A Florilegium of Quotes. Email them to friends, print them out and magnetically affix them to your refrigerator door, so that the contents become imprinted in your brain:
#1. The Commander of the British Forces that wrested Mesopotamia [Iraq] from the Turks, 1917:
"To the People of the Baghdad Vilayet... our armies have not come into your Cities and Lands as conquerors or enemies but as liberators. Since the days of Hulaku your citizens have been subject to the tyranny of Strangers, your palaces have fallen into ruins, your gardens have sunken into desolation and you yourselves have groaned in bondage. ...It is the wish not only of my King and his peoples, but it is also the wish of the great nations with whom he is in alliance that you should prosper ...But you, the people of Baghdad, ... are not to understand that it is the wish of the British Government to impose upon you alien institutions. It is the hope of the British Government that the aspirations of your philosophers and writers shall be realised again. O! People of Baghdad. ... I am commanded to invite you, through your Nobles and Elders and Representatives to participate in the management of your civil affairs in collaboration with the Political representatives of Great Britain who accompany the British Army so that you may unite with your kinsmen in the North, East, South and West in realising the aspirations of your race."
[Source: Atiyyah, Ghassan: Iraq : 1908 - 1921 : A Socio - Political Study. - Beirut : The Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, 1973 p. 151.]
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#2. Gertrude Bell, 1920:
“In the light of the events of the last two months there's no getting out of the conclusion that we have made an immense failure here. The system must have been far more at fault than anything that I or anyone else suspected. It will have to be fundamentally changed and what that may mean exactly I don't know. I suppose we have underestimated the fact that this country is really an inchoate mass of tribes which can't as yet be reduced to any system. The Turks didn't govern and we have tried to govern - and failed. I personally thought we tried to govern too much, but I hoped that things would hold out till Sir Percy came back and that the transition from British to native rule might be made peacefully, in which case much of what we have done might have been made use of. Now I fear that that will be impossible.”
[Source: Lady Gertrude Bell, 1920, The Letters of Gertrude Bell.]
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#3. Gertrude Bell, 1920:
“We as outsiders can't differentiate between Sunni and Shi'ah, but leave it to them and they'll get over the difficulty by some kind of hanky panky, just as the Turks did, and for the present it's the only way of getting over it. I don't for a moment doubt that the final authority must be in the hands of the Sunnis, in spite of their numerical inferiority; otherwise you will have a mujtahid-run, theocratic state, which is the very devil.”
[Source: Lady Gertrude Bell, 1920, The Letters of Gertrude Bell.]
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#4. King Faisal of Iraq, 1933:
"Regrettably, I can say there is no Iraqi people yet, but only deluded human groups void of any national idea. Iraqis are not only disunited but evil-motivated, anarchy prone and always ready to prey on their government." – King Faisal I, writing in his memoirs shortly before he died in 1933.
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#5. “There are only two political parties in Iraq: the Sunni party and the Shia party.” – Tawfiq Al-Suwaidi, Iraqi Prime Minister, 1929, 1930, 1946, 1950.
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#6. In "The Chatham House Version" the scholar Elie Kedourie comments dryly on the description by the far-less-great scholar Majid Kadduri (in his own book, "Independent Iraq") of “the wise leadership of Faisal, who inspired public spirit in every department of government”:
“If this [Khadduri's description of Faisal] were in any way true, there would be no accounting for the degraded and murderous politics of Iraq from the end of the mandate to the end of the monarchy.” [i.e., from 1932 to 1958, when first Qassem, and then the Ba'athists, took over, and things became even more degraded and much, much more murderous].
“The fact is, of course, that this kind of language is most inappropriate to Iraq under the monarchy or afterwards.”
.........
“Lack of scruple greater or lesser, cupidity more or less unrestrained, ability to plot more or less consummate, bloodlust more or less obsessive: these rather are the terms which the historian must use who surveys this unfortunate polity [modern Iraq] and those into whose power it was delivered.”
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Do you think such material, had it been thoroughly read in its full context and digested, might have helped make American policymakers a bit more realistic and less messianic about Iraq? Do you think Richard Perle would not have so excitedly declared in 2003 that he wouldn't be surprised if a boulevard were named after George Bush in Baghdad? Or that Wolfowitz would estimate that the "cost" of the Iraq War might be "$20 billion," and therefore so much more of a bargain than the cost of the sanctions program -- when the cost now, at a minimum, has been estimated at between $1 and $2 trillion dollars, if the costs incurred for the treatment of the wounded, and the macroeconomic costs are factored in? (See the paper of Stiglitz and Bilmes, and if you wish, forget the macroeconomic costs and take the lower figure, and if you like, reduce even that to something we can all agree on as an absolute base -- say, $750 billion.) Or that Bernard Lewis would confidently predict that when the Americans overturned the regime the spectacle of rapture and gratitude in Baghdad "would make the liberation of Kabul seem like a funeral procession"?
