Hard News: Unhappy Birthday
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moody bugger that ralston is he does have a solid background in journalism and deserves due credit for it, and respect for his comments on the nature of said field.
With respect robbery, no he doesn't. He doesn't in entirely the same way that no other lazy albeit experienced professional should be taken more seriously than their current work justifies. It's no good trading on name recognition to pass off shoddy work and, I presume, your journalistic profession would do well to avoid defending their standing based on Ralston's radio outburst (there may well be other more worthy opportunities however).
Though the debate's moved on, I remain of the view that good blogging, and I think PAS is the benchmark in NZ, plays an increasingly important role in issue identification, elaboration and dissemination and will continue to challenge MSM which, again IMO, is in the advanced stages of decline. All that said, a very different perspective was recently put by News Ltd CEO, John Hartigan, at the annual Andrew Olle lecture
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So if we conclude that the US actions were too costly isn't the next step to look at how things could have played out had the war not occurred? This wasn't a choice between war and peace but between two different wars.
Take Obama’s opposition to the war.
His opposition to the war was premised on the continuation of the sanctions and US/British military operations that kept Saddam contained. It was the presence of a large number of US and British military personal on Iraq's borders plus regular and often very large bombing campaigns, the enforcement of the no-fly zones plus extensive economic sanctions that were keeping Saddam contained.
Obama's opposition to the war was based on keeping all that going until at some unspecified point in time Saddam's rule came to an end.
And that containment had a cost. The economic sanctions were always going to cause hardship but because Saddam gamed them to make lots of money for himself that made things a lot worse for most Iraqis. Their increasingly desperate plight in turn was used by Saddam, bin Laden etc as very successful propaganda against the US. And bin Laden use the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia (another unfortunate necessity for containing Saddam) as a rallying cry as well.
And meanwhile Saddam continued to try and undermine the Kurds in the north and his rule continued added fuel to the Sunni/Shiite conflict. He ruled by setting communities against each other - which is partly why there is sectarian violence now. The motivating forces for that conflict would have only increased under Saddam's continued rule.
At the same time Russia was determined to go back to business as usual with Saddam and was undermining the containment process.
That's the mess that would have existed indefinitely had the war not occurred. Now given the choice between the two containment may been the least worst option but one should have to front up to the consequences.
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er, what's your point Neil? If one must make a choice shouldn't one always choose the __lesser __of two evils? Bush had to make a choice and he chose the eviler of two evils?
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There were a number of points, most of which were implied rather than stated overtly.
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heh heh ... sorry - it's a bit early in the morning to be making inflammatory statements like 'what's your point?' when you've obviously made some! I coulda made my point without that comment ...
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i know the feeling, I haven't had my first coffee yet.
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That's the mess that would have existed indefinitely had the war not occurred. Now given the choice between the two containment may been the least worst option but one should have to front up to the consequences.
But isn't that the point, containment was working but it had to go somewhere. That somewhere was never explored..quite the opposite..the US and the UK actively and quite dishonestly herded the world towards a war from 2001 onward. And now up to a million people are dead and a nation is a trainwreck because of that. How are we, or Iraq better for that?
And there was no reason not to trade with the Iraqis...much of what was in the sanctions had no reason to be there beyond the notion that Iraq (ie the Iraqi people) needed to be punished. Medicines, medical equipment, vitamins and countless other non military items were cut off...and then the UN handed the oil for food program to Saddam to atone for that. And that was always going to be abused.
(another unfortunate necessity for containing Saddam)
The southern no fly zone could have been administered from Kuwait...they made the offered several times to host it.
The cost of containment when compared the financial and human cost of the war was inconsequential and would have remained so.
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You’ve criticised James for being rather blasé about the costs of the war, I think you're doing much the same re containment. That cost was not inconsequential and it would have continued. The idea that the containment regime was there specifically to punish the Iraqis is a bit ridiculous.
