Did we win in Iraq? Does Bush get credit?

[Tricky]

Call me an idealist, but in my opinion, "US interests" and freedom are one and the same. In the past "US interests" were often equated with US corporate interests, or US geopolitical influence. If our corporations could set up set up operations and be protected by planes flying from US airbases, we declared that "US interests" were served.

"Freedom" is a word tossed about too lightly. I'm all in favor of a democratic government, but there are all sorts of other freedoms. Freedom to walk the streets without fear. Freedom to have the basic necessities of life. Freedom of religion (Christians lived more-or-less peacefully in Iraq before the invasion.) And did freeing Iraq from this dictator tighten the screws on freedom in other places as it amplified the voices of Muslim fundamentalism?

Certainly we "freed" Iraq, though it remains to be seen if they will stay free for any length of time after we leave. For what it cost the US, not just monitarily and in lives of our soldiers who died for a country that still does not like us, but also for the loss of respect and honor that the US has suffered worldwide, I don't think the thing that passes for "freedom" in Iraq was worth it. Not by a long shot.

 

[Meadmaker]

"Freedom" is a word tossed about too lightly. I'm all in favor of a democratic government, but there are all sorts of other freedoms. Freedom to walk the streets without fear. Freedom to have the basic necessities of life. Freedom of religion (Christians lived more-or-less peacefully in Iraq before the invasion.)

I agree. I think I said as much. I said that a "genuine democracy" was a lot more than having a democratic form of government, and gave some specifics that matched yours.

I know that as little as a year ago, Iraq certainly was not free. I work with a Chaldean (Iraqi Christian) and he was describing what was happening to his family in Iraq. It wasn't pretty, and if that sort of thing was happening, then there is no way to say that Iraq was a free country.

Recently, I've heard differently. I've heard that the sectarian violence has pretty much stopped, and that things are getting a lot better. I'm wondering if that's true. I know that I don't hear many reports out of Iraq these days. The right wing would probably say that's only because the left wing media only reports the bad news. Since all the news is good, they don't report. Are they right? Is there still plenty of bad news, but we aren't reporting it because of battle fatigue?

Certainly we "freed" Iraq, though it remains to be seen if they will stay free for any length of time after we leave.

Well, that's the trillion dollar question, isn't it?

For what it cost the US, not just monitarily and in lives of our soldiers who died for a country that still does not like us, but also for the loss of respect and honor that the US has suffered worldwide, I don't think the thing that passes for "freedom" in Iraq was worth it. Not by a long shot.

I don't know. To me, it all depends on what is meant by "the thing that passes for freedom". I believe that if, 10 years from now, the Iraqis are truly free, then that will be a huge deal, and it will carry over to a lot of other areas in that part of the world. If they are free that would be worth a heck of a lot, in my opinion. As much as we paid? Maybe.

A year ago, I had my mind definitely made up. We lost. It was Bush's fault. Now, I'm still inclined to believe the same, but the fact that a lot of people are having to defend that position makes me think that maybe I declared defeat to early. Time will tell, I suppose. Whatever happens, I am sticking to my stance made in 2003. This was Bush's war. He gets credit, or blame, as appropriate.

 

[egslim]

You mean the U.S. isn't big enough to back up its foreign policy using conventional weapons?

I mean the US makes a lot of noise saying Russia should get out of South Ossetia, Iran should stop its nuclear development, bin Laden should be captured dead or alive, etc.

But most of the noise turns out to be hot air. And when the stick is actually used, it turns out to work a lot worse in practice than advertised.

That's the opposite of walk softly, carry a big stick.

 

[egslim]

I believe that if, 10 years from now, the Iraqis are truly free, then that will be a huge deal, and it will carry over to a lot of other areas in that part of the world.

Turkey is a secular democracy, and it recently has been implementing many liberal reforms demanded by the EU.

Turkey's democracy hasn't carried over much into the region, why should Iraq be any different?

If they are free that would be worth a heck of a lot, in my opinion. As much as we paid?

How much will it be worth to you if they use that freedom to hurt to US or its interests? For example, if they resume Saddam's policy of using oil money to pay pensions for the families of Palestine suicide bombers?