They forgot all this, or didn't know it, with their narrow certainties and dependence on Bernard Lewis. A false choice was offered: on the one hand there was the usual crew of appeasers and hirelings and simply ignoramuses (and they were and are appeasers and hirelings and ignoramuses), people who cannot conceive of Islam being the problem. These were the espositos and william-polks and scowcrofts and the djerijians, who wanted nothing done to upset anyone. They are appeasers and idiots. On the other hand there was the belief of Harold Rhode, so uncritically worshipful of Bernard Lewis, and Douglas Feith -- so dependent on Harold Rhode. There was Cheney, who was so certain about so many things, and similarly thought Lewis the last word on everything to do with Islam and Iraq. There was not a hint of any consulting with the live J. B. Kelly, or the writings of the dead Kedourie, or for that matter with others, including Bat Ye'or. It was apparently a false polarity: either Lewis, or the likes of such apologists as Esposito, or just as bad, that fake "old Iraq" hand William Polk, with his predictable appeasements. No other conceivable alternatives.
There is a good deal that Bernard Lewis is able to forget, or didn't know. Look at his enthusiasm for the Oslo Accords, and his grotesque minimizing of the menace of Islam and the mistreatment of the dhimmis, quite unlike his two coevals S. D. Goitein and Gustave von Grunebaum on the mistreatment of non-Muslims under Islam. What did he think would almost certainly happen once the despotism of the Sunni Saddam Hussein was removed?
And wouldn't a knowledge of Islam have told these analysts something about the prospects for real "democracy" as opposed to the vote-counting that the Shi'a were happy to participate in, in which they voted for whomever their leaders told them to vote lemming-like for? In other words, isn't a knowledge both of Islam and of the history of Iraq essential, so as not to engage in the kind of folly that is being engaged in?
The Americans, had they informed themselves, would then most likely either have
1) left Saddam Hussein in place, if indeed there was no real reason to suspect his possession, or his being able to acquire, weapons of mass destruction; or,
2) removed him, if there was indeed sufficient reason to believe that he either had or was attempting to acquire, or could soon start acquiring or making, such weapons, and then left Iraq. We still do not know whether or not Saddam was doing that, but those of us who were long willing to believe that the government was reasonable in fearing the existence of WMDs or of the ability of the regime to acquire them -- I was one of them -- are looking more abashed every day.
What are the most important things to study to figure out what makes sense for the wellbeing of Infidels at this moment in Iraq, given the instruments of Jihad as we can now identify them, and the behavior, ignorant and often pusillanimous, of much of the Western world?
It is history. The history of Islam, both doctrine and practice. The history of Iraq, especially of Iraq since 1920.
Not "psychoanalysis." Not the "generally applicable rules of counter-insurgency" such as "insurgencies tend, on average, to last 10 years." Islam. Iraq. History.
Make a copy for the President also.
Make a copy "for the President." Oh, he won't understand mere "history." History is something you study in school. You can take it or leave it. Gosh, if history mattered, then no one could get anything done. We don't need no stinkin' history.
Andover, Yale -- what did it matter to this dumb child of dumb privilege?
And who, in the main, is paying for that dumbness? The people in the regular army. The people in the Reserves. The people in the National Guard. Not the children of privilege. But some must be kicking themselves today, wondering if they were "dumb" to believe in the good faith and intelligence of their leaders, who appear not to have learned what those soldiers, even without being taught a thing about Islam (and why haven't they been taught, as part of their stateside training, so that when they are confronted not by grateful Iraqis but by ungrateful, hostile, manipulative Iraqis they will not be confused, and then disappointed, and then have that disappointment lead to morale problems of all kinds), and when they realize that the Kurds don't like the Arabs and that temporarily preventing the Sunnis and the Shi'a and passing out projects and money to win them over, when the fight is not about the size of the pie but who gets to keep the whole pie, or almost all of it, and simpleton phrases such as"why can't we all get along" won't make up for 1300 years, more or less, of Sunni-Shi'a conflict, held at times, more or less, in check -- but only where one side, or the other, had an overwhelmingly more powerful position. And that, you see, is not the case in Iraq. For while Shi'a Arabs may outnumber the Sunni Arabs three to one, it is the Sunnis who are more aggressive, better trained in warfare, and much more ruthless. And that is what the Shi'a militia werre there to do: to repay the Sunnis in kind.
