Transterrestrial Musings

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Glad you posted this I needed somewhere to disgorge. The spin ain't over yet evidently.

Flipping through the channels I find MTV is showing some kind of post election kaka. They are talking to a group of 20somethings in Iraq.

MTV Shill: ..are you happy the Americans are here?

Farrah 21: I was happy at first when the Americans came, but now.....(she trailed off)

I would let her have this opinion and agree not to say anything, HOWEVER!!! Farrah is sitting in a coffe shop, at a table with 2 young women and 3 men, she is drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. She IS NOT wearing a burkah and the young men are all clean shaven and all are well dressed in western style clothes. Now lets see how any of that would have been allowed just months ago. None of it!!

Saddam had the country hardly eating much less socializing in coffee shops in mixed sex groups.The religious police were happily doing their Islamic best to keep order. These kids looked like 20something kids from any where in this country. The lights were on, music was playing in the background, sounded like any kids radio here at NCSU to me.

I remember the faces of those same age kids 6 or 8 months ago on CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN. They were scared of dying in a war with us, or at the hands of Saddam's goofy sons. Now we are the bad guys, AGAIN, according to MTV anyway.

Sometimes I really think we should fold up the tent build a hell of a big wall around this land of ours and let the goofy U.S. hating trash of the world fight it out!! THEN we can pick up the pieces and have to feed far fewer people, who in 6 months will hate us AGAIN!!

Posted by Steve at November 3, 2004 06:29 AM

It appears Bush won.

It is also true that a 90% Bush approval rating has fallen to around 50% over the last few years.

The truth about Iraq and the economy shall become obvious over the next four years. America has made its choice, there is no more reason to shout or argue. Or listen to the media.

Lets just see what happens, now.

Posted by Bill White at November 3, 2004 06:30 AM

Farrah is sitting in a coffe shop, at a table with 2 young women and 3 men, she is drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. She IS NOT wearing a burkah and the young men are all clean shaven and all are well dressed in western style clothes. Now lets see how any of that would have been allowed just months ago. None of it!!

Well, actually, that's not true. Saddam is and was a vile man and brutal dictator, but he didn't have religious police. His was a nominally secular regime.

What that woman wouldn't have been allowed to do was to express her opinion freely. Or walk home unfearful that she might be picked up on the street by Uday and raped, then disposed of.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 3, 2004 06:35 AM

Yup. Now Iraqi women are raped by random total strangers rather than the sons of vile leaders.

;-)

Rand, the time to argue about Iraq is over. Lets agree to chat again in a year or two and we can evaluate how well the Bush plan for Iraq has played out.

By the way, I predict NO al Qaeda attacks on US soil for the foreseeable future. bin Laden will want the drip, drip, drip of US casualties to not be drowned out by a new attack on our homeland.

Not an argument, a prediction. And I am often wrong.

Posted by Bill White at November 3, 2004 07:00 AM

Now Iraqi women are raped by random total strangers rather than the sons of vile leaders.

To the limited degree that that may be true, it's just as true in this country, and there is now a chance that the rapist will be caught and prosecuted. If you're going to use that as a standard of success, then ending apartheid was a failure, since South Africa has more rapes per capita than any place on earth...

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 3, 2004 07:10 AM

I predict NO al Qaeda attacks on US soil for the foreseeable future. bin Laden will want the drip, drip, drip of US casualties to not be drowned out by a new attack on our homeland.

I hope your prediction is correct, and think that it may be, though not for the dumb reason you state. It's because they can't. If Al Qaeda was capable of doing anything more to us than making video tapes, they would have done it in the past few days.

And the US casualties are no longer an issue, with no election in prospect. Americans are willing to tolerate casualties, in much higher numbers than we've had in Iraq, as long as we're perceived to be winning the war. Fallujah and Ramadi are about to find that out in a big way, to pave the way for the elections in January.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 3, 2004 07:14 AM

I rarely agree with Bill White, but this time I do. It is in Al Qaeda's interests to strike at our allies in order to drive a wedge between them and US, much like they did in Madrid. Rand, you are correct about Americans' tolerance to casualties as long as we're perceived to be winning. And perception is everything. I expect more attacks on Americans in Middle East (not just in Iraq), aimed exactly to create "perception of defeat". Whether they will succeed in creating such perception is a different story.

Posted by Ilya at November 3, 2004 07:42 AM

I rarely agree with Bill White, but this time I do. It is in Al Qaeda's interests to strike at our allies in order to drive a wedge between them and US, much like they did in Madrid. Rand, you are correct about Americans' tolerance to casualties as long as we're perceived to be winning. And perception is everything. I expect more attacks on Americans in Middle East (not just in Iraq), aimed exactly to create "perception of defeat". Whether they will succeed in creating such perception is a different story.

