Oh dear, various refugees have become bored with the “debates”

“The Lancet study wasn’t even picked up by lefties this time around – so ludicrous was it.”

It isn’t an argument to say the study is ludicrous, CL. You need to actually point out its methodological flaws.

From what I can gather the team who did the Lancet studies have experience in doing these types of studies in conflict situations. No-one seemed to quibble about their methodologies on those occasions. Is the methodology the real problem, or is it the unsavoury result?

How about an honest and careful analysis rather than chest-thumping? It helps if you want to be taken seriously.

The overall body-count of Saddam’s misadventures, killings, otherwise unnecessary sanctions-related excess deaths etc is about a million. Easily. The Lancet study wasn’t even picked up by lefties this time around – so ludicrous was it.

This is the regime that many believe should have been left in place for the sake of “stability”. (Aka: if the deaths aren’t being discussed by Les Roberts, Anonymous Lefty or the New York Times, they’re not really a “disaster” or a “catastrophe”).

On the question of the Shiites, I think there are more varying and shifting shades of like-mindedness and cooperation between Maliki and the Mahdi than Sullivan’s analysis allows. (Sullivan, as an aside, wants Chimp to fail because gays can’t “marry” – yawn). Even the once conventionally proferred suggestions for non-military solutions to the problem of Iraq presumed that the Shiites would eventually dominate. What has to be done – with that inevitability now brought forward – is to buttress the government and attempt to finesse it towards self-interested survival-in-moderation rather than Ayatollah lunacy. That’s a big project and it can’t be timetabled. Remember that this was always going to happen anyway and is not some turn of events out of a conceptual nowhere thanks to the evil neo-cons, their Jewish enablers, BushCo etc etc, bla bla bla.

In my view, this situation will come down to an attritional race of will and stamina between – in one lane – Iraq’s political and, especially, economic revival and – in the other lane – the ability of extremists of all stripes to chase America out of the country. A surge is not necessarily about definitively ending the IED attacks etc – as the President has stated. It is about trying to regularise the government as a here-to-stay institution, with more ruthless attacks on terrorists as part of the new strategy too, one hopes. I believe this race can and should be won. The counter proposal – skedaddle now and leave it to the Iraqis alone – is a shockingly stupid and wilfully partisan idea whose chief objective is to draw a line under Bush foreign policy and glory in calling it a “disaster”.

Where do you get the figure of “close to a million” for the casualty RATE of Saddam’s regime? It’s probably a fair approximation of the total casualty count if you include the Iran-Iraq war and the slaughter of Shiites in the wake of Gulf War I. But the casualty RATE (i.e. state-sanctioned killing) in the years immediately preceding GWB’s invasion was around 2-3000 per year, according to credible sources like Human Rights Watch (excess non-deliberate deaths e.g. malnutrition etc would no doubt take it higher).

Compare that with the casualty rate for the 4 years or so SINCE the invasion. According to the (controversial in some circles) Lancet study, the total is over 600,000 (or 150,000 or so per year). Even if we accept that this is seriously overstated and slash it by 2/3, you’re still left with a death count of 200,000 (or 50,000 per year). Thus, in outcome if not intent, the Iraq invasion has been an unmitigated tragedy for Iraqis (including the majority Shiites who hated Saddam’s guts with good reason).

Nor can you plausibly claim that such an outcome could not have been predicted. Plenty of observers, including ones like Tim Dunlop and John Quiggin, DID in fact predict it. Check their blog archives and see. By contrast, I didn’t. I cautiously suuported the invasion. I was wrong. I frankly don’t understand why you can’t admit that you were too. And the fact that everyone (including JQ and Tim Dunlop) believed erroneously that Saddam had WMD doesn’t help your case either. Much of the CIA and State department also believed it but, until they were bludgeoned into line by Rumsfeld and Cheney, they also believed that containment was the only sensible policy option and that invasion would lead to disaster. They were right too.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that “cutting and running” now is the wise course of action. Perhaps Bush/Blair/Howard should be exploring radically changing the mix between military effort and policing/intelligence (as DW Griffith argues – it doesn’t have to be a black and white either/or situation). Perhaps they SHOULD be looking at engaging Iran and Syria in dialogue (howver unlikely success in such an endeavour may be). Perhaps they should be looking at some degree of partition between Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish majority regions, in practice if not formally. I simply don’t know.

But it seems highly unlikely that just sending 20,000 more US troops to Iraq, while somehow hoping that the Iraqi “government” will be able to shoulder more of the burden soon, is going to achieve anything positive at all. To make the sort of case you want to advance CL, it seems to me you need to deal at the very least with this point made by Andrew Sullivan (hardly a bleeding heart lefty):

The premise of the speech, and of the strategy, is that there is a national democratic government in Baghdad, defending itself against Jihadist attacks. The task, in the president’s mind, is therefore to send more troops to defend such a government. But the reality facing us each day is a starkly different one from the scenario assumed by the president. The government of which Bush speaks, to put it bluntly, does not exist. The reality illumined by the lynching of Saddam is that the Maliki government is a front for Shiite factions and dependent for its future on Shiite death squads. U.S. support for the government is not, therefore, a defense of democracy in a unified country, whatever our intentions. It is putting the lives of American soldiers in defense of the Shiite side in an increasingly brutal civil war.

invaded a country with a sexed-up casus belli. Cross. As Kevin Rudd and Kim Beazley pointed out, every intelligence agency in the world believed Saddam had WMD. Sexed up anything is not something associated with people like Womble and Bomber.

What they did sex up was the immediacy of threat. (As C.L. clearly expresses above). It was, simply, ridiculous, and many of us at the time were disappointed even one person could be fooled by such a childish, pathetic attempt to supply a reason to ignore the world’s wishes in what became very quickly a lust to bomb.

