An Incivil Matter

 

The balloons went up. They were up nightly at the abandoned train station outside Haqlaniyah, Iraq. We were convinced it was a coded message. The colors of the balloons would change each night and their groupings also seemed more than haphazard. Our S-2 shop never did figure out the messages of the balloons, but we had every reason to believe those messages weren’t meant to be friendly to us.

We were the First Battalion, 23d Marines, a Reserve Marine Infantry battalion mobilized and deployed to take charge of about 100 miles of the Euphrates River from Haditha to a bit south of the City of Hit, back in 2005. The battles of Fallujah were over and, unknown to everyone except us, the focus of the enemy’s efforts was on Haditha. To this day most Generals don’t seem to acknowledge that fact, they just thought that an understrength battalion spread that thin must have been getting hit so much because we were reservists. We were understrength because they took one of our companies away from us to guard the Air Station at Al Asad. After we lost 48 dead and well over 100 wounded badly enough to be sent home, the lesson the Generals learned was to never put a reserve battalion on the line again. Strangely, they replaced our battalion with two full strength American battalions and three top notch Iraqi battalions, and Voilà! Peace broke out in the region. Let’s just say I disagree with the lesson to be learned.

One of the things people often complain about nowadays is the “Rules of Engagement.” Of course, the rules of engagement are classified, so unless you were there and briefed on the rules, you have no way of knowing what the rules were — but that never stops people from arguing about them. There are always rules of engagement of one kind or another, and when we were in Iraq, they were generally permissive compared to later years. What I didn’t like was not so much the Rules, but the attitudes of our Nation toward its use of the military.

The balloons were a symptom. But with the balloons, we weren’t sure something was up, we just suspected what they were used for. It’s the Mosques that angered me. Nightly the enemy used the minarets to announce to the cities their anti-American and anti-western propaganda and they’d urge the people to kill us. We weren’t allowed to do anything about it. Because we’re polite, I guess.

Forty-eight men in my battalion were dead. We were polite about it.

Another movie is coming out about Iraq, “Thank You for Your Service.” It’s probably meant as a tribute to the military, and perhaps many in the military take it that way. I don’t think I will. It’s another symptom of the attitude of our Nation and its use of the military.

The movie is about a soldier who does his duty and does it well. He’s not Audie Murphy, he’s an everyman who does good and faithful service and his comrades trust him. It’s another PTSD movie, perhaps, or at least another movie about how hard it is to come home from war. This rankles me. I want to see a war movie where the good guys don’t have problems adjusting. The conflict should be the enemy, not home. I guess that would require a different attitude of our Nation toward its use of the military.

Why do we have a military? I think I know. I don’t think our nation in general knows. We allow our military to fight an enemy by letting them preach their attacks on us with loud speakers from minarets. Why? Instead of cutting down balloons and running out the vagabonds squatting on the unused train station, we sit and wonder what they mean. Why? We invade a country and establish a local government that we allow to tell us what to do before the war is even completed? Why? We don’t require people that we conquer to observe the Bill of Rights and allow them to continue oppressing their people. Why?

Enemies don’t respect politeness. Our military does not exist to bring care packages to the world and prop up oppressive regimes and religions.

Why can’t Hollywood make a truly heroic war movie? Because we don’t win wars. We don’t win wars — not because we don’t have weapons and the mechanical ability to win wars. We don’t win wars and we don’t see heroic war movies because of the attitude of our Nation toward its use of the military.

Just as in recent politics we are seeing a new way of thinking that brought Trump to office in an effort to change the attitude of politics, we need a new way of thinking about our military. Our military needs more incivility.

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  1. Kevin Schulte Member
    Kevin Schulte
    @KevinSchulte

    Shame on those in this nation who have created this situation. If we send men into combat, they should be unleashed with only black/white moral restrictions until hostilities are over or not send them.

    • #1
  2. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Well said, Skyler.

    • #2
  3. MJBubba Member
    MJBubba
    @

    We are still dealing with unresolved issues from the Vietnam War.