Those sanctions were eventually fine-tuned so that oil revenue could be used to buy medicines etc. As we know Saddam pocketed the money (going on a palace building spree), the Iraqis suffered and that suffering was used as anti-US propaganda. While Saddam was in control that wasn't going to change.
(US troops were going to remain in Saudi Arabia until Saddam was gone. I'm sorry but that is the reality. Protecting Saudi Arabia from Saddam was one of the US's major objectives. The minute Saddam was gone, those troops were gone. It's hardly controversial.)
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You’ve criticised James for being rather blasé about the costs of the war, I think you're doing much the same re containment. That cost was not inconsequential and it would have continued.
About 1 billion a year. vis a vis the 1 billion a day right now,give or take. That argument is a bit of a non-starter.
The idea that the containment regime was there specifically to punish the Iraqis is a bit ridiculous.
uhhh...really? Pray tell, what military use do medical texts have (they were specifically banned) beyond hurting the populace.
The sanctions were only fine tuned after quite some outrage and the oil for food abuse, while it existed is happily overstated.US troops were going to remain in Saudi Arabia until Saddam was gone. I'm sorry but that is the reality. Protecting Saudi Arabia from Saddam was one of the US's major objectives.
Uhhh no...not reality....there is some controversy and evidence (including photographic) that the threat to Saudi Arabia was overstated intentionally.
The reality was that before 11/9/2001 no-one in the US military could see any good reason for moving the bases and spending the billions of dollars to do so..remember these were built from scratch in the desert. Osama was not really being taken seriously.
In January 2002 the Saudi government asked the US to remove all bases but what reason was there to do so before that? Hence the swift removal in 2003
A quick glance at any map would indicate that any threat to SA from Iraq's largely disintegrated war-machine in the 1990s could easily have been dealt with from Kuwait, in fact the location offered advantages for doing so.
Zinnni on containment: We contained Iraq and Iran with fewer troops than report to the Pentagon every day for work. The president said containment didn't work. I don't know what the hell he was seeing. But for a decade, unless something flared up, we had on average 23,000 troops in all of CENTCOM in the most volatile region in the world.
We also had our allies contribute to our presence out there. There was $300 to $500 million a year the Saudis and Kuwaitis paid us in in-kind assistance—fuel, food, water. The Saudis built a $450 billion complex to house our troops. We had a nice arrangement out there. Containment worked. And the proof is in the pudding that the president was wrong when he said containment didn't work: Saddam was no threat to his neighbors. He didn't have WMDs. He was contained by every definition of containment.
We have this lack of satisfaction about containment because it leaves things undone. We've contained Korea. We've contained Cuba. We've contained the Soviet Union for 50 years. We were effectively containing both Iraq and Iran. I'm saying, go back to what worked
who to trust on this, eh? You or the guy on the ground running the show...
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James - thank you for actually engaging with the issues raised and for providing facts and argument.
Sagenz - ducking and diving and more or less changing the subject (while pulling out the children again), does very little to convince me you are correct.
This is going to be my last post on this particular subject, cos this 'arguing on the internet' thing takes up far too much of my limited free time.
Before I continue, I would like to point out that I'm have not actually made any moral arguments, or 'war is bad, m'kay'-type points. While I do have opinions along those lines, I haven't expressed them here, and don't intend to. Please bear that in mind.
My point is this: the two main govenments involved in this debacle (Britain, US) have shown a lack of planning and preparation that in my opinion amounts to criminal negligence. Because of this lack of planning, lack of foresight, and unwillingness to learn from past mistakes, they have actively damaged their stated cause (reduction of global terrorism), and made the world a far more dangerous place.
This alone is, in my opinion, sufficient cause that rather a lot of heads should be rolling. In some cases I would not be unhappy to see heads literally rolling.
So.
Sagenz: you are vilifying Clinton for not intevening in Rwanda. What is your view on the Clinton administration intervention in Somalia?
