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The United States War in Iraq is finally officially over today. It’s an occasion well worth marking.
Why did it end? Certainly not because the matter was settled on the battlefield, either with a clear win or a clear loss. Anyone who has any confidence that the goals Americans were fighting for from 2004 on have now been secured is nuts. On the other hand, it’s not a “defeat” in the sense of being driven off the battlefield. All of which means that leaving is a real choice. Yes, the Iraqi government had some say in the question, but had the US been seriously committed over the last several years to staying, I think it’s pretty clear there could easily still be 100,000 or more troops there, indefinitely, no matter what the Iraqis wanted.
No, the United States ended its war in Iraq by choice, just as it got in by choice.
And, as it turns out, the decision to leave casts quite a bit of light on how Madisonian democracy works in the US, both for good and for bad. It’s a story in which the ocean liner metaphor people use was absolutely apt. It took a whole lot of pushing, but this certainly appears to be the case in which citizen action, working through a political party, ended a war.
The story goes like this. Acting in presidential primaries and other primaries in 2004, liberals made it clear that the ambivalence (or, in some cases, solid support) for the war that was evident in Congress in 2002 was absolutely unacceptable within the Democratic Party. That accelerated in the 2006 primaries, with the sort-of-defeat of Joe Lieberman showing exactly where the party was. As a consequence, when Democrats won majorities in Congress in 2006 - in large part because unhappiness with the war had severely damaged George W. Bush - it was an almost solidly antiwar caucus.
Now it gets tricky. Under the Madisonian system, Bush, who had two more years in the White House, was just as legitimate an elected official as were the new Democrats in Congress (as were the remaining Republicans on the Hill, for that matter). But the result wasn’t, as it happened, deadlock; instead, much to the frustration of antiwar voters, the result was a surge into Iraq and increased American casualties. And yet as much as it didn’t appear so at the time, the truth was that the surge was the beginning of the end: there’s a straight line from the surge through the agreement with Iraqis that yielded steady troop reductions under Bush, continued pullback under Barack Obama, and the final official handover today. Meanwhile, Obama, in large part because of his credibility with antiwar Democratic activists and other party actors, emerged as a surprise nominee of the party in 2008, and captured the presidency ready to carry out the Bush withdrawal - or, a more blunt version might have it, the Bush slow motion surrender.
The point is that the war ended because citizens, acting mainly through the Democratic Party, ended it. Democratic Party actors - activists, policy specialists, politicians, campaign operatives, and eventually just about everyone, many of whom were not politically active before the war - made it clear that a pro-war candidate could not be safely nominated, eventually, for any federal office. And the other point is that it took just forever to get that done, and it was never certain; had the economy boomed the Republicans might well have won in 2008. Is that undemocratic, given that the war polled badly for some time? I’d argue no: after all, at no time did a solid majority of all voters not only oppose the war but consider it a high priority, a critical voting issue. In those situations, it’s never quite clear that there is only one clearly democratic policy outcome. Instead, what we get are a wide variety of possible legitimate democratic outcomes. And what matters is which set of people care enough to try to get it done, and then are successful enough at politics that they can eventually get their preferred outcome.
And so today’s outcome is the very direct, if distant, triumph of the Deaniacs way back in 2003. It’s the triumph of party actors who enforced an antiwar line on Democratic candidates in 2004 and 2006. A triumph of all the people who worked so hard for Ned Lamont in Connecticut. It’s a triumph of those who did it again in 2008 despite the frustrations of 2007 - it’s a triumph of those who didn’t walk away when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and the rest of them were apparently stymied by George W. Bush, but instead went out and tried to reinforce their numbers in the Senate and the House and to put an ally in the White House.
I’ve said this before, but I’ll repeat it: elections aren’t plebiscites on public policy issues. They don’t actually tell us “what the people want” in any kind of direct way…that’s just not something that mass-electorate contests are capable of doing. But they can be used by citizens, especially acting through political parties, to take action. To make history. And it’s damn hard; it’s a nation of over 300 million, and many of them really, really, don’t agree with you - and even more just don’t actually care about whatever it is that you believe is critically important, as hard as you may find that to believe. That’s not a flaw of democracy: that is democracy. But it’s also democracy to keep working, in and out of electoral politics, to find allies, to build coalitions, and to keep trying to win no matter how frustrating it gets.
