For the last three years, Bartle Bull has contributed to Prospect a series of dispatches from Iraq that have taken a noticeably more optimistic view of the post-conflict society than most coverage in the western press. His first Prospect piece, in the November 2004 issue, looked forward to the democratic transfer of power to Iraq’s Shia majority. In mid-2005, after spending five weeks in Baghdad embedded with Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army, Bull described the increasing politicisation of a rebel group that less than a year earlier had been battling US troops in Najaf.
Now Bull has written what is likely to be his most controversial piece yet. In the current issue of Prospect, he argues that contrary to the bleak picture of Iraq painted almost universally, at least in the west, most of the big questions in Iraq have largely been settled, and mostly for the good. The country has not fallen apart. It has embraced the ballot box, in huge numbers. It has created a legitimate and fair constitution. It has avoided civil war. Power has been democratically transferred to the Shia majority, while minority rights have been safeguarded. The country has ceased to be a menace in the region. It has even emerged from the trauma of war, occupation and widespread bloodshed with a sense of national unity, as was clearly shown by the national celebrations following the country’s football victory in the Asian Cup in July.
This is an unsettling argument. Iraq is clearly not a country at ease with itself—while sectarian violence may have dipped slightly since the beginning of General Petraeus’s military “surge” earlier this year, Iraqis are still dying violently at the staggering rate of 1,500 a month. But Bull’s argument is that this violence, while horrific, is no longer of strategic importance. Of the Sunni insurgent groups, the former Baathists are finally coming around to Shia majority rule and seeking a place for themselves in the political tent; the tribal groups in western Iraq have accepted the new dispensation and are doing their best to milk it for all its worth; and the violent Wahhabi fundamentalists, most of them foreign, are losing the battle to take Iraq back to the 7th century. As for the Shia anti-occupation violence, since al-Sadr’s uprisings in 2004, it has been non-existent. Scattered death squads and offshoots of the Mahdi army continue to shed blood, but al-Sadr is now more interested in politics than fighting.
Taken on its own, “realist” terms, Bull’s argument can be seductive. But, as David Goodhart points out in his editorial, it is hard to skate over the continuing violence, as well as the steady stream of refugees fleeing the country. Many people will be shocked by the article—indeed, it was the source of many arguments in the Prospect office. Let us know your thoughts below.
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Bart: agreed
Sashland:
That’s OK Sash.
I probably wouldn’t have invited him to tea myself or, if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have offered him the custard creams.
Hitler on the other hand well that’s a different matter. He really has been given a bad press in my view. They even still persist in calling him a fascist & a dictator. History can be so unfair. But as far as I can see history doesn’t seem to be much of a preoccupation of the contributors to this blog – it’s not a prerequisite to forming an opinion I ’spose. Still I’m not sure the ‘good guys/bad guys’ dichotomy is a useful way of looking at the world – it usually turns out to be a wee bit more complicated than that. The British, for example, described the Government of Mandelay & its monarchical leader in the 19th century as: “a monster reminding us of Nero or Caligula, had appeared on the throne of the Golden Foot”. Burma was annexed by the British shortly thereafter. The art of grabbing a country & portraying it as a noble act had already been perfected by the end of the nineteenth century.
Sam,
So imperialistic British propaganda from 125 years ago makes fighting people who blow up schoolchildren morally gray?
Apparently I’m just not nuanced enough.
Bart,
Nice snark and run. Certainly easier than constructive dialogue, isn’t it? Hope you enjoy that sense of counterfeit moral smugness you get from not dealing with the world that really exists.
Dream on…
Dennis:
I was simply making the point that propaganda techniques have not changed all that much since their perfection in the nineteenth century. I was also making the point that the world may not always be the way it seems & also that one should be wary of people in particular who believe with an absolute certainty that the world is the way it seems or is represented in a variety of media….
You seem, for example, to have certain knowledge on those responsible for the Samarran bombing – perhaps you have thumbed through the forensic report or have access to some other information we ordinary folk are not privy to.
Incidentally I know of few independent analysts who would argue that Al Quaeda has ever played much of a significant role in the ongoing Iraq debacle. This has always been something of a pro-war [neocon] fantasy for obvious propogandal reasons.
I congratulate Prospect for giving Bartle Bull and his analysis of the Iraq question the light of day. Since day one I am one of few having felt very comfortable with the removal of Baath fascism from the desert. I agree with most of the precocious conclusions of an article doubtlessly deemed eponymous by the usual ‘Never lift a finger, we’re all right, Jack’ cloyingly moral but comfortable media and academic supporting cast. I still think at the end of the day the conflict’s outcome will be a vindication for those who stopped a psychopath in power and introduced universal rights and freedoms to the area while guaranteeing that its resources remain available to the world market place at fair market value while commercially benefiting its own citizens. This, needless to say, representing a nightmare scenario for repressive neighbors who are put on notice that their own citizens will rise, demanding the same, before long. I give this a decade or less. I also think it will again have exposed the utter irrelevancy of America’s own liberal Hyannis Port and Campus left and a Democratic party since Roosevelt and Truman incapable, it seems, to live up to its own ideals and moniker, feasting on continuous intellectual incest in stead.
Hello,
I don’t do this often, but I must congratulate you on a clear, succinct and intelligent summary of the current situation in Iraq, the best I have read in years.
My question to you is – do you believe that Americans can figure out that quietly winning is better than not winning?
There is an article title in there – compliments another writer,
Ron
Here are a two angles on al Qaeda has been in Iraq, and whether Iraqis turning against it is important or not. Took me less than 5 minutes to google for them.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1624697,00.html
http://www.cfr.org/publication/13007/alqaeda_in_iraq.html
Of course, Time magazine and the Council on Foreign Relations are well-known havens for fantasizing neo-conservatives ….
Steyning:
You managed to spell eponymous correctly which is impressive.
I doubt you know much about Ba’thism or its origins or why the US has found it as unpalatable as militant Islam in its quest for ME hegemony. Anti-western religiosity or anti-western pan-Arab nationalism – they have long been the perennial challengers to western attempts to impose its way of doing things on the ME. Your unctuous appraisal of Mr Bull’s weaselly words are hardly a shining example of self-critical thought. Universal freedom? Is this the manifest destiny theme untuned & harshly jarring? Freedom American-style? Imposed by the gun or the upgraded napalm?
Truly yours is a dreamworld of an especially pernicious kind – and there is an increasing urgency to shatter it for the sake of our world.
What kind of deluded citizenry could acquiesce in the end of a Socrates?
What kind of self-absorbed citizenry acquiesces in a Vietnam or an Iraq or a Guantanamo?
It was the same citizenry that were the witting or unwitting collaborators of Nazism – the tuest democratic manifestation.
I want to thank MarkEHaag for his comments and his prose. I thought the most disquieting sentiment in Mr. Bull’s article was his cavalier (meaning offhand) attitude toward the immoral death of innocents. As well, I’ve always thought the U.S. needed to study more carefully the history and culture of the region before it rushed to “dethrone” a tyrant. It seems with the proper study and patience, we could have brokered and mediated a less imperialistic response to the 9/11 crisis, while, with dignity, supporting Afghanistan, undermining al Quaeda, and efficiently finding Osama bin Laden.
Hi, Sam Pepys. Just out of interest, and so I can judge how seriously to take the rest of what you say – were you being ironic about Hitler having been maligned by propaganda, and how you’d like to have had him for tea and custard creams? Forgive me, but I’ve got a bit of a head cold and my irony meters aren’t functioning on full capacity just now.
Er sorry Tim – I was just checking if anyone was reading this stuff.
Vis-a-vis Hitler. It is not always well appreciated the extent to which Hitler’s success lay in his populist & demagogic appeal. For example, all the evidence suggests that if he held an election in 1938 he would have won it hands down. His miraculous revival of the German economy had many of his so-called democratic rivals green with envy. He was undoubtedly a modernist & a revolutionary and he was adored by many of his people at that time. With many doing so well under his regime there was a willingness & a desire to overlook the dark side. Self-absorption, complaisance, & a suspension of the critical faculties seems to have characterised the German citizenry especially widespread in 1938. Many may have been aware of the persecution of some minority groups – not just Jews by the way but also gypsies & homosexuals or sexual deviants to use the parlance of the times – but chose to ignore it. Few wanted to rock the boat although there were brave dissenting voices.
Democracy it seems is highly vulnerable to this sort of hijacking & it behoves a citizenry well to keep ever vigilant. It is the citizen’s primary responsibility, in my view, to get informed for what may follow will be carried out in their name. The parallels to the populist rule of the Nazis may be increasingly & uncomfortable apparent in modern day America in which the Hitlerian techniques of mass manipulation & deception are deployed. And there may be a similar tendency by its citizenry to look away from the darker side of such a regime rather than rock the boat – surely the existence of Guantonomo Bay with its basic violations of human rights should have evoked some outcry from the free & democratic citizens of America?
In the end rarely does any good come from war whatever the intentions may be…
Iraq is not your daddy’s war. Nor your grandfather’s war. There will be no V-Day, or VJ-Day, no ticker-tape parade for the American heroes in Bagdhad. No pro-war movies spun out by Hollywood.
Still, there will be an American victory.
The Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting for 1,000 years, in Iraq, and the Sunnis, the minority, have dominated for a very long time. So if it takes the Shiites a few years to catch up, and begin to rule the Sunnis, that time delay is normal and to be expected. Once armed, the majority Shiite will rule, in the long run. At this point, thanks to America, it’s inevitable, at this point. So the central gist of the article is accurate.
This was all planned, years before the invasion, by the Pentagon. It all started with military planning, which began long before the invasion and the cooked up weapons of mass destruction cover story.
The American military began planning 5 super-sized military bases, in isolated spots, in rural Iraq, even before the invasion. That means they intended to be there, for the long haul, all along, even before they came to Iraq. The bases are long completed, and have swimming pools, bowling alleys, and Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets. I know this because I have a friend on one of these bases, and I regularly communicate with him. And the Americans spent over a billion dollars on the biggest embassy in the world, the American Embassy in Bagdhad, with hardened concrete walls, 15 feet thick. What does this mean? They’re staying. Staying to guard the oil, and provide military assistance to the Shiite government.
How much more obvious could they be?
So to all the Liberals who had their hearts set on America losing, tough luck. America is going to win. Not in the conventional, European sense of two massive armies fighting it out, a great battle ensuing, one side winning, and everyone quickly laying down arms, and picking up the pieces, and rebuilding the society. America will win. But in the Middle Eastern sense, of victory, which is winning by not leaving, in the long run.
