Posted on 05/01/2007 4:52:38 AM PDT by Wuli
Iraq: No matter how much sweat and blood (and hot air) it takes, some on the right will let nothing stand in the way of America losing in Iraq — not even convincing signs that the U.S. is winning.
Has there ever been anything sadder than William F. Buckley Jr., one of the architects of the intellectual groundwork that defeated the Soviet empire, throwing in the towel on the Iraq War?
In his most recent column, the National Review magazine founder called it "simply untrue that we are making decisive progress in Iraq" and compared the violence there to an incurable virus; he considers our new strategy in Iraq as futile as Prohibition was in fighting alcohol consumption. William F. Buckley: An uncharacteristic retreat.
William F. Buckley: An uncharacteristic retreat.
Buckley, among those who laid the foundation of the Reaganite political philosophy that re-energized the GOP a quarter century ago, even wondered if "the Republican Party will survive this dilemma."
Of a similar mind is Sen. Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican who seems poised to run for president on an anti-Iraq War platform. He told columnist Robert Novak that Iraq is "really coming undone quickly" with the Maliki government getting "weaker by the day."
The Iraqi police, Hagel says, are "corrupt, top to bottom" and the Iraqi parliament paralyzed. He also calls it "nonsense" to suggest that the terrorists winning in Iraq would make attacks on the U.S. homeland more likely.
But while Hagel may have an 85% American Conservative Union voting record, and Buckley may be a legendary figure on the right, their willingness to help Democrats raise the white flag is not justified by the facts.
Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a high-ranking al-Qaida commander..................
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
Take comfort in the fact that Buckley knows nothing about counterinsurgency...all the experts on that subject are advising Gen. Petraeus in Iraq.
If we run from Iraq... it will be because of Republican weaklings.
I agree with your assessment of William F. Buckley, and it may just be that his mind is starting to go on him.
I see signs of the WOT improving and it is a war that will and must be won.
Old and in the way, that’s what I heard them say
They used to heed the words he said, but that was yesterday
Gold will turn to gray and youth will fade away
They’ll never care about you, call you old and in the way
And Democrat weaklings, and a whole lot of things.
It’s a sad facet of old age that in one’s waining years, one is inclined to be an appeaser. The inclination to have others see you as wise and at peace grows steeper as the metronome slows.
The Truman administration abandoned South Korea in the late 1940's.
Because of that mistake, in the last 30 months of his administration, Truman sent 30,000 Americans to their deaths in order to wrest South Korea back from Kim il-Sung's control.
Truman said he was sending our troops to fight a "police action" against bandits, but soon learned that he needed to draft Americans and impose severe censorship on news out of Korea.
We can't pretend problems don't exist.
Could be both though.
Haven't heard a sound political idea out of him in a couple of decades.
Didn’t Buckley say it was a mistake from the beginning? He too, is vested in defeat. If America wins, he loses, and he’d have to admit he was mistaken. That would take a miracle.
Finally, someone got this incredibly over rated guy with who is not only a defeatist and very wrong on Iraq, but lack the simple understanding of the horrible consequences that we cannot even describe in words if we leave Iraq before we crush the terrorists there. I never liked him and I will never like him.
Suppose AP reported yesterday’s score as New York 4. One might think the Yankees won. But AP would never do that. It reported the full score: Boston 7, New York 4.The Yankees lost!
Shouldn’t AP report a war the same way? For reasons I cannot imagine, it lists only U.S. casualties, never the enemy’s.The latest partial score from AP is 104 U.S. soldiers died in April in Iraq.
Left out is that our soldiers killed 174 terrorists in April.
Now we all know this is true the press will do anything they can to lose the war. Not merely wrong, on the otherside is a truism.
But....
Look at the numbers, no really look at the numbers. We are losing 1 extremly well trained soldier for every 1.75 pick up player found in Iraq. Yea some of them are trained...none of them as well trained and equipped as our soldiers. And they are still managing a pretty high kill ratio against our guys.
