Friendly fire? Pentagon ain't talking!

I have left JC. If my deletions disrupt continuity, please accept my apology, but JC is no longer the place to be, as far as I am concerned.

The biggest foreign policy issue

Posted: 09/05/03

Amidst the reports of casualties and terrorist attacks, the good news gets crowded out.

-For the first time in six years, no U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf.
-Iraq is being rebuilt, overcoming years of neglect and abuse.
-There are Marines coming home in one piece, and in good spirits.
-And some of the men coming home say the Iraqis are grateful, and that none of the progress they are making in rebuilding the country is being reported.
-There are Marines volunteering to return to Iraq because "they still need a lot of help."
-There are also Marines there still performing heroically.
-Seabees open irrigation facility.
-Airborne unit re-establishes trade between Syria and Iraq.
-Iraqi border guards trained.
-Airborne arranges to privatize Mosul hotel.
-Terrorist weapons cache destroyed.
-101st helps town elect city council and mayor.

If your only source of news is the mainstream media (or leftist media, which in this case I mention as two separate entities), then you probably believe all hope is lost, Iraq is a quagmire, and the Bush Administration isn't doing anything right.

I don't buy that for a minute.

Is everything hunky dory in Iraq? Of course not. Is post-war Iraq a bigger mess than most people expected? I don't think so -- not if by most people, you mean reasonable, honest, fair-minded people.

Nobody ever promised -- not the President, not Don Rumsfeld, not any neo-con you care to name -- that the rebuilding of Iraq would be easy and without costs. Personally, I said it would be easier than the leftists said it would be, but I never said it would be easy. And so far, nothing has happened to change my mind. It is going pretty much as I expected. Some good things. Some bad things.

It's not easy to read about our soldiers and Marines being killed on almost a daily basis. But this war is far too important to run from it just because the news is sometimes bad.

Let's not forget that the main reason for this war is we are engaged in a global struggle with an ideology that seeks the total destruction of Western civilization. Iraq is the linchpin to this struggle. Failure here can only mean bad things for all of us, at least those of us who value freedom and prosperity. This is no time to go wobbly.

To those who argue we never should have gone into Iraq, I say, as I said before, "what is our alternative?" Isolationism? Retraction from the world? Surrender?

The only way to fight the global war on terrorism is to reform the Arab world, and that is only going to happen when we pave the way for better governance. Iraq was the ideal target for beginning that process.

To those who argue that we've made the U.S. a bigger target of terrorism, I ask, "How?" How could we become a bigger target of terrorism than we already were? The only way we could make ourselves less of a target would be to dissolve the U.S. Destroy our economy. Shut down Hollywood. Make us a third-world nation.

But how realistic is such extreme isolationism (I realize I've set up a bit of a strawman here, but my point is that if you take the anti-war arguments to their logical conclusion, there is where you end up)? So long as our economy is what it is, and the world economy is what it is, our influence will be both a source of admiration and envy. Even if you melt down all our rifles and turn our tanks into fuel-efficient taxicabs, we would remain for a long time the richest, biggest kid on the block. There will always be reasons to resent America, unless we voluntarily turn ourselves into a nation of shoeless waifs.

Tyler Cowen writing over at Volokh Conspiracy:

In well under fifty years, it will be possible to destroy New York City, or Washington, with a nuclear suitcase. Or it will be possible to wage biological warfare against Western civilization. Sooner or later, something like this will happen, at least if we do nothing. You can blame our previous interventions as much as you want for this trouble, but a current move to "Swissify" American foreign policy would not remove America as a major target.
The anti-war crowd seems to have missed the point that the Islamofascists have taped a big red target on our backs and the only way we're going to get rid of it is to get rid of more of them than they kill of us.

If we do succeed in building a better Iraq, we will, as the neo-cons have said all along, take a huge step toward reforming all of the Arab world. Our survival as a civilization depends on this effort.

Critics say that the Administration didn't have a good post-war plan. I ask on what evidence? As I remember it, there was a good deal of post-war planning going on before the war (which raised the heckles of the left), and I see nothing in the current operation that suggests lack of planning. I think things have been planned as well as can be planned in a dynamic, volatile situation. We are making progress in rebuilding Iraq and restoring order. We are suffering, really, a small amount of causalities. If by lack of plan, you mean things are not going perfectly -- well, of course not. What endeavor of this magnitude ever goes perfectly?

