use of force. Certainly the proper exercise of their new freedom will be learned over time. But we have taken the sword out of the hands of a madman and continue to work to give the Iraqis their country back. The next few years may seem like an eternity, but we don't have the luxury of simply waiting one for the hatred in the radical Islamic world to subside.