    Why would we expect to be able to successfully wage war?  We can’t even successfully describe our goals.

    • #3
  4. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    MJBubba (View Comment):
    Why would we expect to be able to successfully wage war? We can’t even successfully describe our goals.

    The United States, our motto, making the same strategic error since 1964.

    To Paraphrase COL Harry Summers, if you can’t explain your war aim in 25 words or less  you can’t earn and maintain public support. And your armed forces can’t develop a strategy to achieve your war aim.

     

    • #4
  5. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Steve C. (View Comment):

    MJBubba (View Comment):
    Why would we expect to be able to successfully wage war? We can’t even successfully describe our goals.

    The United States, our motto, making the same strategic error since 1964.

    To Paraphrase COL Harry Summers, if you can’t explain your war aim in 25 words or less you can’t earn and maintain public support. And your armed forces can’t develop a strategy to achieve your war aim.

    The way I see it, the bulk of the Iraq war aims were achieved, temporarily, from 2010-2014, and when Mosul’s cleared we’ll go back to having the bulk of war aims achieved. Trump has enough public support that he can increase troop levels in Afghanistan 16 years after they first went out. It doesn’t seem to me that the public is nearly as bad at accepting the long war as folks make out.

    • #5
  6. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Skyler:Our military does not exist to bring care packages to the world and prop up oppressive regimes and religions.

    I think there’s a place for care packages, but I agree with you wrt propping up oppressive regimes.  T

    Clearly that is not be a proper purpose for the US’ (or in fact any democracy’s) military.  But equally clearly that is in fact what happens on occasion.

    My question: why is there no electoral price for administrations that misuse the military – or why is that price often what seems to be unreasonably delayed?

    • #6
  7. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Skyler:Our military does not exist to bring care packages to the world and prop up oppressive regimes and religions.

    I think there’s a place for care packages, but I agree with you wrt propping up oppressive regimes. T

    Clearly that is not be a proper purpose for the US’ (or in fact any democracy’s) military. But equally clearly that is in fact what happens on occasion.

    My question: why is there no electoral price for administrations that misuse the military – or why is that price often what seems to be unreasonably delayed?

    Don’t you think a price was paid?  Bush’s inability to exploit our military prowess and establish a more compliant Iraq and Afghanistan resulted in anger with the Republican Party and the rise of hard core Marxism in the democrat party.  The price paid was Obamacare and the rise of social justice warriors.

    • #7
  8. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    I don’t see it as a clean left right issue.  Why didn’t Bush face a electoral backlash from Republicans because “use the Army properly or not at all”?

    He confirmed the Left’s perceptions, and they didn’t vote for him anyway.

    What about the people who did vote for him? Because that’s where electoral punishment comes from.  Not the other side.

    • #8
  9. Blondie Thatcher
    Blondie
    @Blondie

    MJBubba (View Comment):
    We are still dealing with unresolved issues from the Vietnam War.

    Why would we expect to be able to successfully wage war? We can’t even successfully describe our goals.

    I’d even put that back to Korea. We didn’t “win” that war, either.

    The purpose of the military is to kill people and break things. If you aren’t going to let them do that, don’t send ’em. Don’t handcuff them with stupid rules that some stupid lawyer/politician dreamed up. War is not pretty and ain’t suppose to be.

    • #9
  10. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Have you read “We meant well”.  The author,  a snarky superior FSO I always found irritating,  in fact tells a good story of how we, meaning Congress,  bureaucracy egged on by the media  jump from nostrum and fix it fad to fad expecting the military to carry them out by having too much money but no follow up or consistency  and too many civilian carpet baggers.  The story is repeated often in modern history and while it isn’t a left right thing, it is a conservative/libertarian vs everybody else thing rooted in a misunderstanding of what governments can achieve, what can in fact be fixed,  and what the military is or should be and it’s not nation building or cultural transformation.

    • #10
  11. MJBubba Member
    MJBubba
    @

    Zafar (View Comment):
    I don’t see it as a clean left right issue. Why didn’t Bush face a electoral backlash from Republicans because “use the Army properly or not at all”?

