View Comments |
Print This Post
|
by David T. Pyne |
March 25th, 2006
The occupation of Iraq, it seems, violates every tenet of the Reagan-Weinburger-Powell Doctrine of just wars which hold that America only fights when it has to either in defense of its own national security or to help defend another nation unjustly attacked.
The object of fighting every war ought to be to create a more favorable and enduring peace after it has been brought to a victorious end. In fighting wars, the statesman-historians among us ask who it is that benefits from the war and its aftermath. In Vietnam where we fought a no-win counterinsurgency war for the better part of a decade, the US military won all the battles, but lost the war due to a losing strategy pursued by the politicians at home which all but guaranteed defeat. The result was that the Democrat-led Congress cut off any US attempts to contain the Communist advance over the next eight years resulting in many countries falling into the Soviet sphere of influence during this period.
After the Second World War, the Soviet Union emerged as the only real victor, filling the vacuum created by the brutal destruction and dismemberment of Germany and the defeat of Japan by the Allies. The Soviets ended up inheriting a vast empire in eastern Europe and Asia awarded to Stalin by Communist appeasers Churchill and FDR at the infamous Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. By virtue of this victory, they were able to mass murder and enslave tens of millions of innocents, their Chinese Communist allies were enabled to seize control of mainland China, and subsequently to threaten the United States and the West with total nuclear annihilation coming perilously close to winning the Cold War, which the West was forced to fight on very disadvantageous terms.
By virtue of the US invasion of Iraq and removal of Iran’s arch-enemy Saddam Hussein and subsequent support of their Shiite Islamist proxies, the Islamic Republic of Iran has acquired a new vassal state in Iraq, purchased at a rising cost in American blood and treasure. Meanwhile, according to CIA Director Porter Goss, Al Queda has acquired a new terror haven and training ground to better kill American soldiers and civilians in Iraq, providing it with a new base from which to launch terrorist attacks to kill Americans here at home. So at this point it can be said that Iran, its Shiite Islamist proxies in Iraq, and Al Queda have been the chief beneficiaries of our continued prosecution of a never-ending, no-win counterinsurgency war in Iraq, which is increasingly resembling that which we fought and lost on the other side of the Asian continent in Vietnam decades ago.
While our number one state sponsor of terror enemy, Iran, has been greatly empowered as a rising nuclear-armed regional hegemon which largely controls and dominates Iraq through its Islamist Shiite proxy government, the United States on the other hand appears to have nothing to show for its continued prosecution of the war in Iraq in terms of benefits. Finally, as a result of our ill-considered invasion and occupation of Iraq, Israel is now and will be more at risk from Iranian nuclear missiles and Islamic terror attacks than ever before. So my question is how exactly does our continued occupation of Iraq further the cause of a better, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, let alone in any way advance the US national security interest? The occupation of Iraq, it seems, violates every tenet of the Reagan-Weinburger-Powell Doctrine of just wars which hold that America only fights when it has to either in defense of its own national security or to help defend another nation unjustly attacked.
It is kind of like déj vu to re-watch President Bush’s May 1, 2003 speech in front of a huge banner that read, “Mission accomplished” on board the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, in which he announced that "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." When we stop to consider how much the situation in Iraq has deteriorated and how much worse the war has gone for us since that time, the President’s declaration of victory seems premature. Given the fact that nearly 2,200 American soldiers or about sixteen times as many Americans who had died in Iraq previous to that time have died since Bush’s speech that day, it seems apparent that major combat operations have long since resumed, seriously complicating a future presidential declaration of victory. In fact, during a press conference on March 20th, President Bush declared that the Iraq war would continue beyond his presidency, all but admitting that victory in this no-win war is all but unachievable despite all his rosy rhetoric to the contrary.
Normally, I write editorials which are limited to arguing a point about which I feel passionate. This time I decided to do something different. As all of my readers are no doubt aware, there is a significant difference of opinion between what I call the Reagan conservative realists and the neocons led by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in regards to whether “staying the course”, which effectively means continuing a failed policy which is resulting in us losing the war, is justified in Iraq. It doesn’t take a general to understand that if the strategy you are employing to fight a war is not working, then it is necessary to change course and try a new one, something that the Bush administration has repeatedly refused to do. On the other hand, if victory is not possible, military and strategic prudence demands a rapid termination to one’s involvement in the war on the best terms possible. Again, the Bush administration has stubbornly refused to even entertain an exit strategy as mandated by the Reagan-Weinburger-Powell doctrine which is nothing more or less than a restatement of the American tradition for fighting just wars, which has been generally adhered to over the past 230-odd years by US Presidents far wiser than the current occupant of the Oval Office.