I’m afraid we don’t teach that very well, either in school or through our political culture. But that’s the way that real democracy works. And when you do win, and even if that victory is incomplete or took too long in coming, it’s very appropriate to look back and appreciate not only all that you have done, but also a political system of real self-government. No matter how hard that is in practice.
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Gregory on December 15, 2011 5:17 PM:
instead, much to the frustration of antiwar voters, the result was a surge into Iraq and increased American casualties. And yet as much as it didn’t appear so at the time, the truth was that the surge was the beginning of the end
Of course it was. The so-called "surge," as widely predicted at the time, did little to change the long-term situation in Iraq. But it allowed Bush the Lesser to pretend that leaving wasn't equivalent to losing.
Interesting, the insistence of conservatives to cling to the illusion that the US somehow "won" in Iraq has forestalled the Dolchstosslegende that they seemed to be preparing as a Plan B, to blame Bush's failure on liberals who "didn't support the war enough" or some such nonsense.
chi res on December 15, 2011 5:32 PM:
...triumph of the Deaniacs way back in 2003
Deaniacs??? Please! Get your history at least close to right.
Obama stood at a Chicago protest and called the invasion of Iraq "a dumb war" in 2002. Since that time, he's done everything he could to bring it to a end with the least possible casualties. Meanwhile, Deaniacs continue screaming their heads off with no visible results.
Hello? Steve? Time to come back.
chi res on December 15, 2011 5:42 PM:
Barack Obama, October 2002 at the Federal Plaza in Chicago:
I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne...
That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
Montana on December 15, 2011 5:43 PM:
I not only worked to end it, I spent a winter in Montana protesting against it ever beginning. It felt at the time that the Bush administration had a tank ready to run over anyone who dared object to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. It felt absolutely hopeless to object. Even Democrats like Hillary Clinton did not even bother to read the intelligence, but voted for the invasion anyway.
The Bush administration did something else at the time that proved to be extremely insightful -- they started the "support our troops" mantra to ensure that anyone who protested the war was automatically seen as protesting against the young men and women they sent over there.
So yes, I'm glad to see that President Obama has (finally) ended the occupation. I give him great credit for that. We can never get back the more than 4,000 young men and women who died over there, but someone should start asking about the $800 billion kept off the Bush books at the same time he was cutting his very wealthy friends' taxes. And that's not to mention the billions more in future costs for injured veterans.
Perhaps someone could send a bill to Bush and Cheney.
theAmericanist on December 15, 2011 5:48 PM:
Yanno, this is gonna be the subject for a major historical work someday: learning how wars usually end has changed America.
It was an important piece of America's sense of itself back in the day, that we had righteous wars ending in clear victories: we won the Revolution, 1812 (hey, it sorta happened that way, the Battle of New Orleans and we remained independent), the Mexican War, saving the union by abolishing slavery in the Civil War, we got Cuba and the Philippines in the Spanish American War, our side won when we went Over There in the Great War, WW2.... Sure, there were a bunch of skirmishes and minor stuff like Nicaragua, but that's a helluva win streak: and all of 'em ended in decisive American victories.
Most of the world's experience of war is nothing like that. And since 1945, our experience is much more like their's, and less like what ours used to be.
square1 on December 15, 2011 5:55 PM:
And so today's outcome is the very direct, if distant, triumph of the Deaniacs way back in 2003.
No. No, it isn't. The Deaniacs lost. I know because I am one.
The liberal wing of the party was NEVER able to drive U.S. policy in Iraq. What happened is that the Bush administration was forced -- by events in Iraq, not by liberals -- to agree to a schedule for withdrawal. The Obama administration, which is by no means run by Deaniacs, simply found that the price of altering the previously negotiated agreement -- a loss of immunity for Americans committing crimes in Iraq -- was too high to pay for keeping troops in the country.
Since troop presence is a means to an end and not an end in itself, the administration simply concluded that it could achieve most of its (largely non-liberal) foreign-policy goals in Iraq without troops there.