Not sure about you but I would have thought the kill ratio would have been far higher.
Now consider that those numbers are only US Soldiers. What if we put in our allies. I am betting that the kill ratio would be in favor of the terrorists.
Will someone please explain to me how we can sustain that sort of kill ratio against the Middle East where there is a demographic explosion of young men?
No this is not a counsel of surrender. I was for this war about 3 days after 9/11. I am still FOR this war. But I am not for this war fought the way we are apparently fighting it. We cannot continue this exchange of lives...this is like exchanging one F-22 for every 1.75 MiG-19. Perhaps that is too obscure for many of you but the MiG-19 was a Korean Conflict Jet.
It always fascinates me that people who have not been within 5000 miles of Baghdad pronounce the war “lost.” if the troops who are actually there, fighting, don’t consider it lost, why should the armchair experts think so? They have abandoned logic.
Very good example, but I am sure that our guys killed much more than 174 terrorists in April, much more.
What your said - and Buckley cannot continue to get along on looks any more, either.
Well said.
bump
“The Truman administration abandoned South Korea in the late 1940’s.”
Americans forget too much the fact that others do not forget.
James Baker pushed for and engineered Bush 41 into backing away from his statements of support for the rebelling Shia in southern Iraq at the close of the 1st Gulf War.
That sense of priority for expediency without concern for the long term consequences, produced resentment among the Shia, gave Iran ten more years to increase its influence with the Shia in Iraq and led to a lack of the extremely enthusiastic greeting some thought we should expect when we came back.
And he knows this how?
How many times has he been to Iraq?
I came to the same conclusion you have, before he left NRO. He lives in a theoretical world, the rest of us reside in the real one, hence the disconnect.
Barry Goldwater went through a similar metamorphosis in his dotage.
Sad. We must honor their past accomplishments, and tolerate their prsent frailties.
It will do us no good to make up reality. It is possible that we are not faring well in the kill ratios and we need to address that fact. Supporting the troops does not mean lying to ourselves about our success. Indeed I can imagine a rather absurd situation where we all sit around back home and pat ourselves on the back whilst our troops suffer extremely high casualties due to PC ROE.
We have STILL not addressed the Iranians and their supplying weapons, training and support to the terrorists killing US Soldiers, as we have not addressed the Syrians. We are not doing our soldiers any favors by denying that this aspect of the Bush strategy is a bad idea.
Blind allegiance is a sure way to defeat.
Our troops are not suffering extremely high casualties, the total opposite is true as by historic standard this war has the lowest number of our troops casualties based on the duration of the war and its intensity. We are very fortunate for this.
I am not making up reality, you are just knee jerking and showing wrong facts.
I believe you have the MIG-19 confused with the MIG-15? The MIG-19 didn't come into service until 1955.
This has been a 4-Phase war, so far.
Phase 1 - We invaded and fought Saddam’s armed forces. We absolutely annihilated them. 4 weeks and they were completely defeated.
Phase 2 - Battle against the irregular forces of Saddam’s army. The Saddam Feydayeen and the un-uniformed Iraqi Army soldiers fought for a few months. We defeated them.
Phase 3 - The Al Queda sponsored insurgency. WE are still fighting this phase, although we have been fairly successful.
Phase 4 - The Religious Civil War. WE are losing this and losing it badly. We don’t know how to handle it, approach it, deal with it or avoid it.
Phase 1 and Phase 2 are over and we won decisively clearly.
We are winning Phase 3 slowly, but Al Queda is involved in Phase 3 and Phase 4 . It is hard to seperate them. Iran is sponsoring activities aimed primarily at Phase 4, but they gladly let it help Phase 3.
Well said, sir.
Didn't say we were suffering a lot of casualties. I said, and the US Military backs this up, that in Iraq we are suffering a high ratio of deaths per terrorist killed in a specific time period.
The Terrorist Death Watch reported that so far this year (through Sunday) allied forces killed 752 terrorists in Iraq, while 349 American soldiers died. U.S. casualties include non-combat deaths. Terrorists who die in car accidents and training accidents are not reported.
