We WON!

[Mr Skeptic]

Our combat troops have withdrawn from Iraq, marking the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom. We still have about 50,000 troops there for training purposes, now called Operation New Dawn. So did we win?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War#2010:_U.S._drawdown_and_Operation_New_Dawn

[Ringer]

So far as I'm aware since it was a policing action and not a war there was nothing to "win". Was the operation a success? Only time will tell.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Ringer

[Pangloss]

The political divide in this country has made it impossible to celebrate an actual victory. It also makes it almost impossible to actually achieve one, regardless of whether it can be celebrated or not. I can't help but think what Douglas MacArthur or Dwight Eisenhower would have thought of all the politics that surrounded the surge. "Hey America, is it okay if we invade Guadalcanal now? Okay, now we're ready for Iwo Jima, is that okay? How about Italy, can we poll you on that now, please?"

 

But I think the most eye-opening take-away here is that in 2007 everyone and their mother was utterly convinced that the endeavor was utterly hopeless and poised on the brink of absolute defeat. It most certainly didn't end up THAT way, even if the actual level of success is unclear (and may remain so for years). I am heartened to see both Democrats and Republicans honoring the troops, both our own and those of our friends overseas, who ignored the politics and got the job done.

 

I don't think we should have gone to Iraq, and the surge doesn't make up for that, but I shudder to think where we'd be right now if they hadn't pulled that rabbit out of a very tattered hat.

[CaptainPanic]

So did we win?

 

I don't know... It depends what the USA (and some allies) set out to do there.

 

Overthrow the old regime - check

Defeat forces of old regime - check

Make sure that no weapons of mass destruction are aimed at the USA or allies - check (there never were any)

Get major oil contracts for industry - check, doublecheck

 

Win hearts and minds of population - not so sure

Bring peace - not so sure (still more than 1 attack per week)

Bring stability - not so sure (sunnis and shias both seem to have militant groups that don't like the idea of peace)

(edit) Install a functioning democracy - not so sure, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, since I just read that the Iraqi National Movement is the biggest at the moment. I just read also that 6 months after the elections, the parties still haven't formed a government. Normally, that's something good (policians who waste time talking cannot take any bad decisions), but in a volatile political climate such as Iraq, I think this is fueling instability.

 

You tell me - is this a victory?

 

Personally, I believe it is a victory - simply because the oil companies have contracts, and oil is being exported to the American (and European) oil refineries... and we can continue to pretend that oil was only secondary in importance to the regime change... but we all know better.

Edited September 7, 2010 by CaptainPanic

[Marat]

Did we win?

 

Well, we spent about $2 trillion dollars to devastate a foreign country and cause a long-term reduction in its oil output, thus artificially inflating the price of oil worldwide from what it would have been otherwise. In the process, we killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq, plus causing the deaths of many of our own soldiers.

 

We invaded Iraq primarily in order to prevent being attacked by its 'weapons of mass destruction' which were such an imminent threat that we couldn't even afford to wait even for the U.N. inspector, Hans Blix, to complete his mission to determine whether they existed. These weapons turned out to be a complete myth.

 

We also invaded Iraq supposedly to free the Iraqi people from an evil dictator, but of the 204 nations of the world, probably about 80 of them are governed by equally evil dicators, and yet we feel no obligation to act as the world's policeman and remove them, perhaps because most of them are our allies or have no oil. Also, you have to ask if getting rid of a dictator for people living 10,000 miles away from us is worth $2 trillion to the American taxpayer.

 

We also invaded Iraq to avoid general threats to our security from Saddam Hussein, but in fact he was never more than a local bully. All he ever did was attack Iran (with our material support and encouragement) to recover the tiny Shat-al-Arab channel for more profitably exporting oil out of Iraq, and Kuwait for sucking out the oil from Iraq's reserves through extractions sucking it out across the border. Kuwait had also been part of Iraq until the Ottoman Empire had been dismembered by the Allies at the end of World War I and the British decided it would be geopolitically to its advantage to detach Kuwait from the rest of it, so you could say Hussein was really just reintegrating his own country against Western imperialism. During the first Gulf War Hussein proved that his ambitions were purely local, since after the U.S. intervened, he briefly remained in Kuwait to gain some cache with Palestinians and then withdrew in what Secretary of State Baker called 'the mother of all retreats.' Was such a person ever a real danger to U.S. security?