There are many ways to fight an enemy. There are many forms of warfare. That’s what the clever Iraqis have taught the American military. Iraqis are great soldiers, and very very clever at military strategy. Speaking of strategy, here’s an interesting military strategy: America can simply park their armies out in the desert, for a few decades, not engage the enemy in a lot of fighting, take few, if any casualties, and remain a threat to everyone in the region. Think about it. No army in the world can come close to challenging them, in a conventional military battle. The American Army took apart the Iraqi Army in four weeks.
However, America can definitely be challenged, in close quarters, in small arms fire, hand to hand combat. And America can be pinned down by asymetrical and unconventional warfare, like the insurgency. That’s why America will eventual let the Shiites do the necessary brutal and dirty work, to monopolize violence in Iraq.
Liberals point to carbombings and the insurgency as somehow “proof” the Americans are losing. Nonsense. It’s just proof how desperate and hopeless the enemy truly is.
At the end of the day? America wins. The Shiites win. The Sunnis survive. Iraqis of all ethnic groups get very rich. Here’s an interesting math fact for the reader: If you look up the price of oil, and look up conservative estimates of the quantity of oil reserves in Iraq, and you multiply those two numbers, and you divide by the total population of Iraq, that is every man, woman, and child, you get a figure representing each Iraqis personal share of national oil wealth.
And the figure? $1 million U.S. per person.
In the end, America wins, and makes a lot of money. Oil companies get rich. Haliburton gets rich. Dick Cheney gets richer, and then dies. And investors like myself, who have oil stock, get rich.
Oh, and I almost forgot. In the end, liberals look like complete and utter idiots. The Left in America and Europe will look like fools, and so will Hollywood.
PS: Michael Moore owns stock in Haliburton. George Soros, the great left-wing, anti-Bush intellectual, is heavily invested in Iraq. That should tell the reader something.
George Soros after his early years of speculative gambling on the currency markets makes it big time (much of the world got poorer at that time) hurling himself into the billionaires club. Like many before him (the robber barons were quite charitable in their later years) he gets guilt pangs and drifts in from the right a bit towards the centre.
Tim, the fact that you call him a great ‘left-wing’ kinda pins you down on the spectrum I would suggest. That should tell the reader something.
By the way, Tim, when you say ‘America Wins’ I take it you are not referring to the 30 million or so who currently live under the poverty line. Many in Europe continue to enjoy a roof over their head and full health care even when they are unemployed. As I understand it many of your ‘employed’ are finding it hard to find somewhere to live let alone get health care. And isn’t there still a sizable camp of refugees outside New Orleans? Perhaps you would do well to start at home rather than Iraq. Is it God, guns, & guts that made America great or the big guy shitting on the little guy? Please all I seek is enlightenment.
It was a surprise to learn Prospect has taken to publishing fairey tales.
The Bull article on Iraq only suggest to me that whatever else he has, knowledge of the impact of religious fervour has eluded him. If the Sunnis’ supposed “healing” process and the “democratically” acquired power by the Shias still hasn’t fused the country against the common enemy which invaded their nation, why can’t the Yanks pull their forces out?
Garrett
Dear Sam Pepys, you come seeking enlightenment from me. Perhaps you confuse me with the Dalai Lama. Enlightenment you will have to find on your own.
But I will say this: Yes, the 30 million under the poverty line will win. The richer a society is, the more capable they are of looking after the less fortunate. And having come from extreme poverty as a youth, I’m all for that. When oil is cheaper, everything is cheaper, and the poor benefit with the well off. And by the way, there are several billion people living on $1 dollar a day. They would happily trade places with the impoverished of America.
As for New Orleans, it was a welfare sink hole of poverty and desperation, sprinkled with musical brilliance. I hope many of the former citizens of New Orleans find other accomadation in other American cities, and enrich the cultural life of the nation that way. Also, if they leave New Orleans, they will find there are many more economic opportunities in other places, than were available in New Orleans, which lacked the critical mass of industry to offer good employment for the people there. Leaving may be the best thing anyone does, after the devastation in New Orleans.
Yes, it’s guns and guts that made America great. In case you haven’t heard, or are historically illitarate, what basically happened was impoverished Europeans, (probably like yourself, I assume you are European in roots) saw an opportunity to leave the squalor of Europe, to find opportunity in the new world. Then, through warfare, against the native people, as well as bringing European diseases over here, to which the natives had no immunity, your fellow Europeans conquered and stole two giant continents. The prominant single country in that area is called America. It was made great partly by guns and guts.
As for your fantasy about the welfare land of plenty called Europe, it will soon end. Europe has a fertility rate of around 1.0 children per woman. This means every forty years of so, the native white European population is cut in half. The lavish social benefits you speak of exist, but very temporarily. Do the math. Within one generation there will simply not be enough people to afford and sustain the social programs on the continent. Europe as a socialist entity is economically unsustainable. European leaders know this and are deluding their silly voters into thinking massive migration from Muslim countries will save them. This deathwish is based on the misguided notion that young Muslims want to move to Europe, to work and pay the cost for looking after old dying white people. It will never work.
Now, I hope that helped, Sam, if not to enlighten you, then at least to help relieve you of an ignorance of some of basic facts afoot, in the world. All the best.
Tim
Thanks Tim for the ‘probably like yourself’ bit. But rich in many other ways I like to think. And you can rest easy in regard to the Dalai Lama – there is not likely to be an confusion on that score any time soon. I mean deep concern for the well-being of your fellow man is not exactly oozing out of your sentences like ketchup out of a bacon buttie as they say where I come from.
You are probably right about New Orleans although I did get the impression that a few poor folk had got kinda attached to the place & still persisted in wanting to return. The authorities seem to have other ideas.
True I have not experienced America in the ‘raw’(as I understand it this is not a terribly wise thing to do anyway) so to speak so I should refrain from further critical commentary. Much of what I know was gleaned in my ill-spent youth reading the works of Walt Whitman & Mark Twain not to mention Thomas Wolfe & Henry Miller. In that sense my perspective is probably a little warped if not greatly so. Still I confess to bristling a bit at the ‘illitarate’ charge. Illitarate? – don’t these darned forms have spell-checkers?
Your description of Europe is odd in that I don’t think many Europeans would recognise it – perhaps you are referring to ‘old Europe’. Moreover I think the ’silly voters’ of Europe would find your remarks regarding the ‘massive Muslim migration’ utterly baffling – I know I do.
So thanks Tim for all your efforts to elucidate but would appreciate it if you eased up on the ‘enlightening’ part for now – for one thing I am beginning to feel a terrible weight bearing down.
Well here’s hoping all goes well in the end with your social Darwinist nightmare/experiment. I fear it may be coming my way soon. Perhaps you know of an island somewhere that offers running water & tranquility and is open to habitation?
kind regards
Sam
Tim Bitts writes: “If you look up the price of oil, and look up conservative estimates of the quantity of oil reserves in Iraq, and you multiply those two numbers, and you divide by the total population of Iraq, that is every man, woman, and child, you get a figure representing each Iraqis personal share of national oil wealth. And the figure? $1 million U.S. per person.”
Well, maybe not. Tim’s comforting conclusion rests on three assumptions:
1) “National oil wealth” equals “distributable profits from oil.” But since the former is obtained by multiplying price per barrel of reserves times the number of barrels of reserves, without deducting the costs of production, transportation, processing, marketing, etc., it is obviously much larger than the latter.
2) Distributable profits from oil all go to Iraqis. But on the contrary, the United States is trying vigorously to force the Iraqi government to sign an oil-exploitation plan that will insure that most such profits over the next 30 years will go to foreign oil producers.
3) Profits from oil are distributed equally among Iraqis. To test this assumption, consider whether the profits of the Fortune 500 companies are distributed equally among Americans. On the contrary, the richest one percent of Americans owns 50 percent of corporate stock, and the richest quintile owns 90 percent. Here is an analogy, based on — admittedly — completely off-the-top-of-my-head estimates. If the total profits of the Fortune 500 companies over the past fifty years (in current dollars) equals $100 trillion, and the total population of American citizens over those fifty years was 500,000,000, and if those profits were distributed equally, then “every man, woman, and child,” in Tim’s resonant phrase, would have received $2 million, and every household, say, $5 million. In which case, quite a few checks have gone missing in the mail.
I’m happy, of course, that oil investors like Tim are going to get rich if the Bush/Cheney effort to steal Iraq’s oil succeeds. I just wish he’d stop pretending to occupy the moral high ground. It’s not sporting.
Lots of amusing bafflegab above from BDS birdbrains, anti-American bigots, and left-over losers from last century’s great conflict.
Here’s something even worse for you to choke on: George Bush’s America has freed 50 million people from two of the most murderous governments on earth. It has given them two U.N.-approved constitutional democracies instead of pro-American dictatorships. It’s protecting those people from even worse butchers until their own governments can grow up enough to do it alone.
And this is seeding the entire region for more of the same.
When the process is complete, George Bush will be one of the greatest liberators in human history.
And there’s no one on the left side of the fence who would have done it better, as well, or at all.
So sling your snot, sneers, and snark. You are merely tendentious buffoons who will remain so until the end of time.
Probably the world has always had its anti-American bigots – it’s just lately that they seem to have been multiplying like crazy. Perhaps it’s a virus?
P.S.
Let’s hope the attrition rate drops soon or by the time the ‘process is complete’ there won’t be too many left to liberate. Or is that not an issue?
Well folks I must bid adieu for a while.
Just to say it has been fun & encouraging too. OK predictably a few rabid rightwing nutballs broke cover but that was to be expected. It’s easy to imagine them up late of an evening polishing their guns & admiring the pointy bits of their ammunition & all with a strange glint in their eyes to boot. Fortunately there is evidence that saner folk are to be found & that reasoned debate, a la Habermas, has a part to play in the national dialogue. Given the destructive power now amassed by the US & the growing temptations to use it we little people of the world must pin our hopes on the outcome of this dialogue & hope that reason will prevail.
We place our trust in you even if it’s not entirely from choice.
As they say where I come from, Gawd ‘elp us.
Tom Paine writes: “George Bush’s America has freed 50 million people from two of the most murderous governments on earth.”
George Bush’s government is crammed with people who have enthusiastically supported many of the most murderous governments on earth: in Central America, in the Philippines, in Indonesia, in Africa, in Central Asia, and — not so very long ago — in Iran and Iraq. It now claims to be concerned about the freedom of Iraqis, Iranians, and Venezuelans only because those nations have or had vital resources not available to exploitation by the United States.
Bringing freedom to Iraq was not the purpose of the invasion; it was a public-relations strategy cooked up when the original justifications for the invasion were shown to be false.