It seems to me you could quite easily damn Clinton for acting, and just as easily damn him for not acting, cherrypicking your arguments to suit.
Rwanda blew up as a crisis relatively quickly, if memory serves (a couple of months? Am happy to educated otherwise).
Somalia was a more slow-burning crisis. 'The West' had much more time to get organised, to plan how to act, to gather forces, etc, etc. For those who want a decent backgorund to the Somalia crisis without having to wade through too much scholarly detail, I recommend the book 'Black Hawk Down' (avoid the film at all costs). Most of the book deals with the shot-down-helicopters-and-desperate-fight-in-the-city part of the interventions, but it also gives a pretty decent background to the local politics and reasons for the crisis, plus the subsequent repercussions post-fight. It also, not incidentally, gives a pretty decent insight into the mentality of the average US squaddie in these sort of situations - very relevant to the current situation in Iraq.
In summary:
1) The US mission in Somalia acted outside UN authority.
2) The US strategy was to attempt to take down the top echelon or leadership of what they percieved as the 'bad guys', working on the (utterly naive) assumption that there would be a widespread outbreak of democracy once 'the bad guys' were gone.
3) The US relied almost totally on an 'overwhelming firepower' approach to the problem.
4) The US leaders had little to no idea of the local language, customs or politics. So 'collateral damage' from 3) was inveitable. When it occurred, a lot of locals who were neutral or favourably inclined towards the US forces turned actively hostile.Does any of this sound familiar?
Fact: Saddam was not a threat at the time of the invasion build-up. He didn't have any WMD's, and everyone knew it (if you believe otherwise, please let me introduce myself: I am the ex-nigerian foreign secretary, and find myself in need of funds to transfer millions from my bank acount. I will give you half of this if you send me a couple of hundred dollars now).
Fact: Saddam was bottled up in Iraq and a plan for dealing with him could be thrashed out more or less at leisure.
Fact: Western forces were at the time heavily engaged (and under-resourced) in Afghanistan, and still are.
Fact: The invasion of Iraq has bled resources from the far more important and at the time far more pressing conflict in Afghanistan. Arguably, it is now impossible for the the Afghanistan mission to succeed.
So Saddam's wish to restart his weapons programmes is neither here nor there. There was no immediate reason or urgency to deal with him. He didn't actually have anything, and he wasn't likely to be able get anything in the immediate future, either. He could have been contained and dealt with at leisure.
The suffering of his people at the time is also neither here nor there. They'd been suffering for 20 years. Another few months or even a year or two would have made a negligable amount of difference to the humanitarian crisis and a HUGE amount of difference to any intervention.
Troops and Equipment could be built up slowly, a decent post-invasion plan could be thrashed out, the possible consequences could be thoroughly thrashed out, Afghanistan could have been stabilised first, a plan to contain Iran could have been put in place, a plan to avoid a humanitarian crisis could have been thought up etc, etc, etc.
None of this is 20/20 hindsight. It was flagged up at the time, and as I have outlined above, a strategy of shoot-first-shoot-lots-kill-the-bad-guys-and-hope-democracy-breaks-out has been shown to be fatally flawed in more places than just Iraq and Somalia.
Your point about the Clinton administration invasion plan is interesting, but I don't think it carries much weight. In 1998, the Clinton administation only had 2 years max left to run. They knew they weren't going to be invading Iraq in that time frame. In the context of the time, I doubt the plan was anything more than half-baked, and was intended as nothing more than the dust-collecting shelf-filler that government departments come up with all the time to cover their own arses in case anything goes wrong.
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and as for that freaking moron dubya. ever single business be has ever owned has cost a lot of other people a whole load of money.
dubya...is that what Roger Douglas calls himself these days?
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Those sanctions were eventually fine-tuned so that oil revenue could be used to buy medicines etc. As we know Saddam pocketed the money (going on a palace building spree), the Iraqis suffered and that suffering was used as anti-US propaganda. While Saddam was in control that wasn't going to change.