 

We also invaded Iraq to punish Hussein for supporting the 9/11 terrorists whom his agents met with in Prague to prepare the attack. Only that turned out to be a myth as well, as anyone with any knowledge of Iraq could have told us, since Hussein led the Baathist Party, which was a secular political force hated by Islamic extremists like bin Laden, so the two would never have joined up on any common project.

 

We also invaded Iraq to bring democracy to the people, but any sociologist could have told us that a tribal people subdivided into important ethnic and religious units can never overcome their divergent cultural identities to merge into a common will such as is the rational prerequisite of democratic governance. The only way to hold these divergent tribes together into one nation and prevent them from attacking each other is to unify them with a strong man, such as Tito provided to unify the divergent people of Yugoslavia into one state. But somewhere along the line we seem to have gotten rid of the strong man who was perfect for this job, Saddam Hussein.

 

In the process of this attack the U.S. won the condemnation of most of the world and many of its allies, so the loss of diplomatic capital and 'soft power' around the world was enormous.

 

So did we win? We defeated Iraq and Hussein, but as Pyrrhus said after winning a great battle at too high a price in Antiquity: "One more such victory and I am undone."

[Dak]

Did we win?

 

Well, we spent about $2 trillion dollars to devastate a foreign country and cause a long-term reduction in its oil output, thus artificially inflating the price of oil worldwide from what it would have been otherwise.

 

whilst simultaneously seizing control of the (now more profitable) oil-plants. Hmm... I suspect some people will have profited enough to consider $2trillion a sound investment, especially as it wasn't actually their money.

 

Hope if anyone is actually profiting that much, that they weren't the ones who made the decision to go to war...

[7th]

You did win. You went in, got the oil as planned and then granted them freedom, but secretly controlling their oil resource.

[Marat]

Just as colonial imperialism in the 19th century was justified by 'the need' to bring Christianity and civilization to those without these 'benefits,' today protecting women's rights, promoting democracy, and guaranteeing freedom are used to justify neo-colonialism. But it's still the same old stealing of sites for bases to project international influence, of natural resources to increase wealth, or suppressing rebellious tribes for supporting the wrong geopolitical interests. The major difference is that a better, more economical form of colonial control has been discovered, in which military forces concentrated at strategic bases have been found able to do the work of entire colonial administrations. Also, the propaganda machine has become more sophisticated, so modern neo-colonialism appears less rapacious than its old counterpart did. But you have to wonder why we went to Iraq and Afghanistan to 'help' the people there at such enormous expense, when we let homeless people die in the streets in America because it would raise taxes too much if we provided decent housing and medical care for them.

[Pangloss]

we spent about $2 trillion dollars

 

Just as a side note, I wonder if we should have a similar thread about the economic crisis. We've spent about the same amount of money as the above, with a pretty similar outcome.

 

Perhaps when the economic "improves" a bit more President Obama can unfurl a "Mission Accomplished" banner for us. :-/

 

 

Anyway this is the only thing I really had a problem with in your post:

 

We also invaded Iraq to bring democracy to the people, but any sociologist could have told us that a tribal people subdivided into important ethnic and religious units can never overcome their divergent cultural identities to merge into a common will such as is the rational prerequisite of democratic governance. The only way to hold these divergent tribes together into one nation and prevent them from attacking each other is to unify them with a strong man, such as Tito provided to unify the divergent people of Yugoslavia into one state. But somewhere along the line we seem to have gotten rid of the strong man who was perfect for this job, Saddam Hussein.

 

I disagree. I think people can go straight from tribal warfare to popular democracy. And I suggest any evidence to the contrary is nothing more than a pessimistic straw man. That's the great thing about the human spirit -- just because something's never been done before doesn't mean it can't be done.

 

And frankly I get tired of hearing about how war never works from the same group of folks who tell us that we have to do something about this injustice or that. What is it they want us to do, yell at them louder? I can't wait for us to leave Afghanistan so we can hear Oprah start screaming about the plight of Afghan women again.

 

The reason Americans are sick of being given crud about our foreign policy blunders is because we're tired of being damned if we do and damned if we do nothing. As an American, we're like henpecked men in bad marriages, screaming at the world, "JUST TELL US WHAT YOU WANT US TO DO!"

 

Not that the rest of the world doesn't have a valid beef with America from time to time, I'm just saying.

[Marat]

But look at what a long development the Western world had to undergo to become amenable to democratic governance! First there was just cultural tribalism, then an approach to a universal legal order applicable to all ethnicities and religions in the Roman Empire's 'jus gentium,' quickly followed by a retreat into medieval particularism where even legal rights just depended on where you were born, where you lived, what you did for a living, and who your parents were.

