Transterrestrial Musings

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What is beyond dispute is that Saddam Hussein had far less connection to Al Qaeda, 9/11, the Taliban or radical Islam generally than, notably, the United Arab Emirates. Invading the UAE would probably been terrible too, but it would have been a smaller mistake than invading Iraq.

As often happens, an ideology of zero tolerance opens the door profoundly hypocritical, self-defeating actions. It allows in all kinds of ulterior motives. After all, Bush even tried to cut a port deal with the UAE. In this case it happens to be zero tolerance of even the most tenuous association with Islamic terrorism, but it's a property of zero tolerance in general.

Posted by at April 15, 2007 11:46 AM

It's a pity we won't have the opportunity to interrogate Saddam with a new generation of mind altering chemicals and brain scans. When there are unexplained events of this nature, even if highly improbable, agitating the gray matter of every lucid person, it makes sense to keep someone on death row alive. The problem with killing someone is that it's very hard to do the second interview.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at April 15, 2007 12:32 PM

I would allow for the sake of argument that Saddam might have had some association with Al Qaeda. My next response is: So what! It doesn't make for a causus belli. Most of the nations of the subcontinent from Turkey to Pakistan had or have some affiliation with Al Qaeda. The United States had an affiliation with Al Qaeda when The United States, together with the Saudis, bankrolled the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan during the 80's. The Al Qaeda connection was the weakest and stupidest argument for the invasion of Iraq. I don't understand why the war mongers still bandy it about. If they would admit it was lame to begin with and stop arguing the point then no one would be able to conflate it with anything else.

Posted by Jardinero1 at April 15, 2007 01:21 PM

It doesn't make for a causus belli.

Not by itself, no. But it can be *a* casus belli, if not *the* one. This is the error that those opposed to the war make (well, actually, it's not an error, it's a dishonest debating tactic). They pick at each an every individual justification, and then claim that it can't be a justification, because if it were, we would have removed dictators in countries X, Y or Z. This doesn't allow for the reality that it was a combination of factors that justified it, no single individual one.

The Al Qaeda connection was the weakest and stupidest argument for the invasion of Iraq. I don't understand why the war mongers still bandy it about.

Only because the appeasers continue to bandy about its opposite as a straw man (claiming that the administration has claimed that Saddam had something to do with 911, which it never has), which is the part of the point of this post.

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 15, 2007 01:30 PM

Can you prove you weren't "involved" with 9/11, Rand?

Posted by Brian Swiderski at April 15, 2007 01:50 PM

This doesn't allow for the reality that it was a combination of factors that justified it, no single individual one.

It's just the way that the world works that whenever a plan doesn't make any sense, its defenders say that it was done for a combination of reasons.

"Son, why on earth did you fill my car with shaving cream?"

"It's a long story, dad; it was for a combination of reasons."

Posted by at April 15, 2007 02:00 PM

It's just the way that the world works that whenever a plan doesn't make any sense, its defenders say that it was done for a combination of reasons.

No, sometimes they have other excuses. Of course, this seems like a non-sequitur, since one must distinguish between the "plan" (whatever that means) making sense, and the goal doing so. The goal of removing Saddam, made, and continues to make sense, for a number of reasons, attempts at obfuscation (i.e., more non-sequiturs and straw men) aside.

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 15, 2007 02:31 PM

9/11 proved that the Islamists' 30-year old war against civilization is nearing the endgame. They have no compunction about launching simultaneous attacks without warning, and they're perfectly serious in preferring to die "gloriously" killing as many Westerners as possible, perfectly confident that God is on their side and what happens afterward on Earth is irrelevant. Therefore, we have to stop them before they get nuclear weapons, or they will destroy the whole civilized world.

We have two options for answering them. Plan A, the Bush plan, is to try to effect a cultural change in the Middle East, starting with Iraq as the most strategically-important place (and, as it happened, a nation that had never abided by the terms of the 1992 peace agreement, which in itself was a sufficient casus belli). Plan A has been criticized for having little chance of success.

Plan B is to nuke the whole Mideast into one big puddle of molten glass.

No one has proposed a Plan C.

