Friday, April 21, 2006
Armchair critics and geniuses march against the Iraq war!
Maybe they should do something useful like highlight how to WIN the war on terror
by Ferdinand III
First most instant war geniuses make the following passing criticisms as they promote themselves and their books and all are wrong or at least open to devastating critique: American arrogance in stumbling into the Arab world; hubris; no blood for oil; too few troops; wrong war; insensitive; too bloody; bad leadership; too many dead civilians. You can take each criticism and destroy it quickly. The death rate in Iraq is 1/3 lower than at any time in the past 70 years. Terrorists are killing civilians not US soldiers. Iraq was and is allied to terror networks. Iraq was an aggressive power that had WMD and lots of plans and desire to use it. Iraq did host Al Qaeda Al-Ansar terrorist camps and sundry high profile terrorists and associates. Iraq did fund terror in the Middle East. Iraq was a nexus of money, terror and anti-Western pathology. Yes war is bloody but the 1990s containment regime resulted in about 300,000 dead Iraqi civilians and billions in cost to the US and British treasuries.
Personally I believe that more troops might have enabled the US to more quickly secure the borders and key installation and ammunition dumps but who knows for certain if this would have been true? More troops might have also created a perpetual dependency by Iraqi’s on the US. More troops might have shortened the war and occupation — or made monthly dollar costs even higher, raised casualties, and ensured that eventual troop draw-downs would be more difficult. In any event too few troops was not the fault of the Bush Administration but of the moralists in the 1990s that dropped US military strength and defense budgets by 40%. More troops? Maybe but this is moot and no one knows if they would have been used effectively.
Second, the no-blood-for-oil cry has finally died an ugly death. Oil prices have of course gone sky high. Billions of petro dollars have now found their way to anti-Western Middle Eastern and Arab regimes – used of course to fund armaments purchases and terror. Yet thankfully secret Iraqi oil concessions to Russia and France are now null and void. Oil-for-Food was exposed as the greatest scandal in international affairs history. And the Iraqi oil industry came under transparent auspices for the first time. The only real question is do we want to further our control of oil ? I would argue that we need to control this commodity by breaking OPEC and installing in Iran, Syria and elsewhere by force if necessary, Western allied regimes. Allowing anti-Western nation states to control black gold is an act of madness. At least in Iraq we now have a Western facing and friendly regime. This is to be applauded.
Third Iraq sits nicely beside Iran and this makes Iraq a perfect nation to start the necessary regime changing of fascist Arab nations. Contrary to myth the US is in no rush to invade Iran - unfortunately. The US seems content to let the multilateral loving Europeans jaw-jaw with Iran in hopes of delay-delay. Iran has been sending genocidal signals and intentions to war-war for only 27 years. I am not sure that waiting another 7 or 10 or 5 years while the mad Iranian regime develops nukes; grows its treasury and arrogance thanks to high oil prices; and perfects war plans to erase Israel is smart policy. Perhaps the US believes that 26 years after the 1979 revolution that either the Iranians will liberalize their regime or the democratic experiment in Iraq would prove destabilizing to the neighboring mullahs. Both are wrong-headed assumptions. Most probably the US and Israel will wait until the last possible moment to bomb Iranian installations. This will be effective but cause a lot of extraneous-target damage and side effects, including missed sites, civilian dead, an increase in terrorism, a Shiite uprising in Iraq, and ostracism by the world community. But in any war the positive effect of defanging your enemy outweighs the other risks.
Remember Afghanistan? It was the good war or at least compared to Iraq it was the good war. But now Afghanistan is going through the same problems we see in Iraq. Both governments are struggling with new democratic politics and constitutions and are desperately trying to hold together disparate tribes, religious groups and ethnicities. Jihadists and crazed Taliban supporters in Afghanistan are not much different from their terrorist allies in Iraq. The Taliban uses suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices just like the terrorist fanatics in Iraq. Their Islamic fundamentalism is kindred as is their hate for modernity, democracy and the West. Infrastructure in both countries is being rebuilt but not as quickly as the liberal media wants – which is longer than a long weekend. On some days as many Americans die in Afghanistan as in Iraq. The main difference is that there are some international soldiers in Afghanistan while the Brits and Yanks are carrying the load in Iraq. Afghanistan has receded from public view while the case for or against invading Iraq determines elections.
Analysis and learning from past mistakes is a hallmark of intelligent progress. But criticizing to hear yourself speak or to make noise is senseless. Rewriting history and ignoring current reality is not too bright either. Islam and the Middle East both need to reform and that change will only come from without – it will never occur from within. If critics want to sell books and get their faces on TV they should come up with strategies to fight and win the current war – and the future wars as well. Then they might be worth listening to.