This is no win for Deaniacs. It is just the usual foreign-policy realists recalibrating their policies.
Ron Byers on December 15, 2011 5:55 PM:
Montana, I permanently lost long time friends by opposing the Iraq war. Our nation was polarized beyond belief. Everything the Neo-Cons told us turned out to be a lie and Dick Cheney, family and friends still have nearly unlimited access to the national media. I will never trust our "embedded" journalists again. They are all in bed with the Republicans.
Nearly a trillion dollars down the drain and we didn't even get a pony.
Ryan Cooper on December 15, 2011 6:03 PM:
Well, the AUMF is still on the books, and there are still thousands of contractors there, but could be worse, I guess.
square1 on December 15, 2011 6:11 PM:
Please, chi res.
Can we at long last admit that Obama's 2002 speech was nothing more than the shameless pandering of a rising pol trying to tap into the zeitgeist in his own party?
Given what we now know about Obama's ideology and philosophy of governance, based upon his actual record as President and not meaningless speeches to activists, it is truly impossible to believe that he would have opposed the AUMF had he been a Senator in 2002.
This is a guy who just supported an invasion of Libya, using 90% of the Bush-Cheney playbook: Dictator "killing his own people"? Check. UN resolutions that can be twisted to support regime change? Check. No imminent threat to U.S.? Check.
And you want me to believe that Obama would have stuck his neck out when the drums of war were beating as loudly as they have at least since Pearl Harbor and possibly ever in U.S. history? Please.
chi res on December 15, 2011 6:27 PM:
Can we at long last admit that Obama's 2002 speech was nothing more than the shameless pandering of a rising pol trying to tap into the zeitgeist in his own party?
Wow. You have no problem showing your fringe credentials, do you? Might as well join the teabaggers.
And your attempt to draw an analogy between Iraq and Libya begs the question I posed in an earlier thread: Is it just plain stupidity or intentional sabotage of the 2012 election?
chi res on December 15, 2011 6:30 PM:
Can we at long last admit that Obama's 2002 speech was nothing more than the shameless pandering of a rising pol trying to tap into the zeitgeist in his own party?
Wow. You have no problem flaunting your fringe credentials, do you? Might as well sign up with the teabaggers!
And your attempt to draw an analogy between Iraq and Libya begs the question I asked in an earlier thread: Is is just plain stupidity, or intentional sabotage of the 2012 election?
Montana on December 15, 2011 6:33 PM:
Ron, you wrote that you will never trust our "embedded" journalists again.
I think that was another one of the ingenious tactics of the Bush administration, letting reporters be there as in-beds. The woman who wrote for the New York Times at the time (whose name has been permanently erased from my memory for some reason), clearly became a direct spokesperson for the administration.
But the embedded journalists bonded not with republicans but with the military. They needed to -- they were living and fighting in essence right alongside them, instead of being external and objective observers.
So I find this day very sad. Such a terrible waste of human life (Iraqi and American) and trillions of dollars in projected costs -- and no one was willing to put an end to it until today. As someone who also opposed the Vietnam War and, unlike Newt Gingrich someone who actually studies the past, it seems like this country never learns.
a on December 15, 2011 6:47 PM:
"The point is that the war ended because citizens, acting mainly through the Democratic Party, ended it."
Laughably wrong, conceited garbage. The Iraq withdrawal plan was laid down in Bush's Nov 2006 Status of Forces Agreement. Last I checked, Bush wasn't a Democrat.
That Bernstein could write this long drivelly screed without even *mentioning* the SOFA is a remarkable thing, even for washingtonmonthly.
yellowdog on December 15, 2011 7:09 PM:
This post should note that Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate in 2008 in part on the strength of his foreign policy experience, even though Biden and Obama had come to different conclusions on the war in Iraq. Biden had supported toppling the Iraqi dictator and voted in favor of the use of military force proposed by President Bush. Biden later became a critic of Bush's handling of the war, including opposing the surge. Biden had his own reasons and explanations for these views, which seemed to evolve over time. However, Biden was pro-war, Obama was anti-war, but Biden's presence on the ticket with Obama was generally welcomed by Democrats.
square1 on December 15, 2011 7:10 PM:
You have no problem showing your fringe credentials, do you?
