nathan said...
My point is that 1% doctrine married to a sincere belief that free markets and democracy are a wonderful thing lead to the invasion of Iraq and the attempted liberation of its people.

Jeff: Sort of. Back in '97 or so, neocons said they wanted to go into Iraq because it was doable militarily, Saddam didn't have a lot of friends, and it borders three nations that provide most of the regional support for terrorism. Jump in the midst of them with a big show of force to scare them into behaving, then turn Iraq into a model democracy to show the surrounding peoples what their lives could be like--not for their sake, but as an act of enlightened self-interest. All that was needed was a catalytic event that would allow them to put their plan in motion. Enter 9-11. And initially it worked. After our military success, Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia all seemed to be improving their behavior. This prompted me to express some amusement over how the real motivation behind the war was working out, but the PR reasons tanked--what do you tell the public? Of course, once we showed weakness as occupiers, our influence also tanked.
But that was just the neocons. There were a variety of views within the administration. In the end, it was WMDs that united them.

Here we’re going to parse it out a little. I think it was a multi-stage process and I agree with your statement but think it only goes back to Step #2. My belief in Step #1 is based on interviews and quotes with the major players (Chenny, Bush, Rummy) and the people around the players (Tenent, Powel, Libby, Rice, etc). It is my belief that the goal of Saddam’s removal did exist long before 9/11 [and I said so] but that their was an idealistic commponent that once it found sympathetic ears moved up the stage to your points above, post-haste. I a cynic would say they’re lying, making it up after the fact, CYA-ing, or disingenuous. But based on the reading I think the impetus was an idealistic one. Idealism became quickly married to pragmatism--as it should in the real world, I argue.

nathan said...
Be courageous, I argue, take risks to do good things [“good” meaning spreading the influence of democratic ideals and a free market

Jeff: That's fine, but meaningless.

Not if it’s used a platform for a mission statement. As a bumper sticker? You bet. As the blueprint upon which pragmatic action is initiated it becomes as powerful as “4 score and 7 years…”

Jeff: How you do the spreading is what matters. Following 9-11, the world was on our side. I firmly believe that a skilled president and administration could have ridden that wave to impressive global changes for the better--better for the world in general and us in particular. The route we chose, however, has gone the opposite direction. And we screwed it up from the very beginning of the Afghanistan invasion. Our allies wanted to take that hill with us, but we made it all about us. That was the first of many wedges. Pity we couldn't set our pride aside in exchange for a better outcome for us.

We often, Jeff, agree that the hows were stupid and incompetent. I will say this. Nothing succeeds like success. If the Shia had behaved differently Iraq would have a different face. (I mean according to Rummy’s plan--I think Rummy should have had a different plan, or one at all). It was a big, historic gamble and if it had worked this conversation would be structure a lot differently (I think you’ll agree). It’s like the T Rosevelt quote about daring greatly. I support the whys.

nathan said...
We didn’t do it because of over-simplified views of Bush and Cheney as comic book villains.

Jeff: I wouldn't be too quick to say that about Bush. I think he is quite simple. He is not thoughtful, instead flying by his gut. I think that can be a good thing and have made extensive use of that tactic myself with great results. The problem is, over the decades, Bush's gut has proven to be not very bright. On top of that, he's a slow learner. He grabs the bit in his teeth and he runs. If you work on him long enough and hard enough, you can get him to change direction (not that he'll admit that he did).

I agree about Bush. One of the things that struck me was how he doesn’t read. He scans summaries then does a “gut-check” of the guy giving him the info to see how he’ll respond. Flip-side: Bill Clinton who always went to bed after midnight and was reading, reading, reading.

nathan said...
It may not have worked--and Rummsfeld and Cheney bear the blame for that--but it wasn’t for greedy hubris.

Jeff: Greedy hubris? No. People tend to believe that their path through life is good for others as well. Put oil men in charge of the administration, for example, and they're likely to make oil and oil companies an even higher priority than they are for other administrations. Not out of greed, but because they think that really is what's best for the nation. It's human nature to adjust your thinking in that way.

Regular hubris, on the other hand... If you could make a little sketch of the last six years of this administration, it'd make a great picture for the dictionary.

If you scroll back up you’ll see I wrote hubris right after the line about greedy hubris. I agree with your assessment.

nathan said...
I also don’t cross into what seem to be factual incorrect attacks that “Bush lied.”

Jeff: Here we strongly disagree. Bush lies with frightening regularity. His methods and mannerisms when lying are identical to those my son used when he was a teenager. This is why I had to stop watching Bush's speeches, and eventually stop listening as well. I feel particularly strongly about Bush lying us into the Iraq War. He lied every time he said "Saddam" or "Iraq" in the same breath with "9-11," which he and a host of others in his administration did over and over and over again. Without that lie of implication, there would have been no Iraq War. It was a critical element in generating the necessary public support.