Nothing else will work. And the Americans cannot take casualties and babysit forever. We just can't. Whenever we leave, it will happen. Let it. And use it to our advantage.
But Bush, as advised by the david-fortes of this world (and who is writing those idiotic speeches of Karen Hughes -- such as the one posted here yesterday, the address to the "Muslim Ambassadors" in Washington?) is not susceptible to having his stubborn mind changed. He knows. He who is reported to have been puzzled when he heard people in Iraq being described as Sunnis and Shi'a, and said "I thought they were all Muslims?" -- he knows. He knows more than Elie Kedourie. He knows more than J. B. Kelly. He knows more than Bat Ye'or. He knows.
"Once the new Iraqi government has been in existence a year people will begin not only to believe in it, but to be proud of being 'Iraqis," predicted one senior official in the summer of 1921.
Being ignorant is normal.
Being ignorant and not knowing it is dangerous.
Being ignorant and unwilling to accept it is catastrophic.
Faith and Begorrah, Hugh!
"Dumb child of dumb privilege"! You really ripped Dimmya a new one, buddy!
Bravo! Touche! Hear, hear!
Excommie:
Being ignorant is normal.
Being ignorant and not knowing it is dangerous.
Being ignorant and unwilling to accept it is catastrophic.
Being ignorant and in charge of a nation is a disasater for the nation and the rest of the world.
"On the whole, I wish I had stayed in Tunbridge Wells" Arab Bureau Minister Dryden (played by Claude Rains in "Lawrence of Arabia"), upon being asked whether British support of the Arab revolt had been worth it.
kj suddenly irrupts with enthusiasm for my describing Bush as the "dumb child of dumb privilege." I don't mind privilege, or some privilege. But only within certain limits. And only enjoyed -- that privilege of dollars or opund notes -- by those who exhibit in their behavior a recognition of that privilege, as something not necessarily in the order of things, may even exhibit, at times, and in certain places, a slight unease about it. It would also help to have a little Medicean taste (Medicean, I said, not eli-broadish or saatchiesque) and to demonstrate that they, having understood their good fortune, are putting at least part of it to good use, cultivating themselves and their children, and also supporting those who have shown themselves most capable of preserving, in various ways, a world in such cultivation is possible (hint: universities today are not that place). Those who believe that a hundred million, or a hundred billion, is simply the blessed natural outcome of a state of affairs blessed by God, Adam Smith, and the inheritance laws, need instruction, need some moral and intellectual lessons. Possibly their widows or children will have learned them for them.
A little disquiet. A little inquietude. That's the minimum one wishes to see exhibited by such people as Bush. Other things -- including an intelligent spreading of that wealth for the best causes (my hand is out, by the way, in its perennial Eleemosynary Position #1)-- just might follow. Or not.
Mr. Perle and company would have advocated the same policy for the following reasons.
1. Saddam was changing the oil exchange currency from the dollar to the euro which would have with Iran imploded the US economy as the British economy was when the pound was not the standard.
2. The WMD's were showing up in Darfur in chemical weapons. 2 Iraqi based terror attacks had been completed in America by agents of Iraq in OKC and Twin Towers 1.
3. bin Laden's base of operation was now being influxed into Iraqi intel along with Pakistani intel for attacks using nerve agents on the west.
It had reached break point and with trillions of dollar in debt no one in the United States would now be on computers debating this issue as the inflation, terrorist attacks and lack of energy would have turned millionaires into paupers.
To negate those facts and focus on pre communist Saddam observations from old Faisal the fox who got an entire nation for his tribe of Saud and was hinting if he could rule Iraq too then all would be peace there, is to not provide a fair assessment as the "parties" of Iraq for the past 30 years were Ba'athist which is an inbred version of French socialism coupled with communist secular Islam.
The reason Iraq boiled into what it was was the Saud, Hussein of Jordan, Assad of Syria, the Lebanese and Egyptians exported all their terrorist to be killed there in trade of support of getting rid of Saddam. Liberation evolved into a kill zone operation by attrition to wear the Islamic fervor out.
There have not been any revolutions in the Middle East, no WMD attacks on America and America is still the dollar standard of the world fueling a bankrupt economy. Iraq is a glowing success at billions of dollars compared to a worldwide depression costing trillions of dollars which was occurring in spring 2001.
It is always important to note that for 5000 marching Shia, who did stay home for 3 years and did not start attacking Sunni until al Qaeda blew up their Mosque and are behaving again quite well since the crackdown, that there are 10 million Iraqi's staying home.
