Why are we in Iraq?

[pmb]

I was reading an argument and somebody suggested that if we disagreed with the Iraq war that we contact our legislators and tell them that we disagreed with the policy behind it. The policy was named in this post "strategic preemption". But that's not right.

Because it's not strategic preemption - that's the old rationale. Now we're there to free the Iraqi people and bring them democracy. But that's clearly not the whole story either. This leaves all of us who never bought the first reason scratching our heads and wondering what the hell the REAL reason is/was.

Because they never had any weapons of mass destruction, and we KNEW that, and we've pretty clearly preempted the hell out of any nascent WMD production in Iraq, but we're still there. And they've voted and have a nominal democracy that doesn't want us there anymore and we are still there. And Iraq didn't kill 3,000 people on US soil, but somehow the war in Iraq is/was crucial to the overall struggle in a way that has never been properly articulated.

So I would argue against the doctrine if only I knew what the doctrine was. Imperialism, maybe? Fascism? Corporatism? Stupidity? Bull-headedness? Crusadism? Anything besides the overly bland non-descriptor "neo conservatism".

I just don't know. I'm losing it, man.

Comments

[istgut.livejournal.com]

How about "show them that we really can f**k up any country we feel like so they better not f**king mess with us"ism?

Of all the possibilities, inspiring terror in our potential enemies seems to be the best explanation. It's clear that's what the axis of evil thing was all about... it reminds me of dana carvey's impression of Bush I, "We're gonna getcha Sadam! Scary! Very Scary!" (said while wearing night-vision goggles).

[mycrust.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure you're on the mark about this.

[cosyne.livejournal.com]

domestic fearmongering? it's so much easier to keep tabs on your citizenry if you have a war going on. And don't forget war spending. We could probably do a lot better if we invested a few hundred bil in the USA, but that apparently won't fly among the majority of voters, whereas exploding other countries will.

[amoken.livejournal.com]

I don't think I ever had it to lose.

[magicpacket.livejournal.com]

I believe the claim of "crucial to the overall struggle" goes something like this: Yes, they've had elections, but there is enough controversy about who and how to run the country that our troops are the only thing keeping a civil war at bay. If a civil war develops, Terrorist organizations will get into the fray and either emerge the victor or they'll have the victor by the balls and be in control in all but name.

I'm not sure how much I buy such an argument, but I'm pretty sure that's how it goes.

[pmb.livejournal.com]

But will having a foreign occupying military in place encourage or discourage acts of terrorism based on hypernationalism? Is Iraq even a country, or is it really Kurdistan, Fallujahville and Baghdadland and the 3 want nothing to do with each other? Is occupying and policing an entire country while rebuilding their national infrastructure and fanning the flames of nascent democracy and ensuring that only non-psycho leaders are elected really a doable job?

And why are we there in the first place? WMDs were the excuse, but what was the reason? That's the real question I want answered. Were the architects of the war evil or stupid? And what were their evil/stupid reasons?

Stupid *and* evil.

[flamingweasel.livejournal.com]

By annihilating the socialist government in Iraq, they could test two hypotheses. First, they could see if starting a democracy would cause a domino effect* among the countries in the region. Secondly, they could turn Iraq into a model neocon nation. Within a few months of taking over the provisional government (that is, Bremer) had destroyed the state-run infrastructure and was attempting to entirely rewrite the laws to turn Iraq into a model for conservative ideals (no taxes, no state services, no rules for businesses).

Apart from being entirely illegal -- that pesky Geneva convention has something to say about occupying armies turning lawful police actions into excuses to create client states, namely, it's not okay** -- it didn't work. At all. Our ham-handed occupation has turned the entire region against us, probably permanently. The democracies in the region have radicalized in the opposite direction we intended. And as soon as the young men who were pissed off because they're out of work because Bremer fucking fired not only them but their fathers and all their uncles, plus turned the water and electricity off, plus made them deal with a bunch of meatheads in humvees who weren't given any training in dealing with a pissed off population, once they (the pissed off young men) started cutting off people's heads, well, business decided that waiting a couple dozen years might be the best idea.

*: Note the allusion to Vietnam, which I've read from several sources. I'm fairly sure another reason for waging this war is to prove to ourselves that we could tell other countries what they wanted and win this time. Prove all those stupid hippies who ruined the real Vietnam wrong.

**: Check out this article for a lot more on this. Short version: remember how suddenly the provisional government under Bremer handed over power to a provisional Iraqi authority? Well, we couldn't directly rewrite their laws. But an "Iraqi" government could. So we just wrote the laws and tried to have them sign off on them. Cute, eh? Didn't actually work, because the Iraqis we put in power had a brain in their head and saw those pissed off young men who were about to start uniting would come after collaborators too.

[rifhutch.livejournal.com]

If you're looking for a more concrete notion of "neo-conservatism", here's one relatively smart guy's take on the subject.

[pmb.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've always kind of wondered exactly how the fiscal-, social-, and neo- conservatives thought they had anythign in common.

[cubetime.livejournal.com]

Well, one take on it is we're there because we all believed there really were WMDs in Iraq.

From that perspective, your question must be restated as, "Why are we still in Iraq?"