I agree with all of this. . .

:-)

Posted by Bill White at November 3, 2004 11:21 AM

I suspect the reason the young Iraq woman said what she did is simply because it got her on the news. Hi, Mom! Look who's "The Arab Street" today! Being interviewed by American TV! Heck, it might get her invited to sit on a CNN panel of experts, too.

Posted by Carl Pham at November 3, 2004 11:46 AM

Yup. Now Iraqi women are raped by random total strangers rather than the sons of vile leaders.

What a strange thing to say. Have you really thought it through?

You would prefer crime be nationalized instead of left in the hands of individual entrepreneurs? Good grief.

...bin Laden will want the drip, drip, drip of US casualties to not be drowned out by a new attack on our homeland.

I'm sorry, but this is equally weird. The best way to win a war is to reduce the rate at which you kill your enemies? Wow, who'd have guessed?

If only Lincoln had known this wisdom, he could have saved the lives of a lot of Union boys. Just retreat the Army of the Potomac to Washington and sit tight, sending a few sharpshooters into Virginia to set up the drip, drip, drip of Confederate casualties that would show 'em who's boss a whole lot faster than something as bone-headed as killing ten thousand greycoats in a single day and burning whole Southern cities to the ground.

Posted by Carl Pham at November 3, 2004 12:02 PM

[i]...bin Laden will want the drip, drip, drip of US casualties to not be drowned out by a new attack on our homeland.

I'm sorry, but this is equally weird. The best way to win a war is to reduce the rate at which you kill your enemies? Wow, who'd have guessed? [/i]

When you have no chance of outright victory YET a lot of your enemies are not taking you seriously, striking at what the said enemies perceive as minor interests not really worth fighting for may well be your best tactic. The idea is to "make them give up in disgust". OTOH, an action which makes the said enemies feel that they are personally in danger would make them take you seriously (and get seriously mad) VERY quickly.

Basically, it is a strategy aimed at the lazy and the decadent.

Posted by Ilya at November 3, 2004 05:47 PM

> Rand, the time to argue about Iraq is over.

And yet, you still do.

Or do you simply mean everyone should accept your nonsense as fact and not argue with you? :-)

> I predict NO al Qaeda attacks on US soil for the foreseeable future. bin Laden
> will want the drip, drip, drip of US casualties to not be drowned out
> by a new attack on our homeland.

Gosh, Bill, what happened to the vast armies of new Al-Queda recruits you blamed the United States (of course) for creating???

Only you could interpret the lack of a terrorist attack as a sign that we're losing the war on terror.

Posted by Edward Wright at November 3, 2004 07:01 PM

Edward Wright, I will say this one last time.

My opinions have not changed. I believe the Bush policies will lead to an increasingly awful FUBAR throughout the Middle East. That said, the election is over. My position was rejected and America chose a different course.

The election was legitimate. Bush has a mandate for his vision of the war. I disagree, but I have one voice and one vote and I lost. I accept that.

Therefore, I will remain relatively quiet and watch to see if the Bush strategy for Iraq actually works. If within a reasonable period of time we have a stable, prosperous, reasonably secular Iraq, I will praise Bush for his wisdom and vision. But not before real success on the ground. No criticism, and no praise until we see results on the ground.

I sincerely hope good things happen in Iraq for the sake of many, many millions of human beings. After today, I shall keep my fears to myself and simply hope for the best.

To those of you who would rather argue with me, sorry, mates, the time to argue is over.

= = =

PS - - I have some radical space exploration ideas I will be quite happy to argue about (vociferously!) in the near future.

But not Iraq or the 2004 election. Its history, done, and GWB is our legitimate President. End of story.

Posted by Bill White at November 3, 2004 07:19 PM

Basically, it is a strategy aimed at the lazy and the decadent.

Ilya, if you were talking about a lazy and decadent individual, you might have a case. If someone sued me for $100, I'd probably just write them a check. For $100,000, I'm going to call my lawyer.

But if you are talking about a nation, as you are, I think the argument is misleading. For one thing, you assume the experience of the "drip" is uniform, or at least averageable in some obvious way. But it's not. If your son is one of the "drips" then it isn't at all a "minor" interest, it's more than enough for you to draw your knife. On the other hand, if you don't know the guy at all your experience is very different. Is it mere nuisance? I don't think so. Most people are pretty empathic. It's probably more like a horror movie -- something very nasty, but which you know you won't be thinking about an hour from now.

In any event, I think it is impossible to sum up or average the emotional reaction of a large group or nation in an easily comprehensible way that will let us predict the general reaction. That's why it's not so hard to understand why an individual soldier does what he does in a given battle situation, but very much harder to understand why a whole army does what they do in a battle. That's also why extrapolating from polls or anecdotes or what your neighbors think to the results of a national election is so notoriously unproductive.