I have decided to conduct a survey and would welcome any supporters of the war to participate. Colonel Douglas MacGregor, whose plan to invade Iraq was largely adopted by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, stated in an interview back in June 2005 that Bush’s mistake was not in invading Iraq, but in deciding to outlast our welcome by engaging in a Clintonian nation-building exercise in Iraq. He said we began losing the war when the mission changed from regime change to occupying the Sunni triangle in perpetuity many years after we bagged Saddam in December 2003 by which time we had only lost about 460 troops or so as opposed to the 2,315 KIA total today. MacGregor argued that we should have withdrawn our troops to the Iraqi periphery at that time thus avoiding 81% of the current US troop casualties we have incurred since the invasion began in March 2003.
Let us all put aside our partisan Republican and Democrat blinders for the purposes of this exercise and presuppose that the US invasion of Iraq to overthrow and capture Saddam Hussein was the right decision and that Bush acted in good faith when he gave what we now know were erroneous justifications for the invasion. Let us further suppose that the US occupation of Iraq from March—December 2003 when Saddam was captured was also fully justified and that the 460 or so American lives that were sacrificed up to that time were worth losing in furtherance of that end. The question then changes from whether the invasion of Iraq was justified and whether we were lied to by Bush, et al, in the run-up to the war to whether the never-ending occupation of Iraq from December 2003 to the present is justified. Since I have already listed the costs, I challenge any and all supporters of the war to answer the following questions and list all of the benefits of our continued occupation of Iraq which would justify the cost of President Bush’s repeated call to ‘stay the course’ in Iraq:
1. What have we accomplished between December 2003 and the present day to justify the increasing loss in American blood and treasure since that time totaling nearly 1,000 American dead and nearly $200 billion a year? (Just think about the thousands of neutron-warhead tipped land-based ABM interceptors we could build to safeguard our country against nuclear attack by any nuclear power or how secure we could make our border against illegal immigrant invaders and terrorist infiltrators if even a small fraction of this total were added to our annual defense budgets!!!)
2. What will we accomplish by continuing to fight the Iraq war for the next 3-10 years as Bush and Rumsfeld have suggested they plan to do?
3. Why are we sacrificing American lives to help the Iranian-proxy Islamist revolutionary government of Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leader of Iraq’s al-Dawa (Islamic Call) Party, previously cited by the US State Department as a terrorist organization, remain in power? This question is especially relevant in view of the fact that according to Bush-backed former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi (who I support to lead Iraq) “they (the Shiite Islamist government of Iraq) are as bad as Saddam” due to their killing and torture of hundreds if not thousands of Sunni opposition leaders and members.
4. Even assuming the Islamist fundamentalist government of Iraq constituted a reliable US ally and did not serve as an Iranian-proxy government, why is it worth the sacrifice of thousands of US lives and up to $2 trillion in US taxpayer funds during the next ten years to effectively take sides in the now three-year long Iraqi Civil War against the secular Sunni opposition fighting to avert the Islamist revolution now being implemented by the Islamist Iraqi government?
5. What is the exit strategy? What are the milestones of success/victory in Iraq which once met would trigger a US withdrawal from Iraq?
6. Please specify how much lost American blood and treasure would be too much to achieve those ends and how many years of fighting this no-win war would be too many? As a bonus question, please answer the question of how long we should have spent fighting our just, but no-win war in Vietnam while President Johnson and Nixon would not allow us to win it by invading North Vietnam?
As someone who is trying hard to understand why at least 30% of the American people still support 'staying the course' and continuing to pursue a strategy in Iraq which all but guarantees our defeat, I look forward to receiving some considered responses. I will report and comment on readers’ responses in my next editorial.
© 2006 David T. Pyne
swvp@gopwing.com
Visit their website at:
Responses to "A Reagan Realist Cost-Benefit Analysis for the War in Iraq"
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
[...] A Reagan Realist Cost-Benefit Analysis for the War in IraqIntellectual Conservative, AZ - 4 hours ago… government of Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leader of Iraq s al-Dawa (Islamic Call) Party, previously cited by the US State Department as a … [...]