So what? Tom will ask. We got rid of a bad guy — why does it matter what our motives were? It matters because countries, like people, tend to observe the law when other countries or people do and to disregard it when others disregard it. There is such a thing as a tradition or culture of lawfulness (and conversely, of lawlessness). If the United States, the most powerful and influential country in the world, observes international law only when it suits our government (or rather, the corporate and financial elites whose bidding our government usually does), other countries will tend to do the same. The result will be an international culture of lawlessness, with frequent violent conflicts. Since weapons are becoming increasingly destructive, the consequences might well be catastrophic on a scale now hard to imagine.
Try to get past your resentments, Tom. Most of the liberals you know — for that matter, most liberals everywhere — may be disagreeable people, who sometimes, as you put it, sneer and snark. But even conservatives do that sometimes, you know.
Sam,
if you are still listening, if the wee people of Europe are tired of America, they should ask the Yanks to go home, and dissolve NATO. Then they should pay the cost of maintaining their own security. Having much recent historical experience in raising armies, the Europeans, especially the Germans, should have no trouble getting some tanks together. Now, personally, given the history of Europe for the last 2000 years, which in summary was an endless series of bloody viscous wars interrupted by occasional peace, I wouldn’t place my bets on continued peace in Europe, once the children of Europe are free of adult supervision, and are back to their old routine. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe “dialogue” and “reason” will save you all, as it hasn’t in the past couple of millenia…. Good luck with that…. I have to get back to polishing the rifle.
PS, if you haven’t clued in that Europe is basically disintegrating before our eyes, try reading America Alone, by Mark Steyn. Well, I gotta go. Gotta go learn to use a spell checker, har har.
George Scialabba,
you made some good point about the distribution of wealth. Plenty of wealth does not mean the people of Iraq will benefit. Iraq has the potential, and the resources, to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world, where ordinary Iraqis benefit and have a high standard of living. But, potential does not necessarily mean outcome. You’r quite right. Now, I’m always a strong advocate of ensuring wealth is used in an ethical way, and ordinary people have a chance to better their lives. This all depends on Iraqi leaders. To date, the reason Iraq is such a mess is their leaders, like Saddam, have been corrupt, evil and incompetant, and without a moral compass. America can’t make people and leaders better. What it can do, is America should put a lot of pressure on the Iraqi leadership to ensure all Iraqis benefit from their own wealth. It’s doubtful the distribution and use of oil wealth will turn out well, because Arab leaders, being their usual corrupt self, the leadership will probably take most of the money for themselves, and squander and misuse the rest. Two of my brothers in law are visiting professors in middle eastern arab countries, and they bring home horror stories of Arab corruption and incompetance. I just hope the world places blame where it should be, when this happens: On the corrupt shoulders of Arab leaders.
I agree with you.
George Scialabba (Oct 15th, 2007 at 4:12 am)
Of your three points, the one about “international law†deserves an answer.
It is that “the law is often an assâ€.
Most obvious example: For thousands of years, the laws of all societies considered slavery to be a perfectly acceptable form of social organization.
Humanity outgrew that kind of law – very painfully.
Now “international law†is being mis-used to deny peoples’ freedom from murderous and illegitimate dictators.
Do not worship “international lawâ€. Law is a creation of men – who are often stupid, foolish, and lazy – and who lately don’t seem to care much about supporting freedom for mere “wogs†in third-world countries.
Tom:
You & Tim are not pals by any chance?
Know doubt you would agree that ‘these are the times that try men’s souls’? Look into the history of Liberia – you might find it interesting.
George:
Thamks for the soothing remarks & I apologise for any disagreeableness. It was tempting to sneer at this point but then I thought ‘no, no I won’t, because, everyday in everyway I am getting better & better’
Tim:
you say:
and they bring home horror stories of Arab corruption and incompetence. I just hope the world places blame where it should be, when this happens: On the corrupt shoulders of Arab leaders.
Your use of ‘when’ here is interesting. Are you a staunch critic & opponent of the war in Iraq? If not why not?
How could you support the squandering of billions of taxpayers money plunging the US further into debt & spilling the blood & guts of countless thousands of people – many of them fellow Americans – just to bestow freedom on a bunch of irredeemably corrupt Arabs? Sounds like an utterly futile exercise to me.
I’m struck by how contrary America has been with its gift of freedom. It supported the Shah of Persia did it not and even obligingly trained its feared secret police. It removed a democracy in Iraq at one time before assisting several dictators including Saddam himself into power. Even today it supports regimes like the House of Saud & Colonel Gaddafi not to mention Musharraf & Mubarak whilst whimsically deciding at the same that Iraq must have freedom & democracy. Some would even suggest that the populist President of Iran has better democratic credentials than the present occupant of the Whitehouse – there were no irregularities over their elections. Perhaps that explains the Whitehouse’s current antipathy towards the Iranians. That’s one to ponder now I think about it.
Sam,
I’m not a very idealistic a person. My basic assumption about the world, is that the powerful rule the world. They always have, always will. I believe in the golden rule of politics: whoever has the gold, rules. Or in this case, oil. I just want to back a winner, and I think America is a winner society, and will be even richer once they tap the oil wealth in Iraq. I am a very enthusiastic, pro-American person. Democracy and the freedoms we enjoy, in what used to be called The West, are great, but if Arabs ever become mentally sophisticated enough as a culture to embrace them, good for them. My guess is it will take them a few hundred years to become what we think of as civilized: embracing democracy, rule of law and basic human rights. What Bush is doing is great, and I support him trying to steer the Arab world toward a more democratic and civilized model of government, and away from their stupid, religious-based Muslim culture, and fascism, and I know the average Arab wants democracy, and peace. I just think the Arab elite are cruel and ruthless and without decency, so eventually what Bush is trying to do will fail, not due to anything the Americans do, but due to the cultural barbarism and backward stupidity of Arabs, I couldn’t have a much lower opinion of Islam, and Arab culture in general. Bush’s project of democracy will fail, at least in the short run, due to Arab barbarism. Arabs will soon revert to barbarism, and America will have to deal with another Saddam-of-a-bitch. But good on George II for trying to civilize them.
However, my real interest here is trying to guess who will win, and take advantage of the situation to make money. My research tells me the world is running out of oil, and most of the rest of the cheap and plentiful oil is in Iraq. And I think the Americans will win the war in the sense that their armies will be there for at least fifty years, or until the oil runs out, guarding the oil they will be exploiting.
I have money invested in the Iraqi currency, the Dinar, which fell to near worthlessness after the start of the war. At that point, I bought a lot of it. (just after the new Dinar was issued0 I believe it will rebound, like the Kuwaiit currency did, after Saddam invaded that country in the early 1990s. I read about several people who invested around 30 thousand American dollars into Kuwaiiti currency when it was worthless, because Saddam controlled the country. When George the First invaded Kuwaiit, with the Coalition of the Willing to kick Saddam’s ass; subsequenntly, within a few years the 30 thousand a fellow had bought in Kuwaiit Dinar, when it was worthless, had rebounded to it’s old value, several million American dollars. I’m hoping to do the same thing with the Iraqi currency. It’s taking a bit longer. I also have money invested in oil companies, who should make a killing, once the country is stabilized. That oil isn’t going anywhere, and the world’s thirst for oil isn’t stopping anytime soon, and oil will be the fuel of human economic developement for the next half century. I want a piece of that action.
You are quite right, America plays a lot of geo-political games around the world, sometimes for good reasons, often for bad ones, but always basically to protect it’s economic interest. Every other country in the world does the same, only they are not as powerful as America, and they get jealous and resentful. The British had their day in the sun, and once, the sun never set on the British empire. The British were every bit as nasty and exploitive as the Americans, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, since America and American culture are really just an historical off-shoot of the root plant, the mother country, England. Recall that the deed to most of North America was gotten by murdering and carrying diseases to the indigenous peoples. The ancestors of most Americans came from the British Isles, and most of the rest from Europe. Bush is a common surname in England. So, like it or not, America is the young upstart bastard child of England. You sound like an Englishman, and if you are, don’t be too hard on your offspring. Brits were the same when you ran the world, and as I recall, had some adventures of their own in Iraq in the 1920s. England is resentful toward America because England is a has-been country, with, historically, their best days behind them. It’s kinda like an impoverished older brother, with a fat wife, resenting his 30 year old brother, who is rich, and with a cute wife. Oh well, every dog has it’s day.
As far as why American soldiers ultimately died, I think it was for Exxon, and the American consumer. They died so Americans could keep on driving their big SUVs, and have the highest standard of living in human history. One of the basic tests for the competance of any leader is, does he or she do the things necessary to ensure prosperity for the country’s citizens? If the war succeeds, and the oil is exploited, Bush will get a passing grade by American history. If there is no oil and money to be made, he will and should be failed as a leader, and president.
On a personal level, I’m doing all right, and have a fairly high standard of living, but I want a bigger slice of the pie, myself. There is so much oil in Iraq, and so much money to be made, that the extravagent cost of the war is well worth it.
As to your question, am I a staunch opponent of the war, hell no! I’m all for the war. I view human history as a nasty competition between societies, for dominance. I’m not so much interested in the way things SHOULD BE, a I am in the way I think THINGS ARE AND WILL BE. For instance, Islamic countries would like nothing more than to dominate Europe and Europeans, and the demographic trends indicate Europe will have 200 million Muslims in it, by century’s end. (Good luck with maintaining your cultural identity, at that point.) I understand all societies and religions compete aggressively for dominance. I accept that as just a basic condition of life. I don’t complain about it, I just try to exploit it for my own advantage. I do have morals, but my own self interest, my family’s interest, and the interest of my own supporting economic unit, in this case, my country, Canada, comes first. I’m not here to save the world, just to get rich, and to watch the world go by.
If the Iraqi leaders have any serious brains and morals, which I doubt, there will be so much money in Iraq in ten years, they can have an incredibly wealthy country, with everyone benefitting, AND oil investors and companies benefitting. But my guess is, the Iraqi elite will steal the money, and the rest will go to oil companies, and investors like me. I wish it doesn’t happen that way, personally I’d like ordinary Iraqis to benefit, as well as myself, but that’s up to their governmemt, not me. I’m just here to make money for myself. I can’t do anything about their cultural stupidity. Arabs will be Arabs.
Anyway, thanks for your comments. We’re very different people.
I read the article and many of the comments. I should state for the record that I opposed the war and voted against Bush both times. After reading all this I just feel sad. Everyone seems so certain in their opinions. No one will admit to confusion. No one will admit that they don’t know what to do about Iraq.