So, I'm all for pursuing plan A for as long as it has any chance at all, till the last possible moment. The people who keep arguing that the Bush plan has failed, in my mind, are arguing for plan B.

Because we cannot, cannot, let these people get nukes. What do you care about? Space exploration? Longevity research? Civil liberties? Sexual liberation? Feminism? Artistic expression? Nanotechnology? A second season for Firefly? Say goodbye to all that if the Islamists get nukes. Remember, they won't be giving us any warning. And they won't be deterred by any retaliation we have ready for them for after the fact.

We have to win this, one way or the other.

Posted by Mark at April 15, 2007 03:10 PM

We have to win this, one way or the other.

Posted by Mark at April 15, 2007 03:10 PM

This I agree with...the problem is that this administration has failed utterly at its campaign.

The depth of the failure is hard to fathom...It has failed in at least three areas.

The first is to estimate in any competent fashion the magnitude of the job.

The second is to reorganize (or organize) the federal government to the magnitude of the task..

The third is to level with the American people and keep them "informed" as to what the fight is about and how the fight is going...

OK the third is the subject. The reason the Administration is losing the PR battle to the likes of John Murtha is that it has never not a single time come up with a rationale for the war that has any sticking power with the American people....and the Al Queda pre 9/11 link is one of them.

They might have not "explicitly" drawn the link...but they did everything but explicitly draw it... As I watched MTP and Zinni Russert played some lines from Cheney that sound almost laughable..."WE KNOW this or WE KNOW that"...

and they didnt "KNOW" any of the sort.

They have lost all credibility with the American people because of it....and hence winning is difficult.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at April 15, 2007 03:21 PM

We have to win this, one way or the other.

You might as well get all the treason accusations out of your system, because the next president will pull out of Iraq ignominiously. The writing is on the wall, many times over.

Cultural change in the Middle East is a fine goal, but the invasion of Iraq is a case study in changing the local culture for the worse, not for the better. Good intentions are just not good enough --- especially if it is more the gullible flock than their leaders who espouse them. Besides good intentions, you also have to use the right methods. You can't clean a lace dress with a vacuum cleaner, you can't make a good omelette with an acetylene blow torch, and you can't improve Arab culture with a foreign invasion.

Actually, you can't improve any nation's culture with a foreign invasion. The best that a foreign invasion can do is restore benevolent cultural traditions that were already there. That is the difference between Japan and Germany on the one hand and Iraq on the other hand. Even Afghanistan's latent culture was at least less bad than the Taliban. Cultural reform takes decades and requires political stability.

Plan B is to nuke the whole Mideast into one big puddle of molten glass.

Here the vindictive truth comes out.

No one has proposed a Plan C.

Diplomacy is the real plan C. Even the rank and file of the Bush administration realize this, it's just the cowboys at the top who don't. To them, every foreign agreement is the Munich agreement.

Posted by at April 15, 2007 03:49 PM

Sorry old sport, your plan C didn't work too well last time when I tried it.

Posted by Neville Chamberlain at April 15, 2007 04:03 PM

Sorry old sport, your plan C didn't work too well last time when I tried it.

I've already said it. To a lot of people here, every agreement is the Munich agreement. They don't believe that there is good diplomacy and bad diplomacy. All diplomacy is a threat, unlike fighting wars.

Well, the US gave war a chance in Iraq, and it led to defeat. Defeat is already there, it's just a question of when they admit it. So you should just get the treason accusations out of your system, and think about what to do next.

Posted by at April 15, 2007 04:18 PM

Another ironic side of this history is the Yalta agreement. If diplomats are the free world's worst people, then surely Yalta was as bad as Munich. Churchill and Roosevelt were such suckers. They should have pushed on from Central Europe to Moscow. That didn't work too well for Napoleon, but maybe he didn't try hard enough. The lesson of Vietnam is that we'll succeed unless we quit.

Posted by at April 15, 2007 04:27 PM

Roosevelt and Churchill suckers? Do you realize just how much WWII devastated the Western World? Britain and France lay in ruins. Germany was being destroyed -- thankfully, given its rule by Nazis. The United States came out relatively unscathed -- but my parents' generation wanted to do something other than see people sacrificed in another war.

