The Bush Administration’s Lost Opportunity

Jul 28 2008 Published by under Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections, Government, John McCain, Politics, Republicans, War

This is a little late, but I was out on travel last week and didn’t have much time to sit and put thoughts together. As I watched Obama trek through the Middle East and Europe last week, a remarkable thing happened. The Iraqi Prime Minister gave the Bush Administration the greatest gift it could have wanted – a way out of Iraq immediately and under the Administration’s terms.

In January of 2005, President Bush was asked if we would leave if the Iraqi government indicated it wanted us out. His reply? “Absolutely. This is a sovereign government. They’re on their feet.”

Last week, when Nouri al-Maliki announced his support for Obama’s withdrawal timetable, and signaled the Iraqi people were ready for us to leave, the Administration had an opening to live up to those words. The Administration should have immediately issued the following statement:

Today, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the desire of the Iraqi people to see a US withdrawal. We have always stated that the US is operating in Iraq only as long as the Iraqi government requests our help. We now see the Iraqi government requesting our departure and we will respect their wishes.

I have asked our military advisers to prepare a plan for the immediate withdrawal of US troops, and I expect to see 50% of our troops stateside within the next six months with a full draw down to be completed by the end of 2009.

This would have done three things. First, it would have taken withdrawal off the table as a political issue the Democrats could demagogue. Second, it would have lived up to the word of the Administration that they would leave when the Iraqis asked. Third, it would have completely deflated one of two issues that will weigh heaviest on the general election – the other being the economic turbulence.

For McCain, it would have offered a chance to shift to support withdrawal without being seen as a flip-flopper. He could simply say that he, too, agrees that the Iraqi move toward self-determination is the final condition for US withdrawal. Having met that, the US will honor its obligation and remove its troops.

Having missed this opportunity, both McCain and the Republicans have a problem in that we are now the occupying force that so many have alleged. If we insist on staying, despite clear statements from Iraqi leadership that they are ready for us to leave, the GOP is in the unfortunate position of having to justify our continued presence in a country that has said they want us out. That’s a much worse position to be in for the general election than simply supporting an unpopular war.

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Drawing Analogies

Nov 05 2007 Published by under Bloggers, Craziness, Terrorism, The Internet, War, Writing

I love reading blogs. I also have a particular fondness for columnists. The reason goes beyond a general sense of curiosity about other people, what they think, and why they behave the way they do – which is often tied to how they perceive the world and illustrated in their writing. The reason I love to read people’s personal opinions and thoughts is to be a better communicator myself. This “learning by witness” takes two forms – being provoked into thought by someone else and trying to verbalize my response, or by seeing something that strikes me as abusrd, and not knowing how to respond.

A Wired article titled Suicide Bombing Makes Sick Sense in Halo 3 falls into the second category.

I used to find it hard to fully imagine the mind-set of a terrorist.

That is, until I played Halo 3 online, where I found myself adopting — with great success — terrorist tactics. Including a form of suicide bombing. …

I know I’m the underdog; I know I’m probably going to get killed anyway. I am never going to advance up the Halo 3 rankings, because in the political economy of Halo, I’m poor.

Specifically, I’m poor in time. The best players have dozens of free hours a week to hone their talents, and I don’t have that luxury. This changes the relative meaning of death for the two of us. For me, dying will not penalize me in the way it penalizes them, because I have almost no chance of improving my state. I might as well take people down with me.

Or to put it another way: The structure of Xbox Live creates a world composed of two classes — haves and have-nots. And, just as in the real world, some of the disgruntled have-nots are all too willing to toss their lives away — just for the satisfaction of momentarily halting the progress of the haves. Since the game instantly resurrects me, I have no real dread of death in Halo 3.

The author does specifically state that he is not trying to “trivialize the ghastly, horrific impact of real-life suicide bombing” or to “gloss over the incredible complexity of the real-life personal, geopolitical and spiritual reasons why suicide bombers are willing to kill themselves” because this is “impossibly more nuanced and perverse than what’s happening inside a trifling, low-stakes videogame.”

And yet he follows that disclaimer with this statement:

I’ve read scores of articles, white papers and books on the psychology of terrorists in recent years, and even though I have (I think) a strong intellectual grasp of the roots of suicide terrorism, something about playing the game gave me an “aha” moment that I’d never had before: an ability to feel, in whatever tiny fashion, the strategic logic and emotional calculus behind the act.

This may be one of the strangest pieces of ‘journalism’ I have seen in some time. To argue that you understand terrorism because you have “read scores of articles, white papers and books” and have a “strong intellectual grasp” betrays your completely egocentric worldview. I have read books on terrorism, have taken courses on the subject from renowned experts in the field, and studied the subject with great vigor, but I claim to have no sense of what causes someone to take another person’s life for a political goal.

The one clear difference the writer ignores is the fact the person he’s fragging “from beyond the grave” in Halo was actually trying to kill him in the game. Most often terrorists in real life do not strike directly at other combatants. They strike at innocent women and children.