One approach I’ve heard discussed recently is “containment” which basically is to let Iraq have its civil war or whatever to establish a new political equilibrium and America’s job will be to contain the civil war to keep it from destabilizing the region. This seems to be essentially what Bull suggests will happen.
What surprises me is that war supporters seems perfectly fine with this. Sigh. As if it somehow makes everything better.
War supporters and Bull seem to assume that given enough time, a new equilibrium will be established. But this is not an inevitable outcome. The israeli-palestinian conflict has existed my entire 50 year life with no signs of establishing a stable equilibrium.
Aren’t you guys the least bit worried that Iraq could be unstable for decades? I am baffled at your unflagging optimism that its all going be fine one day.
George Bush’s Middle East: Ready To Explode?
By Allen J Duffis
Published: September 2, 2007
Does the Bush administration plan to attack Iran before leaving office? There is every indication that is exactly what they are planning to do as they head to the exit from their White House occupation. They came, they saw, they fouled up big-time and bloody, so why not exit through the kitchen and stir the soup on the way out? Who knows, luck might prevail and peace will break out – or not. If not, there’s always – The Final Plan.
The Iraq Conflict: A War of Assumption
It is not a far stretch to state that the Iraq War was a war of assumption. To quote our Vice President, Dick Cheney, as to his prewar assessment of the end result of the invasion of a sovereign country that did not attack us: “We will most likely be greeted as liberators.”
The weapons of mass destruction – none found. The hardheaded administration projection of a need for no more than 110,000 occupation troops has proved to be strategically wrong, and the initial estimate of sacked Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General Eric Shinseki, of a requirement of 360,000 to 400,00 ground troops has proved, in the end, to have been correct (as stated by CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid in testimony before Congress on November 15, 2006).
Added to which, U.S. military personnel were sent into battle without proper body protection and, in some cases, armament, which in response to the criticism former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated: “You go into battle with the army you have.”
To wit, the projected cost of the war is out of control, heading midway through the billions and rapidly toward the trillion mark. The president has made a request for $50 billion more for the war effort, and a revised supplemental estimate indicates that the cost of the Iraq war now exceeds $3 billion a week. And the Pentagon recently stated that cost of the Iraq was has exceeded $320 billion (adding $78 billion for the Afghanistan War) – which does not include their projected estimates into 2008. So, in general, the war effort can best be described as “Mission Accomplished, but Still Going Strong and Badly.”
In the face of ever increasing death tolls of Americans and Iraqis, they have tried every lie and act of deception in the book to rally American public support and world opinion behind their fallaciously founded and ill conceived deed: but nothing has worked for them for very long. Failure of achievement is the constant shadow that hangs over and follows every avenue of retreat they attempt to take. The ‘cherry picking’ of intelligence buttressed by a continual flow of lies is all that has been offered to the American public.
There never was an attempt by Iraq to buy Uranium (yellow cake) from Niger. Iraq had no connection or involvement with the 9 -11 incident. Saddam Hussein’s government never had any sort of relationship with Osama Bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist group (Hussein did not tolerate competition).
In essence, just about every assessment the Bush administration has made previous to initiating this senseless ‘war of choice’ (including the mushroom cloud warning) has proved to be one hundred and eighty degrees wrong, and this bloody and cost consuming conflict with no end in sight has now been in progress longer that World War ll.
Therefore, what we are now witnessing is an administration nearing its end, and in the process of meticulous planning (a process they didn’t employ before engaging in the invasion of Iraq) for what they hope to be a ‘victorious’ retreat from office. What they are constructing is a retreat behind a smoke screen of impact so significant, that if all goes well it will in their minds, hopefully, blind the world and the American voting public before the coming presidential election to the total folly of their time in office. The smoke screen will be the coming – Iran War.
The Players
To fully understand what is about to come about, one must not only know the political agenda of players involved, but the driving force behind their reasoning philosophy as well. The combination of the two factors equates to their Imperative.
Karl Rove, the acknowledged architect of the George W. Bush ascendancy would have us all believe that he is leaving the most volatile presidential administration in the history of this country, to go off into the sunset to give high paying speeches, write books and retire to a life of fishing. Keep in mind the politically combative nature of this man and what he has advocated – even before the Bush White House.
This man proudly and openly dedicated himself to setting up a Republican dictatorship within the American Constitutional State. Does anyone really believe that he will now quietly accept the defeat of his lifelong dream, simply because the Bush presidency is about to go down in flames? Absolutely not! He is going out into the field to set up, hopefully, the second coming of the extreme Right – after a victory in the new Iran adventure.
Dick Cheney, corporate America’s elected president, the ventriloquist behind the scenes that crafted, along with Karl Rove’s scripting, the voice of President George W. Bush, the most destructive and costly ventriloquist dummy in history. Cheney owes his corporate clientele for that which he didn’t manage to deliver, namely the oil fields of Iraq. And at present he is, on record, openly campaigning for – some sort of military action – against Iran.
Ari Fleisher, the highly regarded and skillful Bush administration’s former press secretary, after stepping down from his position, has joined an ardent pro Bush propaganda group know as Freedom’s Watch. He will be the one orchestrating the political atmosphere for this new Karl Rove/Dick Cheney inspired cabal.
President George W. Bush, the elected leader of the most powerful nation ever on earth, who allowed his offices to be used by this cabal, and who is driven by a rabid ‘born again Christian’ zeal and, most of all, a desperate need to leave a legacy in his wake. In his simpleminded way, he regards the concept of American style Democracy as the forward staff of a new Christian Crusade. In fact, it is the legacy he wants to leave behind.
These forces can pull off nothing without him other than executing a coup, but that appears to be a concern they need not entertain at present. For George W. Bush wants to attack Iran. In fact, he’s chomping at the bit.
The Iran Imperative
The Iraq War was initially not about Weapons of Mass Destruction, but primarily about oil – namely the Iraqi Oil Reserve, the second known largest reserve of prime crude in the world.
The Iran War will be about the Bush administration’s last-ditch attempt to cover their accumulated (and many say criminal) blunders and failures in the management of the Iraq War. What boggles the mind, however, is why it appears they are not quite able to comprehend that the Iranians, knowing what has to be coming their way in the not too distant future, are also capable of thinking and planning. And there can be no doubt they are indeed planning, for they know they will have to absorb the first blows of the coming conflict. The two big questions, however, is how will the resourceful Iranians retaliate and, most importantly, how will the region react?
An Insane American Foreign Policy = Endless Regional Nightmare Possibilities
There are so many interacting events taking place in the Middle East at present, one is severely challenged to make projections or even offer theories as to future events, when even the participants do not know what will happen in the end. However, based upon known factors, one can outline viewpoints – all exacerbated by an insane American foreign policy philosophy – that may shape the actions of all of those involved:
First of critical consideration is a very real threat by the Turkish government to invade the Kurdish populated territory of northern Iraq, should there be any attempt by the Kurds to form a separate state. Since that is exactly what the Kurds claim they are working towards, this is not a threat to be taken lightly.
Even before George W. Bush’s presidency, we insisted upon a nuclear free Middle East, and insisted upon negotiation with the Arab world to achieve this status – without inclusion of the Israelis in the edict. Meanwhile, without ever publicly admitting such activities, the Israelis proceeded to develop a massive nuclear arsenal – in the Middle East.
We’ve failed to recognize until recently, that the feared Islamic Nuclear Bomb was already a reality in Pakistan. That nation is a now highly unstable country, growing more unstable every day, and in possession of an extensive nuclear arsenal with very sophisticated missile delivery systems. But as a Pakistani American associate recently pointed out to me, “Shouldn’t the Arab world fear a Christian Nuclear Bomb? His point is well taken. How can we define who in the world can and can’t have nuclear weapons?
As a precept to war, we accuse the Iranians of supplying Iraqi insurgents with the weapons and explosive devices used to kill our troops. But is this a true and valid justification for attacking Iran? Think about it in the light of our own history.
We supplied groups we referred to as Afghanistan Freedom Fighters (led by Osama Bin laden) with weapons and Stinger ground to air missiles to fight the Russians during their occupation of Afghanistan. But the Russians didn’t attack us in return. And we supplied Saddam Hussein with the chemicals and weapons to go to war with Iran. But the Iranians didn’t attack us in return – at least not at the time.
In point of fact, America has a long history of supplying the enemies of our enemies with weapons, training and funding, going back as far as the turn of the 20th century. So why do we find it so difficult to understand that a country right next door to one we have invaded and now occupy, and a people we in the not too distant past incited to attack them, and which is culturally and historically attached to said country, should want to aid those insurgents?
Of course, as an American, I don’t want American soldiers killed by anyone anywhere, but we have the final option to stop the slaughter of American forces by simply doing what the British did in Palestine, the Russians in Afghanistan, and the French in Vietnam – get out!
The Plan
“If you kill me in battle, I forgive you. But if I survive …we’ll see.”
From an Old Spanish proverb
The Attack on Iran plan is simple and straightforward, for there are few other options available to the U.S. A massive ground assault, or tactically best a series of such assaults, is virtually written out of the scenario since we don’t have the available troop strength to pull it off, or consider even a limited occupation for mop up purposes afterwards.
Therefore, the only realistic option is a two pronged air and sea assault on strategic Iranian target. Through continuous airborne bomber attacks over a period of at least 10 days, backed up by heavy navel carrier cruise missile assaults from our fleet in the Persian Gulf. Can such a plan work? Absolutely! The big question, however, is what comes afterward?
The Nuclear Factor
No matter how skillfully executed an air assault program, is it really possible to make massive strikes on operational nuclear facilities without the release and spreading of deadly radiation? Most military nuclear experts say no, and the extent of the damage is left to – which way the wind blows and how close the sites are to population centers.
Think about Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island, always keeping in mind that these were ‘accidental’ releases of radioactive contamination – not the result of direct airborne missile assaults.
Should air assaults on Iranian nuclear facilities cause the release of significant radiation, the image of Iranian men, women and children dying in the streets from radiation poisoning will, effectively, destroy American diplomatic influence in the region and the world for decades upon decades to come.
The Unknown Israeli Factor
Into this equation of guaranteed chaotic outcome there is the always present and unknown peril of the Israeli Factor. For no matter how desperate a situation develops, it can always be made far worse by the addition of the right catalyst – and this factor is what the Israelis represent in such a situation. What will they try to do on their own during the melee, which may appear to them as an opportunity not to be missed to erase a mounting threat? And what if the Bush administration is so foolish as to incorporate them, in any way, in a joint operational military attack on Iran?