Your appear to define as "fringe" the very Democrats who have been largely correct on every major political issue in the past 15 years. So, to answer your question, no, I never tire of being right.
As for calling me stupid, do you never tire of insulting Democrats with whom you disagree politically? Seriously, chi res, are you pathologically incapable of engaging in a civil discussion about politics?
While the wars in Iraq and Libya are not identical political events (not that any two foreign-policy situations ever are), yes, I believe that there are enough similarities between the two to cast strong doubts that any President who would have ordered the Libyan war would have opposed the AUMF in 2002.
Not only do I believe that there are similarities, but I told you what those similarities were: (a) demonization of the foreign leader by emphasizing his domestic brutality, (b) exceeding the bounds of UN resolutions, and (c) absence of imminent threat to U.S. I would also add, since we are on the subject, the lack of a clearly articulated plan for post-war governance.
Frankly, I don't care if you agree with me or not. If you want to ignore my posts, go right ahead. Or, if you want to intelligently discuss the issue and point out why I am wrong to draw the conclusions that I have, then I will gladly discuss the issue. Who knows? If you actually make an argument, maybe I will agree with it.
But what I wont tolerate is your bullying attitude. You do not get to dictate what are acceptable and unacceptable beliefs for Democrats to hold.
If you are so damn worried about 2012, I would suggest that you stop trying to insult and piss off every disenchanted 2008 Obama volunteer, donor, and voter that you come across.
Jenny on December 15, 2011 7:20 PM:
"The Iraq withdrawal plan was laid down in Bush's Nov 2006 Status of Forces Agreement. "
------------------------------
First, it was 2008, not 2006.
Second, Cheney gave an interview on CNN a couple of days ago saying if they were still in office they would have left 20,000 combat troops. No one in the Bush administration, not Bush himself, has contradicted Cheney's statement.
Third, McCain said this week had he been elected president he wouldn't have followed the SOFA.
Forth, all the current GOP candidates (save Ron Paul) are bashing the enforcement of the SOFA.
So there. The republicans all openly admit they didn't consider the SOFA to be binding nor worth the paper it was written on.
Jenny on December 15, 2011 7:25 PM:
"I believe that there are enough similarities between the two to cast strong doubts that any President who would have ordered the Libyan war would have opposed the AUMF in 2002."
--------------------------------
Howard Dean supported the intervention in Libya.
pluege on December 15, 2011 7:31 PM:
Madisonian Democracy worked to effin' great that a dozen or so war criminals continue to walk the streets as honored statesmen (including the current resident of the White House).
...it work so effin' great that hundreds of thousands died, and a cool $trillion or so flushed down the toilet, and a country wasted for no reason other than the little-dick bloated egos of a bunch of immature fratboys.
not a G-damn thing of that tragic disaster worked in any way. It is a massive feat of human failure.
Jenny on December 15, 2011 7:41 PM:
"Madisonian Democracy worked to effin' great that a dozen or so war criminals continue to walk the streets as honored statesmen (including the current resident of the White House)."
----------------------------
Meh. The two biggest war criminals in US history are Lincoln and FDR. And they're beloved. Even egghead liberals worship Roosevelt, a person who committed genocide, burning civilians, including women and children, alive.
Here's a photo of a woman and child burnt to a crisp my liberal deity Franklin Roosevelt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-2.jpg
square1 on December 15, 2011 7:47 PM:
@Jenny: Republicans' statements are meaningless and always made for political purposes.
Cheney says that he would have left 20k troops in Iraq? It is critical to analyze what that actually means.
Iraq is a sovereign country. Cheney or Bush or McCain can blabber all they want about leaving troops in Iraq. Reality is that there would be political ramifications beyond the control of any U.S. President.
At worst, the Iraqis could consider a continued occupation to be an act of war against the current Iraqi government.
At best, the Iraqis would simply no longer extend immunity to U.S. troops. How would Cheney handle U.S. troops periodically being tried in Iraqi courts and sent to Iraqi prisons? Would he order Navy SEALs and other special forced to break U.S. troops out of jail?