As far as suffering from a knee jerking I doubt it since I have been rather upset for quite sometime about our allowing the Iranians and Syrians to kill our soldiers. Those guys are not amateurs. The kill ratios seem to show that...
One of the most disturbing facts of this war is how polarized we are and how we try to put this polarization over any set of facts that pop up. I am not a Democrat, Defeatist Republican, or any of the other labels that some of you are as of this moment trying to fit over my head. I am a patriot who is looking for our Grant and Sherman to start kicking these bad guys asses. I want mounds of dead...I want the kill ratio to be 400 to 1. I won't sacrifice a single US Soldier to bad ROE or a timid offense.
Oops...dumb ass at the keyboard. Shot too many of them down in I believe Falcon 3. Got MiG19 on the brain. Thanks for the correction.
The Terrorist Death Watch is greatly underestimating the number of killed terrorists. They are wrong.
Somebody at the Pentagon needs a wide boot in their ass to publicise these things. The time to worry about Muslim sensibilities has long passed. Just say what it is:
Allah's Waiting Room.
btt
There's a large group of people there that are trained to not be "watched". Too bad their missions can't be talked about. Get your "Terrorist Death Watch" to find out how many just "dissappear".
Agree 100%. We must publish the numbers of enemy killed.
What do you do when the subject of Iran comes up? Stick your fingers in your ears and go HMMMMM NOT HEARING YOU!!! What about Syria? We are at war and I don't give a rats ass about whether my questions make a Republican feel bad or good. I want to win. I want to kill as many of those bums as possible...24/7/365. If we are being led by folks like George B. McClellan we need to know it...and fix it. I prefer folks like Grant and Sherman if the truth is known.
You are not exactly wrong, but to call it a religious civil war is, actually, a simplification and tends to hide the motives of the forces behind it, which are not religious.
It would be easy to explain if the battles, and the tit-for-tat suicide bombings and assassinations were simply, or even mostly religious in nature, but they are not.
Yet those who want to use those battles to bring about Iraq's national decisions, by force of arms, are certainly exploiting the religious identification of the major antagonists; and using that identification to:
(1) stir up generalized resentment to those identified as "the other side" (Shia/Sunni); and
(2) with that resentment stirred up, increase recruitment of those who they can exploit to come and act violently, based on those intentionally activated resentments.
But, the underlying motives are purely political, domestically and geopolitical in terms of Middle East rivalries. They, the various "insurgents" are willing to make their own power sharing deals over a prostrate Iraq, on own their terms, if they can just get us out of the way. Of course, they thought they were doing the same thing in Afghanistan after the Soviets left. Out of shear expediency of the moment, they are willing to ignore their own history which will not stop their power-rivalries from turning on each other, once a "common enemy" does not stand between them.
Saddam's former Baathists are primarily using Sunni resentment for their rationale/excuse in recruitment; and among the Sunnis there is no small amount of former Baathists whose personal and family station in life benefited greatly by their political association with Saddam. Now those perks are gone and they want to get some of them back. But, to characterize their motives against the now dominant Shia as religious would be incorrect. They're just angry they lost the advantages of Saddam's power. Those who want to stir up their group to violence would be doing the same things, even if there had not been an ethnic-religious divide in the past, between those in and those out of power. They just want more power back than is reasonable to expect by democratic means alone. Of course it does not hurt that the political faction aligned with the cleric Sadr is making it difficult for the government to behave as even handedly towards Shia and Sunni as it should. But, of course, Sadr does not mind the Sunni resentment that encourages, because he does not seek the future of an independent Iraq.