What makes the Israeli factor so critical in these coming events is that the Israelis have a major threat to contend with. They don’t worry so much about an Iranian nuclear attack upon them, as they do of the loss of being the strongest military power in the region. A nuclear-armed Iran becomes a serious contender, almost an equal, because they would become resistant to conventional attack. The Israelis would be reduced or somewhat limited to a defensive posture only, and virtually cutoff from the option of preemption. That precarious status the Israelis cannot tolerate becoming a reality.
Normally, this question would be moderated by the application of ‘cool heads’ within the government of Israel, were it not for the very real possibility that one, Benjamin Netanyahu, a former Israeli Prime Minister and well known war hawk supreme may soon come into power once again. When it comes to Israel’s perceived survivability, this man will listen to no reasoning other than his own.
The Iranian Options for Retaliation
So how could the Iranians retaliate against an American military attack? They have at their beck and call many options even after a massive air strike, one of which is to target U.S. troop positions in Iraq with short-range missiles; and you can bet they’re thinking about it. But most important, they have the trained dedicated force to carry out such retaliation. They are called The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards were established during the 1979Iranian revolution, and have evolved into a powerful and influential organization. It is widely held by most intelligence organizations that they have custody over most, or possibly, all of Iran’s chemical, biological and radiological weapons; as says Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in a report to be published in late September.
The force has some 125,000 men (a paramilitary entity separate in number from the regular Iranian military) which has exported thousands of rockets to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and shipped tons of arms to various Palestinian groups, including the Palestinian Authority as reported by Cordesman in “Iran’s Military Forces and Warfighting Capabilities.”
Reportedly, some 5000 of the group are assigned to ‘unconventional warfare’ missions as well as special Quads, or Jerusalem, forces for operations overseas. They support the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza and on the West Bank and Shiites in Iraq and Afghanistan, reports Cordesman a former director of intelligence assessments at the Pentagon. However, rumored links to al Qaeda and other Sunni groups have not been “convincingly confirmed,” he said.
This group is so worrisome to the Bush administration that they’re doing their level best to have them declared a foreign terrorist organization, and there is good reason on their part for doing so. If the Islamic Revolutionary Guards are so declared, the United States could freeze U.S. based assets of companies connected to them. The listing would also give the U.S. the clout to pressure foreign companies into suspending business with firms or organizations linked to the guards or risk the costly affect of being viewed as terrorist supporters.
“We are confronting Iranian behavior across a variety of different fronts, on a number of different, quote-unquote, ‘battlefields’, if you will,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormick said recently. His reference to “battlefields” attracted notice.
While some guards units are trained for covert missions, most are lightly equipped infantry trained for internal security missions, Cordesman said. They are the center of Iran’s efforts to develop warfare tactics in case of a U.S. invasion, and could be contemplating sending units into countries like Iraq and Afghanistan to attack U.S. forces, he said.
“There are other paramilitary, internal security and intelligence forces in Iran, and leadership is fragmented,” Cordesman said, “but the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps holds control of several of them.”
At present, Iran’s missile defense, distributed strategically over the Iranian countryside, will be almost impossible to completely eliminate in a series of air assaults, no matter how accurate our supposedly pinpoint attack technology may be. More than enough will survive to do serious damage to a nearby enemy if the forces capable of operating them survive the initial assault – namely the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
This problem has been well researched, because the same formidable obstacles to effectively eliminating widespread missile deployment have confounded our military planners when considering future preemptive options concerning North Korea.
In the Final Analysis – What?
If there is a critical reality we Americans must come to grips with as a result of the Iraq conflict, whatever the final outcome, it is the erroneous notion that we can transplant American Style Democracy ‘anywhere in the world’ we chose to. That piece of earned wisdom must be the greatest lesson we achieve from the tragic consequences of this ‘war of choice.’
What lessons will we come away with from a war with Iran? Only a troubling future will reveal such lessons, unfortunately, as always too late and at what cost? However you look at it, to clear thinking minds free of political contamination, it is a war we just don’t need but, unfortunately, I think it’s one we’re going to get.
Correction on e-mail address for the Conservative Independent:
reply-agent@conserveind.com
Comments on Allen J. Duffis article:
Very well written, a good summary of left-wing rhetoric about the war, but wrong on many points.
The author guesses America will attack Iran. My guess is, yes, America may attack Iran, if necessary, but not the whole country. America will probably would make selected strikes at nuclear facilities in Iran, rather than invade the whole country. And why not? Iran is in fact, at war with America, especially in Iraq, and has been for a long time. Why Allen doesn’t seem to worry about a nuclear-equipped Iran boggles the mind. A nuclear-armed Muslim state, whose president has declared he would like to murder the 6 million Jews in Israel, with a nuclear bomb, is a truly terrifying prospect. And the Iranian president is in the process of acquiring an atom bomb. The last thing the middle east needs, is a nuclear bomb in the hands of someone who says he want to use it to kill Jews. As the president of Iran said recently, Israel is a “one bomb state”, meaning it is geographically small, and dense in population, and could be easily wiped out with one small nuclear bomb. Does this cause worry from the left winger Allen? Of course not. Allen’s lack of worry over people aquiring nuclear bombs, to kill Jews, is amazing. Maybe he doesn’t think it could really happen. I do. It’s mind-boggling in it’s historical ties, and ignorance, this attitude of Allen’s. Left wingers stand up, in defence, for people who are the Nazis of the 21st century. Amazing. The left is standing up in favour of these Iranian claimants to the old Nazi-crown of Holocost championship, now that the European champion, Germany, has temporarily retired from the mass murdering of Jews.
Large-scale warfare between the U.S. and Iran is unlikely, in my opinion. Once the oil flows in Iraq, in large quantity, America would likely rachet up oil production, bringing the world price down considerably, and sink Iran, economically, without a fight. There’s more than one way to fight a war. The incompetant government of Iran can barely keep its financial house in order with oil at $80 a barrel. At $40 a barrel, they would have an internal revolution on their hands.
In my opinion, other than taking out nuclear facilities, America has no interest in invading Iran.
Allen says there is ever-increasing American death tolls, and paints a picture of troop loss in Iraq as some sort of colossul military failure. Such rubbish should not go unchallenged. Any historically literate person knows that is pure nonsense. There are small villages in France, during the Second World War, that had more casualties than the whole American casualty list for the entire Iraq war, to date. By comparative historical military standards, in terms of casualty rates, the Iraq War is the most successful large scale conflict in history. It is only the squeemish girlish fright of the left, where one death is too much, that leads left-wingers like Allen to paint such a tragic picture of the war.
Allen talks about “failure of achievement” for the Americans in Iraq supposedly being a sign of failure. By failure of achievment, he means I suppose, Iraq is not peaceful after four years, different ethnic groups are fighting, the insurgency is still active. So what? America cannot wave a magic wand over a decrepit culture, fix everything instantly, and Allen gets angry at this. Allen’s view is very juvenile. The historical truthe is, Iraqis have been abusing each other, with hatreds, and oppression for over a thousand years. who’s to blame for that? Bush? Sunnis and Shiites have been at each other’s throats for many centuries before George Bush was born. That Mr. Bush cannot instantly make a sick violent part of the world well is not a reason to cry failure on the part of the Americans. It is, however, a good time to point out the historical and religious and cultural context of the war and place blame, for the twisted psychology that allows grown men to blow themselves up in marketplaces, murdering innocent women and children; to place blame, where it belongs: on the Muslim faith, and Iraqis in general.
But, in line with usual left-wing rubbish, which amounts ot a wholesale denial of reality, blame is always something that attaches itself to America, and never to Arab culture. This cultural self-hatred is typical of the left.
Then, while in the mood of observations completely unmoored from reality, Allen wants the reader to believe a “Republican dictatorship” is being set up, but offers no proof. This phrasing does represent something real, though. It represents the paranoid hatred of the left.
As is usual from the left, Allen offers that Bush is driven by “rabid, born again Christian zeal”. The left, of course, in it’s core values, is rabidly anti-Christian, in a hate-filled way, and never misses a chance to portray any Christian person of faith as demented. What’s interesting here is the lack of discussion of the motivation of the people the Americans are fighting, whose rabid, warped, hate-filled religious interpretation of Islam makes Bush seem like a very moderate chap, by comparison. But again, in the mental universe of the left, Muslims can do no wrong, and Christians can’t help but do wrong. And awarenes of their own irrational anti-Christian bigotry seems lost on left wingers like Allen.
Allen states at one point he fears Kurdistan is likely to become an autonomous state, aggravating Turkey into invading Kurdistan. He seems ignorant of the plain economic facts of Kurdistan. It is a region dependent almost entirely on oil revenues. Guess where the pipelines carrying that oil run? Through Turkey, and nearby areas. Any move to independence would be extremely unlikely, since the Kurds are not militarily anywhere near a match for Turkey, and depend economically on Turkey. As a matter of fact, I have invested with a Western oil company which is looking for oil in Kurdistan with it’s partner, a Turkish firm. Kurdistan is interested in keeping Turkey happy, since it’s economic future depends on that country. Allen’s ignorance is alarming.
It was a good read, though. Allen writes, better than he thinks.
Tim:
Try to get a grip Tim – such accusations towards Allen seem a little barking to put it mildly. You seem to be striking a posture that makes Newt Gingrich look like a Marxist revolutionary. Allen is hardly a ranting left-winger.
first point: Of course Allen doesn’t write better than he thinks he just writes better than you do – which isn’t saying much.
second point: If I were your financial advisor I would advise a rethink on ‘Kurdistan’. The risk/return ratio is not good. The Americans are keen to keep the Kurds onside at the moment but that could easily change as it has done so in the past. The Kurds themselves are not a monolithic whole – they fought a highly damaging civil war in the 1990s at the time that they were supposed to be a protected zone. Tens of thousands died during this period until an American-brokered truce in 1999 – this of course largely unreported by the mainstream media. Even so there is plenty of rivalry & resentment between the KDP & the PUK – the main parties comprising the KRG. In fact recently a faction within the PUK kidnapped some US troops as part of an ongoing power-struggle within the PUK – it was pinned on the ‘Al-Quaeda in Iraq’ by the US press office at the time but later retracted. The problem on the Turkish/Syrian border is due to a further splinter group known as the PKK – they have been fighting all along for an independent state that includes parts of both Turkey & Syria. They too have fought with the KDP & the PUK in the past but the attitude of the KRG has been somewhat muted despite pressure from both Turkey & the US. The Americans have declared the PKK a terrorist org partly to sweeten the Turks and pressured the KRG to similarly condemn the PKK. Politically this is awkward for both the KDP & the PUK. Also the KRG probably wants to use the PKK to exert pressure on Turkey in negotiations over oil deals. The trickiest bit is Kirkuk still technically outside Kurdistan but very much the prize sought by all. It’s a volatile mix whose history holds little cause for optimism. Rather like the former Yugoslavia it was all held together by a ‘firm hand’. Turkey is under growing public pressure to act against the PKK which if faced with further vacillation from the KRG may well result in a military incursion by the Turks into Kurdish territory. The implication for regional stability in this case is indeed grave as Allen suggests.