Pingback by Global News Blog » North America - Harvard’s False Report | March 25, 2006
Mr. Pyne, before I address your specific questions, allow me to first iterate the reasons for the resumption of the 1991 war with Iraq in 2003: Repeated violations, by Iraq, of the original cease-fire agreement (please note it was not a formal peace treaty); the dictator's perpetual pursuit and frequent use of weapons of mass destruction (which new evidence suggests are to be found in Syria with the other Baathist regime; mass graves containing several hundred thousand innocent victims; torture chambers, rape rooms, amd secret police; more than a dozen U.N. resolutions violated (the opposition to the war by prominent U.N. member-states we now know was animated by greed and corruption); documented connections to numerous international terrorist organizations including al-queda, perhaps including links to attacks on U.S. interests; September 11, 2001; the forward deployment of U.S. forces in the Middle East drew Islamic terrorists bent on killing Americans into the teeth of our military might and away from our cities.
I find it strangely ironic that you cite the war in Vietnam in your editorial, decrying the lack of political will to fight to complete victory, while yourself declaring our current struggle "unwinnable" ala Walter Chronkite. During the cold war, the Soviets called American anti-war/anti-nuke activists "useful idiots" because they inadvertantly aided the cause of communist expansion by draining the will to fight from our leaders. You may not be dressed in tie-dye and pony-tail but the effect of your editorial nail-biting is the same as the hippies' protest marches .
Now to your questions:
1. We have accomplished the liberation of 25 million human beings; drew Islamo-fascists into the buzz-saw of U.S. might by the thousands; convinced Libya to relinquish WMD's; begun to move Syria out of Lebanon; have Iran hemmed in on two sides; re-asserted U.S. credibility to tyrants and terrorists the world over; planted a democracy in the heart of the middle east; prevented attacks on U.S. soil for four years.
2. See no. 1
3. Your premise is a false one. We are not helping Iran by turning Iraq into a democratic ally of the U.S.
4. What is happening in Iraq is not a civil war but an insurgency comprised of criminals, Baathists, and terrorists which will be put down by the coalition and the emerging Iraqi government.
5. The exit strategy is an Iraqi government capable of ensuring relative stability.
With due respect, Mr. Pyne, by following your advice the United States would be making the same mistake we made at the end of WWII (not heeding Patton's advice to confront the Soviets), in Korea (not heeding Macarthurs advice to finish off the North Koreans and red Chinese), in Vietnam (as you have ably explained in your editorial), and in Iraq in 1991. We would ultimately re-inforce the weak perception of the U.S. (which encouraged the attacks of 9/11) held by Islamo-fascists and tyrants in the wake of our embarrasing retreats in Beirut, Somalia, and Vietnam. The U.S. must not declare defeat, abandon our allies, and abdicate our resposibility of leadership of the free world in or we will surely suffer many more 9/11's.
Comment by Jeffrey Osonitsch | March 25, 2006
You write well, but have pre-supposed a lot of "facts" that I do not accept.
1. Iraq is not a training ground for terrorists, it's a killing field of them. It WAS a training ground, starting in the mid 90's and was graduating terrorists from Salman Pak as late as 2003, just like the President has said all along. Translations of Saddam's private tapes have made this clear.
fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm
Now, the Iraqis are trained and motivated to kill the terrorists, and are bagging them in increasing #'s.
It was, is and will always be about terrorism, just like the President has said all along (2002 SotU address: terrorism is mentioned more than WMD's).
2. I don't recall hearing squat on Iran's nukes, save for the regular gold-star compliance reports from the IAEA (Saddam had several of these by 1995 when he admitted to having a nuke program) until we were knocking about the Euphrates basin.
3. Lebanon (where Reagan went, right?) is clearly safer and on a better road now that the Syrians have a second front to worry about.
When do we leave? 6 mo.s after a duly elected Iraqi government asks us to, just like the Prez has said all along.
What shall it cost? I don't know; I'd say less than the cold war because we should be better at it and we're not facing a committed, singular enemy. Then again, the dispersed nature (and positive cash-flow financing) of the enemy could make it longer and harder. How much did the cold war cost, in lives and in treasure?
My pint,
Comment by Nanobrewer | March 25, 2006
1) We have worked to build a semi-working Democracy in Iraq. If we can stabilize Iraq, that would be a major building block in stabilizing the region. We have liberated millions from a brutal dictator, who slaughtered at will. And to be fair, with Bush's open borders policy, it's not like this money would actually go towards closing the borders.
2) Unfortunately, if we pull out, it will be much like a "Vietnam effect". It will embolden our enemies. We are slowly building a stable Iraq. And the closer we get, the more violent it will become. This is the second time we have pledged our help to the Iraqis. I'd hope it's not the second time we let them down. Democracy takes time. We took much longer. They're moving by leaps and bounds. If we really commit ourselves to a democracy in Iraq, we could build it in a year or so. Our only real task is to finalize the procedures to their democracy, and to train a military/police force.