 

[Cicero]

I mean the US makes a lot of noise saying Russia should get out of South Ossetia, Iran should stop its nuclear development, bin Laden should be captured dead or alive, etc.

But most of the noise turns out to be hot air. And when the stick is actually used, it turns out to work a lot worse in practice than advertised.

That's the opposite of walk softly, carry a big stick.

1) "On 22 August, following a negotiated cease-fire between Georgia and Russia, Russia pulled its forces back to Russia and South Ossetia, leaving military contingents disbursed throughout various areas as observation and security posts. These were withdrawn by 8 October."

2) U.N. Security Council in February 2006 told Iran to suspend all enrichment-related activities.

3) OBL is still being pursued.

 

[gumboot]

There are people now claiming that Iraq is a free and democratic country. Is that all hogwash? The impression I had of Iraq until recently was a nation where violence was endemic and where saying the wrong thing in the wrong place, or just being the wrong religion, wearing the wrong clothes, or speaking the wrong language, could get you blown up. If that's the case, I would say things weren't so good.

I think it's important to look beyond the statistics or news reports and actually try to picture how the violence would look to your average Iraqi. For me the best way to do that is to compare the violence with something familiar, like so:

According to the IBC in 2008 Iraqis died at a rate of 25 per day, out of a population of ~30 million. Or more than one in a million. That's about 1.5x the rate at which Americans die in car accidents.

There is criticism of IBC's statistics as the low end because they only record reported incidents, so it would be fair to assume the total is higher. If we assume IBC only captures half of all attacks (I think that's probably generous) it's 3x the rate Americans die in car accidents.

But that only gives you the numbers. In terms of assessing the experience for your average Iraqi, it's more a question of frequency of incident.

According to IBC in 2008 there were 2,881 attacks with an upper threshold of 9,229 killed, or 3.2 people per attack. Assuming IBC records only half of attacks, but that those attacks are typical, we get 5,762 attacks with an average of 3.2 people per attack.

I have had trouble finding detailed traffic accident statistics in the USA for 2008, but I found some for 2000.

41,800 people were killed which is about typical for the US - deaths have levelled off somewhat in the last few years.

Those 41,800 deaths occurred in 37,400 fatal car accidents, giving an average of 1.1 fatalities per accident. In addition there were over 2 million injury-only car accidents in the USA, and an additional 4.2 million car accidents that caused only property damage.

The conclusion we can draw from this is that the average Iraqi is about as likely to come across fatal violence on a daily basis as the average American is likely to come across a fatal car accident on a daily basis.

According to the Multi-National Force in Iraq, there were approximately 18,000 insurgent attacks in Iraq in 2008. I can't find tables on the specific ratio of attack targets, but eye-balling their graphs it looks to sit at around 2/3 of attacks aimed at the coalition.

We can estimate, from this, 12,000 attacks against the coalition in 2008, 163 of which were fatal resulting in 230 deaths (as per icasualties.org) with an incident:fatal ratio of 73:1.

This leaves approximately 6,000 attacks aimed at Iraqi security forces and civilians, which suggests to me that the IBC's statistics cover over 50% of attacks (if they only covered 50% of attacks this means 90% of attacks against Iraqi security forces and civilians are fatal).

In contrast the Injury:Fatal ratio for US car accidents is 53:1 and the Accident:Fatal ratio for US car accidents is 170:1.

I think from this, we can tentatively conclude that the average American has significantly higher chance of coming across a car accident in their daily life than the average Iraqi has of coming across a scene of insurgency/occupation violence in their daily life.

So if you want to know how violent it really is in Iraq, ask yourself; "How often do I see car accidents?"

 

[Meadmaker]

Turkey is a secular democracy, and it recently has been implementing many liberal reforms demanded by the EU.

If they're a free country, why does the EU demand liberal reforms? I can't say I'm familiar with Turkey, but maybe it isn't exactly a beacon of freedom?

How much will it be worth to you if they use that freedom to hurt to US or its interests? For example, if they resume Saddam's policy of using oil money to pay pensions for the families of Palestine suicide bombers?