third point: the mad quotations of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad deserve to be in the same book as that of Pres. Bush – such quotations as ‘I shall learn latin for my next visit to Latin America’ is pure urban legend. But so is that guff about exterminating Israel. The president of Iran is a populist president which means that the bulk of ordinary Iranians voted for him – he garnered a lot of votes by running on an anti-American & anti-Israeli platform which is always a guaranteed vote-winner or is especially so as of late. Distinguishing between mere political rhetoric & real intentions is a basic skill for the observer of international affairs. Clearly zapping Israel would be suicidal for Iran – nuclear weapons are not offensive weapons. The danger has always been of accidental escalation. The madman with a nuke is pure paranoid fantasy but effective propaganda when it suits.
fourth point: America’s intention towards Iran is a matter of record which has been stated many times by its leading representatives: that of regime change. The nuclear issue has the same status here as the WMD did for Iraq. If the Americans strike Iran it will be with the intention of weakening – hopefully fatally – the Iranian regime. Since economic warfare has been under way for some time – begun by the Americans – in which banks have been pressured to withdraw, credit severely restricted, and fuel imports cut off the Iranians may have good cause to feel threatened (when such economic sabotage starts the dutiful press always reports the inevitable consequences for the targeted economy as ‘economic mismanagement’ by the regime!). Currently the Iranians are building furiously especially in terms of their refining capacity in order to resist this campaign of economic sabotage (they currently can only supply 50% of their own fuel needs due to lack of refining capacity). Their key allies in this are the Chinese & the Russians which is another ill-omen for the US. Given this support & the poor track record of economic warfare to achieve its aims the likelihood of US strategic military action on Iran must increase accordingly. Furthermore this action is likely to be a broad attack on the infrastructure of Iran with the deliberate intention of further weakening its economy. The clear means by which this current regime can be removed. This would of course mean targeting a large range of civilian targets such as the oil refineries themselves as well as the nuclear facilities. It may also be a great opportunity to try out those bunker-busting nukes – all part of the US’s de facto shredding of the Non-proliferation Treaty.
fifth point: I know what you mean Tim – a few thousand US troops that’s nothing really. Of course missing as always is the million or so Iraqis but I guess Arabs don’t count in these equations. No doubt you would dispute the figures even if the epidemiological methodology has been widely accepted elsewhere. Again the figure is extrapolated from surveys in which low probability figures at either end of the spectrum are reached with the final most reasonable figure calculated in the middle. It is a scientifically attested method that was applied to the Ugandan Holocaust & universally accepted by the nations of the world including the US. But not in the case of Iraq it seems. But casually dismissing lives seems to be part of the psychosis of our times – part of the Necropolis of modern times you might even say.
sixth point: don’t be absurd Tim – President Bush was supposedly converted by Billy Graham but methinks that Republican Presidents have to be deeply religious in order to be even marginally electable. The only thing Bush is committed to is his golf swing.
seventh point: forget the religious angle – its bogus. this is about money, oil, power, & control all notably secular characteristics. Even militant Islam is just the chosen vehicle to rally an essentially secular reactionary movement. Raising the religious flag is deliberate obfuscation.
Tim – you see the world as made up of winners & losers; when are you going to see that there are only losers in the end? Humanity may face its greatest challenge this century in which it may have to play its greatest trump card in the evolutionary game – its ability to cooperate in the face of life-threatening danger. All the signs at the moment are that humanity will sink under the weight of its own self-destructive viciousness descending into anarchic endless selfish bickering. Your philosophy if true is a bleak one for it seals our fate as a species. I will continue stubbornly to cling on to a view of the other side of humanity the side that I hope will win through in the end.
I have read the varied reaction to my piece from many on this site, and find the variation of opinion the most interesting aspect.
Please note what is taking place in the region at present; the Turks are massing 60,000 troops, with massive amounts of military equipment, on the Irag border near the Kurdish held Iraq. They are waiting for parlimentary approval to move in.
The Russians now appear to have taken to backing the Iranians and ‘warn’ the U.S. against an attack.
Also, Mr. Bitts, I do not ever take the stance that we have “only” lost close to 4000 American lives. These are the sons and daughters of loyal American families – they deserve more respect than to have the deaths of their children described as ‘only!’ And the slight doesn’t get any better with a useless comparison to French deaths during World War ll; there is simply no relevence.
Allen J. Duffis
The Conservative Independent
Oct. 17,2007
Turkey approves Iraq incursion
Washington (cnn.com)
(CNN) — The Turkish parliament has voted to allow its military to make an incursion into Iraq and chase down Kurdish rebels staging cross-border attacks.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government had asked parliament in Ankara on Monday to authorize a military incursion, and the lawmakers responded with overwhelming approval, 507 to 19.
From: Breaking News on the Conservative Independent website.
Allen
Sam,
thanks for your reply. Yes, my outlook is bleak. What did biologist David Suzuki say once, at a lecture? 99% of all species that have ever lived, are extinct. My guess is, the same fate will happen to humans. I may, or may not, live to see that. I wish I could be more optimistic, but I am not. I don’t think humans are anything special, just another animal, that got a little cocky. In the big picture, human extinction is no more a tragedy than a moth species dying out.
Second, I disagree on your views on the militant side of Islam. I think it will pose an existential threat to Europe, this century. And I agree with Mark Steyn that most of Europe won’t survive the onslaught, this century. Osama bin Laden comes from a rich family, yet he gave it up, to live in a cave, and read a holy book written centuries ago. I don’t think the passion of religious fervour has cooled everywhere in the world. It has, though, nearly died in Europe. For instance, less than 5% of the British go to church every week. This year, for the first time ever, more Muslims go to mosque in Britain, than do Christians, go to church. England is so secular, I doubt the average Englishman truly understand the power of religion over the minds of billions of humans. Myself, I come from a deeply religious background, a small and quite devout religious sect, so by experience I think I understand better than most, the power and passion of religion. I see the same thing in Islam, as I saw in the more radical elements of Christianity, only far far worse. Time will prove me right.
The best chance, for human survival, seems to me, if the whole world adopt a common set of beliefs. Immanual Kant made the same observation hundreds of years ago. For instance, India holds together today, in large part because the British brought British justice, rule of law, ideas about democracy, and the great traditions of learning that came from Europe. The British used a very heavy hand, and were quite brutal to the Indians. A friend of my dad’s, a man in his 80s, grew up as a spoiled Brit in India and has told me many stories. But he also told me, last time we talked about it, that the Indian intellectual class, now that we are around the anniversary time of their independence, are changing their views on the British and realizing all the great things they left. India today is a growing succeful, multi-party, multi-ethnic democracy, because of the British.
European ideas about the formation of societies are so much superior to ideas in Muslim and Hindu and Chinese and black countries, and of course, the whole world is slowly embracing the intellectual agenda of European societies, ideas like democracy and rule of law. My point is, I think Europeans have been too apologetic about the past, and not confident enough about the ideas of their civilizations.
I see America as a confident society. I wish America to be the pre-eminant society in the world. America is dominant and great because her basic social and political forms, which are European in origin, are superior to those concocted by any other societies. Maybe I should have been born in the 19th century, but I truly believe and feel, that Eurpean-based civilizations are vastly superior to other civilizations. I have, in short, a cultural superiority complex. Also, I have disdain for Islam, because it is inferior.
And I think the forms of government worked out in European societies need to be championed by militarily vigorous societies, like America. That way, the ideas of America, and Europe, will be accepted around the world quicker. Nothing convinces like power and wealth. America is the most powerful and wealthy country, in human history, and this is the best thing for world peace, in my opinion. Other countries, especially Third World ones, should look to America as the example. Yes, I can find many faults with America, but on a side by side comparison, America is the greatest country in the world.
If Muslims see America as being weak, and backing down in Iraq, the idea of the Arabs ever embracing democracy ends right there. As Osama bin Laden put it, “when people see a strong horse, and a weak horse, they choose the strong horse.” Osama thinks America is the weak horse. He thinks American ideas are weak. Myself, I think America is the strong horse. They must win in Iraq, to prove to the world, who is the strongest. Yes, it’s that simple, and that primal.
I believe that once the whole world accepts a common set of beliefs, about government, human rights, freedoms of speech and religion, the prospects for real peace, rise substantially. These European based ideas will succeed if America remains a confident society, willing to use force.
When Muslims see America win, they will know America is the strong horse, and they will start to embrace Western values. Now is not the time for weakness. Weakness won’t win respect, and it won’t help in the worldwide contest of ideas, either.
When Turkey became Muslim, and changed from Christianity, centuries ago, the Muslim warriors came in, and murdered half the population, and kept on murdering, till the rest converted. Once the streets ran with blood, the Christians suddenly decided it wouldn’t be too hard to be Muslim. God is just a reflection of who won.
Liberals think peace comes from being nice. I think it comes from power, and good ideas. America has power, and good ideas.
I disagree with your viewpoint, but enjoyed reading it.
As an American who has had to foot the bill for our recent messianic/Utopian escapades, I don’t find Mr. Bull’s myopic viewpoint reassuring even if he turns out to be right. I’ve never figured that the Iraq invasion would result in much blow-back on us regardless of whether we succeeded in achieving whatever nebulous short-term goals we put in place. A destitute region can’t do much to hurt us in any real way–the spectacle of 9/11 being the case in point. Iraq was merely a figment of our political imagination.
Even if Iraq or Iran came up with a nuke or two with which they could menace or even attack us, all we’ve ever had to do is promise to make Baghdad or Tehran a heap of ashes. (Let he who can deliver the biggest mushroom cloud win.) France, Britain, and Israel are all capable of annihilating any Muslim nation. But, such an approach wouldn’t serve the modern political establishment, which was forged by the truly existential threat of the Soviet Union where mutual (rather than unilateral) assured destruction was the paradigm. Our Boomer-aged governing class now requires the aura of permanent war (right), or permanent opposition to war (left), in order to function at the most basic level. (They are an ideological and self-important generation.) Without it there is nothing profound for them to accomplish other than petty domestic meddling and social engineering of the secular and faith-based varieties.
My worry is longer term and relates to Edward Luttwak’s strategy regarding the logic of war and peace. One of two things will arise from the Iraq war over the long run.