[pmb.livejournal.com]

I didn't! Sanctions and inspections (backed up with threats) were working, even if they aren't sexy. The example in that article is the one discovery of anything approaching chemical weapons, and it's nothing like what he was claimed to have, and it's basically a discovery of the stuff we sold him in the 80's.



I'm starting to agree with David Brin that the parsimonious conclusion is the same as the conspiracy whack-job's conclusion, and that's never comforting. But sure, so why are we still in Iraq?

[cubetime.livejournal.com]

I didn't! Sanctions and inspections (backed up with threats) were working, even if they aren't sexy.

I didn't believe it either. But many of the administration may have either believed it, or deluded themselves into believing it. Congress seemed to have believed it a little. And evidently, some people (probably many people) believe the administration believed it. Or want to believe the administration believed it.

I didn't believe it because the more Saddam complied with the inspectors, the more obvious it became that he didn't have anything, and the louder the administration clamored, "The inspections aren't working. We must invade!" The inspections weren't "working" in the sense that Saddam was supposed to refuse so that we could use his refusal for the basis of an invasion. They had to invade before the inspections proved there wasn't anything there. (Why we were going to invade in the first place is a bit of a mystery. Dry run for North Korea? Oil? Handout to Halliburton? A bet? Something to subtle and sinister that no one has figured it out yet?)

But sure, so why are we still in Iraq?

"You break it, you buy it." And boy did we break it. For as bad as life under Saddam may have been, I think it's safe to say we've made things at least as bad, if not worse.

[pmb.livejournal.com]

"You break it, you buy it." And boy did we break it. For as bad as life under Saddam may have been, I think it's safe to say we've made things at least as bad, if not worse.

Right. But do you think our continued presence will make things better or worse? I'm pretty sure it will just inflame tensions. We don't have the political will required to draft every able bodied young person into the army and ship them over to a desert country that is trying to tear itself apart. And failing extreme measures like that, I don't see how we can fix anything.

[pmb.livejournal.com]

Why we were going to invade in the first place is a bit of a mystery. Dry run for North Korea? Oil? Handout to Halliburton? A bet? Something to subtle and sinister that no one has figured it out yet?

The best explanation I've gotten is that there was a diverse set of reasons that the evil henchmen wanted to invade Iraq, and the president wanted to do it because his dad didn't. But it's still frustrating that there does not seem to be an actual reason that we invaded. We have an excuse or two, but no real reasons.

Perhaps the takehome lesson is that it's not enough for people to agree on the action, they also have to agree on the action's goals. Otherwise when things start going poorly, everyone's reactions will be counterproductive and at cross purposes.

Wow, that guy's smart.

[canarasekal.livejournal.com]

I found the following quote to be really fundamental:

"Nostalgic, resentful, and grounded upon unquestionable core liturgical teachings, each is driven by a sense of destiny and contempt for those who disagree."

I really think that hubris is the source of almost all human evil.

[clipdude.livejournal.com]

I think along the same lines as cosyne. While I do think that terrorism poses a real threat to national security, the Bush administration wants to make us irrationally afraid of terrorism, because it yields them more public support, which makes it easier for them to pursue the domestic agenda. This, coincidentally, is also the goal of the terrorists (who want to drum up fear and intimidation)—although I don’t think their is an actual conspiracy going on, just an overlapping of interests.

However, in order for this strategy to work, the administration must appear to be “doing something” about the threat they play up. In reality, terrorism in a complex problem and will require a sophisticated, multi-faceted approach to conquer. Such an approach would, by the way, include putting the risks posed by terrorism in their proper perspective; the thousands of terrorist deaths, while horrible, is minor compared to the number of deaths caused annually by car accidents or cardiovascular disease. It would also include a massive boost in disaster preparedness, to minimize the havoc the terrorists’ actions can bring.

I don’t claim that the necessary approach wouldn’t include violence, but it certainly doesn’t consist soley of bombing the hell out of people.

Unfortunately, the administration doesn’t want to wait for a sophisticated mutli-faceted approach to work, so they decided to look busy by hyping the WMD threat in Iraq and bombing it. Alas, this approach is only likely to increase the threat of terrorism, by making Iraq a haven for terrorists and making people in the region resent us more.

[leech.livejournal.com]

Oil, dude.

[pmb.livejournal.com]

That was my hypothesis, but so far it's been shown a crappy and inefficient way of getting and controlling oil.

[cubetime.livejournal.com]

crappy and inefficient

The hallmark of the government.

[pmb.livejournal.com]

Not this crappy and inefficient. This is crappy and inefficient on a whole new scale. They've gone plaid.

[leech.livejournal.com]

Halliburton seems to have made out okay.

[jes5199.livejournal.com]

"But it hasn’t happened. Immediately after the nominal end of the war, Congress appropriated $2.5 billion for the reconstruction of Iraq, followed by an additional $18.4 billion in October. Yet as of July 2004, Iraq’s state-owned factories had been pointedly excluded from the reconstruction contracts. Instead, the billions have all gone to Western companies, with most of the materials for the reconstruction imported at great expense from abroad."

(to be totally off-topic..)

[annag.livejournal.com]

firefly!
hey, that way i even know what weekend it was (having missed taping some of the episodes).