Posted by Chuck Divine at April 15, 2007 04:52 PM

They have lost all credibility with the American people because of it....and hence winning is difficult.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at April 15, 2007 03:21 PM

Robert,

I think you missed a fourth and at least in my mind very important area of failure. That is making us, the American people, active participants in the grand scheme. It was and remains a mistake to ask no sacrifice from us with the vision planned. A good start would have been a gas tax, linked to the war, paying for both the war and for various incentives, research and prizes leading us away from fossil fuels. As it stands, apart from the military who are giving their all in this effort, the contribution of many is a "support the troops" sticker on an SUV or discussions on a blog.

That's simply not enough to create an active participatory commitment. Thus, for many it has been reduced to a spectator sport; for a very few it is agonizingly real.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at April 15, 2007 04:53 PM

Mark says,

"So, I'm all for pursuing plan A for as long as it has any chance at all, till the last possible moment. The people who keep arguing that the Bush plan has failed, in my mind, are arguing for plan B."

That's very similar to obsesive love: "I love you so much that you have to marry me. If you won't I'm afraid I have not option but to kill you."

So who do you think we should glass? Turkey? Jordan? Dubai? Egypt? Morocco? Algeria?

Not bad enough that they are suffering at the hands of what the vast majority of them consider (just like us) extremists. We have to glass them all? It's hard to take you seriously when you offer FAKE options.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at April 15, 2007 05:02 PM

Roosevelt and Churchill suckers?

There may have been some sarcasm in those remarks, Chuck. But hey, if every agreement is like the Munich agreement...

That's very similar to obsesive love: "I love you so much that you have to marry me. If you won't I'm afraid I have not option but to kill you."

That's a good call. The war in Iraq has settled into an unpleasant love-hate relationship between American Republicans and Iraqis.

Posted by at April 15, 2007 05:10 PM

I think you missed a fourth and at least in my mind very important area of failure. That is making us, the American people, active participants in the grand scheme.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at April 15, 2007 04:53 PM

OK I dont have a problem with that, but I did (although it is not clear) have it in mind with the third failure...I was trying to be "concise".

But you make a valid point, it is an enormous failure and goes along with their "theory" (I assume) of the war.

For people like Zinni (and a lot of other people..Owens etc people of significance...and mere mortals like myself) the lead up to the war was kind of a fairly land time.

People like Mark Whittington (on this blog occassionally) were cheering about as hard as they could go. The space policy board regularly thrashed over the coming fight in Iraq and it was amazing the "fantasy" land stuff that was thrown out.

People like Cheney were more or less feeding the faithful red meat. Did you see Zinni on MTP this Sunday? When they played the Cheney clip there were two interesting observations..the first was Zinni in the audience with Cheney speaking sort of that "WTF look" and then when they came back from the clip it was sort of "Those meatheads"...

The faithful thought the second comming had arrived and the "unwashed masses" (my friend in DC's term) were just so scared of "a smoking Mushroom" they were going along.

then there was the opposition which was labeled everything from Saddam lovers to traitors. Poor Al Gore more or less nailed it and I recall how people on the Space policy board savaged him.

HE WAS RIGHT on almost everything.

It was going to be the bloodless war...the "knock down the bad guy" and reign supreme...and most of the meatheads on the right bought it.

And the administration didnt know what the Frack that they were doing.

Now we are in this long thing and the American people back home dont understand what the folks in Iraq do, because no one with a coherent phrase will support this President (and he couldnt convince people the sun was coming up in the East)...you are correct, the American people who are not in the fight or dont have relatives in it...have no stake in it...(but this is by design)...

Rummy fought a light war that is draining the military white...(almost all the "ro ro" resupply ships for everything but Korea are just about empty)...

It is surreal almost.

Zinni on MTP just sort laid it all down.

It will be a tribute to the resilancy of the American nation when we survive these dullards.

There are probably four competents in foreign policy department heads. AND THAT IS NEW THING...