Two groups of self-proclaimed Sunni fundamentalists are major actors in the violence. Al Queda and Native Iraqi fundamentalists, (Salafists is a general Middle East term for them). The Iraqi Salafists always existed under Saddam but behaved themselves under Saddam. They comprise a mostly ad-hoc network of small militias. They are probably the only truly "religious" component on the Sunni side, and are not allied politically with Iran. Under Saddam, they and Saddam used each other, as long as they comprised no threat to him. They have had Middle East business networks, through their families and clans, with which they filtered money to various terrorist organizations, including at one time Al Queda, among others. It was their money, not the money of the state of Iraq. But, they cooperated with Saddam by being his eyes-and-ears, and sometimes his representatives, for his intelligence services with respect relations, associations and information sharing with terrorist networks. If the independent Al Queda operations in Iraq had not become so self-destructive and unconcerned with conflict with their former Salafist allies in Iraq (probably because Al Queda thought they could and wanted to lead all such groups in Iraq), the native Iraqi Salafist (Sunni fundamentalist) groups might still be allied with Al Queda. But, Al Queda's failures and Iran seemed to have sealed a different path for Al Queda in Iraq.
Al Queda in Iraq has many sources financially. That financial supported now includes Iran, from which it is able - with Iran's permission - to receive material support for violence from networks directly supplied by Iran. It operates in Iraq for exactly same reasons it has said it must operate in Iraq - to incite, increase, inflame sectarian violence for the purpose of destabilizing the Iraqi government. They may recruit Sunnis on a call for resentment of the Shia, but their motives (which Shia Iran appreciates) are not religious. The incitement of that resentment is not for true religious differences, but simply for the power play (or possibly power-sharing play) that Al Queda believes they are playing for, if total-destabilization of Iraq could be produced (as they once did in Afghanistan). Its not religious for Al Queda, its geo-political power-politics, plain and simple.
The main Shia militia, run by Sadr, would, presumably be formed for and have its motives in religious causes. But,it does not. At the opening of the Iraq insurgency it was admitted, in and out of Iraq, that Sadr was given little religious respect or support by the majority of Shia clerics in Iraq. His family had a long Shia pedigree in Iraq, but he was not popular or liked outside of his own minority circle among the Shia. But, he had and still has, on his side, something that local Shia clerics did not - the treasury of the government of Iran and the Iranian government's use of their capital to fund and supply Sadr, militarily as well as politically.
While the dominant Shia clerics in Iraq supported the democratic movement, and built their plans and expectation on the basis of its progress, Sadr, with Iran's help, built for three objectives at once:
(1) disrupt that progress when possible;
(2) participate in it to undermine it from within when possible; and
(3)arm for the purpose of increasing the sectarian violence to destabilize the government against any progress it actually does make.
In every regard, in spite of his nationality, Sadr is a tool of Iran and all his efforts, no matter whether political or violent are acts by which he seeks to facilitate political goals of Iran - not "Shia religious goals" - but Iranian-Shia goals specifically.
Due to how Sadr and Iran have been working together, Saudis (only a few steps removed from being "official") have been supporting various Sunni violent networks. Like the Iranian's their motives are not religious, not Sunni-religious, but geopolitical in a political contest with Iran. If anyone thinks that this contest would not exist if Persian Iran and Arab Saudi-Arabia were both of the same Islamic sect, then they have not studied Middle East history, in which the contest for control of southern Iraq, between Persians and Arabs long predates Islam and has tribal and clan ancestry that not only goes back that far, but lives on today.
Is religious identification being used for recruitment to sectarian violence in Iraq? Yes. Are the immediate and long term motives of those playing on and exploiting that resentment religious? No.
It may look like a "religious civil war", but like Islamic fascism itself, the "religious" aspect is simply the hijacking of religious identities for political and violent means, not religious motives.
[Forgive the typos, cannot edit it anymore]
“Barry Goldwater went through a similar metamorphosis in his dotage.”.....Sad. We must honor their past accomplishments, and tolerate their prsent frailties.”
True but......
Goldwater was more “Libertarian” than Buckley, among conservatives, and some of his later differences with elected conservatives, unlike Buckley (who is as pro-life as the next conservative), stemmed, in part, from the social-libertarian conservative divide. Though, not totally, because I think they both have lent support to decriminalization of mere possession of small amounts of marijuana. [I know Buckley has, and my alzheimer’s memory says Goldwater did too, at one time. Someone correct me if I am wrong.]