So I think there's little chance we can successfully predict how a whole nation will respond to "drip, drip, drip."
But what Lincoln (and W) know is that in one extreme case -- when you threaten a nation or group with utter annihilation -- then you can predict the reaction. When every man thinks the Grim Reaper is coming for him and everyone he knows, the averaging is suddenly easy to do and we can predict the response of the nation or group quite accurately.

It would certainly be wonderful if we knew enough Asmimovian "psychohistory" to be able to predict the effects of "drip drip drip" on ourselves. But, heck, if we could do that, we could probably also predict exactly what kind of pressure to apply to the Middle East to eliminate terrorism. And we wouldn't need to have all these bitter arguments over foreign policy.

Posted by Carl Pham at November 4, 2004 12:31 AM

Bill White:

What an odd argument, that w/ the election over, the time to argue about Iraq is over as well.

Either this war was the right policy or it wasn't. If it wasn't, as you seem to believe, then shutting up about it makes little sense.

Even if the war is the right policy, that hardly argues for simply shutting up, since mistakes nonetheless happen in war. (Look at the Pelelieu campaign, frex.)

Thus, if you believe that the war is likely to produce massive armies of al-Qaeda recruits, presumably that belief outlasts the single-day affair of an election. Otherwise, one might be tempted to believe that your argument was simply hot-air, made w/o actual belief in its validity, which speaks ill of your credibility? More to the point, if such armies are not appearing, does it not call into question your previous assessment that the war was/is a failure?

Conversely, the idea of simply protracting the war is certainly a possibility (albeit w/ the weaknesses others have noticed). But that flies in the face of what such a war is likely to achieve, given al-Qaeda's ostensible goals. Not an invalid suggestion---but one that does contradict your earlier arguments.

Posted by Dean at November 4, 2004 08:09 AM

Carl --

I did not make it clear - I do not personally think US is "lazy and decadent". However, it is how it was widely believed in the Arab world until very recently, for all I know many Arabs still believe it, and OBL and his cohorts MUST believe it because if US is neither lazy nor decadent, then their goose is cooked. Consequently I assume they will base their strategy on this assumption.

Posted by Ilya at November 4, 2004 08:17 AM

What an odd argument, that w/ the election over, the time to argue about Iraq is over as well.

Continued shouting and argument will only interfere with calm and objective measurement of the reality on the ground in Iraq in the months and years to come.

On November 2nd, President Bush won the right to fight the "War on Terror" using the strategies he advocates. A legitimate election, a legitimate choice. America has spoken and chosen.

I must honor and respect that decision if I also wish to value our Ameerican tradition.

Therefore, all I am saying is that I will refrain from screeds attacking that strategy and simply let reality, as it unfolds, demonstrate whether we made a wise decision on November 2nd. A reality that will not unfold in days or weeks or months and which may not unfold for years.

The time to argue is over, we must all work together to achieve the best possible outcome.

I hope and pray that my personal analysis is proven wrong, for if I am proven wrong that will also mean there will be considerably less death and suffering than I foresee.

We have shouted at each for too long. Sometimes excessive shouting prevents people from hearing the truth.

Can anyone disagree with that?

Posted by Bill White at November 4, 2004 09:35 AM

Consequently I assume they will base their strategy on this assumption.

Up to a point, I agree with you. That is, I think without doubt they will say these things, and perhaps believe them consciously.

But we must recognize that much of a person (or group's) motivation is unspoken, if not unconscious. Furthermore, what people say about their motivation is quite often directly contradictory to what their underlying motivation is. For example, a liar tends to go on and on about how truthful he is, or at least about how deceitful others are (recent examples spring to mind, I'm sure). Someone with a personal ax to grind will emphasize how altruistic he's being. And so forth. The reasons are complex, but among them are certainly the desire to distract your enemies from your real mainspring.

Of course, assessing true underlying motivations is notoriously difficult. Our only hope is to look at what people do, not at what they say.

If we look at what OBL and his cohort do, we can probably conclude that you are right that they did not consider the US all that dangerous before 2001. They did not believe attacking it would result in their immediate and total destruction. But I think if we look at what they've done since then (bloody attacks in Russia and Spain, sending a rather mild videotape hinting compromise to the US) it's hard not to conclude that this belief has changed.

Whatever they might say, the actions of OBL and aQ suggest that they now consider the US a much more dangerous and unpredictable opponent. In that sense, W has already won a major and significant battle.

Interestingly, from this point of view the hysterical suggestions on the left and in Old Europe that W is Attila the Hun have clearly been of great use to us. Attila was someone to be very afraid of. If you had issues with Attila you went to his tent and spoke respectfully, keeping your hands in plain sight at all times.

Posted by Carl Pham at November 4, 2004 11:10 AM

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