    He confirmed the Left’s perceptions, and they didn’t vote for him anyway.

    What about the people who did vote for him? Because that’s where electoral punishment comes from. Not the other side.

    In 2004 the faltering in Iraq was too fresh to affect the outcome; the initial success overrode the handwringing of the Left.  It was still a relatively close win for Bush.  (2004 was the smallest popular vote margin by a victorious second term president.)

    Republicans did suffer; a number of conservative-leaning low-information voters stayed home in 2008 and 2012.

    Bush did not “confirm the Left’s perceptions,” but he stood down and did not defend himself in the public arena.  He let Leftist mass media get away with spreading lies that are still going around the internet.

    In America, punishing the Republicans nationally would mean that conservative voters would support a Democrat.  Our two-party system only gives us a binary choice.

    We dare not support the Democrats.  They have fully embraced a platform of repeal of individual liberties and growth of Big Government in Washington.  They betray our friends and abandon our allies and promote the culture of death.  Fear of Hillary led to widespread support for Trump.  This came in spite of our “movement conservatives” promoting electoral strategies that favored Hillary.

    • #11
  12. Jim Beck Inactive
    Jim Beck
    @JimBeck

    Morning John,

    Here is 75, I can’t manage 25.  The Hussein dictatorship has repeatedly warred with its neighbors and continues to sponsor and harbor terrorists.  Saddam Hussein sends missiles at out allies and even uses nerve gas against its own people.  Because of the unstable nature of the countries surrounding Iraq, we can not deter Iraq with economic sanctions.  To remove this chronic threat and to prevent this threat from becoming armed with nuclear weapons, we must defeat Saddam Hussein and stabilize Iraq to the benefit of the region and ourselves.

    Morning Skyler,

    How would you present the case for using military force so that our citizens would understand the benefits and risks and would be prepared for difficulties?

    • #12
  13. MJBubba Member
    MJBubba
    @

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Skyler:Our military does not exist to bring care packages to the world and prop up oppressive regimes and religions.

    I think there’s a place for care packages, but I agree with you wrt propping up oppressive regimes. T

    Clearly that is not be a proper purpose for the US’ (or in fact any democracy’s) military. But equally clearly that is in fact what happens on occasion.

    My question: why is there no electoral price for administrations that misuse the military – or why is that price often what seems to be unreasonably delayed?

    Don’t you think a price was paid? Bush’s inability to exploit our military prowess and establish a more compliant Iraq and Afghanistan resulted in anger with the Republican Party and the rise of hard core Marxism in the democrat party. The price paid was Obamacare and the rise of social justice warriors.

    Hard core Marxism has been on the rise in the Democrat Party for a century.  They are nearly complete in their advance and their leaders are secure in their positions.

    Bush trusted Rumsfeld’s Neocons but they blew the call.  We faltered badly after our initial success in Iraq.  Bush made a great save.  He allowed wiser heads to craft the “Surge” and carry it out to a pretty successful outcome.

    But as a lame duck he chose not to spend his personal energy fighting to clear his own name in the media.  This was at a time when lots of low-information voters were still trustful of Leftist mass media, and America suffered for it.  The result was that our voters returned the presidency to the Democrat Party.

    But by 2008 the Marxist takeover of the Democrat Party was such that they celebrated Obama and cheered his victory.  As leader of the Treason Party, he pulled us out of Iraq.  Media supported him with cover for his flimsy excuse and deliberate neglect of the stories that showed that his pullout was a disaster.

    • #13
  14. Jim Beck Inactive
    Jim Beck
    @JimBeck

    Morning John,

    Here in Indy we are on our way to having a week of perfect weather, I hope you are as well in Switzerland.