LOL

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at April 15, 2007 05:16 PM

I want to make two more points:

1. The nuclear weapons in Iran thing is a red herring case for staying in Iraq if there ever was one. If the Iranians get a bomb the reason is because the Russians and the Chinese and the French let them have one. Our beef about proliferation really is with them not with the Iranians. The Iranians wouldn't have a chance without the aforementioned offering technical assistance. Why do our erstwhile, enabler allies get a pass? If we were serious we would come down way harder on the enablers.

2. Our presence next door in Iraq has hastened the Iranian effort not slowed it down. What would you do if your avowed mortal enemy was moving in next door to you? Slow down on your weapons program?

Posted by Jardinero1 at April 15, 2007 06:46 PM

why does the Right continue to harp on this? Is it really in rebuttal to the Left, or is it some misplaced attempt to continue to find a rationale for a failed foreign policy?

Posted by Andy at April 15, 2007 07:37 PM

Jeez you all sound like a bunch of ole geezers sitting out on the porch in your rockin' chairs complaining how the weather gets "Ma' rheumatoid acting up something fierce".

Who'd a thought we had such gifted and talented peoples tucked away in this web comment section with the secrets to providing eternal and glorious balance in all things foreign and domestic.

Remember though, if you come up with too many good ideas the Bush-Halliburton mind rays will seek you and you'll find yourself kidnapped by the ancient aliens.

Posted by Josh Reiter at April 15, 2007 08:25 PM

And what was Zinni's last official job, before he retired. He was head of CentCom; the command in charge of the Saudi Arabian peninsula when Al Queda was a rising force and both of the embassy attacks occurred. He was opposed to the retaliation attacks against the Afghan camps and
the El-Shifa chemical plan in Sudan. About Iraq, he planned an exercise, Desert Crossings, and he
was in charge of Desert Fox, the impeachment eve
strikes against supposed WMD's facilities,(based
on leaks of data from UNSCOM).

Posted by narciso at April 15, 2007 08:56 PM

your point is what with that rant?

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at April 15, 2007 09:58 PM

Posted by Jardinero1 at April 15, 2007 06:46 PM

sorry we have a beef with the people who gave them the technology I agree, but we have a beef with the people who are using that technology for "bad things".

Guns dont kill, people do.

We have to win in Iraq...that is a different subject then nukes in Iran , but it is part of it.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at April 15, 2007 10:00 PM

"I've already said it. To a lot of people here, every agreement is the Munich agreement. They don't believe that there is good diplomacy and bad diplomacy. All diplomacy is a threat, unlike fighting wars.

Just once I would like to hear your definition of 'defeat'. In order to do that, you must also define what would be a 'victory'.

I doubt that you can even come up with ANY definition of victory in Iraq. To me, that means your opinion is worthless as you are not even open to the possibility that any victory is possible. You have set your mind to lose. You want to lose, you are a loser.

Buh Bye

Posted by John at April 15, 2007 10:04 PM

Just once I would like to hear your definition of 'defeat'. In order to do that, you must also define what would be a 'victory'.

For the purposes of this discussion, we can use Bush's own definitions of victory and defeat, which he described in detail at

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/iraq_strategy_nov2005.html

He has a section called "The Consequences of Failure", which we can take point by point. "If we and our Iraqi partners fail in Iraq, Iraq will become," Bush said,

A safe haven for terrorists as Afghanistan once was, only this time in some of the world's most strategic territory, with vast natural resources to exploit and to use to fund future attacks.

Unfortunately, it already is.

A country where oppression -- and the brutal imposition of inhumane practices, such as those of the Taliban in Afghanistan -- is pervasive.

Unfortunately, it already is.

A failed state and source of instability for the entire Middle East, with all the attendant risks and incalculable costs for American security and prosperity.

Unfortuately, it already is.

This short run-down shows how the war in Iraq has worsened the problems that it was supposed to solve. Bush is now doing no more than kicking the can of blame down the road. That way Republican base will accuse the next president of betrayal and not him. I'm sure that Bush himself will take that side as well.