 

It look another long evolution of about 1400 years duration from there for the Enlightenment and the French Revolution to establish the notion of equality of rights and equality of persons to go with it, but even then, it took about another century for the obvious next step to be taken, which was that equal people with equal rights also deserved an equal share in governing the country via democracy.

 

So in historical terms, introducting democracy in Iraq now, with only about a decade of preparation, and still expecting success, is equivalent to expecting Western Europeans to have elected Charlemagne the first Holy Roman Emperor by popular vote.

[ParanoiA]

Our combat troops have withdrawn from Iraq, marking the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom. We still have about 50,000 troops there for training purposes, now called Operation New Dawn. So did we win?

 

I call this operation "let's-get-the-f@#k-out-of-here", and yes we're winning!

 

The whole "win" thing is just silly to me. The conservatives are on about the importance of winning, equating it to national pride and patriotism. It may be somewhat intuitive, but changing the shape of the goal posts is always disturbing to me - by redirecting our psychology from the means to the ends, like "winning and losing", we can commit astonishing atrocities trying to "win". Such an oversimplified, quaint little imperative, winning.

 

I think the funniest part of this war is about the presidents spinning all this shit. It's hilarious. we've got GWB swooping in an calling it a success while we're still in occupation mode, crap blowing up almost everyday, and now we've got Obama calling it a success merely because we've decided to leave now, while we've still got 50,000 troops over there. I think both of these knuckleheads are creating their own reality around them. Do they even realize we watch TV and stuff?

 

 

 

But you have to wonder why we went to Iraq and Afghanistan to 'help' the people there at such enormous expense, when we let homeless people die in the streets in America because it would raise taxes too much if we provided decent housing and medical care for them.

 

Likewise, you have to wonder why people sit around and wait for tax money to take of others they care so much about. We let homeless people die in the streets while all the attention and focus is on coercing property from the citizenry to take care of them, instead of giving up their own property, or persuading property and resources from others to share with the needy. Only those who aren't directly dependent on a bureaucracy are so proud of them.

 

In america, ask any poor person on food stamps about the hell they had to go through to get those stamps - and how they had to starve and beg churches and other charitable solutions for immediate relief because food stamps have a lead time that doesn't respect your growling stomach. (Then ask them about "emergency food stamps" - there's a real treat of a misnomer...) State assistance is pathetic and anyone who advocates it doesn't understand much about the business end of poverty.

 

No, I'd rather time and money go directly to the churches that open their doors and let them eat and sleep there - or open your own house to some of them. It takes on a different feel when you face these people, and hand them plates of slop from a food truck and see how many appreciate and how many don't appreciate, any of it.

 

This is what happens to human psychology with too much invested so much statist bureacracy to government, no one can think past taxes and programs and government buildings to solve problems. They just want to be able to throw money at it while their conscience is sparred the discomforting details and ineffectual intentions. When rich people do that, it's shameful and self centered, but when society does it as a whole....it's compassionate and caring? Please...

 

The reason Americans are sick of being given crud about our foreign policy blunders is because we're tired of being damned if we do and damned if we do nothing. As an American, we're like henpecked men in bad marriages, screaming at the world, "JUST TELL US WHAT YOU WANT US TO DO!"

 

It's true, and we kind of deserve it for the same reason. We're those henpecked men in bad marriages without enough self respect to leave the situation or kick the nagging partner out on their duff. Nobody has respect for a man that paradoxically throws his hands up in subordinated frustration demanding to be told what to do.

 

We asked for it and prefer it over being a mere equal. If we rejected the notion of world police force and didn't build military bases all over the planet and just took a casual seat in the room, so to speak, we wouldn't be treated like parents, as we are now. We have the thankless job because we insisted on the thankless job. I'm ready to quit when you guys are.

[Pangloss]

But look at what a long development the Western world had to undergo to become amenable to democratic governance! First there was just cultural tribalism, then an approach to a universal legal order applicable to all ethnicities and religions in the Roman Empire's 'jus gentium,' quickly followed by a retreat into medieval particularism where even legal rights just depended on where you were born, where you lived, what you did for a living, and who your parents were.

 

It look another long evolution of about 1400 years duration from there for the Enlightenment and the French Revolution to establish the notion of equality of rights and equality of persons to go with it, but even then, it took about another century for the obvious next step to be taken, which was that equal people with equal rights also deserved an equal share in governing the country via democracy.

