There’s been a lot of talk over the last couple of days/weeks about the need for more troops in Iraq. Senators McCain and Lieberman are urging it; Democratic Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, will support it if the President calls for it; the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell, and three-out-of-four Americans are against it; and the President is toeing some middle ground at the moment. All of this begs the question: Why the hell would we send more troops to Iraq?
What I don’t get is why people who are supposed to be experts in this kind of stuff think that it is possible to win a war against a shadow enemy without the wholesale destruction of the Iraqi population. I mean, don’t they get that there is no way, short of using nukes, to insure that all the bad guys are gone? The reality on the ground is that the enemy looks just like, dresses just like, talks just like, walks just like, prays just like, and lives just like innocent civilians. There is no way to defeat them that does not, at the same time, irrevocably harm the innocent.
In short, there is no moral way to win this war.
So the real question is this: Are we a moral people? The simple truth that we’ve learned from Iraq is that we are not. We have learned that we, as a country comprised solely of “the people”, are willing to give up our morals if they get in the way of “winning.” We are willing to torture. We are willing to rob people of their natural rights. And we are willing to destroy an entire country, to kill its citizens and confine any survivors in a cage of chaos and primal fear, for the simple reason that we are unwilling to “lose.”
This should not come as a surprise. In a country where the leading sources of entertainment involve watching individuals doing whatever they have to do to win, where our leaders are expected to do whatever it takes to get elected, where box office takes, nightly ratings, bestseller lists, and Billboard standings determine “artistic success” — in a country where winning is everything, it would only make sense that morality has no place in the discussion.
For argument’s sake, however, let’s say that we, as a country, decided that victory wasn’t worth it, that we pride ourselves not on just saying we’re the best country in the world, but that we pride ourselves on the fact that we strive to be the best country in the world. And let’s say that we, as a country, decide to redefine out notion of what it means to be the best, that we decide “being the best” no longer means “living with the most luxuries,” that it now means “striving to do what’s right, to do what’s good, at all times.” Let’s say that we, as a country, as a people, let’s say that we decide all that.
The question then becomes: what is the moral thing to do re: Iraq?
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Morality is the way people would like the world to work. Sadly it is not the way the world does work though. Morality can only work when it is equal. If it isn’t then there is no real incentives for everyone to abide by them.
Go big or go home. Ooh-rah.
there are many things that factor into the equation… - the first step would be to obviously impeach and penalize the bush administration… - it’s long over due… - it makes me sick to even think about how he has everyone waiting in angst for his “new” strategy in iraq which he plans on briefing the press about… - sometime in january… - him and his strategy can go straight to fuck’n hell as far as i’m concerned… - and of course… - for national security purposes… - he’ll give the media the watered down version of the next phase which will be the same exact bullshit that he’s been dribbling out of his retarded mouth since the occupation began…
bush hasn’t any morals… - so… - don’t expect anything of the sort as long as he’s our commander in chief…
i can think of 99.7 billion better ways for the pentagon to spend the 99.7 billion MORE dollars that they’re frothing at the bit to receive…
his new strategy should be called… - operation occupation moral vacancy…
operation donald rumsfeld’s buddies’s operation…
operation death to liberation…
operation death for liberation…
I have trouble reading a blog in which the (rather) insulated author makes a statement suggesting that a major political international situation (war) can not possibly be won. I’d rather watch documentaries like The Fog of War to get my “what is and what isn’t -s”. Anyway, throughout all of history, large nations have always made military decisions based solely on safety, money, power (and religion). The emphasis on the last three. If morality was the key, and that we were looking to do what is the best possible outcome for everyone involved (ignoring all other factors) just simply the best way to make everyone the happiest they could be….my guess is that war would not be involved and everything would be hashed out via some kind of UN process (discussion, negotiation, and finally resolution). Now, of course that will never happen so it seems silly to discuss it, but that would be my guess.
If I were Bill Gates I would think heavily about donating mulitple billion dollars over time to the United Nations with the hope of making it THE voice of international reason….its failure to have any signficant meaning and/or power is one of the great disasters of our time….
