Posted by
Tom Grey - Liberty Dad on Sunday, October 22, 2006 11:37:40 AM
Patterico agrees with but also criticizes a quick note of Jonah Goldberg.
Jonah says: “The Iraq war was a mistake.
…And the Iraq war was a mistake by the most obvious criteria: If we had known then what we know now, we would never have gone to war with Iraq in 2003.”
The concept of >Knowledge< should mean something like knowing a) Saddam will be able to make nukes within 5 years, or b) will not be able to.
Jonah: “The WMD fiasco was a global intelligence failure, but calling Saddam Hussein's bluff after 9/11 was the right thing to do. Washington's more important intelligence failure lay in underestimating what would be required to rebuild and restore post-Hussein Iraq. The White House did not anticipate a low-intensity civil war in Iraq, never planned for it and would not have deemed it in the U.S. interest to pay this high a price in prestige, treasure and, of course, lives.”
Jonah: “I think we should ask the Iraqis to vote on whether U.S. troops should stay.
… [not just polls]
If Iraqis voted “stay,” we’d have a mandate to do what’s necessary to win, and our ideals would be reaffirmed. If they voted “go,” our values would also be reaffirmed, and we could leave with honor.”
Both Jonah and Patterico fail to discuss what a "mistake" means. It means a bad decision, not a bad outcome. Decisions are made at a point in time, and influence the outcome, which is ALWAYS a bit unknown at the time. Good decisions sometimes result in bad outcomes; but especially when every decision will result in a bad or worse outcome.
Taking out Iraq after Afghanistan was the right decision, and the only one which makes sure Saddam doesn't have nukes or other WMDs. Not attacking means the French continue pushing to end sanctions ("the US led sanctions kill 50 000 Iraq children every year..." or was that 500 000 ?), and certainly will be increasing support for Saddam.
On WMDs, alone, taking out Saddam was correct.
On the post-Liberation planning, looking at the successful, mostly peaceful Kurds -- Rumsfeld was right, Bush had an OK plan, leave it up to the Iraqis. (An oil trust for all registered voters would have been better, as would local district representatives instead of extremist supporting proportional representation party lists.)
The Arab Iraqis, especially Sunni and Shia extremists, are responsible for the violence.
Not Bush, not America. Iraqis.
Iraqis murdering other Iraqis -- and lying about "not knowing" who the murderers are.
The conservative pro-war frustration is that we haven't "won", and don't seem able to. This idea is a mistake, because only Iraqi Arabs can win, like Iraqi Kurds pretty much already have.
Bush needs to publicly blame the Arabs Islamists, over and over, on how they are murdering/ killing innocent Muslims. The US should have been keeping track of the deaths of Iraqis, too.
The US needs to be in Iraq to make sure the pro-democracy Arabs know their gov't soldiers can get enough US support to win any real battle they choose to fight.
Jonah's idea of letting Iraqis vote is OK -- Bush should formally ask Maliki a yes/no question, should America withdraw its troops? Let their gov't give a "vote of confidence" on keeping US troops there or not.
Patterico's idea of NOT patrolling is also OK -- patrolling costs US lives. A 'lot', when they don't speak the language. Another mistake since Bush 41, & Clinton, & Bush 43 is the lack of Arabic language training. There should be big Army bonuses for those who quickly learn Arabic, and there should be Skype based interviews sent from Iraq back to be translated into English (& both texts) in America. Possibly with civilian gay Arabic speakers working for the army but not in the army -- and Jews and others who speak Arabic.
But if the US commanders think patrols with Iraqis will be better, I'd trust their decision to risk soldier lives more than Patterico's.
On cash, Bush should call for an immediate end to government aid, to be replaced with US supported Iraqi municipal bonds. Cash on loan that Iraqis will repay -- but that Iraqis, not US decision makers, will decide how to spend. So if the terrorists destroy newly built stuff, they're destroying Iraqi stuff, not US gifts.