1. The U.S. will move beyond its culminating point of success (e.g., Iraq) and attempt a full-scale re-engineering of the entire Middle East and/or Islamic World. (See Iran.) This could lead to an outright defeat of some sort and result in a counter-revolution. After all, America has never really had a chance to try re-engineering the world to our liking via military means. It’s a phase that all Nordic-Germanic peoples much go through.
2a. If we successfully democratize and commercialize this region, it will emerge as an economic force far more formidable and ambitious than we have seen in centuries. It might choose to cast its lot with China rather than the West. It might choose a path that is Wahhabist and anti-Western in essence but Western for techniques.
2b. If we fail to democratize and commercialize this region, we might just apply enough pressure that a new, more successful paradigm of Islamist-oriented resistance emerges. Discrediting Osama’s methods might be the best thing that ever happened to Wahhabism. What if Osama is just the Robespierre to a future Islamic Napoleon? Maybe the Saddam/Hitler comparisons have been as wrong as they were propagandistic.
At any rate, the entire Middle East is not worth a battalion of American soldiers–even if the soldiers think it’s worthwhile. (No white man’s burden for me, thanks.) Foreign adventures are always a sign of domestic decay. We should have delivered our retribution to the Taliban and Osama specifically, not the Middle East and Wahhabism in general, and let the region continue to fester in it’s own internal/post-colonial dysfunctions.
Tim Bitts disdain for Islam is misguided. Militant religious fundamentalism has historically been a necessary stage in the progress of democracy/capitalism.
Rampant Islamic extremeism has appeared at about the same time in the development of Islam as the fundamentalist Protestant Reformation did in Christianity – taking about 15/16 centuries in both instances. Both movements arose in reaction to the economic imperatives of modernisation and secularisation. And in both cases the “Jews” were made the scapegoats – in the 16th century it was usury, in the 20th century and today it is “Israel”
Fortunately for muslims the journey to Enlightenment is likely to be much shorter than the christians ( 200 years or so) because of economic globalisation and information technology. The American project to jump the muslim Middle East from the 16th century to the 21st in one bound has a good chance of succeeding.
BA Bishop:
You are quite right, in your historical references. Christianity was quite supportive of militaristic aggression at one time. However, overt religious approval of military violence has been much weakened in the West. And that historical evolution took a long time. Quite right. But who says it’s an inevitable law, that progress only works one way? I for one don’t believe it. I guess, in a hundred years or so, people will know, if Arab Muslims can catch up with the West, on this question, and attain their own Enlightenment. My guess is only a guess. And my guess is, no, they cannot catch up with the West.
The reasons I don’t think much of Arab Muslims, and don’t hold out much hope for them, is that they don’t read much.
What do I mean by that? I read a report, done for the U.N., on human capital development in Arab countries. (the report was done around 2003, and is available on the internet, in a Google search) The research was assembled by a small team of Arab scholars, and painted a very dismal picture of Arab education. One thing in particular, in the report stands out. It was a simple statistic on book translation numbers. The authors said that the Spanish speaking populations around the world were roughly equal to the Arabic speaking populations. The thing was, if you add up 1,000 years of a list of all the books, which were translated into Arabic, they would be equal to the quantity of books translated into Spanish, each and every single year.
This is not a curious culture.
People that don’t read, don’t think much. Reforming their societies starts with thinking, which they are not fond of. This comes out in unusual ways. For instance, if you look at IQ patterns around the world, and compare European and Arab countries, Arab countries have an IQ average that is about 30% lower than the European average. Now, this difference is explainable in basically two ways. They may be genetically inferior to Europeans, in terms of intelligence. Evolution may have dealt them a bad hand. Or, they may have their intellectual development retarded by their culture. In this case, Islam is the dominant intellectual centre of life for Arab peoples, so if anything is delaying their mental development, it must be Islam. So, unless there is some sort of genetic root to their significantly lower average Arab intelligence, I’ll have to ascribe the difference to their religion, Islam.
If I am wrong, show me how.
Reforming a society is a difficult and complex task. It takes a fairly sizable intellectual class, to reform a society. Reform means producing and educating a sizable class of intelligent people, a small number of whom will be writers and intellectuals and reformers. The size of the intellectual class depends on the average IQ in the population. The European IQ average usually measures around 100, although there is some variation, depending on the country. The way IQ is distributed, there are very slow Europeans, average ones, and very bright ones. The same with Arab intelligence. There are extremely intelligent Arabs, as there are every other ethnic group. I’ve worked with them. The problem is, when the Arab average IQ is only 70, the quantity of intelligent people in Arab countries, per capita, is quite small, compared to the European average. That means far, far fewer people in that society, who are capable of doing the intellectal and leadership work necessary to reform Islam. This makes an Arab Muslim intellectual Reformation quite unlikely. They simply don’t have a large enough intellectual class to support one.
So, if the world expects an intellectual revolution, an Enlightenment, from the Arab intellectual elite, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
If America wins in Iraq, I think it is potentially a good thing, in the long run, for the Arabs, if they play their cards right. Arabs will see, if they will allow themselves to see, that there are a people who are better than they are, and the brighter ones will start asking what they can learn from the Americans. That is potentially a good thing, and, if they do in fact, prove me wrong, and start to reform their societies, wonderful.
People in every culture look up to their betters, for clues as to how to live, and what to think. Right now, the insurgency is running on pride. Pride is sometimes a good thing, but in this case, it comes out of narrow minded cultural ignorance, and lack of intellectual development. Their religious leaders teach them that their religion is the only, the true religion, they have the keys ot heaven, and all others are inferior, which is an insulting, aggressive, ignorant idea. This gives Arabs a false sense of superiority, which is an arrogance that is not supported by achievement, and is unaware of it’s own basic ignorance. Arab pride is being broken in Iraq, and it must be broken. Having one’s country invaded by a superior army must be a humbling experience, for an intelligent Arab.
The conflict with the modern world, in the European context, helped reform Christianity, as BA Bishop pointed out. Today, in Iraq, the modern world is in conflict with Islam. Will this encounter with the modern world, which provoked an historical reformation of Christianity, do the same with Islam? Personally I don’t think so. I don’t think Muslims are capable of reform, but I could be proven wrong, and I sincerely hope I am wrong on this. But in any case, what is happening in Iraq, with the American invasion, will be, in the long run of history, the catylst which either provokes a Reformation, in Islam; if Arabs are capable of one; or, if Arabs are incapable of that, the chance to learn and evolve will vanish for the Arabs, they will not evolve mentally and culturally, and when the oil runs out, they will be left in the cultural quagmire, in which they have been in for hundreds of years, riding camels, and picking dates.
That’s why the outcome in Iraq is so important. I hope Mr. Bull is correct, and the Americans win. This is a pivot point of world history, and this war will set the tone and course of this entire century, and maybe several more. It will set in motion forces which adapt and modernize Islam, or it will prove that Islam, and Arabs in particular, are not up to full membership in the modern world.
A war that important should not be lost.
Tim Bitts. Suggest you consult the Cambridge History of Islam or google “Islamic Golden Age”. At the time Christianity was going through its “dark ages” (8th – 13th C) the Abbasid Caliphate, the capital city of which was Baghdad, was taking the Chinese technology of paper- making to new levels, building paper mills in Baghdad, employing scribes and binders to publish books, establishing public libraries and the first lending libraries and exporting this new technology via the Spanish part of its empire into Europe – where the new paper technology, along with Islamic scholarship, helped kick start the renaissance. It is said that the largest library of the 70 libraries in Cordoba at the time had 600,000 books, in Cairo 100,000, in Tripoli, several million.
Islam then descended into its version of the “dark ages”, lasting six centuries or so – about the same as the Christian dark age – from which it began to emerge in the 19th/20th century. It is a pity IQ tests were not available in 900AD for a comparison.
To say the American invasion of Iraq might be the catalyst to provoke an Islamic “reformation” ignores all the evidence that the reformation is already taking place, starting with the growth of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in early 20th century in response to the increased western and secularisation of that country and most vividly exemplified by the Iranian shiite revolution which shares so many characteristics with Calvin’s Geneva, even down to the structure of the government. For an historical parallel with the most extreme versions of Sunni fundamentalism as practised by Taleban, Al Qaeda etc one only has to check out Savonarola in Florence, late 15th century.
Tim:
You’re not still holding forth surely?
I have to say you seem to specialise in quantity rather than quality.
With regard to Arab countries many pass through an inherited educational system from colonial times with much of the education in the dominant colonial language – the educated elite in the Lebanon for example speak French fluently. In fact there is a high likelihood of at least bilingualism amongst many Arabs. Bin Laden’s second in command speaks five languages fluently, is a trained physician & a poet. I suspect the average American speaks only one language & that not adequately. The number of works translated from Arabic to other languages may be small comparatively but so are the number of books translated from the Arabic suggesting the lack of curiousity is mutual.
Your Arab/Islam theory is obviously hogwash. There are a billion or more Muslims of which the Arab countries only constitute 20%. Iran incidentally is not an Arab country although predominantly muslim.
This leaves presumably your genetic deterministic view – a position that takes you dangerously close to the Hitlerian obssession with Eugenics. Perhaps you should just be honest & admit to being anti-Arabic although admittedly the accusation of antiarabism doesn’t carry the same weight as antisemitism. Try substituting ‘jew’ for ‘arab’ and re-read your comments.
You are an interesting mix – white supremacism, eugenics/racism, use of the device of attacking other countries under guise of ’self-defence’. All characteristics of a well-known twentieth century dictator.
Tim is their plenty more where this came from? No disrespect but I wouldn’t want to get stuck in a lift with you.
Your ever admiring pal, Sam.
Sam, my remarks on Arab intelligence were not based on personal bias. They were based on widely available scientific data. Try reading IQ and the Wealth of Nations.
You say, “try substituting ‘jew’ for ‘arab’ and re-read your comments”. That’s a silly thing to say, Sam. I accused the arabs of not being readers. No one ever accused jews of not being readers. That’s a first in history for you, Sam. As a matter of fact, northern European jews have the highest group IQ average in the world, at 115, which explains why their intellectual class is very large, considering their small population, and they win about 30% of Nobel prizes in science. So Hitler was completely wrong on the jews.
So you accuse me of being a white racist and supremist, but not all things I believe about race and intelligence flatter white people. For instance, the average Oriental IQ is slightly higher than the white IQ. That’s a fact.
Iran is an interesting case, because the majority of the people are Caucasian in origin, yet the average IQ is the same as Arab countries, or around 70. Makes me wonder if the lack of mental development has to do with Islam, the dominant shaper of culture, rather than race. It might be.