When the US Military as it is now is allowed to run operations instead of bunkering down with reporterettes, stability occurs and it will spread as a new kill zone is being activated in Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
People complained about Iraq long enough and now the terrorists will move to fire up other locations of mayhem. The Judeans will bleed, the Turks will bleed, the Syrians will bleed, the Philistines will bleed, the Iranians will bleed and in most likely results the Europeans will bleed also as the terrorist flowing into Iraq have now stopped and are finding new vistas to attack.
Personally, I hope America does not bleed, but as the terrorists have now been flushed to make Iraq secure that is the likely scenario. If people had to die, I would have rather it had been Islamocommunists butchering each other that their attacking America again in greater effect events than 9 11.
People get what they want though when they do not understand what Iraq policy was intended on many fronts.
I admit that this site has made me re-think Iraq in many ways, but in weighing the costs and contingent "benefits" it is important to keep in mind what the true costs are. It does need to be pointed out that the military deaths in this war are not substantially greater than the accidental deaths that occur in peace time.
http://instapundit.com/archives/029284.php
Our ability to keep going and pay the human and financial costs of the war is from a stratgic standpoint irrelevant because we can afford to do so indefinitely (but for media/public perception/domestic political pressure). The key question is what is the chance of success? A question which Hugh has knocked out of the park several times.
If it were possible to do so, I would put this issue to a vote to the troups themselves. My personal feedback from friends in the Army and Marines is that people still believe in the mission. They sense a real prospect for success. I do hear feedback from some that illustrate frustration with the Iraqis, but the majority of people I talk to believe they can succeed and will succeed, unless domestic politics pulls out the rug from under them.
Before encountering this site and truly beginning an education on Islam, I had always heard that Beirut and Baghdad were the two most cosmopolitan cities in ME (except for Israeli cities of course).
On additional advantage of not pulling out is that if our best efforts cannot prevail in Iraq and its "cosmopolitan" Baghdad, then we learn as a society that we cannot take on this kind of endeavor ever again in the ME.
What does the fact that Bush is a child of priviledge have to with anything? It's about as relevant at saying "Bush has dandruff." I'm certainly not a child of priviledge but in my ignorance I too believed the introduction of democracy into Iraq would make a difference. I know better now.
The problem Bush has is one that afflicts many people, children of priviledge or not, ignorance of Islam. Only until I started to educate myself and ask impertinent questions did I realize how flawed the whole idea of democracy in Iraq is as long as Islam dominates people's lives over there. I also had to overcome my own resistance to the facts, I really wanted to believe that "religion of Peace" stuff. Really I did. But the facts were just to numerous and eventually I accepted them.
Being ignorant and stubborn isn't the exclusive province of the child of priviledge.
"It would also help to have a little Medicean taste "
Who is there today to provide this "Medicean taste," as did Lorenzo the Magnificent, patron of the arts and learning in Renaissance Florence? Lorenzo's upbringing by his father stressed the importance of the greater good of Florence, a practical tutorial in noblesse oblige. And the Bush family? Are they to be compared? What comparable grand vision has the latest generation promoted? Knavery, as in the Scooter Libby case? Treachery, as in the support for UAE management of US portlands? Or the best foreign policy that a C-student can fabricate, as in the combined invasion of Iraq and failure to address the growing influence of Saudi Arabia behind closed doors?
Ooops. I'm forgetting. The Bushes are friends with the Saudis,dating back from the time when the Saudis were making real inroads into the West in the 1970s (cf "Taliban" Ahmed Rashid). As my dear old mom used to say: Tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are.
One of the closest friends of the Bush clan from Saudi Arabia was the renowned influence peddlar, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan. As friends and followers of this Prince Bandar, the Bush clan becomes a troop of bandarlog, "Bringin' freedom to th' Middle East." Oh, As If!
Freedom, like charity, begins at home. And you can quote me on that.
"My personal feedback from friends in the Army and Marines is that people still believe in the mission. They sense a real prospect for success."
-- from a posting above
Two questions:
1. Are these "friends" in the regular forces, or in the National Guard and Reserves? Those in the civilian army, which is important to maintain, who have served in Iraq, and who are not professional soldiers, and far more inclined not to accept orders unquestioningly, or to accept the notion that the ill-defined "mission" makes sense, are -- my own anecdotal sense is -- not at all favorable, not at all inclinced to "believe" (if they have been to Iraq once, and seen for themselves) the "mission." And those who go back more than once, among the Reserves and National Guard, are, for the most part, completely demoralized and eager to leave. They do not believe in the mission. And they feel, many of them, a fury at the way they have been, and are being, taken for granted, and the assumptions that they made, completely ignored. This will, this already does, have severe consequences for the quality of that civilian army.