That's the choice that Obama faced and he concluded that staying wasn't worth it.
Kathryn on December 15, 2011 8:26 PM:
It seems to me that Libya was as successful as any intervention could be. Large swaths of the local population rose up to overthrow Muammar, whose evil brutal ways were well known and needed no further emphasis. He promised to enter the main rebel city to massacre every man, woman and child there, no one doubted he would do it. The thousands who had been oppressed by him were begging for help and fighting with whatever half assed weapons they could find. This was not a dumb war, the Libyan people were the victors and the Libyan people were grateful,waving American, French and English flags once it was over, not too common in the region The effort was supported by NATO and the Arab League too, if memory serves me, it was over in a manner of months and so far the people appear to be handling their new freedom from a dictator of thirty plus years well. I have no doubt there will be growing pains and mess-ups but all in all, I'd call this a success for Pres. Obama and the European leaders and more importantly, the long suffering people of Libya. What I'd most like to understand is why this president gets so little credit for his truly heroic efforts as our president in the face of sabotage in proportions never seen before from the opposition party since the Civil War.
I guess if you don't believe in intervening ever, it was
Kathryn on December 15, 2011 8:29 PM:
Disregard that last line, meant to erase it.
exlibra on December 15, 2011 8:56 PM:
Howard Dean supported the intervention in Libya. -- Jenny, @7:25
If you're trying to change square 1's mind, you might as well save your breath to cool your porridge. He "knows what he knows", and is as impervious to facts as any Faux-Noose-watching T-bagger.
Doug on December 15, 2011 9:59 PM:
This may take some time...
re square1 @ 7:10 PM
para 1: In my opinion, chi res' definition of "fringe" fits you and most of your positions exactly, but you already knew THAT. Having numbers (possibly) on your side, neither proves nor disproves your position/s. See, Bush, GW 2004. Nor does being "correct mean a damned thing, when maintaining the purity of that position precludes ANY improvement in the economic situtation or social and physical well-being of the citizenry.
para 2: chi res asked a question with two possible answers. I note you only took offence to one...
para 3: You believe that President Obama, based on YOUR reading of what led up to the US involvement in Libya, would have signed the AUMF. Basically, all you're trying to do what is, as it's known in the legal profession, convict someone on evidence not applicable to the case. And you a lawyer! Tch, tch, tch!
para 4: Could you please provide some WH links for a)? You MAY have a point with b), I've not committed the UN Libyan Resolution to memory, although I note there were NO Resolutions condemning NATO activity in Libya. With regards to c), you DO know that the US is a party to the NATO treaty and our participation in Libya could be placed under its provisions? Then there are the "humanitarian" aspects of limiting the Libyan conflict/rebellion/whatever to as short a period as possible by assisting the rebels in their ouster of Qaddafi. Unless, of course, you feel we should have supported HIM against the rebels?
para 5: I fully agree with your first sentence. The third is nothing but filler. chi res provided you with support for his argument and you cavalierly dismissed it as nothing but the "shameless pandering of a rising pol...". I guess we're only allowed to use evidence that supports YOUR conclusions?
para 6: Complaints about "bullying attitudes" from YOU? Puhleeese! Any post of yours more than one sentence long consists of nothing but attempts to bully any reader into agreeing with you. Your refusal to admit the possibility that anyone else may have a valid position is of itself the epitome of bullying. The only person here trying to say who is and isn't a Democrat is you.
para 7: From your posts it's obvious the ONLY person here worried about 2012 is you. Why? I neither know nor care. I'm presuming the reference to a "disenchanted 2008 Obama volunteer" is to yourself and can only wonder about how someone could have been so swept up in emotion to have imagined that any- and everything mention in the 2008 Democratic Platform and on the campaing trail would come to pass. Exactly as you wished. But then, manipulating emotions IS part of a lawyer's job as an advocate...
square1, all YOU care about IS being "right", certainly not about how to accomplish anything to bring about the results you claim to want. You continually ascribe motives that you can't possibly know to explain how and why the "right" decision or outcome wasn't made or effected and then use that as "proof". You write as if the ONLY people in the Democratic Party who matter are those who agree with your positions, while allowing absolutely no margin for what this post is about - the sheer hard work and necessity for compromise that's involved in maintaining a representative democracy.
