I have been thinking about what is going on in Iraq now, and have decided to collect responses to several posts in one post....because of the interconnections I see.
Gautam wrote in response to me: > > I think the best conclusion that can be reached is > > that the people of Iraq > > have strong mixed feelings about the US. > > > > Dan M. > > And that's perfectly reasonable. Given the incredible > levels of anti-American propaganda that they have > been, and _are_ (in the hands of Al Jazeera) > continually exposed to, and the various pathologies > that have become sadly endemic to the culture of many > Middle Eastern states (it is common, for example, for > people who have been in Iraq to tell me about how the > Iraqi "man on the street" will, fairly routinely, > blame everything that's going on on a Jewish > conspiracy) I'm actually a little surprised that the > numbers that we have are as favorable as they are. We pretty well agree on this...it will be interesting to see if the conclusions we draw from the same set of facts will also be the same. First, I see two reasons for the opinions to be as favorable as they are. First, Hussein was really as bad as we said he was; and the people of Iraq are very relieved that he is gone. Second, the actions of our troops, in all probability, have been exemplary for an occupying force. From the very small number of complaints about abuse by troops, rapes, etc., I would guess that the forces there are both exceptionally well trained and well motivated. Harking back to the comparisons the administration and others made with the occupation of Germany and Japan, I would be very surprised if the occupation of Iraq did not greatly exceed the humanitarian and ethical standards set by the actions of our GIs in those countries. Set against that, there are a number of factors. You listed some of them; I'd add a few more: a shamed based culture where it is easy to injure honor and pride; a society where official sources are trusted less than rumors; a society where people with guns will shoot if you say the wrong thing in front of them, a society where the ideas of representative government are foreign. They are in a position where they may very well be willing to trade liberty for security because they really don't believe in the reality of what will give them their liberty. Given this, I would argue that public opinion is very volatile. It can easily swing against the US. The natural tendency is against the US, and it takes a tremendous amount of work to slow the slide in that direction. The longer we are in control, the more difficult it will be....especially if we do not guarantee security for the people. Now, let me look at a couple of other posts. JDG wrote in response to Tom Beck: > At 03:46 PM 4/14/2004 -0400 Thomas Beck wrote: > >William Safire is going to be the last human being (possibly the last > >carbon-based lifeform) to recognize, or at least to admit, that the USA > >is getting bogged down in a nightmare in Iraq that is not going to end > >early or well (certainly not both). > > I guess that makes two of us.... > > JDG - Nightmares aren't this successful, Maru.... > While I wouldn't say that Iraq is now a nightmare, it does have that potential. Calling our actions there successful is looking through rose colored glasses. Let me give just a couple of examples of this. 1) The turn-over of power on June 30th. It is a hard date that is driven by the clock ticking on our occupation of Iraq. It might also be a bit driven by domestic politics...nothing is outside of politics, but I'll give Bush the benefit of the doubt here. Lets look at what has happened with it. The US had a plan for a caucus system for the interim government. It seemed pretty reasonable, but it was nixed by the locals. Then, the US floated the balloon of expanding the present council. That was quickly shot down. Now, we are depending on a man, Lakhdar Brahimi, who is lecturing the US of the evil of not being anti-Semitic enough to get us a good government. He has stated that "it is a fact, not my opinion, that Israel's bad treatment of the Palestinians is poisoning the Middle East." I guess time reversal can be used to explain multiple attempts by the Arabs to destroy Israel in history as a reaction to the present actions of Israel. What does Bush do with these lectures? He swallows them and repeats his confidence in his accuser. Can you imagine how the pundits would have a field day if Gore were to have done that? Its clear to me that we are doing this because we are close to out of options. Indeed, Mr. Brahimi may be doing the lecturing as a bit of a calculated move to give him some legitimacy in the eyes of the Arab world. We may have even known about it in advance. But, this legitimacy is obtained at the expense of the US, who looks as though we've come crawling back to the UN because we need them to fix something we can't. The early bluster of the Administration makes this look all the worse. At the same time, the new interim government appears to only be in line for pseudo-sovereignty. It can't change any laws and the US is still in total control of the country. People in Iraq are grumbling about this already. The second example is the two standoffs. For weeks, two cities have been in the control of opponents of the US. We have been trying to negotiate a peaceful end to these standoffs. Why? Because we are caught in a double bind, IMHO. Every day the insurgents remain in control, we appear weaker. Yet, if we go in with guns blazing, we will kill a number of civilians. With the Arab media claiming that we deliberately targeting civilians in earlier clashes, you can just imagine the outcome if civilian dead are paraded, with "eyewitnesses" describing the bloodthirsty Americans. Further, with mosques, schools, and hospitals being used as bases, we will have the horrid choice of either going after these buildings, or letting them stand as bases for the insurgents. This is especially true with the Shrine of Ali in Najaf. I agree that the rules of war allow for attacks on mosques if they are used for military purposes, but I think it highly likely that we would be blamed for any damage. This is a classic double bind, which has always been one of my nightmare situations. JDG also said: > >I hope that my fears turn groundless, and that an Iraq that resembles > >Jordan does emerge. > > This is the second time I have seen the "Jordan" analogy. Personally, I > would be at least somewhat disappointed to see Iraq turn into a > self-interested, provincial, monarchy. The goal must be, at minimum, for > Iraq to become akin to a Turkey - and the actual goal should be even bolder. IMHO, that's wishful thinking. Germany and Japan were, already, emerging democracies. It took us three years to get them on the right path, when there was no question of why we had the right to occupy their countries...and when a clear example of how bad an occupation by other powers would look like was available. Indeed, lets compare Iraq to Germany and Japan 1 year after VE and VJ day. Can you name major cities that remained out of Allied control for weeks in that time frame? Even then, two more years were required to set up their democracies....and we don't have that time in Iraq. Next Chad had said: "Everyone in Iraq that plans on being an insurgent is already an insurgent." That is very hard to accept. With all due respect, I don't think you are viewing the insurgent's plans correctly. IMHO, their plan is not so much to change public opinion in the US, but to change opinion in Iraq and elsewhere in the world. With respect to Arab public opinion, over 20% of the Arabs in Iraq said that the attacks on coalition forces were acceptable, back in March. From non-quantitative reports, it appears that this number is growing by some amount. These people, especially the teenage boys among them, should provide fertile ground to recruit new insurgents. Elsewhere Chad said: "Even at a rate of 5 dead soldier a day will only kill 2000 soldiers in the next year. With 100,000 soldiers, there is a 2% chance of being killed by a roadside bomb in the next year. Hardly demoralizing." Maybe not, but its enough to modify behavior. Look at how opinions in the US was changed by 9-11, and that represented only a 0.001% chance of the average American being killed. From what I've read, the US forces are in more of a "hunkered down" mode than they were. Its harder to openly work with the population when you think you might be shot at any moment. Seeing sights of kids cheering your comrades being attacked lowers the chance of approaching a group of kids with calm confidence. I've been reading numerous sources over the last few weeks, including comments by the US military. I see strong indications that the folks on the ground know that there is a significant and rising risk to our achieving our goals. If we only had this appreciation at the highest levels before we went in. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