And the wmd justification at the time was not at all clear cut, as implied by C.L. Powell’s embarrassing power point presentation was laughable, except, again, for the lust to bomb.

Following your “logic” and that of the left, Don, Churchill and Roosevelt didn’t win because they had to keep soldiers in Germany and Japan in order to guarantee the peace in Europe and Asia until – well, they’re still there actually. Still in Korea too. But – OMG! – the Nintendo commentariat is bored and insists the Iraq War is a “failure” and a “catastrophe”!!

- Saddam gone? Tick.
- Taliban gone? Kinda – Al Qaeda [thousands of whom are now kinda dead] and OBL still at large [after being allowed to escape five times by President Clinton]…half a tick tick.
- Restructured the military? In a bad way by overtaxing it. Cross. Destroyed Saddam Hussein’s combat capability in three weeks. Overthrew the Taliban, despite lefties warning – yawn – of “another Vietnam”. Massive reserves still in place – as usual – in Europe and Japan and Korea. Tick.
- waged a GWOSBNAT (Global War on Some – But Not All – Terrorism). Did. Not. Complete. [Evil George Bush - should have invaded Chechnya and the Shankill Road]. Said from the start the war was generational – not one that would finish early for the A.D.D. generation. Tick.
- killed thousands of terrorists. Kinda – most of the terrorists killed are the ones he CREATED by invading Iraq. Half tick. [Mussies become terrorists when they're angry - whatever you say Mr Sophisicated]. Tick.
- [Bill Clinton] allowed 9/11 to happen. Cross. Correct.
- invaded a country with a sexed-up casus belli. Cross. As Kevin Rudd and Kim Beazley pointed out, every intelligence agency in the world believed Saddam had WMD. Sexed up anything is not something associated with people like Womble and Bomber.
- screwed the pooch in occupying said country. Cross. Easily overthrew Saddam Hussein – a convicted war criminal who is presently dead. Tick.
- caused the death of thousands of people, and that’s just in his own armed forces. Cross. Many more Americans die of food poisoning in the US every year than have died in Iraq. The casualty rate has been remarkably slight. 3000 dead on 9/11 because Bubba let bin Laden go – oops.
- spent hundreds of billions of US taxpayers’ money making Iraq WORSE than when he found it. Cross. Iraq is far better off than it was under the state terrorism of Saddam Hussein. Casualty rate of that regime – close to a million.

“They won’t “go”

That, against a background of Bush’s predecessor going on and on about Hussein’s wmd’s.

Am I reading it from you right? Is cleanskin too provocative? Do you rule out absolutely any intention on the part of the Bush administration to interfere in Iraq prior to, say, September 11?

Well, Fyodor, I haven’t heard Whitlam coming out in support of the GWOT. That should tell us something”

In roughly one presidential term, Bush has overthrown Hussein (part of what Clinton called an “unholy axis”

But let’s not be flippant – let’s check the list:

- Saddam gone? Tick.
- Taliban gone? Kinda – Al Qaeda and OBL still at large…half a tick.
- Restructured the military? In a bad way by overtaxing it. Cross.
- waged a GWOSBNAT (Global War on Some – But Not All – Terrorism). Did. Not. Complete.
- killed thousands of terrorists. Kinda – most of the terrorists killed are the ones he CREATED by invading Iraq. Half tick.
- allowed 9/11 to happen. Cross.
- invaded a country with a sexed-up casus belli. Cross.
- screwed the pooch in occupying said country. Cross.
- caused the death of thousands of people, and that’s just in his own armed forces. Cross.
- spent hundreds of billions of US taxpayers’ money making Iraq WORSE than when he found it. Cross.

Your arithmetic’s screwed up, CL, but keep doubling down on a losing bet. That’s always a good strategy. No doubt you’ll find some lefty to blame for the mess once the US finally has the good sense to get the fuck out of Dodge. Oh, I know: Clinton is to blame for Iraq, right? No? OK, how about Whitlam? Tell me when I’m getting warm.

Laughable.

I also agree that accepting this has important implications for “what we do next”. I put down some thoughts on exactly this question (see Post 19) in the earlier thread you started on Iraq, so it probably doesn’t make much sense to repeat them here.

I suppose Clinton’s enforcement of no-fly zones, bombings (of Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq), enforcement of economic sanctions and enforcement of UNSCOM supervision were all “insubstantial” in your book, but as a result Saddam:

1. Was militarily neutralised.

2. Had no WMDs.

What’s Bush’s legacy in Iraq? Time will tell, but he’s already several hundred $bn and several thousand US lives (that’s assuming Iraqi lives don’t count) in the hole.

It’s not looking good so far, is it? That peace & democracy goodness better start kicking in REAL soon.

Now if the US had focused on sorting out and fixing problems in Afghanistan instead of attacking Iraq it may have achieved some success, although even that is problematic given the Russian experience. Oh, I forgot Aghanistan doesn’t have any oil, just opium poppies.

P.S. Clinton was worse.

So you’re the President and the worst homeland attack occurs in half a century. Thousands are killed.

That, I feel C.L, from your perspective, needs time and space to breathe.

After that, I feel your words: the urgency of otherwise nornmal American life, beset immediately by all these threats. Changed so radically in that instant.

There is Dr Germ – I recall what that felt like. And you’d allow me a mind to imagine what could have been during those days of fear. In part I do remember.

Mate, you’ve lost me on the “your predecessor” thing. I imagine nevertheless that you’re referring to the very real feelings we all had that chemical weapons (that’s a biggie, thrown up in the public mind, full on) were, then, (any day!)) now! a part of our lives.

As I hear you: all of a sudden it was brought to a head.

It required action (which hadn’t til now happened): and Bush acted.

Am I hearing you?