On the list of outrageous statements we heard during the recent presidential campaign, the claim that "the surge is working" was pretty near the top for me. To the extent that violence was down, I believed -- along with many other more adept observers than I -- it was NOT due to the addition of a few thousand troops, but was, rather, a result of the so-called "Sunni Awakening" and the concomitant deals-with-the-devil made by our military leaders there. Ultimate success, it seemed obvious, would depend on the extent to which Iraqis might rise above eons of religious hatred between the Sunnis and Shia. And, given the history of such hatreds around the world (and most especially in Iraq), there was really not a lot to hope for. Far be it from me to claim that religious prejudice is the root of most evil; but anyone with more than two pyramidal neurons would rightly conclude that it's no more likely that those embittered Muslim factions would reconcile than it is that Texas will stop electing creationists to its legislature and that the creationists will stop trying to banish science from schools.
The fact is that in invading Iraq we unleashed a fury. Expecting a sustainable government to be formed which includes Shia and Sunni working together is like expecting Rush Limbaugh to start praising Barack Obama. They are oil and water. Bug and windshield. Pediatrician and surgeon.
And so it is that this article is unsurprising, if deeply worrisome. Its author, Thomas Ricks, has been mostly right about mostly everything over there. In the milder parts of the article, he says:
"...the Maliki government is putting the screws to the Awakening movement (for those who just arrived, that's a mainly Sunni group of about 100,000 people, many of them former insurgents, who in late 2006 and 2007 arrived at ceasefires with the U.S. military presence in Iraq). The American plan was to integrate about 20,000 members of Awakening groups into Iraqi security forces, and help the rest find other work...
Maliki's guys are:
- Arresting some leaders of the "Sons of Iraq" (the American term for Awakening forces)
- Attacking others
- Bringing only 5,000 of the ex-insurgents into the Iraqi security forces
- And stiffing others on pay, with some complaining they haven't been paid in weeks or even months
[Ricks has a follow-up article today. Same message, or worse.]
For no good reason, and with no thought aforethought, George Bush lit a fuse that we can't extinguish. At some point we'll have to admit the horror of it and let it play out as it will. If after all these years and lives and efforts and trillions we haven't been able to make the impossible happen, what other actions can be tried that will?
By "horror," I mean "HORROR." We have caused people to die for no good reason, and we will cause countless more to do the same. Facing reality, we'll have to walk away at some point, knowing full well that in doing so we'll be removing the tourniquets and letting the blood flow. Even if we decided to stay indefinitely -- a political and economic impossibility -- the end result can't be avoided, only deferred. The same deaths will happen, more slowly delivered, over a longer time, leading, sooner or later, to the resumption of civil war, with or without our troops in the middle.
It's an unavoidable catastrophe, and it will inevitably fall upon Barack Obama to let it unfold. It's only a matter of whether he can make it understood. Not acceptable; just understood. The analogy that haunts me is this:
Hiking in the wilderness, you come upon a horrible scene: a man is lying on his belly at the edge of a cliff, holding the hand of a young woman who is dangling and thrashing, fear in her eyes. The man yells for help, he's losing his grip. "It's my fault," he cries. "I told her it would be okay. I made her come with me..." Laying next to the man, grabbing onto some weeds for stability, you manage to catch the woman's other hand, just as the man lets go. I'll go for help, he says, and disappears. And now you are holding on, one hand in one hand, looking straight into the woman's face, she dangling, you grasping at more weeds trying not to get pulled over yourself. Time passes, the hands are sweating, your muscles are burning, you don't have the strength to pull her to safety, and your purchase on the ground is loosening. At some point, even as she looks you in the eye, pleading, you realize you'll have to let go, and watch her drop to her death. And then you do.
There was no choice. But how do you live with that?
.
For no good reason, and with no thought aforethought, George Bush lit a fuse that we can't extinguish. At some point we'll have to admit the horror of it and let it play out as it will. If after all these years and lives and efforts and trillions we haven't been able to make the impossible happen, what other actions can be tried that will?
By "horror," I mean "HORROR." We have caused people to die for no good reason, and we will cause countless more to do the same. Facing reality, we'll have to walk away at some point, knowing full well that in doing so we'll be removing the tourniquets and letting the blood flow. Even if we decided to stay indefinitely -- a political and economic impossibility -- the end result can't be avoided, only deferred. The same deaths will happen, more slowly delivered, over a longer time, leading, sooner or later, to the resumption of civil war, with or without our troops in the middle.