    I think your spot on in pointing out our confusion concerning the post defeat government.  We wanted a small foot print so as not to seem like an occupation. I understand the benefits of this desire, however I think it was foolishness to imagine that it could work.  The administration seemed unwilling to accept the hard grind that post-war Iraq would present, the administration doubted that Americans would accept sacrifice.  The administration would have been better served by saying that the “war on terror” would involve sacrifice, instead of saying in effect that if we don’t live just like we always do the terrorists will have won.  To imagine that we needed thousands of troops in post-war Germany and Japan and Korea and yet Iraq would be able to stumble its way to some sort of reasonable government without the structural support that a large presence of US troops would offer was never going to work and asking the Iraq people to organize a generally consensual not plagued by corruption was beyond belief.  Had we not just lived through the problems with Russia’s dashed hopes.

    • #14
  15. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Jim Beck (View Comment):
    To imagine that we needed thousands of troops in post-war Germany and Japan and Korea and yet Iraq would be able to stumble its way to some sort of reasonable government without the structural support that a large presence of US troops would offer was never going to work and asking the Iraq people to organize a generally consensual not plagued by corruption was beyond belief.

    I agree.  My impression is that a majority of Iraqis were overjoyed to have an end to Saddam Hussein and with strong leadership from us they could have returned Iraq to its previous tradition of pro-western policies.  Instead, we allowed Iran to meddle and foment discord and treason.  We were afraid to unseat Muqtada al Sadr, and that only emboldened more unrest.  We should have been strong but just, instead we were wishy washy Charlie Browns and the Iraqis learned to ignore us.

    • #15
  16. MJBubba Member
    MJBubba
    @

    anonymous (View Comment):
    But then the question which this leaves unanswered as I would define an objective is “stabilize Iraq”—fine, but how? In other words, is the objective to (among possible alternatives):

    • Install a new dictator more amenable to our policy preferences?
    • Impose an occupation government and constabulary for an indefinite period?
    • Build the framework for consensual government and then let the population decide?
    • Disarm the country and the populace and maintain an occupation presence to prevent rearmament?
    • Destroy the military infrastructure and purge the existing government power structure, then walk away with the warning that if they act up again we’ll be back and next time no more mister nice guy?

    I think you could find advocates for each of these policies in the U.S. foreign policy establishment (counting government, military, and academia and think tanks), but to my knowledge none of these policies, or any other, was clearly articulated at the outset of the conflict nor since.

    I thought the one about imposing a new dictator was ruled out in advance by Team W.

    I think I recall some remarks about providing a framework for democracy, providing some helpful initial rules for parliament, and then letting the Iraqis use their democratic process to establish a new government.

    We did in fact rule at first.  We announced publicly that our rule would be very temporary.  We set up a Council within about two months, and then prodded them to get themselves organized.  Less than a year later they had a provisional constitution, and they held elections in January of 2005.  I thought that was reasonable progress.  Especially considering the opposition.

    Our problem was that the Neocons had underestimated the pressures in Iraqi society that Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party had been suppressing.  Both Sunnis and Shias formed militias and sent gangs of thugs around to sew chaos and discord.  It was only after the Surge was implemented that there was a new lid placed on this cauldron.  I think the period of chaos gave all Iraqis a good look at what their future could be without American support, and there was widespread Iraqi acceptance of the Surge.

    Then Obama kicked out the props and left the field, betraying all Iraqis who had helped Americans.  They were preyed upon by bad guys from all sides.

    • #16
  17. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    anonymous (View Comment):

    James Of England (View Comment):

    Steve C. (View Comment):

    MJBubba (View Comment):
    Why would we expect to be able to successfully wage war? We can’t even successfully describe our goals.

    The United States, our motto, making the same strategic error since 1964.

    To Paraphrase COL Harry Summers, if you can’t explain your war aim in 25 words or less you can’t earn and maintain public support. And your armed forces can’t develop a strategy to achieve your war aim.

    The way I see it, the bulk of the Iraq war aims were achieved, temporarily, from 2010-2014, and when Mosul’s cleared we’ll go back to having the bulk of war aims achieved.

    In keeping with Col. Summers’ observation, can you (or anybody else) state the “war aims” (I would prefer “objectives”: what is the desired end state when the troops come home?) in Iraq (and, if you like, Afghanistan—they may differ) in 25 words or less? Do you consider these war aims today the same as they were when the Authorization for Use of Military Force was enacted and the conflict began?