2. When the "friends" you talk to say they still "support the mission" do you ask them to dfeine that "mission"? Do you ask them how, if we were to patch up the quarrels, the 1300-year hostlity between Sunni and Shi'a, or end the mistreatment of non-Arab Muslims (in the case of Iraq, the Kurds) by Arab Muslims, this would make the islamization of Western Europe less of a threat, or diminish the attacks on Hindus in Kashmir and Bangladesh and India itself, or keep the Muslims from killing Christians in the Moluccass, or keep Muslims from killing Buddhists in Thailand, or lessen the Muslim Arab urge to eliminate the Infidel state of Israel, or diminish Saudi Arabia's ability to bankroll the world-wide campaigns of Da'wa and mosque-and-madrasa building, and the employment of a small army of Western hirelings?
In other words, do those who say they still support the "mission" even know what the larger "mission" is? What have they learned, what have they been taught before going to Iraq, about the tenets and teachings and attitudes and atmospherics of Islam, what have they been taught about the history of the relations of Islam and the West? Do they know anything, or only what, here and there, they manage to somehow pick up, and try to make sense of, while in country?
And what does this lack of prior understanding of Islam, and of the history of Iraq, mean for the morale of those soldiers? Does it mean anything? Nothing?
For one example: if you are an innocent soldier, and the Iraqis you meet keep telling you that everything was just great between Sunnis and Shi'a until the Americans arrived, and that, therefore, "you Americans need to stay to keep things calm" or "you Americans owe us tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in reconstruction to make up for everything you did to split our naturally harmonious communities apart" -- well, some of those soldiers might actually believe it, just as some might think that it is just those they are taught to refer to, in the language of elementary school, as "the bad guys."
Yes, I can see those World War II generals, rousing the troops in both the European and Pacific theatres, telling them to take care not to hurt all the fundamentally good citizens of the Axis powers, and just try to hit the "bad guys."
The war would have still have been won, then -- but possibly by those the American soldiers had been taught to call the "bad guys."
Ask those "friends" of yours if they don't believe that divide-and-weaken is not a perfectly sensible idea, that the pre-existing divisions within the Camp of Islam (see if they understand, and approve, even like, that useful phrase the "Camp of Islam") are present in Iraq and can be usefully exploited, but exploited only if they, and the other Americans present, leave and leave the Muslims of Iraq (with a little special and possibly continuing boost for the Kurds, whose autonomy, or better whose independence, would further American and larger Infidel interests) to their own victor-vanquished, refusal-to-compromise, aggressive devices.
Proud Infidel wrote:
"The problem Bush has is one that afflicts many people, children of priviledge or not, ignorance of Islam."
Agreed. That being said, it is one thing for you and I to be completely ignorant of Islam, it is entirely another for our sitting president, and all those whom he relies on, charged with the task of providing insightful and useful council about Islam in this case, to be so ignorant as well. Isn't understanding and being able to handle or deal with Islam synonomous with the same requisite comprehension of basic foreign policy? Ronald Reagan thought so, or was at least, informed so, and then, acted appropriately. Bush says over and over and over again that he has a responsibility to protect the American people. That is admirable. If only he would actually begin to do so.
I challenge anyone who is in favor with the current administration's military strategy to defend it, and state just how and when this "mission", which to this date is still undefined, will be accomplished. The military believes in the "mission" because the military is trained to do so and not to question authority. A better question to friends in the military is not if they support the "mission", but rather to define the "mission's" objective.
The silence will be deafening.
I know artists and writers those latter-day Lorenzos ought to be supporting -- if they knew what's good for them, and for their posterity.
But they mostly don't. So they whip out the checkbooks for Harvard, for Yale, for Princeton, for "peace studies" and for "art" that isn't art, and for teachers of literature who do not teach literature but rather about the ethnic, racial, and religious background of authors, and so on.
Usurpers.
During the coup against Gorbie a lot of communists percieved a success and good future for communism, had it been restored. It is natural for people, especially during hard and demanding times to have a skewed perception and wrong senses.
Using euro for international trade is overrated IMHO. Iran tried to do it and several months later stopped paying the monthly installments for the infamous Bushehr nuclear plant. As a result the operational status is delayed indefinitely, and so far no sign of payments renewal is in sight.
In any case with or without the war in Iraq, a response similar to Golda Meir's tactics after Munich would have been very relevant.
Sometimes I think too many people really are remiss in giving the President his due.
It is quite possible the President was well aware of what the likelihood of events turning out as it is.
If one were to go beyond the stated policy, Goals, diplomatic efforts.... And instead view his actions in the light of its results. One could come to the conclusion that the split between Sunni and Shia has never been as pronounced as it is today.