You forgot to mention that companies that were buying the oil from Iraq at as a bribe, and onselling it and making a good profit, which the UN was implicated in.
And that investigations found that much of the food in the programme was unfit for human consumption, and many non-standard products, including medicines etc, took up to six months to get into Iraq.
The sanctions to which Iraq was subjected, were simply designed to bring the country to its knees. Half a million people died during the period between the two wars, as a result of the sanctions, and the end result was to strengthen the hand of Saddam Hussein by making foreign powers the bad guys.
Anyway, I look forward to the US invading Cuba, on the basis that containment is a flawed policy, and war makes things better. How long as Cuba been embargoed for now?
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"some of this content maybe complete shit and most of it is opinion".
unlike Ralston's eloquent barrage on the radio? Who are ya? At least on Publicaddress anything that is said gets a remarkable amount of peer reviewing, before after and during publication and is frequently amended if there is any error or factual dispute over sources.
And while I'm on a link does anyone know who Herald journalist Claire Trevett is? I'm familiar with their more senior politics writers, but she has written a couple of love letters to the worst of the ACT party with little or make that no analysis of their position. Can the Herald move further right yet? Or is it just that she is covering the ACT party conference?
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A couple of points in response to other posts.
The containment effort was crumbing in 2001 & 2002. With the Oil for Food billions, Saddam was in the process of buying the French, Russian and Chinese votes in the UNSC to get rid of the sanctions. They weren't going to last much longer and to suggest otherwise is disingenuous. And lets face it they hadn't worked as intended, Saddam was still in power, hadn't changed his behaviour and they were exacting a toll on the Iraqi people. The choice was either let the sanctions effort collapse leaving Saddam's regime intact and bolstered by seeing off the sanctions, or take him out.
Well don't you know it, 600,000 pages of Saddam era Iraqi govt documents show that:
“captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism.”
http://a.abcnews.com/images/pdf/Pentagon_Report_V1.pdf
Ralp Peters has an acerbic take on Iraq at 5. I especially like his rheeming of the left's antics.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03202008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/shock_and_awful_102665.htm
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My point is this: the two main govenments involved in this debacle (Britain, US) have shown a lack of planning and preparation that in my opinion amounts to criminal negligence. Because of this lack of planning, lack of foresight, and unwillingness to learn from past mistakes, they have actively damaged their stated cause (reduction of global terrorism), and made the world a far more dangerous place.
Independent of its justification, the prosecution of this war will be damned by history. The failure to plan, the sidelining of expertise through agency rivalry and cronyism, the frankly bizarre absence of normal accounting, the lying, the sheer, crack-smoking craziness ...
I've seen two of the Channel 4 Dispatches documentaries on Iraq -- it's a fifth anniversary series -- and they're worth getting hold of if you can.
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the lying, the sheer, crack-smoking craziness ...
Not least of which is the bizarre argument that "we've severely fucked it up getting to this point, so we need to be allowed to stick with it".
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Unfortunately interagency rivalry and competition is nothing new to the US govt. but it does seem to have ramped up a notch or two this go around. Some State and CIA people actively worked to undermine the policies of the elected head of govt, which should see them out of a job at the least or in some deep shit of some sort. Like the elected head or his policies or not, if you work in the executive branch, you are required to implement his policies. The fact that Bush didn't crack down on these bastards is one of his biggest failings.
Incompetence and corruption in the military is nothing new either, the Yanks were famous for bombing their own side in WWII. Post D-Day, they ran a pipeline across the channel and through Europe to bring fuel to the front line as it moved toward Germany. Before long there was no fuel getting to the end of the pipeline, US supply troops had tapped into the pipeline so many times to get fuel and sell it to the locals to make a quick buck, that there was none left for the US tanks & trucks.