    There were a few aims in Iraq.

    Iraq is a democratic state with no nuclear program to relaunch, and no intent to create one.

    It is no longer the primary state financier of terror against American allies.

    Iraq no longer engages in genocide.

    Iraq is no longer a threat to its neighbors.

    The US can claim with credibility that if it is pushed hard enough it will follow through on commitments to coerce a bad actor’s change of course.

    Iraq will soon have no ungoverned regions that provide safe havens for terrorist groups.

    • #17
  18. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    anonymous (View Comment):

    Jim Beck (View Comment):
    Morning John,

    Here is 75, I can’t manage 25. The Hussein dictatorship has repeatedly warred with its neighbors and continues to sponsor and harbor terrorists. Saddam Hussein sends missiles at out allies and even uses nerve gas against its own people. Because of the unstable nature of the countries surrounding Iraq, we can not deter Iraq with economic sanctions. To remove this chronic threat and to prevent this threat from becoming armed with nuclear weapons, we must defeat Saddam Hussein and stabilize Iraq to the benefit of the region and ourselves.

    I read the part of your statement which I would consider an aim or objective as: “we must defeat Saddam Hussein and stabilize Iraq to the benefit of the region and ourselves”: 16 words. But then the question which this leaves unanswered as I would define an objective is “stabilize Iraq”—fine, but how? In other words, is the objective to (among possible alternatives):

    • Install a new dictator more amenable to our policy preferences?
    • Impose an occupation government and constabulary for an indefinite period?
    • Build the framework for consensual government and then let the population decide?
    • Disarm the country and the populace and maintain an occupation presence to prevent rearmament?
    • Destroy the military infrastructure and purge the existing government power structure, then walk away with the warning that if they act up again we’ll be back and next time no more mister nice guy?

    I think you could find advocates for each of these policies in the U.S. foreign policy establishment (counting government, military, and academia and think tanks), but to my knowledge none of these policies, or any other, was clearly articulated at the outset of the conflict nor since.

    There is no long term stability without democracy. Democracies, uniquely, allow for a peaceful change of government in such a way as to persuade any group that believes it is in the majority that it can act within the process.

    If you’re familiar with Iraqi history, you will know that committing atrocities in order to instill the lesson that people should behave has a poor record of long term success and not because it has not been tried.

    I believe that the creation of a democratic government was always the plan in Iraq, in part for those reasons, in part because it’s obviously the solution in line with American values. There are memoirs that claim that this was not a prioritized aim at the beginning, but I’m familiar with none that deny that it was an aim. Iraqi democracy works better at the governorate level than at the federal level, but it works well enough at both.

    • #18
  19. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    I Walton (View Comment):
    Have you read “We meant well”. The author, a snarky superior FSO I always found irritating, in fact tells a good story of how we, meaning Congress, bureaucracy egged on by the media jump from nostrum and fix it fad to fad expecting the military to carry them out by having too much money but no follow up or consistency and too many civilian carpet baggers. The story is repeated often in modern history and while it isn’t a left right thing, it is a conservative/libertarian vs everybody else thing rooted in a misunderstanding of what governments can achieve, what can in fact be fixed, and what the military is or should be and it’s not nation building or cultural transformation.

    I have read We Meant Well. I agree that he’s irritating in his snark, but that’s more important than it might seem; the chief argument of the book is an argument from snobbery. He includes lengthy stretches of dialogue between soldiers intended exclusively to show that our military are morons with a certain tinge of frat boy to them.

    It’s certainly true that there was any amount of bureaucratic confusion and poor management. You’ll find that anywhere. If you know guys who work for Wal-Mart, you’ll probably find any number of crazy stories (this has been my experience, at least). To go from “People are crazy and incompetent, large groups of people more so” to “we should not do this specific thing”. Wal-Mart has been a success, despite exclusively employing humans made of crooked timber. People can mock them, but if they suggest that because so many managers make poor decisions it’s crazy to think that they can sell t-shirts and microwaves they’re making an error in logic.