The left says, "You can't impose democracy on a country at the point of a gun." Well, yes, but that isn't really the issue. What you can do at the point of a gun is remove the barriers to democratic development. In Iraq, it was the Ba'thist regime. You can create the environment where democracy is possible. It is unrealistic to expect unarmed people, as in Iraq or North Korea, to overthrow brutal dictators. We took care of Saddam, removing an impediment to Iraqi freedom. Now we are working to build an environment that makes democracy possible. And I think we are succeeding.

Americans need to stay the course on this issue. We can't let our morale waver because the news agencies want to convince us everything is going to crap in Iraq. If we pull out of Iraq now, we only make matters worse. If we pull out of Iraq now, it will spiral into utter anarchy and brutality; it will be a breeding ground for terrorists and a new rallying cry for those who hate us ("see what they did to us in Iraq?"). If we leave now, we abandon all principle, all claim to legitimacy as a free country, because we would set ourselves up to accusations of being hypocrites, or worse. Whether we bring in more troops (which I don't think is necessary), or bring in the U.N. (which has advantages and disadvantages), we must not abandon the Iraqi people. If we do, it will be the greatest foreign policy failure in American history.

The good news coming from Iraq







By Michael Barone
In the audience when Dick Cheney spoke Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute was Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress and one of the 25 members of the Iraqi National Governing Council appointed earlier this month by administrator L. Paul Bremer. Chalabi did not speak to Cheney, who entered and left the stage without speaking privately to anyone, but Chalabi did exchange warm greetings with Defense Department official Harold Rhode and with Judith Miller of the New York Times and other reporters.

Talking to Chalabi afterward, I got a far more optimistic picture of Iraq than has been painted in most of the press. The north and the south are calm; opposition to the United States in Baghdad and the Sunni triangle to the north is limited. There are no clashes between Shiite and Sunni Muslims or between Kurds and other Iraqis. Meetings of the organizing council have been harmonious and productive. Much of the negative press, Chalabi argues, is due to translators who have their own anti-American agendas and give American and other reporters their version of what is going on rather than what the Iraqis being interviewed are saying.

Looking ahead, Chalabi described his proposal for the convening of a convention to write a new Iraqi constitution. Provisional councils of 200 members would be appointed by the Governing Council in each small area of Iraq. Their members would include representatives of leading families, tribes, and ethnic and religious groups. These provisional councils would elect one delegate to a constitutional convention for each 100,000 Iraqis–about 250 in all. That convention would proceed to write a constitution to be submitted to a vote of the people. It is too early, Chalabi argues, to allow elections to select the members of the constitutional convention; as others have pointed out, the best-organized forces in Iraq–Baathist remnants and pro-Iranian groups–are hostile to democratic institutions and the rule of law.

Chalabi says that Bremer supports his proposal but that British representatives do not. Chalabi's American aide, Francis Brooke, predicts that the Governing Council will adopt a proposal much like Chalabi's. Chalabi foresees the provisional councils' being chosen this summer and the constitutional convention at work in the fall. If so, this will be amazingly rapid progress toward creation of a democratic, rule-of-law Iraq-much faster than the progress that was made in Germany and Japan after World War II.

One wonders whether the American and world press will be able to ignore most of this progress as it has been ignoring the other progress made since April in Iraq. Stories have focused on the killing of American soldiers, apparently by Baathist elements. But this should not be surprising: the pro-Hitler Werewolves underground shot and killed many American soldiers for months after the surrender of Germany in 1945. News media obsessed with the reliability of intelligence about Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium in Africa have tended to gloss over or ignore the progress set out by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in his July 24 press briefing. It is worth setting out:

The formation of an Iraqi national army has begun.


30,000 Iraqi police have been hired.


An Iraqi civil defense corps is being formed.


Coalition forces have captured or killed 38 of Iraq's 55 most wanted.


Thousands of lower-level Baath Party loyalists have been rounded up or otherwise dealt with.


The Iraqi Central Bank has been made independent.