“He refuses to abide by simple rules of war: totally put down the enemy and scare the survivors bad enough that they won’t try to repeat it again.”
I don’t disagree with the sentiment about a possible route to a more-assured military victory. Unfortunately, I cannot concur that it is a matter of “He refuses”, for no matter who is or will be POTUS in the immediate sense or in the future, it will take a paradigm shift in EVERYONE’s thinking before a U.S. President both believes he can and is permitted to exact a military campaign in that manner.
I am not saying it would be wrong. I am not making that judgment. The mind-set of the vast majority of the voting populace is not, but would be required to be, willing to accept it. Maybe, after some calamity here that is much greater than 9/11, they will change their minds.
Goldwater also turned left in his waning years. I think it’s atrophy of the brain.
Goldwater supported the pro-life amendment in 1980. I got a letter from him to that effect. Then he married a Planned Parenthood chick and bowed to her on this issue.
“Goldwater supported the pro-life amendment in 1980. I got a letter from him to that effect. Then he married a Planned Parenthood chick and bowed to her on this issue.”
If you are right, then apparently, the marital peace for him was more important than other principles. At different times in our life we obtain different priorities. Human nature.
Great Post, Wuli, but let me pull some items from your post. These are all religious in nature.
-Sunni
-Shia
-ethnic-religious divide
-cleric Sadr
-Sunni fundamentalists
-Al Queda (yes, they have their root in a religious, though wacked out to us, view of things)
-Native Iraqi fundamentalists, (Salafists is a general Middle East term for them).
- Iran (ANYTIME Iran is mentioned, there is a religious component. The Mullahs run Iran)
- dominant Shia clerics in Iraq
I agree with the general thrust of your post. But, the underlying root of ALL the violence in the Middle East is Islam and it’s demand for compliance to the point of violent force.
However “nationalistic” you think Iran is, at it’s root Iran is THE exporter of forced religious compliance. And that is whether it is Moslem/non-Moslem or Shia/Sunni.
It is my opinion that until the United States figures out how to, and directly addresses, the violence fomented by Islamics, we will fail in Iraq.
Yes, the different clerics and mullahs and political figures want power. But at their root, they link Islam and that power to achieve their “utopia”. They believe that Islam is THE, T*H*E, final arbitor and trumps all governments.
Yes, Phase 4 is by and large a fight over power. BUt the participants are fighting so that in the end, they get to be the ones exercising THEIR power with THEIR Mullahs and clerics.
William Buckley is the intellectual godfather of the conservative movement. There would be no conservatism without him.
Instead of dissing him in his advanced age, it would be good if you shutup and listen, ya dopes.
Buckley is right. The Republican Party cannot win the war on terror alone and survive. It has already squandered its majorities and is suffering low poll results. That’s reality.
Shutup and listen? That’s a great strategy in a counterinsurgency. Unadaptive forces entrenched in tradition and unwilling to accept criticism traditionally do a GREAT job in fighting insurgencies. [/s]
I understand your points as well Bryan, and it is not in error, in my own opinion, as far as it goes.
However:
Muslims have existed, peacefully, and productively - in every sense - in the west since the founding of the US, and increasingly so long before the rise of the clerics in Iran, or Al Queda or the very prolific export of Saudi-Wahabi-Islam; particularly in the US and Britain (note our last [previous US ambassador to Iraq).
And,I do not make that statement as a promotion for Islam.
But, prior to the rise of:
(a) Shia-cleric-ruled-Iran (as opposed to Persian Iran with a majority of Persians who were Shia-Muslim) and
(b) Al Queda and
(c) the huge expansion of the export of Saudi-Wahabi-Islam (to counter Iran),
Muslims all over the west, in their western-nation independence outside the Middle East, were developing Islamic practice that did not require fundamentalist-political-Islam.