Yes, here we strongly disagree. I feel you aren’t basing this not on a smoking gun but on your own intuition. Because this is a president., because this is a war, because this asymmetrical warfare where the mindset of the population is every bit as important as tanks & paratroopers I wrote my thread to plead with people to raise the bar for such accusations. Calling a president a liar in war and letting it enter the national lexicon as if it were proven fact [instead of strong feeling] hurts America’s will to sustain a hard, crotch-kicking fight. What if it took 2 more years to turn Iraq around? I’m not saying it will, I’m playing “what if”--but what if it did. Instead of girding ourselves in the manner of, say, and Israel we shake our heads mutter “he lied anyway” and at home we give up--we loose our will.

This in fact is the crux of my point. Completely. You get a tape on him like Nixon I’m with you. But in war I think the standard for such accusations should be that high: just exactly as high as they were for Nixon.

nathan said...
We could give into the attackers and agree to let non-state players tell us which nations we could or couldn’t pursue our interests with. Or we could fight.

Jeff: That's a false choice. True, you could mean a lot of this by "fight," but given the context, I now see this as meaning hard use of military power.

I’m confused. Do you mean you would allow none-state players to dictate terms to us or that, semantically you’d prefer the word “act” to “fight”?

nathan said...
But ‘we’ [Rummsfeld &Chenny] made a mistake in execution that has hurt this country, though in retrospect most of those mistakes (IMO) were tactical how’s and not philosophical whys.

Jeff: Yes, they completely screwed up the war, but the philosophical whys are just as big of a mistake. As you said, we can't physically defend the US. Also, our enemies consist of multiple international forces. Given those two, the focus needs to be on restricting their support and their recruiting pool. That doesn't rule out the use of hard power--Afghanistan was an excellent example of when that's appropriate--but the question that should drive our actions is not "does this strike at terrorists?" It's "does this reduce the number of terrorists and their influence while maintaining or increasing ours?"

Well yes, Jeff. I think a successful Iraq would have done just exactly that--so I agree on the why but how we did it is wrong.

Jeff: That approach is difficult because it often goes against our nature. For example, immediately after 9-11 we put up barriers between ourselves and Muslim immigrants and visitors. We made it harder for them to come here, we were suspicious of those already here, and we used underhanded tactics to root out those with minor immigration violations. Makes sense emotionally, but it was a very bad approach if our interest is security.
Some decisions about policy were made while the towers will still smoking and carried forward from there. I don’t know exactly what you mean by “underhand” but I do think tightening bureaucratic processes is a fair way to help provide loops for attackers to jump through.

Jeff: First of all, for whatever reason, the rest of the world tends to like Americans. Person-to-person contact with foreigners--particularly those who come to live here for a while--has been a huge boon to the security of the US. While we need to strengthen our filtering system at the border, we don't want to do it in a way that discourages the vast majority of visitors from visiting.

I think this is a little Buy-The-World-A-Coke subjective and I’ve not read a whole lot of case histories supporting that--but you could have. Let’s say that on a continuum you find this an “8” and I find it maybe a “5”. Actively “looking” at people rather than trusting in the good intentions of unknowns seems more prudent, IMO

Jeff/ Second, while is it likely there are unfriendlies hiding within immigrant communities in the US, the people best able to ferret them out are those living in there. It is therefore critical that we cultivate and maintain a good relationships with those communities. That means not having INS (now DHS) going back on deals or using bait-n-switch tactics that leave immigrants afraid to contact the government when they have information we need. National security trumps minor immigration violations.

If the government makes a deal to turn an informant it should not go back on it. That is counter-productive. The man who got 25mil and federal relocation for turning in KSM in Pakistan is a great example.

Jeff: Third, as a bonus, good relations with immigrant communities means our language problems greatly diminish. As many languages as are spoken conversationally in the US, it's criminal that our security is hampered due to a shortage of people who speak the language of the moment.

Preaching to the choir.

Jeff: And that's just one piece of the puzzle. That kind of critical thinking--using the head, not the heart--needs to be applied across the board. These days, the safety of the US may at times literally come down to the actions of a cop in another nation. When he's tired at the end of a day and trying to decide what to do with a piece of possible intelligence, we want him as well disposed to us as possible.

I’m not sure, as a general statement I’m 100% behind the foundational belief that he’s not. But in theory I agree with you.

Jeff: So, overall, I agree with your thesis, but not with casual uses of "fight" and "action" that really mean "unleash the military."

I was speaking specifically about the road into Iraq. As a general statement I think “action” and “fight” are best served on a continuum. Predator drone. CIA team. Special ops. Bribes. Sometimes tanks & paratroopers. Intelligence dirty pool. Good PR. Etc, etc. Sure.

Jeff: As Rumsfeld once said, killing terrorists is all well and good, but if our approach results in them being recruited faster than we kill them, it doesn't do us any good.

Don would be quick to point out there have been several attempts and no successful attacks CONUS since 9/11. It’s easy to dismiss--but it’s also just about the only meaningful meteric we have.