Why would they do that? In all seriousness, I started thinking about contries that I would consider free. Without question it includes most of Europe, Japan, Canada. Mexico and some of South America are marginal. I think India's pretty good. Australia is fine. I'm not sure about others. I'm sure I could look up Amnesty International data, or other areas that rate countries on freedom.

Then, I asked myself, which of these countries have every done anything to hurt the US or its interests? I couldn't think of any. I'm sure somewhere along the line Denmark has done something that someone in our government wishes they hadn't, but, for the most part, free countries don't do nasty things to other free countries.

If any free country ever does something to hurt us, I'll have to reevaluate my position, but as far as I know the worst things they have done have been maybe to pass really high taxes on US business interests in their territory, or maybe said we couldn't fly our bombers over their country. That's not so bad.

 

[Whiplash]

This is an interesting subject. I think it's a bit of a litmus test for political indoctrination.

Currently it appears we have won. It could go bad again. But for now, it looks good, and of course Bush deserves credit. I have no doubt that if we had lost there that he would get 100% of the blame.

In hindsight of course it looks like it was a bad idea to enter that war. And things went very bad for a while. But in the end, Bush put the right people in place and supported them with a good plan to clean things up. And he always fully supported the troops.

Anyone who is unwilling to admit (even if begrudgingly) that Bush deserves credit is demonstrating an inability to give praise where praise is due, simply based on political disagreement or intolerance.

 

[lionking]

This is an interesting subject. I think it's a bit of a litmus test for political indoctrination.

Currently it appears we have won. It could go bad again. But for now, it looks good, and of course Bush deserves credit. I have no doubt that if we had lost there that he would get 100% of the blame.

In hindsight of course it looks like it was a bad idea to enter that war. And things went very bad for a while. But in the end, Bush put the right people in place and supported them with a good plan to clean things up. And he always fully supported the troops.

Anyone who is unwilling to admit (even if begrudgingly) that Bush deserves credit is demonstrating an inability to give praise where praise is due, simply based on political disagreement or intolerance.

My thoughts as well, but better worded.

 

[Tin Foil Timothy]

We lost the Iraq War? When did this happen?

Lost the Iraq War?

What Iraq war?

Can you tell us what war this was? The last war Iraq was involved in was between itself and Iran? Is that what you mean? I believe the US was on Iraq's side then? Rumsfeld schmoozing Saddam indeed.

 

[JihadJane]

I'd call you tragically deluded.

I'm curious about why you say that. Of course, the US hasn't always behaved that way. Let me revise my previous statement slightly.

In my opinion, "US interests" and freedom ought to be one and the same. Of course, that isn't always the case historically, but it should be. I believe that if we can advance the cause of freedom, we should do so, even if it means giving people the freedom to hate us. (For one thing, I don't think free people will hate us. They might resent our nation's power, and might try to prevent expansion of that power, but that's a different thing.)

If this be naivete, then let's make the most of it.

The US has behaved like all resource-hungry empires and portrays its brutal violence as a civilizing or even charitable.

We lost the Iraq War? When did this happen?

Probably around the time that the US started paying Iraqis not to attack them.

 

[Skeptic]

Bush deserves SOME blame for the failures in the war and SOME credit for the success in the war: as commander in chief he didn't fight the war himself, but it was his responsiblity to choose people who would succeed in fighting the war.

Therefore, when a commander failed, it was the commander who failed -- but it was Bush's fault inasmuch as he made the wrong choice in appointing him. When a commander succeeded, it was the commander who succeeded -- but it was to Bush's credit inasmuch as he made the correct choice in appointing him.

 

[Skeptic]

"Freedom" is a word tossed about too lightly. I'm all in favor of a democratic government, but there are all sorts of other freedoms. Freedom to walk the streets without fear. Freedom to have the basic necessities of life. Freedom of religion (Christians lived more-or-less peacefully in Iraq before the invasion.)

Freedom to have the trains run on time.

I don't think the thing that passes for "freedom" in Iraq was worth it. Not by a long shot.

After all, Saddam didn't torture or genocide anyone you knew, so...