If a Dem president, i.e. Clinton, had invaded Iraq, there would have been fewer interagency problems, as most of the State Dept etc are libs, and the media would have hailed the Dem president as a great liberator and humanitarian for liberating Iraq from the clutches of one of the worst dictators of the last century. But there would have been plenty of corruption and incompetence regardless of who the Pres was. Sad but true.
Not least of which is the bizarre argument that "we've severely fucked it up getting to this point, so we need to be allowed to stick with it".
So what is your suggestion Simon? Just walk away and allow genocide, much worse than the carnage to date, to take place? That is the most likely outcome of the implication of your statement. Just sit back and watch a bloodbath taking place and say "not my problem”. How is that the right thing to do?
If that is what you really believe, then follow the NYT and Obama and make an explicit statement to that effect, I want to see it in print, in all its obscenity.
As for " .. have actively damaged their stated cause (reduction of global terrorism), and made the world a far more dangerous place."
There has been a steady drumbeat of good news on that front for about a year. Sunni in Anbar turning on Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda’s approval plummeting in the Muslim world, Muslims who once approved of suicide bombings now rejecting suicide bombings.
Here is the latest installment:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120640588050061101.html?mod=todays_columnists
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Just walk away and allow genocide, much worse than the carnage to date, to take place? That is the most likely outcome of the implication of your statement. Just sit back and watch a bloodbath taking place and say "not my problem”. How is that the right thing to do?
If that is what you really believe, then follow the NYT and Obama and make an explicit statement to that effect, I want to see it in print, in all its obscenity.
Oh yawn.
Take that statement and apply it to umpteen other places around the world that the US either has, or hasn't 'intervened' in. That bloodbath in Vietnam... which actually wasn't so much a bloodbath for Vietnamese, as an intervention to prevent further bloodshed from Pol Pot. That little Sudan area, which the US seems to have forgotten exists, and where the bloodbath is much worse.
The moral high ground act from people who support the intervention in Iraq because there's WMDs... er, removing Saddam... er I mean, it'll be a disaster if we don't leave now... seriously. No one's buying that shit.
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merc,
Because it's the age of the anti-Cassandra,
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/the-age-of-the-anti-cassandra/ -
So what is your suggestion Simon? Just walk away and allow genocide, much worse than the carnage to date, to take place? That is the most likely outcome of the implication of your statement. Just sit back and watch a bloodbath taking place and say "not my problem”. How is that the right thing to do?
And how do you know this James? You've been wrong about Iraq in practice and implementation pretty much since day one. Why are we to assume that that you have got it right now. I just don't buy the line that "we have now worked out how to be less than hopeless' especially since it seems that the decline in violence in Iraq in recent months (despite the current upward trend again) seems to have come from factors more outside the control of the US than anything else.
Right now, I think the Iraqis have a substantially better chance of moving ahead without the US than with it.
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Actually, I think there's a decent chance that all hell will break loose on withdrawal, and that good people will be slaughtered on their doorsteps.
But that's happened already and it's going to happen when the surge troops are withdrawn (and they have to be, for the sake of the armed forces continued ability to function) later in the year.
Given that the US strategy consists of funding (and arming) both sides, it may even be that the longer it's left, the bigger the mess.
Oh, and if the Mehdi Army ends its ceasefire, which is looking likely, all bets are off.
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If a Dem president, i.e. Clinton, had invaded Iraq,
But he didn't, James, so your point is irrelevant. Why bother to make these silly political points. 'What about Clinton' is neither here nor there.
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Oh, and if the Mehdi Army ends its ceasefire, which is looking likely, all bets are off.
I don't know if they will..its just been extended for another six months. Certainly that seems to be the biggest factor in the decline in US deaths. The bigger issue here is for Sadr to maintain control.
Much of the decline in Iraqi deaths seems simply to have come from the reality that the ethnic cleansing is largely complete.
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I don't know if they will..its just been extended for another six months.
Guess I missed this today.......
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