 

So in historical terms, introducting democracy in Iraq now, with only about a decade of preparation, and still expecting success, is equivalent to expecting Western Europeans to have elected Charlemagne the first Holy Roman Emperor by popular vote.

 

Sure, but just because it took us a thousand years or two doesn't mean it has to take everyone else that long. One of the great things about the modern world is that we're able to communicate and educate a lot faster than we used to. Those capabilities aren't limited to western soil, they can be carried overseas. And of course they are.

[Marat]

You're right that Iraq and Afghanistan will be able to move quicker than the West did toward democracy, respect for human rights, and tolerance, but this process will no doubt take much longer than the decade or so that military planners have set aside for it. After the American public gets tired of paying for these adventures and all forces are withdrawn, democracy may well not have had time to take hold and the old ways, together with the 'failed state' opportunities for terrorism to take root, will return.

[Pangloss]

You're right that Iraq and Afghanistan will be able to move quicker than the West did toward democracy, respect for human rights, and tolerance, but this process will no doubt take much longer than the decade or so that military planners have set aside for it. After the American public gets tired of paying for these adventures and all forces are withdrawn, democracy may well not have had time to take hold and the old ways, together with the 'failed state' opportunities for terrorism to take root, will return.

 

I agree; that seems likely.

[lemur]

I don't think any war/conflict is ever won completely until there is total freedom of association between individuals on either side. The day Iraqi, Afghani, US, EU, AU etc. citizens can freely live among each other and interact in a peaceful and democratic way, war will be "won." This is no easy task, though. The cold war supposedly ended when people no longer feared nuclear holocaust, which they don't really seem to fear anymore. The war on terror seems to have mostly been won insofar as people no longer fear terrorist attacks (not counting the current situation where fear of terrorist retaliation is prompting people to advise against quran burning). In general, I think as long as fear of conflict persists, war is never really won or lost. It's only when all individuals involved can freely associate with each other without fear; at that point the survivors of conflict have really "won."

Edited September 10, 2010 by lemur

[Sisyphus]

Iraq and Afghanistan are very different places, and I think speaking of them collectively is misguided.

 

Iraq under Saddam Hussein was largely secular, relatively modern, and even urban. There was religious tension and persecution, but between groups who actually lived side by side basically peacefully before the American invasion. It is now divided into disparate factions, but if anything that will force them to work together. (You can't establish an oppressive theocracy without a large majority of one religion.) It might still all go to hell, but I think there is reasonable hope for the emergence of a liberal democracy, or something at least tolerably close to it.

 

But Afghanistan? There you have no liberal traditions whatsoever. You have more or less religious hegemony, so there's no motive for flexibility and cooperation leading to secularization. You have a society violently divided along elaborate tribal alliances. You have a very rural and dispersed population. I think that kind of "victory" will be a lot harder.

 

But is it actually necessary? What are we fighting for, really? Ideally, we'd like to help them establish their own liberal democracies, because liberal democracies don't fight each other. But is that the only way? Saudi Arabia is an ultra-conservative monarchy with only the Quran for a constitution, but they are also the single most loyal ally to the United States. On the other hand, they are also the culture that produced 14 of the 18 9/11 hijackers and Osama Bin Laden himself. Have "we" "won" in Saudi Arabia?

[lemur]

Iraq and Afghanistan are very different places, and I think speaking of them collectively is misguided.

 

Iraq under Saddam Hussein was largely secular, relatively modern, and even urban. There was religious tension and persecution, but between groups who actually lived side by side basically peacefully before the American invasion. It is now divided into disparate factions, but if anything that will force them to work together. (You can't establish an oppressive theocracy without a large majority of one religion.) It might still all go to hell, but I think there is reasonable hope for the emergence of a liberal democracy, or something at least tolerably close to it.

 

But Afghanistan? There you have no liberal traditions whatsoever. You have more or less religious hegemony, so there's no motive for flexibility and cooperation leading to secularization. You have a society violently divided along elaborate tribal alliances. You have a very rural and dispersed population. I think that kind of "victory" will be a lot harder.

 

But is it actually necessary? What are we fighting for, really? Ideally, we'd like to help them establish their own liberal democracies, because liberal democracies don't fight each other. But is that the only way? Saudi Arabia is an ultra-conservative monarchy with only the Quran for a constitution, but they are also the single most loyal ally to the United States. On the other hand, they are also the culture that produced 14 of the 18 9/11 hijackers and Osama Bin Laden himself. Have "we" "won" in Saudi Arabia?