It is already highly pronounced that Iraq is in a state of Civil war. One that never would have started had we not removed Saddam. Especially without 500,000 Troops we are told were necessary.
Seasoned with a hastily derived provisional Government, abandoned by even the UN when it was critically needed.
The problem of Palestine and the 2 State Solution.
"free Elections" bringing Ham mas into power. Ensuring that a "peace settlement" never will happen. Ham mas makes that point clearer with every passing day. It even resulted, for the first time in my living memory, that Western Aid was ever cut off. As long as we refuse to fold, unlike some in Europe who wish to go back to throwing Money at the problem, the "problem will always be there. Israel is not about to fold.
Iraq only needs to be pacified sufficiently enough to hinder Iraqis from impeding any operations against Iran, when, more than If, that occurs.
In the meantime, we hear more and more in the press about Islam than was ever the case before 9/11. And exponentially more than we ever would have had 9/11 never occurred.
The President is criticized for making a distinction of there being "Moderate" Muslims, with extremist's "hijacking" it. Given the nature of the Political Correctness and Multiculturalism shoveled down our throats for How many years now? Coupled with the previous Administrations efforts to never even address the issues or nature of what we were ultimately up against.
I seem to remember The President using the word Crusade in one of his first speeches after 9/11 and was just about shot on the spot. By our own press. So it would be a bit disingenuous to suggest the President could make a speech to the public where he in effect, declares the need to kill all the Muslims. Irregardless if he knew that from the beginning or not.
Sadddam created the conditions for his own removal. Ineedajob is creating his own as Ham mas has just finalized theirs.
I think the Troop increases are to deal with Iran. Those "war Games" in the Gulf back in 2002 probably had a sobering effect on what the Military had planed to do. When assumptions and doctrine fail. It comes time to re-access and re-plan.
IMOA, it was foolish for the Navy to think it could play at will in a Bath Tub.
Hugh:
My cat just deleted my entire post as I was about to send it--but maybe the additional edits will make it a better read. In any case, I will specifically ask my "panel" about whether they think a divide-and-conquer strategy should be US policy.
My current annecdotal evidence (total survey of 9 - 6 career and 3 reservists) supports the conclusion that the Reservists do have a distinctly less positive view than the career soldiers.
Career: 5 in support, 1 against
Reserves: 1 support, 2 against
Also interesting:
Only one person above the age of 30 supports continuing, and that person is older than 40
Everyone under 30 supports
It may be that my sample is overwhelmed by factors having nothing to do with Iraq or Islam---such as simply wanting some sense of adventure or purpose vs. returning to normal life
My annecdotal evidence also suggests that only 1 of the 9 have a knowledge of Islam that is commensurate with someone who regularly visits sites like Jihadwatch, and that person is against. Several are remarkably ignorant of what the Koran says or anything beyond purely superficial Islamic practices.
I am open to the conclusion that those with a positive view may be locked into a world view that renders them unable to confront Islam. I don't know many Muslims. If I knew more, and hand genuine friendships with more Muslims, it would have been harder to get past the PC cloud and really take a hard look at Islam. There is a lot of sympathy for the Iraqi victims in my sample, including from those who want out. The sympathy of the soldiers for "ordinary Iraqis" may be impairing their judgment to some degree.
Like many on this site, I believe that Islam is not reformable. I mean, why bother reforming something that has at its very core--the things requiring the most change. However, that does not mean that I believe that all persons who currently self-identify as Muslims are unreformable.
I believe that we ultimately need to get a sense what percentage of Muslims fall into one of the following categories:
(1) True believers who absolutely need to be dealt with in the strongest terms
(2) People who go with the "winner"
(3) People looking to adopt Western ways who are willing to "stand up"
(4) People who would convert to a different religion if they had the chance
For future use, we will need to have some sense as to how these numbers look. Western countries are not a good place to conduct this experiment as Muslims are still in the minority and thus may provide misleading answers that we want to hear.
In Iraq, we can measure opinion based on actions, not words.
Human nature suggests that many people fall into category (2), at least in the short term.
Communism fell in large part because of its internal dissidents. We need to find out if there are more than a handful of people in category (3) and (4). Lets find out now, so in the years ahead, we know what to expect.
We are already there. We have already paid a steep financial, political, and human price for being there.
If the rules of engagement are broadened (which they have been to some degree), and there is an effort to truly clamp down for a year, why not do it and see what happens?
Whatever happens, we gain the benefit of some hard data on which to base future decisions. If it turns out that 99% of Iraq fall into category 1 or category 2, we should publicly acknowledge that fact, extrapolate those numbers to every other Islam country unless they can prove otherwise, and conduct ourselves accordingly.