    Similarly, Peter Van Buren makes it wholly clear that he normally hangs out with much cooler people than the squaddies he ended up with. It’s certainly true that many soldiers had embarrassing levels of ignorance. Again, you can “Watters World” pretty much any subject and find this.

    What he couldn’t show was that they were not brave men and women who worked incredibly hard and delivered freedom to the Iraqi people. There’s any number of stories about Americans being dumb in Iraq, but also of Americans doing amazing, heroic things. From right at the beginning of the war, we were told that Americans couldn’t stick to this stuff and would give up any day; that argument from Western analysts was one of the chief reasons that the terrorists were as successful as they were. It was false, though. Americans went on tour after tour, leaving loved ones, convenience, and comfort behind, trudging through and persevering until by 2010 or so they had produced peace, or at least lower levels of violence than in some American cities.

    • #19
  20. Jim Beck Inactive
    Jim Beck
    @JimBeck

    Afternoon J of E,

    Skyler asks, what is the purpose of the military; deter threats, safeguard interests, protect allies.  Concerning our attempts to stabilize defeated threats, it is not the basic function of the military to rebuild the defeated. Their presence might be essential to maintain peace, however we have seen that Western populations are bewildered by the current rebuilding efforts.  Both in Iraq and in Afghanistan attempts to get to consensual governments have been slow.  There are many societies which do not have historical institutions which can be formed into democratic structures, it maybe that it would be better to try less direct routes to stable societies, as in the MidEast.  Perhaps a more top down leadership using business, governmental, and religious leaders making decisions based on what they view as consensus might have been a better beginning strategy for Iraq.  Iraq appears to be a society where clan elders are viewed as the true leaders for many of the groups.  If I had to choose, I’d ask Bernard Lewis to create a path toward a stable society where corruption is minimized and a legal framework is seen to be fair to all groups.  It may be that democratic states are stable and non-aggressive but getting there in Iraq may take generations, if ever and I think peace and stability is more important than representation.  Also we have seen in the countries which have become democratic since WWII, an increasing reluctance to address threats to their own countries let alone threats which are more long term or regional.  When we say that all cultures are equal, perhaps it is an easy rationalization which we use to avoid hard decisions.  We can not even publicly say that the culture in the MidEast is more oppressive to women than ours, note our recent Senate hearing.

    • #20
  21. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Jim, I strongly agree that the military is not the ideal vehicle for a lot of rebuilding; my area of strongest dissapointment with Bush and Obama administration Iraq policy was the failure to force the State Department to step up and do its job. Iraq desperately needed (and could still do with) more western trained accountants, for instance. It’s great that we persuaded them to go to effort to crack down on terrorist financing, set up accountable corporate structures, have a functioning stock market, and so on.  It’d have been even better if we’d trained more of them with the tools to go ahead and do that thing.

    That said, given that the State Dept. was filled with Powells and such, the military was probably the only institution available. It’s utterly shameful that the CERP program was better than any of the alternatives, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a profoundly important and helpful program. Thankfully, as with so much in life, although we couldn’t get the ideal, we had what we needed; the military includes an awful lot of highly impressive men and women and they successfully forged a democracy under circumstances that were in many ways unfavorable. In particular, Iraq’s income is disproportionately oil based, which makes it harder to avoid corruption. Saddam destroyed farming, Saddam, Iran, the Gulf War allies, and AQ destroyed manufacturing, Qassim destroyed finance. We did amazing things with power plants and such, but Iraq is going to have a public sector heavy economy for a long time.

    Iraq isn’t super tribal. Anbar and a couple of other areas where the US spent a long time fighting are pretty tribal, but most Iraqis are urban, and urban Iraqis are mostly disconnected with the older structures; whether because they don’t know what tribe they belong to, because they’re the product of multiple tribes, or for other reasons they’re much less likely to pay attention to that sort of thing. The Kurds are the big exception; even urban Kurds in the KRG mostly have a PUK or KDP affiliation. Anbar and Kurdistan will probably struggle for a long time with that and ISIS scars. Salah ad Din will probably take a few years to get back to the successful Sunni-Shia coalition that was governing it before 2015. Most of Iraq, though, is doing fine from a governance perspective. There’s a budget crunch because fighting ISIS is super expensive, but that’s an acceptable sort of a problem from an American perspective.