 

I take this on a more general level than you are. There are no conditions for people to be able to freely interact without fear, hatred, and violence emerging; or I should say the only conditions are that people feel secure enough to prevent fear and hatred from welling up in them and motivating their attitudes and actions. Access to technology, economic prosperity, etc. doesn't ultimately push people more in the direction of peace or war, imo. Tribalism, nationalism, and other factionalism does however, imo. Secularism, globalism, liberalism, multiculturalism, monoculturalism, or any other approach to culture and diversity doesn't prevent fear or hatred. Diversity is always present in some form or other and people seek differences to project their fear and hatred onto. So, there might be many possible ways of addressing, preventing, diffusing, etc. fear and hatred but the only ultimate test of peace is for people to be able to live together and interact freely without hatred and fear. This is why I never see the end of "occupation" as winning a war, because it usually just leads to hatred and fear of the 'former" enemy. So the question to me is what gets people to the point where they don't regard themselves as part of a nation or other ethnic territorializing faction that is opposed to others? What gets people to the point where they can freely interact with anyone of any ethnicity without regarding themselves as normal and the others as foreign? When do people just live together, co-exist, and interact as equal individuals without defining each other in terms of collectivism and territory? When they get to that point, I would say war has been won but not before that, because then it is still going on to some degree, imo.

[ParanoiA]

Well pardon me if I'm taking this a bit far, but that would seem to imply that as long as we identify with a group of any kind, then we have created the partition to provide for fear and hatred. So even if I identify with my family group, as in wife and kids, then there is no peace, for there is the potential to fear and hate my neighbor due to normal/foreign and all that.

 

It's interesting, I'm just not sure where to apply the brakes on this logic without it being an arbitrary stopping point for the sake of convenience.

[Marat]

I think we can accept that identification with a group rather than with a universal interest can be a matter of degree. I loosely identify with certain cultural and political groups, but I always remain open to being rationally persuaded to change allegiance on any particular issue where the other parties have better ideas. But someone who goes around refusing ever to vote for anyone on any issue for any platform as long as he is a Pashtoon is identified with his tribal group in a way that is almost unknown in modern, Western democracies.

[lemur]

Well pardon me if I'm taking this a bit far, but that would seem to imply that as long as we identify with a group of any kind, then we have created the partition to provide for fear and hatred. So even if I identify with my family group, as in wife and kids, then there is no peace, for there is the potential to fear and hate my neighbor due to normal/foreign and all that.

 

It's interesting, I'm just not sure where to apply the brakes on this logic without it being an arbitrary stopping point for the sake of convenience.

 

 

I think we can accept that identification with a group rather than with a universal interest can be a matter of degree. I loosely identify with certain cultural and political groups, but I always remain open to being rationally persuaded to change allegiance on any particular issue where the other parties have better ideas. But someone who goes around refusing ever to vote for anyone on any issue for any platform as long as he is a Pashtoon is identified with his tribal group in a way that is almost unknown in modern, Western democracies.

 

 

I don't know what the rules are about citing the bible or other religious doctrine on this forum, but I'm going to do it not to prosthelytize but because it provides a different perspective on this issue. It's a controversial Christ-quote where Jesus says that he didn't come to Earth to bring peace but with a sword to turn family members against each other. I like this quote because I think it means that, yes, you love your family members but you can put the interest of truth above that of peace/agreement on the basis of blood-ties or other group-ties.

 

You make a good point about group identification always being present in some way to varying degrees. I think it does always create some potential for fear and hatred of others deemed 'outside' the group. Probably this is why Christianity and probably other religions as well prescribe looking at all people as "brothers and sisters" under God. No matter, the point is that just because all group-identification generates some degree of exclusion, fear, and hatred and therefore a certain potential for violence, however slight - that doesn't mean that all such steps toward violence are of the same gravity.

 

I think Ghandi's philosophy of ubiquitous violence (himsa) is relevant here because it has the capacity to recognize even the smallest acts of violence as destructive (e.g. killing microbes by breathing) but by recognizing these, he seems to be warning against reacting with even greater violence. It is almost a Buddhist technique of detachment to be aware of acts of violence and the potential for violence and to be able to respond to it in a positive way that itself resists violence in the reaction. I believe this is what Ghandi meant when prescribing "ahimsa," (i.e. resistance of himsa/violence). Of course, he also believed that he couldn't resist violence without being in a position to commit it, which is why he joined the Brittish infantry during the Boer war, supposedly.

Edited September 10, 2010 by lemur