Here is another quote that I offer for consideration. Although originally uttered in different circumstances, it has relevance -- I believe-- to the situation in Iraq:
"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we now know that it is bad economics," --Franklin D. Roosevelt
Privilege is a problem to the degree it breeds arrogance. Arrogance is the majority of pride. Pride is not only one of the seven deadly sins, it is deemed the deadliest sin by many writers and philosophers. Why? Pride goeth before the fall, because it leads to so many other nearly deadly sins besides arrogance: contempt, conceit, self-deception, a sense of entitlement, and lack of compassion, empathy, self-doubt, morality, sprituality, humility, and fairness.
Privilege is also a problem in another sense. It increases the likelihood that a person will possess more than he or she can appreciate. We westerners are all like that to an extent. But great economic privilege can lead to even greater personal shallowness.
There is a powerful anecdote in a book called "My Grandfather's Blessings" by Rachel Naomi Remen, where the author recounts her young nephew's favorite toys, two little "Hot Wheels" cars that he played with constantly. Since his parents didn't have much money, she decided to collect an entire line of Hot Wheels from a month-long giveaway at a local gas station with the help of some friends. After giving her nephew the many cars, she visited several months later. She noticed right away that he no longer played with them. She asked him why. He told her that he didn't have enough love for so many cars.
W? A frat boy who knew he was out of his intellectual league at Yale but got by anyway. One who dodged the draft, failed in business, but succeeded in politics due to his last name and in spite of his personal characteristics. What is he? The dangerous combination of a prideful man who appreciates very little and has earned nothing.
Send him a copy of this too.
Mr. Fitzgerald's post represents a high water mark of sorts.
Has erudition ever so effectively and succinctly damned a public policy?
If this set of quotes had been published before the war, it would have lived on as a historical document itself (but would have changed nothing, of course.)
Hugh,
In a future posting if not now would you comment on the outcome of, what effectively will be a withdrawal of our troops if the current Congress overrides a Presidential veto; and thus signal, at least in part, what you have previously spoken of as the resumption of the Sunni Shia factions tearing at one another. I.E. what damage does leaving Iraq do under the current Congress's interpretation of "cut and run" (weaknes) when placed against your more direct positions which tell the Iraqi's we are leaving and here is why (strength)?
Awake wrote:
-That being said, it is one thing for you and I to be completely ignorant of Islam, it is entirely another for our sitting president, and all those whom he relies on, charged with the task of providing insightful and useful council about Islam in this case, to be so ignorant as well.-
I wholeheartedly agree. He should know better. But he shares that ignorance with virtually every world leader, not to mention the vast majority of political figures in the US. Or so it seems from where I stand.
Maybe some of them do know about Islam but political correctness keeps them silent. Or fear. Either way you're right, He should know better.
Political conditions do more to regulate the flow of public opinion than meer facts.
It becomes quite clear that the majority here all understand the fundamental problem we face as a people who wish to live as we chose. Not by the dictates of others who we feel are more primitive in their outlook on life and what it means.
The ominous problem really comes from within. For 30 some years. The 2 previous Generations have been fed a Diet of how rotten America has made the rest of the world. Now were expected to try and defend that very same Nation with a New Generation. Raised in a lap of luxury, having to pay no price for the comforts they enjoy. Let alone work for what they receive for their leisure.
How could anyone expect to turn around the level of Ignorance the population has on any issue overnight. Particularly with the MSM unwilling to even frame the issue let alone explain it for what it is. The Effort is in denying it all. While blaming us for the problem in the process.
If one is taught from birth to hate everything your Country has done. Despite the obvious comforts and opportunities. The problem remains and is more difficult to address, even with the truth. The ability to change the Minds of others to the realities of what they face. Simply because it is the exact opposite of everything they have been Brainwashed about.
If your dealing with a population who has been Brainwashed to believe certain Utopian concepts are obtainable, with no sacrifice on their part to get there. Then how does one, in the end, ultimately change their minds?
The only way I see to do it is to disprove the theory the "masses" have been fed.
Just prove that everybody, is just not willing, to just get along.
The Arabs have shown themselves to our Population, who are willing to understand what they hear. Getting to the rest is done by demonstrating what they hold so deer is nothing more than wishful thinking.
So our Diplomats keep hammering away at "Peace and Democracy", Bending ever so backwards demonstrating to our own population just how "peaceful" we wish to be. So when our Back is out of Joint, Our standing up will carry far greater meaning, and the population far greater understanding.
I think the Showdown will come soon. The Demoncrats, who's spending restrictions are bound to be Vetoed. Will leave Congress still debating the spending while the Military starts running out of Money. I'm convinced, the Demoncrats expect this to play out through the back door, as a way to cut funding and bringing the Troops home.