Thompson’s piece might make sense if terrorism were confined to attacks on military targets (as they sometimes are in Iraq), but falls desperately short of anything approaching a rationale conclusion when weighed against the actions of terrorists who strike at families dining at Sbarro.

Drawing analogies is dangerous if it’s easy to poke holes in your comparison. In this case, it’s all too easy. To compare, in any way, the irrational acts of depraved terrorists bent on killing innocents to make a political point and the spastic tactics of poor video game players does little to make a point. It does more to teach others how not to make a case.

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Notes from Baghdad

Oct 01 2007 Published by under Friends, Miscellany, Travel, War

A friend of mine is currently serving in Baghdad and over the last couple of weeks has been sending out some really interesting notes about life in war-torn Iraq. Given that she is also a woman, and has to deal with the unique weirdness that can create in a Muslim nation (and, frankly, in a military setting), I have found a lot of the stuff she writes to be insightful on several fronts. First, she has to deal with the challenges of being very much in the minority. Second, she spends a lot of time examining the challenges on an emotional level. Finally, she really explores the “stranger-in-a-strange-land” aspects of her time in Baghdad.

I’ve asked for her permission to strip the identifying details and share them with others, as I think they’re a really good read. The notes she sends are almost completely non-partisan, and rarely mention the political implications of the war or make an effort to “cheerlead”. They’re just her thoughts on her current situation, and they’re pretty interesting

I’ve posted the full text after the jump, but thought I’d highlight my favorite part of her most recent dispatch.

The unusual becomes commonplace and the completely bizarre becomes completely acceptable.

Even the interaction between people is different. Social norms do not apply. There is an intense need for human connection that drives relationships between people to form quickly and sometimes in unconventional ways. For example, at lunch the other day, I ran into a fellow passenger from my maiden rhino voyage into the IZ. I had not seen him since the morning of our arrival, but he recognized me and asked to join me at the table. Two hours later I found myself able to recite back the intimate details of his life: Where he has lived in the States over the past fifteen years; the names, ages and pursuits of his two sons; the circumstances of his divorce; and the people he most often calls back home.

A few evenings prior, I was dining with a co-worker when an army captain sat next to us, showed us pictures of his grand-daughter‚Äîhis “reason to get home”‚Äî told us all about his wife and children back in Indiana, gave us a full account of the last twenty years of his life, and shared with us his political affiliation and views on the 2008 primaries. He kept commenting on what a pleasure it was to carry on a normal conversation with two-young women.

There is Romanian special operations captain who I occasionally meet for coffee in the evening, simply because he tells me that I am the only person he speaks with outside the office and how he looks forward to it every day. I don’t know what he does here in Baghdad, but I do know all about his beautiful daughter, the reasons for his divorce, the grueling physical and psychological training he endured to obtain his commission, and the songs currently on his I-pod playlist.

It can take years to build relationships in the real world. Here, it may take only hours.

Click through to read more.

Continue Reading »

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We Win, They Lose

May 03 2007 Published by under Congress, Government, Legislation, Terrorism, War

Ronald Reagan once described his foreign policy with regard to the Cold War in fairly simple terms – we win, they lose. It’s a simple message that is easy to understand and makes clear our commitment to the outcome.

To be perfectly clear, the Administration has truly bungled a great number of things. The war in Iraq is just one item in a long list that includes the Katrina response, the ongoing mess that is the Justice Department, the Myers nomination, social security reform, immigration, etc., etc. That said, the one thing they have gotten consistently right is their belief that the outcome in Iraq cannot be a withdrawal and surrender of the nation to extremists.

That was our approach to Somalia, and 15 years later it is still a disaster cranking out militant ideology. That was our approach to Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew and we paid the price in the form of the Taliban and its support for terrorism.

Whether there were terrorists in Iraq prior to our military action there, the fact is there are certainly terrorists there today. Handing them the country as we head out the door is not a viable option from a military standpoint or for the sake of the world my kids will inherit.

Despite my misgivings about much this Administration has done, I stand firmly in the belief that we must not surrender Iraq, we must not allow Congress to usurp the power of the Commander in Chief, and we must not set arbitrary deadlines for a withdrawal simply because “the people” don’t like the way things are going. “The people” look at the world as they see it today. We hire the President and Congress to move us toward a future world. For their jobs, they owe us more than retreat and defeat.

As a result, I am signing onto the petition created at WeWinTheyLose.com. If you would like to join as well, the petition and a simple form to complete are provided below for your use.

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Horrible

Mar 21 2007 Published by under Terrorism, War

Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations in the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, said adults in a vehicle with two children in the backseat were allowed through a Baghdad checkpoint on Sunday.

The adults then parked next to a market in the Adamiya area of Baghdad, abandoned the vehicle and detonated it with the children still inside, according to the general and another defense official.

“Children in the back seat, lower suspicion, we let it move through,” Barbero said. “They parked the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back.”

“The brutality and ruthless nature of this enemy hasn’t changed,” Barbero said.

Absolutely unconscionable.

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