The number of books translated from Arabic into English is quite small, that’s true. But that’s because there are very few books published by Arabs, and those that are published are usually to do with religion. You do raise a valid point, though, in commenting on Western ignorance on Islam, and the lack of books translated form Arabic into English. There is a dearth of research in the West on Islamic culture, especially in American universities, and it’s an important subject, and significant resources should be allocated, over the long term, to correcting that. When the Americans went into Iraq, they just didn’t have enough native speakers, with a good academic background to understand the complexities of the region, and it’s history.
I agree with you that the arab elite is as good as any. I just think the numbers and evidence suggest, at this point, it is a very small intellectual elite, in a cultural space that has not much use for thinking beyond it’s limited prejudices.
Perhaps, with globalization, and the proliferation of technology that makes learning easier, Arab Muslim culture will slowly change, and open up to the world. I hope so. By world standards, Arab education is a bad joke. On every objective international assessment of education done worldwide, Arabs get very, very poor grades. If he wants to see the West stop “exploiting” Muslims, Bin Laden should worry more about whether Muslim children read, rather than blowing things up. Education is power.
Whatever one thinks about the war in Iraq, there are long term historical implications, for the events unfolding there. Things can get better in the very long term, but only if leaders have a realistic grasp of the issues. Due to political correctness, it is culturally a taboo, in the West, to criticize other religions and cultures. This is a mistake. A realistic assessment of historical pattern in the middle east suggests to me a great deal of the blame, for the decrepit culture, and problems in the region, should be placed on Islam, and it’s failure to adapt to the modern world. Low mental development of Arabs is just one symptom of that problem.
Anyway, thanks for the laugh.
Tim:
I think you’ll find that there is a closer correlation of below average IQ with a much broader group that spans across many different cultures & religions including Christians, atheists, pantheists, & even animists – that group is known as the Third World. This may provide you with a clue for your further ruminations.
Rewinding back to healthcare it seems US men are getting shorter due to poor health apparently:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3625031.stm
Seems like there is an imperative to spend more bucks at home after all – this could even endanger your IQ ranking if you’re not careful.
Shorter males are also less likely to breed which could mean even more Mexican immigrants may be required into the future to bolster population & hence economic growth.
Why Europeans seem to be getting taller is, er, mystifying.
• Turkey Rebukes Congress, Threatens Northern Iraq
Kurds From Iraq Kill 17 Soldiers in Turkey
U.S. Reports 49 Fighters Dead in Sadr City Raid; Residents, Officials Say Victims Are All Civilians
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 22, 2007; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Oct. 21 — An audacious cross-border ambush by Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq killed at least 17 Turkish soldiers Sunday, ratcheting up pressure on the Turkish government to launch a military offensive into Iraq.
The pre-dawn attack took place as the U.S. military said its troops killed 49 fighters in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood, one of the highest death tolls for a military operation since President Bush declared an end to active combat in 2003.
Turkish soldiers and a village guard, right in the background, patrol on a road in the province of Sirnak, near the Turkish-Iraqi border, southeastern Turkey, in this Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007 file photo. (Kadir Konuksever – AP)
But Iraqi officials and residents of the vast Shiite enclave, loyal to powerful anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, said 13 people were killed and all of the victims were innocent civilians, including children. They warned that the attack could lead Sadr to rescind a suspension of his militia’s operations.
The unrelated spasms of violence on two fronts illustrated the highly combustible geopolitical and domestic challenges confounding the U.S. military, even as a temporary troop increase has succeeded in tamping down some of the violence in Iraq.
The raid on Turkish soldiers, among the deadliest attacks in recent memory, was carried out by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known by its Kurdish initials PKK. The armed group aims to create an independent Kurdish state out of parts of eastern Turkey, northern Iraq and western Iran.
Turkish officials said 16 soldiers were also wounded in the fighting in Hakkari province, which borders Iraq. Thirty-two Kurdish fighters were killed in subsequent clashes and 10 Turkish troops were still missing, they said.
Abdul Rahman al-Chaderchi, a PKK spokesman, said the Kurdish fighters attacked because Turkish troops were conducting war games late Saturday near the border. He said that the death toll was higher than Turkey reported and that several soldiers were being held prisoner, but he declined to provide precise numbers.
“They tried to enter the Iraqi lands,” Chaderchi said. “But our fighters have confronted them.”
Senior Turkish military and government officials held emergency meetings Sunday night to decide on a response. Turkey’s parliament voted last week to give Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government authority for a military offensive into northern Iraq to pursue Kurdish fighters hiding there.
“Turkey does not have designs on Iraq’s territory,” Turkish President Abdullah Gul said after the attacks, according to the Anatolian news agency. “However, if Iraq keeps harboring terrorists, Turkey has the right to destroy this.”
At a news conference hours after the ambush, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is Kurdish, ordered the guerrilla fighters to stop their attacks or leave Iraq. “We are against all the actions that are done by the PKK,” he said. “And we will not support the PKK. We want the best relations with Turkey.”
But he added: “The Turkish army with all its capabilities couldn’t arrest the leaders of the PKK. So how could we do that? It’s a dream that cannot be reached.”
Allen
Sam,
I think we finally agree on something, Sam. The American diet is quite horrible. That’s an understatement. I suspect that’s why Europeans are taller than Americans. I’ve travelled throughout Europe and came away convinced that some parts of Europe have a lot to teach America about eating well.
You were quite right, in a previous response, to label me as someone who believes in eugenics. I do. Not in the Hitlerian sense. I just know the scientific facts. The death rate for all large mammals is between 40 and 50%, in the wild. This includes humans. Nearly half of all humans, throughout our evolutionary history, have died before puberty. This is biologically natural, and ensured a healthy population, and the necessary evolutionary changes. Science has distorted this natural selection, by keeping alive weak and defective humans, to the peril of the rest of the population. However, this century, genetic selection, based on DNA studies, will bring back eugenics, into it’s rightful place, at the centre of procreation, and allow parents to dispose of unwanted defective children, much as nature intended.
But, that’s a subject of another blog. I’m on to other things. Thanks for your comments. It’s good for me, to find someone who disagrees strongly with my point of view, so that my views are challenged, which I enjoy. You raised some good counter-arguements, although you didn’t change my mind. Thanks for the try, at it.
I still think Iraq will ultimately turn out all right, and I will probably make a lot of money on my investments there, in the next 10-15 years. Most of the remaining cheap oil in the world is in Iraq, and the world may very well be running out of oil. Anyhow, I’m on to other things. Thanks. All the best.
Tim Bitts
Tim:
Yus mate. And good luck with your ‘other things’ & with your investments.
A European philosopher by the name of Habermas believes it is possible for conflicting views to rise to a higher plane through dialectical reason – that is a situation in which conflicting points of view through reasoned argument can form a synthesis in which the key elements of both are fused to reach a higher truth. In our case that appears not to have happened & seemingly is unlikely ever to happen.
And yes you are right Iraqi oil is rather easy to get out of the ground, that is, if the locals don’t object. But don’t forget Iran – it too has plenty of easy to get at oil and quite a lot of easy to get at gas too which in an age of ‘carbon emissions consciousness’ is an energy source of even greater value. Just a thought in case you have any surplus greenbacks for further investment opportunities & don’t worry about the nutty Theocracy – if Bush/Cheney have anything to do with it they won’t be around for much lomger.
Of course for some ‘natural selection’ has become an ideology extended to include much of human society in a way never intended by Darwin but which has become both convenient & increasingly a self-fulfilling philosophy. If you reward bad behaviour you shouldn’t be too surprised if people behave badly. This is well illustrated with the West’s emphasis on Third World corruption – it is the corrupted in the frame not the corruptors. American greenbacks, for example, have been corrupting the House of Saud for decades. Is this really just an Arab issue? I think not. But I am waffling & anyway who the hell is listening to this stuff? And anyway who cares? We’re just talking heads in pursuit of our individual life projects – which of course will be our tragedy.
For your consideration.
being only able to read reports of the situation from far away makes it all open to question. This ‘winning’ or ‘loosing’ thing.The oil.pipelines.blackwater.Saddam/bush/saud.How many bodies before even the most bellicose hawk has the numbers rise up and choke him. How will I ever know except by reading the words. Who is writing them? who have they been talking to? In which direction are they leading me?What are they asking me to accept.
Here it is written:mission accomplished:the war is won. It was a just war. And the numbers prove it. Victory however messy.Now move on.
However.A ‘just’ war by any’normal ethical standard’ sets the tone way too early and way too high.It begs the question on the ‘just’ status of the war.
The war BEGAN unjustly immorally and illegally; was brought to fever pitch by the most disgusting act of deliberate treason yet foist upon the American people and the world -9/11 .
For any discussion of this war in terms of ‘ethical standard’ post 9/11 to proceed;a war as a RESULT of 9/11, the OMITTED FACTS of 9/11 glaring everybody in the face indicating other hands involved in the destruction – must be addressed. Out in the open.
Until that time, the ‘ethical standards’ of mr.Bartle must remain in the shadows from whence they came.
Remo
all problems in Middle East can be traced back to the illegal occupation of Palestine by Zionists. To accept the ’state’ of Israel would be like accepting the occupation of Eastern Europe by Germany if Hitler would have won WWII (not as unlikely as some commentators think with the benefit of hindsight). Even the time period elapsed since these events is roughly similar.
No one in Norfolk, Champagne of Lombardy would be willing to give up his land if suddenly a long-forgotten tribe knocks on the door and demands to return to ‘his’ territory. Europe – being in close proximity to the Middle East – would be well advised to take (at the very minimum) a completely neutral stance and simply reinforce the defense of a very suitable and well-proven natural barrier, i.e. the Mediterranean.
This article, like many of similar fashion, likes to highlight the security improvements and compare them to some part of what has been bed in Iraq for decades. However, the reality of the situation includes more then fewer deaths and less violence. The easiest way to determine how things are really going is to watch and listen for any discussion that includes references to political reconciliation and economic improvements. Failing any mention of these two critical aspects the article or the video or whatever is not worth discussing.
If the political and economic situations are not stabilized, as soon as the outside security forces withdraw, the Iraqi’s will go back to killing each other. The control mechanisms to keep them from doing this have to be in place and it requires these two main facts to be established. To date this is not happening.
Hello, Bartle Bull,
Excellent article.
I had a friend named Bartle Bull in San Francisco back in 1961/62, He was from South Carolina, as I recall and married a girl named Judy. He was in my view a very sweet fellow and fun to be around. Are you he? If so, send me an e-mail. Will Holst is out here (Bay Area), too.
Happy to stumble across your name. I have always remembered you,obviously.
Jim Hrisikos
Superb article. It is important to take a long term view every so often and compare this war to other conflicts – and note how much we have achieved for comparatively little sacrifice.