Unless, of course, Multiple Million Dollar Cruise Missiles are slamming into Iran.
If the Demoncrats were pressing withdrawal from Iraq in the same light and tone as Hugh has. It would offer some tangible reason to vote Demoncratic. To present that type of reasoning would show a fundamental understanding of the problem. Coupled with some insurance other defensive measures would be undertaken.
But we all know better. 40% of the party is so far left they should be left out all together. They have done enough damage already in the education of the Country.
It is tough fighting a War with 60% of your own people feel they have no right to win
I would have preferred a call not for a withdrawal in March or August 2008, but for one that would be completed by August 2007. Every casulaty now, including the one of the Portland, Maine soldier who was blown up while "handing out candy to Iraqi children" -- surely a metaphor for what the Americans are trying to do in Iraq, and for how they are treated for what they are trying to do in Iraq -- and every billion more, and every tank or truck that the National Guard has to leave behind in Iraq so that the state armories are being dangerously depleted, one by one, and every demoralized soldier who is asked to go back yet again, with his sense of patriotism, having been so exploited and misused, draining away even from him, if he has been to Iraq before and knows exactly the lack of gratitude, the selfishness of the "Iraqis" who wish for American favors and goodies for themselves, their families, their tribe or group, but never ever for something called "Iraq" (and that applies as well to those who, in answer to polls, say that they support the idea of a "unified Iraq" but of course have different ideas, unstated to the pollster, about who should hold power, and for the benefit of whom, in that "unified Iraq").
But, some will say, would I really wish to "cut and run"? It's an idiotic phrase, and I won't accept it. I think the war is far more costly to the Camp of Infidels than it is to the Camp of Islam. The goals, never quite stated -- have you heard, in the last four years, a simple and coherent statement of what it is the Bush Administration thinks it is going to accomplish or is trying to accomplish in Iraq? I mean, other than some vague remark about "bringing freedom" or "bringing democracy" to ordinary moms and dads" and so on and so idiotically forth? Have you heard Bush, Cheney, Rice, tell us EXACTLY how this will result in a safer world for us, the Infidels, how it will have all kinds of good effects in halting the aggression of Muslims, and the March of Islam, in Western Europe, or among the psychically and economically marginal in the societies of the West? Have you been told exactly how this impossible-to-achieve lying down of Sunni-lion-with-Shi'a-lamb, or Shi'a-lion-with-Sunni-lamb, or Sunni-lion-with-Shi'a-lion-with-Kurdish-lamb, is going to make things better for Americans, or for people in Australia, or Italy, or England, or Israel, or Canada? How, exactly?
Whole lot of shi...shishkabob, going around.
I always considered Iraq as extra Air Bases for Aircraft and Helicopters unable to operate from Ship Born platforms. Etc.
Political winds changed the timing and the methods.
We should help Iran, to the same life style, Iran chose for Iraq.
I would suspect the Troops, as frustrated as they are. Would love a Clint Eastwood Moment.
A parting Gift the whole region needs.
There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was TRYING to produce military weapons ( of any kind including a " particle beam gun " ) and had sanctions been lifted would have evolved to chemical , biological or nuclear weapons. And the UN were showing signs of caving in on the sanctions, so Bush felt pressured to hurry up and topple him.
The problem is Bush had no conception of the Baath Socialist Party and their conception of waging an underground war once over ran. That is why Saddam never really gave a good effort to win the conventional war. The insurgent war is what was always thought to be the key to political survival for the Baathist.
The Baathist insurgent war was inspired by the real life feats of the General Tito in expelling the German Third Reich during WWII or the Russian resistance to Nazi occupation for that matter.
The occupation of Iraq is a trap , one which the British fell into after WWI. If we had not disbanded the Army , it would have staged a coup against what ever government attempted to weld it.
Our best option would have been to invade Iran instead. Second best option would have been to invade Iraq, topple Saddam and establish and independent Kurdistan to reward the most pro-western population in the country. Third best option , stay out of Iraq altogether and focus on consolidating Afghanistan. Worst option? What we are doing now , bogged down in a Iraqi religious war that is running our armed forces in the ground and limiting our global options. The longer we stay the more illustrious and relevant , in the eyes of jihadist everywhere, becomes Al Queida. By protecting the Sunni from the Shiites we are unwittingly also protecting Al Queida hidden withing the Sunni population. That in essence is what we are grinding our military down for THE-PROTECTION-OF-AL QUEIDA. Our support for Pakistan is also enabling Al Queida to regroup.
We cannot defeat all the while spending billions and billions to indirectly support and protect Al Queida.
----Nossy