    I don’t think that all cultures are equally suited to democracy, but Iraq is significantly better suited than most. Baghdad has spent most of the last few millennia being either the capital of some of the world’s most cosmopolitan empires or the regional capital of a cosmopolitan region. The Cold War was not kind to Iraq, but it still matters that it was a market driven place until the ’58 coup.

    • #21
  22. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    anonymous (View Comment):
    In keeping with Col. Summers’ observation, can you state the “war objectives” in Iraq in 25 words or less?

    Topple the Hussein regime.  Leave Iraq a stable country that we don’t have to worry about. (16 words).

    Do you consider these war aims today the same as they were when the Authorization for Use of Military Force was enacted and the conflict began?

    Who knows what our war aims are?  Trump and Mattis have gone a long way toward clarifying, but we’re still in a moral morass when it comes to Iraq–and, now, Syria.

    I submit (fully conceding the fits and starts and absolute wrongheadedness of pieces of our Iraq adventure) Iraq was on a glide path to just that strategic outcome, until we turned our backs on the Iraqis and our own  objectives and just left.

     

    • #22
  23. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):
    Topple the Hussein regime. Leave Iraq a stable country that we don’t have to worry about. (16 words).

    You forgot, “Bracket and threaten Iran from the east and west.”

    That brings you to 25.

    • #23
  24. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):

    anonymous (View Comment):
    In keeping with Col. Summers’ observation, can you state the “war objectives” in Iraq in 25 words or less?

    Topple the Hussein regime. Leave Iraq a stable country that we don’t have to worry about. (16 words).

    Do you consider these war aims today the same as they were when the Authorization for Use of Military Force was enacted and the conflict began?

    Who knows what our war aims are? Trump and Mattis have gone a long way toward clarifying, but we’re still in a moral morass when it comes to Iraq–and, now, Syria.

    I submit (fully conceding the fits and starts and absolute wrongheadedness of pieces of our Iraq adventure) Iraq was on a glide path to just that strategic outcome, until we turned our backs on the Iraqis and our own objectives and just left.

    Do you think that Iraq is not on a glide path there now?

    • #24
  25. Locke On Member
    Locke On
    @LockeOn

    James Of England (View Comment):

    In particular, Iraq’s income is disproportionately oil based, which makes it harder to avoid corruption. Saddam destroyed farming, Saddam, Iran, the Gulf War allies, and AQ destroyed manufacturing, Qassim destroyed finance. We did amazing things with power plants and such, but Iraq is going to have a public sector heavy economy for a long time.

    It’s always struck me that when we arrived in Iraq, a large chunk of the economy was socialized – at least energy and agriculture – and corrupt as [CoC].  And when Obama walked away, their economy was and is still largely socialized.  It’s like we were ready to preach democracy, without being willing to push its companion – the free market.  The sneaking suspicion is that because many of those in charge didn’t believe it in themselves, they didn’t see it as a priority.  As long as that much wealth and economic power is in the grasp of governmental power, it will always be a priority to acquire it, by force or corruption.

    • #25
  26. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Locke On (View Comment):
    The sneaking suspicion is that because many of those in charge didn’t believe it in themselves, they didn’t see it as a priority.

    Just as those same people in charge don’t believe in the Bill of Rights and don’t think other people deserve or want to be free.

    • #26
  27. DocJay Inactive
    DocJay
    @DocJay

    Damn skippy.  I’ve seen a man beat his fists down over bombing missions in Vietnam not designed to win.  Never seen a shred of emotion from him before or since.

    • #27
  28. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Locke On (View Comment):

    James Of England (View Comment):

    In particular, Iraq’s income is disproportionately oil based, which makes it harder to avoid corruption. Saddam destroyed farming, Saddam, Iran, the Gulf War allies, and AQ destroyed manufacturing, Qassim destroyed finance. We did amazing things with power plants and such, but Iraq is going to have a public sector heavy economy for a long time.