And then you pull this? Pitiful...
Anonymous on December 15, 2011 11:15 PM:
@Jenny
I dont want to offend you but i used to think just like you. i was a pacifist. but i'm not any more, though i belive most wars in history were never just or needed or resulted in the better period afterwards.
here's some thoughts on FDR and Lincoln.
FDR did kill defenseless innocent civilians in Japan when it had no air crafts to attack back US.
but the death toll is far less than millions of the asians Japan killed for 40 years prior to that. Then America spent the next 10 years on japan to rebuilt the country to be the richest nation today with thriving democracy and commerce.
How many women and children would have died under the imperial rule if it was to continue?
The Japanese tends to blame/hate Japanese leaders and not at all the west.
In fact, Japan went through self-loathing, pro-Western phase right after the war.
Lincoln made a decision to burn down towns in Georgia, not just in battlefields.
but without a war, there would have been no freed slaves in the south.
if the war was fought in a small scale with a compromise with some states keeping slaves, it would have been even more deaths through system of slavery years after.
US had slavery for 200 years or so? before the civil war, with 20% of Americans being slaves. how many died because they were in the slavery system?
how many more would have died if it wasn't for the civil war?
cold calculation on strategic part behind that genocide both for WW2 and civil war is to avoid the defeated side wanting another major conflict in the future by making hell on earth.
So far, there hasn't been world war 3 or American civil war ever since.
We tend to think wars kill most people, which makes wars the worst thing ever.
but a bad policy over a long time period also kill people quietly, often more people.
We can gradually change a policy without a war, like we did for women's suffrage.
but how many women have had died because of their lack of civil rights for thousands of years? domestic violence and sexual assault were not illegal. they had no rights to divorce or property. how many women died because of poverty?
that's why ganghi is a big deal. he achieved independent without a war but with peaceful protest.
but remember that he is fighting against the british. if it was the japanese imperials, gandhi and his other indians would have been simply annihilated and nothing would had changed, just like Korean protestors in 1910s.
I'm not saying A bomb in Hiroshima is justifiable, but i am telling you hard data and some thoughts behind the cruelty.
cost to human capital is hard to calculate, but don't underestimate the effect of wars used agasint violent policies while we should never rely on military as means to achieve our policy changes unless it's absolutely needed.
chi res on December 15, 2011 11:28 PM:
@anonymous
I don't want to offend you, but I don't think you've ever thought like Jenny.
She sounds to me like an intelligent, well-educated pragmatic humanitarian.
You've got a ways to go yet.
chi res on December 15, 2011 11:40 PM:
@squarehead
Here's the gist: Don't write stupid things and then maybe you won't think people are calling you stupid.
Also too: I'm not trying to tell Democrats what to believe. I just think that if you're going to call yourself part of the Democratic Party, and you want this political party to be successful, and this party has a democratically-elected leader, then you shouldn't go around taking public cheap shots at that leader all the time.
You want him out? Primary him.
What's wrong? Can't do it? Then work your fucking ass off for years just like Obama did to build the organization and the money and take the fucking risks to really put yourself in the public arena where assholes with stupid names like square 1 can insult you any time they want and other assholes want to blow your brains out.
What's wrong? Too tough? Then STFU!
square1 on December 15, 2011 11:57 PM:
@Doug: I think you need to take a deep breath.
Sometimes politicians say what they mean. And sometimes they say what will help them politically. While modern Republicans may be disproportionately likely to spout b.s., they certainly aren't the exclusive purveyors of political bullshit.
In a nutshell, my original thesis was fairly straightforward: Given the totality of Barack Obama's foreign-policy statements and actions over the past 10 years, his 2002 statement on the Iraq now appears to be an outlier and most likely political b.s. rather than a statement that accurately reflected his thoughts at the time. Yes, that is my opinion. You may have a different opinion.
Similarly, it is my opinion that the totality of Barack Obama's foreign-policy statements and actions over the past 10 years would strongly suggest that if he was in the senate in 2002 he would not have voted against AUMF.