One thing I started to discuss in the first draft of this post, but then edited out because it went in a direction that was more philosophical than I wanted, was that in the introduction to his classic work, Totality & Infinity, Emanuel Levinas writes:
Now, I realize that’s a whole lot of shit to read and think about, but the key part to it (for me) is that war is the absence of morality, and that the only way morality can regain presence, can become true is for it to assert itself against all evidence against it. This is where faith comes in. It is not religious faith. Not faith in a higher “power,” but faith in a better experience of human existence, one that includes, or rather, is founded upon, morality.
My point being this: Yes, Adam, war decisions are not based on morality because war is, by its very definition, the absence of morality. So as I wrote: the question I think we need to be asking is not how to “win a war” but how to “act morally.”
In other words: do we want to be a victorious country or a moral one?
And if the latter, how do we go about it re: Iraq?
the obvious thing to do is to wave the white flag… - so to speak… - call for a cease fire…
take the billions of dollars that are being used to basically fund all of the military hardware… - and… - use it for reconstruction… - it’s obviously not enough to reconstruct the entire country of iraq… - or… - however they intend to divide it and/or rename it… - but… - if they could use that money for the essentials… - for the farmers… - for farming… - for clean water… - electricity… - education…
our military bases… - transform them into shelters… - service stations…
obviously… - again… - george w. bush has to go… - he and his people have a vision of iraq… - and… - it has nothing to do with compassion… - not even an ounce of it… - i believe… - the iraqis and the world need to see that the americans as a whole are in fact… - mmm… - not just a massive portrait of this administration’s agenda…
I like your idea.
Yeah lets take the military out and just start building shit, sweet. I figure once the US people with guns leave everyone will be safe to build and transport all the stuff they need. Once that happens the whole world will see that by us laying our weapons down they too can lay their weapons down. We will be a big happy world family, well once Bush leaves office that is.
If that’s not sarcasm, then forgive me, but if it is, then I have to ask, do you have a better idea? Or should we all just sit on our hands, shut our mouths, and wait for the folks in Washington to tell us what’s best?
While the “pull the military out and build shit plan” obviously won’t work on its own due to the sectarian hostility in the region, the idea that more troops on the ground will fix things is ludicrous. We’ve got over 100,000 soldiers there now (some sources suggested almost 140,000), and yet we still can’t do the job.
According to a report in the NY Times today, the President is going to announce in his speech tonight that he’s sending 20,000 more troops to Iraq. This despite the fact that our top military commander in Iraq, General Abizaid, recently said in front of the Senate Armed forces committee:
And yet, President Bush, our Commander-in-Chief, the man who has said in many instances that he “listens to my generals,” when he heard this from his generals, what’d he do? Oh yeah, he fired them.
I’m not saying I have the answer, which is why I posed the question, but putting more guns in Iraq will only result in more people dying. Simple as that. I don’t know why anyone would think anything different. And if this war is going to end, it’s not going to be because we killed all the bad guys. The bad guys aren’t going away, I don’t care how many we kill.
It’s time to start thinking of something else. Obviously, President Bush isn’t willing to admit that yet. And when people under try to tell him, “Hey, cowboy, guns don’t solve everything,” the President shitcans them.
Or maybe they say, “Hey, businessman whose buddies are war profiteers, war doesn’t solve everything,” and then the businessman says, “Who’s trying to solve anything? We’re just trying to make some money before we die…because it’s all about winning, and if you got a lot of money, you win.”
And that’s the simple truth of Iraq. It’s all about winning, and not a damn thing else.
If more people go to Iraq more people will die is a prett fair assessment.
If this increase is a short term thing to get our troops out earlier then I am all for it. If this is just to get bahgdad as secured as possable so we can move our troops out then I am all for it. Even if it is to make it look like we gave one last effort so we can get out then I am all for it. Saddam is dead we won.
Maybe our whole plan was to start a giant civil war between the sunni and shia that will bring saudi arabia and Iran into it. pay per view saudi arabia vs iran.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7089168.stm
Is Iraq getting better?
Is Iraq getting better? The statistics say so, across the board.
Governor Richardson, for one, disagrees:
Grandstanding. Use violence when it suits your agenda; dismiss it when it does not. People are actually moving back and while it might have nothing to do with the surge (there are a number of reasons that have contributed to it) it is at the very least a good sign and a step in the direction of the troops coming home. He mentions that progress should not be mentioned in reduction of violence but in other ways. Tell me Gov. How do you expect those things to happen if there is bombings everyday? Another thing is some of the progress points are unobtainable or at least there is not anything the US could do to make them be achieved.