Posted by at April 15, 2007 10:27 PM

Mark, your "plan A", "plan B" stuff is a false dichotomy and just ignores all sorts of options. My take is that this is a simple carrot and stick situation. Consistently reward good behavior and harshly punish bad behavior. If some person or group is incorrigible, then kill or permanently isolate them. The issue as I see it isn't that we have kill or cure Islamists, but that global civilization (including the US) has a inconsistent, hypocritical, and ineffective approach to fighting terrorism. Aggrevating that by killing large numbers of civilians is a reprehensible nonsolution.

My take is that the problem isn't "culture" that the Middle East or other problem areas have or don't have, but rather that the rule of law needs to be widespread and fair.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at April 16, 2007 08:55 AM

My take is that the problem isn't "culture" that the Middle East or other problem areas have or don't have, but rather that the rule of law needs to be widespread and fair.

Whose law, Karl? Whose notion of "fair"? How does culture not enter into this?

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 16, 2007 09:25 AM

Posted by Karl Hallowell at April 16, 2007 08:55 AM

Not so much.

Arab society is amazingly like every other society or culture in the world.

There are in any culture somewhere between about 10 to 15 percent of the people who are more or less "leaders" and "shapers" and the rest or more or less followers....

Aa cultural movement catches "hold" when in some form or fashion the people who are "committed" enough to an idear or a "way" are able to achieve enough inertia where the "follows" start to follow.

How a cultural change movement works can be seen by watching how the US took the "south" from a rather bigoted narrow minded place where blacks were worth less then horses into a place where MOST of the cultural evolution in terms of racial equality is taking place.

The Federal government went in and "killed" or "retired" a lot of the leaders of the Klan, pulled the props out of the "law" that allowed the government to act under the color of authority to reinforce the notions of the Klan and then the rest of the people nicely evolved.

Now people like Dennis Wingo are such that they think it was their idear all along.

This model has been followed quite successfully by this country in various places..

The problem is that this administration was to stupid to recognize this is what it was going to have to do in the mideast...and we have just recently started.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at April 16, 2007 09:25 AM

My take is that the problem isn't "culture" that the Middle East or other problem areas have or don't have, but rather that the rule of law needs to be widespread and fair.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at April 16, 2007 08:55 AM

No again.

Law is the product of culture...law is the moral code of culture.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at April 16, 2007 09:28 AM

There's one little technical problem with
"plan B" that nobody seems to be taking into
account: the discharge of enough nuclear
explosives to "nuke the whole Mideast into one
big puddle of molten glass" would, by way of the
radioactive fallout, probably would do a much
more thorough job of "destroying the whole
civilized world" than even one or a few "nuclear
9/11" incidents would.

The "Civilized World" survived the nuclear
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Japan
even survived as a nation (though in somewhat
modified form)... the thermonuclear carpet-
bombing that would be involved in making a
"puddle of molten glass" of an entire geographic
region would be another matter entirely.

-dw

Posted by dave w at April 16, 2007 01:49 PM

Okay, maybe the shock-line about molten glass sounds too much like it's meant literally. What I'm getting at is this:

If there is no way for us to stop (say) Iran from getting nuclear weapons other than by destroying a sufficient amount of their infrastructure with nuclear bombs, even if that involves annihilating many cities -- I repeat, if there is NO OTHER WAY of being CERTAIN of stopping them, if we've tried everything else and they're about to start the mass production of warheads -- then it would be imperative that we unleash our nuclear arsenal on them. The threat is too great, and they've already shown their intentions.

The point is, we have to win even if we have to do things so terrible no one would want to do them. We have to win even if it means establishing an American hegemony that no one here (except maybe Ann Coulter) would like to see. If the scalpel fails, we have to use something that we're sure will succeed. The axe is quite efficient and requires much less finesse.

So let's hope the surge works. And if it doesn't, let's try something else. And if that doesn't work, something else. And pray that we'll find something that will work before we run out of time.

Posted by Mark at April 16, 2007 06:47 PM

> they didnt "KNOW" any of the sort.

Robert, do you know what quotation marks mean in the English language?

Or capital letters?

Just curious.

Posted by Edward Wright at April 17, 2007 03:55 PM

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