Again, that is my opinion. You may have a different opinion.
With respect to Libya, the manner in which Obama dealt with that conflict is not consistent with someone who would have voted against AUMF. Again, my opinion. YMMV.
It isn't like I'm accusing Obama of throwing innocent people into ovens. I'm just saying that I find his 2002 statement to be notably inconsistent with the rest of his record.
It has been a while since I took a political science class. But when I was a student, I recall people engaging in these types of ordinary political discussions without calling each other "stupid". It would be nice if the same could take place here.
Anonymous on December 16, 2011 12:12 AM:
@Jenny
so you know
i'm against Iraq war and i think the war was never worth the cost and lives.
i was only trying to tell you my takes on FDR and Lincoln specifically.
But i don't think anything is justified at all about Bush on Iraq because there were so many other ways to do something about Hussein.
But my opinion is just another opinion.
Some Shias and Kurds in Iraq think the Iraq war was worth it.
And more people died of poverty under UN sanction combined with Hussein's rule in the decade after the first gulf war than 9 years of war with sectarian violence.
Who knows how Iraqis will feel about it in the future.
Korean war was considered failure and unjustified but now that south korea is a free democracy with economic success, some are starting to reconsider about Truman.
But i think Bush still will be considered one of the worst presidents.
I think he is a war criminal, too. in fact, ICC have a warrant for him.
square1 on December 16, 2011 12:33 AM:
You're all class, chi res.
CC on December 16, 2011 1:07 AM:
Thsnk you for an insightful post, offering a perspective I hadn't thought of. Very interesting.
Vince on December 16, 2011 4:36 AM:
I'm pretty late to this thread. And I want to preface my comments with an admission of respect for Mr. Benen and Mr. Bernstein, both of who's writing I genuinely admire.
But, as much as I'd like to attribute our withdrawal from Iraq as some sort of victory for the democratic process in the U.S., I just don't see how any one can make that claim with a straight face. If anything, our withdrawal is the result of the democratic process operating in Iraq. By every account I read of our withdrawal, the Obama administration would have preferred to maintain a presence there. There has been ample documentation that clearly indicated that the Obama administration actually wanted to maintain a presence there, and that they even put pressure on the Iraqis to maintain our presence there. It was only when the Iraqis refused to grant total immunity to our armed forces from prosecution that the Obama administration cried uncle and left.
As someone who participated in the protests, which, by the way, included millions of people worldwide and which were completely ignored by the media and political establishment of the time, I find Mr. Bernstein's revisionist history infuriating.
There is simply nothing that backs up his fact free assertion that political pressure produced this result. Again, the record is pretty damn clear that the Obama administration only withdrew once it was clear the Iraqis weren't going to grant unconditional immunity to our troops.
I truly wish that our political system worked even remotely like Mr. Bernstein thinks it did to provoke our withdrawal from Iraq. Because, if it did, we might actually have seen some perp walks for the malefactors of great wealth who committed the biggest case of fraud in the history of capitalism.
Far from Mr. Bernstein's fantasies about massive protests, none of the protests that I've been even tangentially involved in have produced any meaningful change in our political process.
Bill Harshaw on December 16, 2011 8:29 AM:
No way, no how, at least on the assumption that Iraqi "wants" were officially being expressed through their elected government. You're operating under the illusion of the omnipotent Americans, which we aren't and never have been. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan--in all cases we had a government "asking" for help. COIN won't work if both the government and the insurgents want you to leave.
Montana on December 16, 2011 9:19 AM:
After close to a decade, thousands dead, and more than $800 billion ($ trillions eventually) and now deeply in debt, we're still fighting about the Iraq War.
This is George Bush's legacy to the nation. He said Iraq's oil would pay for it -- remember that? I still think he should have to.
(Welcome back Steve. Sorry, we sort of trashed the place while you were gone. The news got in the way.)
Doug on December 16, 2011 10:42 PM:
square1, sorry for the delay.
re your 11:57 PM non-explanation explanation.
OK, then, you keep pushing the fake analysis and I'll keep calling you to account.
See you 'round the blog...
square1 on December 16, 2011 11:20 PM:
That was a long wait for a short response, Doug.