It's an unavoidable catastrophe, and it will inevitably fall upon Barack Obama to let it unfold. It's only a matter of whether he can make it understood. Not acceptable; just understood. The analogy that haunts me is this:
Hiking in the wilderness, you come upon a horrible scene: a man is lying on his belly at the edge of a cliff, holding the hand of a young woman who is dangling and thrashing, fear in her eyes. The man yells for help, he's losing his grip. "It's my fault," he cries. "I told her it would be okay. I made her come with me..." Laying next to the man, grabbing onto some weeds for stability, you manage to catch the woman's other hand, just as the man lets go. I'll go for help, he says, and disappears. And now you are holding on, one hand in one hand, looking straight into the woman's face, she dangling, you grasping at more weeds trying not to get pulled over yourself. Time passes, the hands are sweating, your muscles are burning, you don't have the strength to pull her to safety, and your purchase on the ground is loosening. At some point, even as she looks you in the eye, pleading, you realize you'll have to let go, and watch her drop to her death. And then you do.
There was no choice. But how do you live with that?
.
If it was outrageous to say the surge was working, then I wonder why Obama believed it. He has good judgment, doesn't he?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26550764/
Indeed he does. In the article you cite, he said "..the truth is that the violence has gone down beyond our expectations." That was true. Then. He's also said what I said, and that is that it's more due to the "awakening" than to the troop levels. That was also true. And now, it threatens no longer to be so.
ReplyDeleteAnd need I point out that McCain's entire campaign was built on "the surge is working" and the idea that therefore he, and only he, had the judgment to be commander in chief. By contrast, Obama did not make it the central thesis of his campaign; in fact, he correctly said that the correct -- and much more important -- judgment was to have pointed out the folly of going there in the first place.
This is off the point, but something horrific is about to happen in Iraq - under the Maliki government: Over 100 people are going to be executed - probably hanged - in batches of 20 - for being Gay.
ReplyDeleteWe did indeed unleash a fury with our invasion.
It will be generations (if ever) before the evil we created will be over.
Eugene: I'd heard that, too. Beyond horrible.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone in the mainstream is still banking on us leaving behind a vibrant democracy. Almost all of us would settle for a strongman who could simply keep the peace and was not a dangerous zealot*.
ReplyDeleteToo bad we executed him.
* No, Frank Drackman, Saddam was not a zealot or even a terrorist. Dr. Germ was a woman, right? Saddam actually paid for the education of bright women. He was eminently pragmatic. It is outrageous that the discourse in this country is so skewed that the media speculated about whether he was going to attack the US. He had a pretty good thing going, why would he rock the boat? His show of religion was just that, a bit of populism. He would have sold Allah out just as quickly as he would have a Kurd if it behooved him. Standard disclaimer: Saddam was a thug, a torturer, and his soul was a shrivelled and darkened as any. (It is also outrageous that in our national discourse we are not allowed to mention Saddam without the pro forma denunciation.)
--Sam Spade
On second thought, I take back what I said about Saddam not being a terrorist. Ceratainly that is a word straining under what we've piled onto it, but in the narrowest sense, yes, Saddam terrorized his populace and also the Kuwaitis. As with most bullies, I have no doubt that he was very deferential to more powerful countries.
ReplyDelete--Sam Spade
It's interesting that just as the surge commenced, Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his people to stand down for at least six months. It was an extremely pragmatic thing to do. There were going to be more US troops there; no point in getting yourself killed when it's much easier to just wait them out. And al-Sadr's people just faded away for a bit. They're still there. But eventually, we'll leave.
ReplyDeleteI'm always surprised by people who think that the Iraqis will react differently than we would. If out country were invaded, would we ever give up? Some would, but the majority of Americans would resist somehow. Yet the Iraqis should give up and let us win because... well... because... and no reason is given.
Oh yes. There's a reason. They're conveniently browner than many of us.
Expecting Iraqis to behave differently from Americans is essentially racist. We'd never surrender. But Others should.
Frank, Iraq was a secular nation before 2003, at least relative to the region. Women in much of the middle east can't drive, much less go to graduate school. Most of the secular, educated people have since left or died. We will be lucky if Iraq does not become a Sharia-based theocracy, very possibly allied with Iran.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt you've noticed that terrorism which has so traumatized the world of late was carried out by Islamic zealots. Therefore, our involvement in Iraq was actively harmful from a pragmatic point of view, to say nothing about the morality of it.
I didn't endorse Saddam any more than I did Hitler. Rather, I said his reign was advantageous for the US.
I'm glad the ritalin is working out so nicely for you! Your last few posts have been lucid indeed.
--Sam Spade