    It’s always struck me that when we arrived in Iraq, a large chunk of the economy was socialized – at least energy and agriculture – and corrupt as [CoC]. And when Obama walked away, their economy was and is still largely socialized. It’s like we were ready to preach democracy, without being willing to push its companion – the free market. The sneaking suspicion is that because many of those in charge didn’t believe it in themselves, they didn’t see it as a priority. As long as that much wealth and economic power is in the grasp of governmental power, it will always be a priority to acquire it, by force or corruption.

    When I was working in Baghdad for the Iraqi Ministry of Finance, this was a large portion of my work; critiquing various efforts to turn oil money into a high functioning non-oil economy. It’s a problem that faces all oil economies, and it’s not an easy one to solve. If you have a pre-existing healthy economy, it’s not so bad. If Iraq hadn’t had the coups and then Saddam, it’d have a better chance of being Norway than most of the planet.

    The destructive decades did happen, though. When most of money comes in essentially passively, how do you think one should move the economy towards private sector led production? Our best models were places like the UAE and Nigeria that lacked Iraq’s historical assets, but also Iraq’s destruction of its historical assets. We tried to get private equity schemes to work, subsidized various private sector efforts to the extent necessary to allow them to prosper in an environment where the government still imposed substantial barriers to successful commerce (for security purposes, for instance) and other factors made attracting investment difficult (AQ, for instance). We encouraged politicians to retain language about state food provision being temporary. We helped reform the stock exchange, passing an insider trading law that essentially allowed non-morons without significant inside information to rationally trade on it. We encouraged, organized and supported education in financial skills. We expanded the banking sector, set up ATMs and such, and were creating the first consumer mortgages and mass consumer savings products. We helped set up power plants that would supply the energy that would make it easier to set up manufacturing plants and service economy enterprises. I wasn’t really involved in the extensive anti-corruption programs, but some of them seemed to be useful and effective.

    In all of these efforts, things were slower than they ought to have been and generally on a smaller scale. Some of the efforts failed outright. If you have a thought about something that the government could have done, but did not do, I would love to talk about it. The subject is one that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, but not one that I’ve come up with a lot of useful responses to.

    • #28
  29. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    James Of England (View Comment):
    When most of money comes in essentially passively, how do you think one should move the economy towards private sector led production?

    JoE, you hit the mark there.  That economic passivity trickled all the way down to the individual psyche.  Instead of thinking No government, no more free dinars, let me figure out how to provide for my family, I saw a whole lot of Someone needs to take charge so that my family is provided for.  There were some who showed entrepreneurial spirit, but they were far outnumbered by those who couldn’t help but squeal in the passive voice.

    Too, I think it necessary to posit that the awful decades the Iraqis suffered kind of snuffed out the ability to actively put capital to work.  If one is only out for one’s own, and actively scams the Iraqi Government, the US government, and investors for short term gain, and never deliver as promised, the economy will never catch and begin functioning.

    • #29
  30. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):

    James Of England (View Comment):
    When most of money comes in essentially passively, how do you think one should move the economy towards private sector led production?

    JoE, you hit the mark there. That economic passivity trickled all the way down to the individual psyche. Instead of thinking No government, no more free dinars, let me figure out how to provide for my family, I saw a whole lot of Someone needs to take charge so that my family is provided for. There were some who showed entrepreneurial spirit, but they were far outnumbered by those who couldn’t help but squeal in the passive voice.

    Too, I think it necessary to posit that the awful decades the Iraqis suffered kind of snuffed out the ability to actively put capital to work. If one is only out for one’s own, and actively scams the Iraqi Government, the US government, and investors for short term gain, and never deliver as promised, the economy will never catch and begin functioning.

    That’s why we should take their oil. They have squandered the right to use that resource.  In return, we make them a territory and require that they be civilized. Or forget the territory status and just require they be civilized and  enforce the Bill of Rights.

    • #30
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