So, if the question is, could there be a “reform movement” in Islam? I think the answer is that it is “religiously” possible because Muslims in the west were doing so independently prior to the 1980s. They were not doing so as a specific “reform movement”, but simply by their independent dropping of many of the jihadist, restrictionist and culturally (Arab) derived fundamentalist attitudes that did not comport with the life they came to appreciate in the west.
Would that produce an “Islam” that you and I would support, theologically at all? No, of course not and not in the least. But, just as most Christians, in general would never today support many of the religious sanctions that Dueteronomy says should be imposed on us - “for our sins”, and are even no longer willing to make legal sanctions out of some moral sanctions in the New Testament, yes, I believe it is possible for Muslims to believe they do not have to respect every dot above every i and every cross on every t in the Koran (no pun intended) in order to practice their faith - because prior to the rise of political Islam, the majority of Muslims in the west were doing so, without a formal “reform” movement.
But, the Arabs have used the Muslim flag in the Arab clash with Israel in Palestine. The full geo-political weight of that probably did not begin to show itself until the Arab-Israeli war losses from 1967 to the early 70s. And, the political promotion of “Muslim” identity in that conflict, as opposed to the ethnic Arab-political identity vs the Jewish ethnic political identity, is demonstrated to be a hijacking of religious identity for purely political and geo-political aims, not religious motives, when you consider the millions of Arab-Muslims who are Islam-practicing citizens of Israel, and have been since it’s inception. Anyone of them could now and could have since 1948 migrate out to “Muslim” lands, if they were truly incapable of living as a Muslim in Israel. Obviously, that’s not the case.
Today. Yes, Iranian-Shia motives are the religious motives of the Iranian Shia clerics. But, even their detractors in Iran - the citizen-majorities that elected reformers before the clerics blocked all reform candidates - would disagree, would see the motives of their cleric dictators as mostly political - because their Muslim practice was fine before those cleric’s gained power (just like the secular Turks today). The movement led by the clerics gained ascendancy because the Sha had greater success at blocking (eliminating) the leadership of the more politically oriented opposition groups. And why were the clerics opposed to the Sha to begin with? Because he did not - like the Saudis - lavish the state treasury on either supporting them or promoting them. He saw them for what they were and what they could be, potential political manipulators, willing to use religious faith as a foil for their own ambitions. Plus the Persian Shia in the modern era had not exhibited any fondness for religious rigidity akin to the rigidity of the Saudi-Wahabis.
So, I will meet you half way.
Much of religious-Islam and Islamic religious leaders in the Middle East have a religious point of view that insists that you cannot have religious Islam without political Islam and based on that religious concept they are attempting to drive Arab and Muslim political agendas, by any and every means and by force when it suits them.
Truly moderate Muslims are starting to stand up and argue that the concepts of the Iranian clerics, Al Queda and the Saudi-Wahabi clerics are politically inspired and not religiously required (though some of their positions could be supported in the religious text [just as stoning of adulterers could be supported if one followed - religiously - the old testament).
I am not Muslim, so I cannot judge, but there is no eventual (how many decades) ending of our current WOT unless some Islamic moderates are right in their belief that their religion is currently being manipulated in the service of political radicals waving the flag of Islam. If those moderates are wrong, if they have no chance in retaining both their faith and their moderate political outlook, their efforts and our current efforts alone will not end the WOT.
Thanks for the good discussion.....Rarer and rarer nowadays.
It is hard to argue with Buckley’s dissent on Iraq. It has been a disaster and just about everyone who pushed us into this mess have been proven wrong repeatedly.
It’s impossible to fight a protracted conflict without public support in the face of casualities and a war of attrition.
Listen to Buckley. Think about what he’s saying. Republicans are being spurned.
The public opinion polls don’t lie. Dems have convinced a majority 9/11 was a fluke and Iraq a mistake. Only when terrorism comes home again will this be realized.
When asked why it took so long to subdue the Gauls, Ceaser replied, there were agreat number of them. There’s a billion muslims.
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