3) I have no answer here. But to hope that he's better than he's made out to be. Due to the elections in Palestine, and the Christian debacle in Afghanistan, I realize this is probably a futile hope.
4) I cannot answer this from any but a humanitarian perspective. I want the Iraqis to live in peace. If we abandon, they will not have it. We are directly responsible for all the chaos in Iraq. It is our job to end it.
5) For three years, the one goal we have seemed to constantly ignore is the most important: training the Iraqi police and military to protect the populous. That is our hardest goal. we also must solidify the government and the democracy. Those must be our goals. We must also seek to mitigate the insurgency. If we do that, we will have achieved victory. Victory is the ultimate exit strategy.
6) Vietnam was far from a no-win situation. If the people involved had been serious about winning the war, Vietnam would've been over in a year or less. As you yourself noted, we won all the battles, but bad strategy lost the war. Unfortunately, we must be willing to fight the insurgency as a war, not as a holding or mitigating action. And that means doing a lot of things that our public may not like. Such as: the public had it's say on whether or not we go to war. Now they get to shut up until the military says they are done. Wars should be managed by the military, not the public.
Comment by Kenny | March 26, 2006
[...] A Reagan Realist Cost-Benefit Analysis for the War in IraqIntellectual Conservative, AZ - 13 hours ago… government of Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leader of Iraq s al-Dawa (Islamic Call) Party, previously cited by the US State Department as a … [...]
Pingback by Global News Blog » North America - Highway of Broken Hearts | March 26, 2006
Mr. Pyne, before I address your specific questions, allow me first to iterate the reasons for the resumption of the 1991 war with Iraq in 2003: repeated violations, by Iraq, of the original cease-fire agreement (please note it was not a formal peace treaty); the dictators perpetual pursuit and frequent use of weapons of mass destruction (which new evidence suggests are to be found in Syria with the other Baathist regime); mass graves containing hundreds of thousands of innocent victims; torture chambers, rape rooms, and secret police; more than a dozen U.N. resolutions violated (the opposition to the war by prominent U.N. member -states we now know was animated by greed and corruption); documented connections to numerous international terrorist organizations including al-queda, perhaps with links to attacks on U.S. interersts; September 11, 2001; the forward deployment of U.S. forces in the Middle East drew Islamic terrorists bent on killing Americans into the teeth of our military might and away from our cities.
I find it strangely ironic that you cite the war in Vietnam in your editorial, decrying the lack of political will to fight to complete victory, while yourself declaring our current struggle "unwinnable" like a latter-day Walter Chronkite. During the cold war the Soviets called American anti-war/anti-nuke activists "useful idiots" because they inadvertantly aided the cause of communist expansion by draining the will to fight from our leaders. You may not be dressed in tie -dye and pony-tail, but the effect of your editorial nail-biting is the same as the hippies' protest marches.
Now to your questions:
1.We have accomplished the liberation of 25 nillion human beings from the grip of a murderous tyrant; drew Islamo-fascists into the buzz-saw of U.S. might by the thousands; convinced Libya to relinquish WMD's; begun to move Syria out of Lebanon; have Iran hemmed in on two sides; have re-asserted U.S. credibility to tyrants and terrorists the world over; planted a democracy in the heart of the middle east, and prevented attacks on U.S. soil for four-plus years.
2. See no. 1
3. Your premise is a false one. We are not helping Iran by turning Iraq into a democratic ally of the U.S.
4. What is happening in Iraq is not a civil war but an insurgency comprised of criminals, Baathists, and terrorists which will be put down by the coalition and the emerging Iraqi government.
5. The exit strategy is an Iraqi government capable of ensuring relative stability.
With due respect, Mr. Pyne, by following your advice the United States would be repeating the mistakes of the end of WWII (not heeding Patton's advice to confront the Soviets), in Korea (not heeding Macarthur's advice to finish off the North Korean and red Chinese armies), in Vietnam (as you have ably explained in your editorial), and in Iraq in1991 (leaving Saddam in power). We would ultimately re-inforce the perception of the U.S. as weak (which encouraged the 9/11 attacks) held by Islamo-fascists and tyrantsin the wake of our embarrasing retreats in Beirut, Somalia, and Vietnam. And how long will it take for our enemies to seize on a victory in Iraq (an American withdrawl) by moving their strategy of car bombings and assassination to the U.S. to dictate U.S. policy further.