Iraq has returned to the world oil market. All of Iraq's universities have reopened.


Power and water are, in most places, at prewar levels, and we're making progress in Baghdad.


The food redistribution system has been restarted.


Nearly all of Iraq's 240 hospitals and 1,200 clinics are open.


Over 100 newspapers have begun publishing.


In all major cities and in 85 percent of the towns, municipal councils have been formed of Iraqis.


Ambassador Bremer has helped establish a new National Governing Council. It has begun exercising executive authority, appointing ministers, preparing the way for a new national constitution.
All this is tremendously encouraging. Many of these things might have happened earlier had planning not been conducted on two tracks, by the State Department and the Defense Department, until George W. Bush ordered January 20 that Defense would be in charge. State planners had envisioned a very different process, one which would not have put Iraq on the track toward democracy and the rule of law. Fortunately, Defense has been able to do that, with critical help from Chalabi and other Iraqis who share those goals. The press coverage and the criticisms of many Democrats seem based on an assumption that Iraq is somehow a rerun of Vietnam. But the facts on the ground in Iraq should not be squeezed into the Vietnam template. Progress is being made in establishing the first rule-of-law democracy in an Arab country–an example with the potential of changing the whole region for the better. You may have to search hard for it in most American news media, but there is good news coming from Iraq

[HenryMc]

Chris

I agree

Doesn't this line

"There is nothing like an AAV," said Schielein, of Peoria, Illinois. "I mean, the biggest vehicle that the Iraqis even had was a pick-up truck with a machine gun in the back."

say a lot about the whole sorry mess. So much for the weapons of mass destruction.

Hey Chris, why is your story pure truth and mine republican fantasies and exaggerations?

Oh, never mind, I forgot. Because lefties are always right. And righties are constantly lying.

So onward..........

Tell me Chris, how many wars that Americans have fought in DID NOT have friendly fire incidents?

Just interested...........

[Monte Smith]

Absolutely every war has incidents of friendly fire. You can't take that out of the equation no matter how precise your munitions. (You know what they say about Air Force bombs, for instance: that they are 100% accurate. Each and every one hits the ground.)

And it is no surprise that this Pentagon like all brass at all times wants to keep such incidents out of the headlines. It's bad for the morale of the forces and the families at home.

Having said that, Scott you are right. The good news coming out of Iraq is woefully under-reported. The Iraqi Governing Council has achieved important recognition among Iraqi power nodes and populations and the international community: they have seats with the Arab League, OPEC, and the UN. That's good news. Even those people who are chomping at the bit for the Bush administration to fail see the importance of a succeeding, rebuilt Iraq. It'd be nice if their undiluted priority was getting Iraq done right, but we must always accept the inevitability of politics.

[Monte Smith]

Don't just react to me and my optimism, Chris. I did cite three concrete places where the Iraqi Governing Council have been given a chair and a voice, in what is a very encouraging sign. The emerging Iraqi leaders have been recognized at the none-too-Yank-friendly Arab League, at OPEC, and most recently at the UN. I didn't read about this in a Pentagon or Bush brief, but in the Financial Times. Amidst the doom and gloom, there are consistent positive forward steps. Scott mentioned a good many. I wouldn't say we are irrevocably marching forward to a better world, but we are staggering reversibly forward to possible improvement.

Exactly Monte. There have been many great stories starting to come out of Iraq. All the schools are open, 14 women have recently graduated and are now part of the FPS. This was completely unheard of previously, and they are the first 14 women to ever be allowed to join Iraq's security guard force.

I don't know if you caught Bob Arnot's live interview on Scarborough Country, but he also had some great stories from over there.

Amazing!

Yet soldiers are still getting killed almost daily, and there is still unrest in some parts of the country. And that is a shame.

But you see Chris, thats your number one problem. I, as well as Monte, understand that things over there aren't all pretty. Every soldiers death IS a grievous loss for America. But you expose your true agenda by constantly posting screaming headlines that are negative only.

And what did all the recent Gallup/CNN/Newsweek polls say? Now I don't know much about Gallup, but I hardly think that CNN and Newsweek are somehow part of some right wing conspiracy. Nor have either ever showed much respect for the Bush admin.

So did they fudge their numbers for the Pentagon?