 

[Upchurch]

Bush deserves SOME blame for the failures in the war and SOME credit for the success in the war: as commander in chief he didn't fight the war himself, but it was his responsiblity to choose people who would succeed in fighting the war.

It was also his responsibility to choose a war that wasn't necessary in the first place. Yes, there were other people who agreed with him, but it was still his decision and his responsibility. As I said before, he brought it in several orders of magnitude over the projected budget, years past due, and didn't actually accomplish several stated goals. It was a bad decision, poorly managed.

Does Bush deserve credit for a giant cluster money pit where a few ancillary goals were met? Sure, why not?

 

[quarky]

Killing people frees them.
The U.S. freed over 2 million Vietnamese during that conflict.
If we hadn't lost our will for victory, we could have freed even more.

Imagine a role reversal; some other country coming here to free us.

Oops. We are free.

 

[Cicero]

Killing people frees them.
The U.S. freed over 2 million Vietnamese during that conflict.
If we hadn't lost our will for victory, we could have freed even more.

Imagine a role reversal; some other country coming here to free us.

Oops. We are free.

And when the Americans left Southeast Asia, the Khmer Rouge murdered 2 million Cambodians. How does that fit into your arithmetic?

 

[quarky]

2+2=4?

btw,
glad you're here.

 

[Cicero]

2+2=4?

btw,
glad you're here.

As far as other countries coming here to free us, Gen. Washington had the services of the German, Frederick William, baron von Steuben to train his troops at Valley Forge. Of course in 1778, France assisted the Continental Army in defeating the British. We killed the British to be free. This had to be done again in 1812.

The South Vietnamese asked for American assistance in their country. The U.S. managed to stave off the North's Communist takeover of the South even after U.S. troops and POW's departed in 1973, until Congress cut off funds to the South Vietnamese government in 1975.

Apparently, you believe the NLF and NVA were in South Vietnam to free them. They killed 58,000 Americans and countless South Vietnamese to force all to submit to Communism. Then when the U.S. left, 2 million Cambodians, that were kept safe because of the U.S. presence in Southeast Asia, were murdered when the U.S departed. And from this equation you get "4?"

 

[egslim]

1) "On 22 August, following a negotiated cease-fire between Georgia and Russia, Russia pulled its forces back to Russia and South Ossetia, leaving military contingents disbursed throughout various areas as observation and security posts. These were withdrawn by 8 October."

You do realise the US continues to consider South Ossetia part of Georgia?
When the US demanded Russia leave Georgia, that specifically included they leave South Ossetia.
Yet South Ossetia continues to have a Russian military presence, and is now basically a Russian protectorate.

2) U.N. Security Council in February 2006 told Iran to suspend all enrichment-related activities.

What's your point?

Either way, the US made and continues to make a lot of noise telling Iran what it should do, with so far very little to show for it in Iran actually suspending anything.

3) OBL is still being pursued.

Perseverence is nice, results are better.

 

[quarky]

As far as other countries coming here to free us, Gen. Washington had the services of the German, Frederick William, baron von Steuben to train his troops at Valley Forge. Of course in 1778, France assisted the Continental Army in defeating the British. We killed the British to be free. This had to be done again in 1812.

The South Vietnamese asked for American assistance in their country. The U.S. managed to stave off the North's Communist takeover of the South even after U.S. troops and POW's departed in 1973, until Congress cut off funds to the South Vietnamese government in 1975.

Apparently, you believe the NLF and NVA were in South Vietnam to free them. They killed 58,000 Americans and countless South Vietnamese to force all to submit to Communism. Then when the U.S. left, 2 million Cambodians, that were kept safe because of the U.S. presence in Southeast Asia, were murdered when the U.S departed. And from this equation you get "4?"

When hideous slaughters take place, I'd rather it wasn't my country doing the slaughtering. We could try to prevent the killing fields, but if it means more killing than the killing fields, that it sort of back-fires.

GWB has killed more people in Iraq than Sadam. That's some hard love.

I was drafted in 1968. But I was biased against violent confrontation from much earlier. I am also guilty of mistrusting GWB. And Nixon. And Reagan.