The U.S. must not declare defeat, abandon our allies, and abdicate the resposibility of leadership of the free world or we will surely suffer many more 9/11's
Comment by jeffrey osonitsch | March 26, 2006
Hmmmm, let's think about a few things here……… In WWII, we lost more men on single islands in the pacific than we have lost in Iraq, yet people seem to think this is the worst disaster in our history. Yeah, it sucks that 2000+ soldiers have died in Iraq. They are our greatest citizens. But let's think in perspective. We've defeated the entire military force of a whole nation (a good sized nation at that) with only 2000 casualties. In other wars, 2000 people would be lost in a skirmish. Has anyone in the history of the world ever accomplished anything close to that? While I agree that we shifted the focus from combat to peace-keeping way too soon, I believe that the only reason folks perceive this war as a "quagmire" is because of the defeatist MSM. And enough of the Vietnam parallels. When we've been in Iraq that many more years and lost 50,000+ soldiers, then maybe you could have some legitimate standing on thesae parallels. Until then, let's not dishonor the Vietnam generation by pretending that our current national sacrifice is on the same level as their was. That's just a line of b.s. concocted by the libs to win votes at the expense of both generations morale and dignity.
Comment by Shane Atwood | March 27, 2006
I agree with the author, though I consider his memory of the Viet Nam situation asome what sketchy. As to those who disagree, the only answer to their answers is that they are not paying attention. The buzz saw of American might? That's a joke. The only people that have been in the way of the "buzz saw" are innocent civilians. In case you had not noticed the insurgents are doing pretty much whatever they want, as are the Shiite death squads that are no doubt supported by the United States. We have liberated 25 million people? Yes, to turn them over to oppression of what is going to be yet another radical Islamic tyranny, no doubt supported and controlled by Iran.And don't tell me about the supposed good news that we are not heating out of Iraq. "They have electricity". Guess what, they had electricity until we blew it up and now we are supposed to receive kudos for restoring it to a shadow of what it formally was. They have schools, they have water. They had all this before we destroyed their infrastructure, an infrastructure that will take decades to rebuild at the present rate we are doing it. To top it off we were told that reconstruction would be built with oil money. That was another joke. We can't even keep an oil well open in Iraq long enough to grease a Volkswagon.I think Reagan and company were probably right…as were Washington, Jefferson and company.Maybe now we will learn our lesson
Comment by al vincent | March 27, 2006
Sure Al, that makes a lot of good sense. They had to deal with being murdered, dismembered, put through Saddam's rape rooms, etc, but at least they had running water. Yeah, things were better when Saddam was running things. Using the liberals' own estimates of how many innocent Iraqis have been killed in this war, it can be concluded that Saddam wacked significantly more of his own people than the insurgents have killed, but don't let that stop you. War is messy. It's not about ending the loss of innocent life, it's just about minimizing it. Are things going "well"? Numerically, it can safely be stated that things are going better than just about any war in the history of our nation. If Bill Clinton had started this war, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. The fact that a large percentage of people perceive that the war is going badly doesn't make it true or reasonable. It simply shows the danger when people become complacent enough to buy into any statement spoon-fed to them by the media.
Comment by Shane Atwood | March 27, 2006
I am SICK AND TIRED of the same tired Liberal LIE that American troops are targeting civilians when YOU KNOW that American troops have died while putting themselves in the way of harm for the sake of those civilians. Al, and all of you stinking liberals, QUIT KNOCKING OUR HEROES!!! I'm suprised that you didn't dis our firefighters because the ones that went into the buildings didn't make sure they were PC enough for your tastes. If it seems like your comment "The buzz saw of American might? That’s a joke. The only people that have been in the way of the “buzz saw” are innocent civilians." has me a little pissed, it's because it HAS! Oh, before you parrot the usual liberal line; YES! You DO have First Amendment rights! Thankfully American Soldiers are willing to risk life and limb for those rights for all Americans, no matter how STUPID, EVIL AND IRRESPONSIBLE those comments may be. With my First Amendment rights, let me state along with my other comments, that I think Liberals are likend to those who hold down a baby while it's being raped. They aren't doing the actual rape, they make its success more possible. Conversely, your words about how our brave soldiers are 'baby killers' 'target civilians' are 'like Nazi storm-troopers' and other like-minded comments that I've heard coming out of your stinking mouths, puts you in the same moral level! YOU are the reason the 'insurgents' are encouraged and our soldiers have died! If you REALLY have a better plan than the one being used already, then let's hear it, if you REALLY CARE about our soldiers! Put another way, EITHER LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!
Comment by Don | April 9, 2006