Nation-Building

The obvious answer to the question is yes - and that goes for before as well as after 9-11. In many ways, 9-11 distorts the picture because it was the single largest casualty count of any terrorist attack in history (unless you start to factor in acts of state-sponsored terrorism during armed conflicts, but let's accept the conventional though arbitrary definition of terrorism as solely due to non-state actors). The count of all major terrorist attacks resulting in 100 or more fatalities is an interesting one. There were 33 such attacks prior to 9-11, and a huge fraction of the post-9-11 attacks are in Iraq. I may be mistaken but the only attacks of any significant scale in the West after 9-11 have been in London and Madrid, though there have been numerous arrests of various Western muslims (mostly British) for various plots (mostly inept, like the ricin plot, the shoe bomber, and the liquid bombs). So, what does that all mean? If we exclude 9-11, then it looks like terrorism is a...

... if we can indeed have an occupation in which no American troops are "injured or harmed or wounded or killed". RedState is rather freaked out about the McCain/100 years meme , claiming that Obama, the media, the Democrats, the Easter Bunny, etc are all conspiring together and this misrepresentation of John McCain is proof of a "national security distortion field" around Obama et al. They insist that the full quote from McCain somehow provides exculpatory context: "We've been in Japan for 60 years, we've been in South Korea for 50 years, that'd be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed . That's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training and recruiting and equipping people." (extra-special emphasis theirs, not mine.) However, the critique against McCain is not that he wants 100 years of warfare....

as I have been arguing repeatedly, no Democratic President will leave Iraq . This is just further evidence . A key adviser to Senator Obama's campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010, a plan at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. The paper, obtained by The New York Sun, was written by Colin Kahl for the center-left Center for a New American Security. In "Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement," Mr. Kahl writes that through negotiations with the Iraqi government "the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000-80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground)." and, frankly, I think "conditional engagement" is valid and that a total withdrawal of ...

On the 5th anniversary of the Iraq War, Barack Obama delivered a foreign policy address in which he touched on numerous issues. I am excerpting the portion of his remarks about our Pakistan and Afghanistan policy, however, because I think this is the most critical element. In a nutshell, he advocates a post-Pervez policy, tying American aid to Pakistan not to stability under president Musharraf but rather towards progress in rooting out extremist enclaves and making genuine progress towards democracy. Afghanistan policy: The war in Iraq has emboldened the Taliban, which has rebuilt its strength since we took our eye off of Afghanistan. Above all, the war in Iraq has emboldened al Qaeda, whose recruitment has jumped and whose leadership enjoys a safe-haven in Pakistan – a thousand miles from Iraq. The central front in the war against terror is not Iraq, and it never was. What more could America's enemies ask for than an endless war where they recruit new followers and try out new ta...

A pair of similar news reports give me pause. First , Pakistan tribal elders shot dead Gunmen in Pakistan have shot dead eight pro-government tribal leaders in the troubled South Waziristan region on Afghanistan's border, officials say. The tribesmen were killed in two separate attacks on Sunday night and early Monday, a security official said. and second , Suicide Bomber Kills Key Sunni Leader in Baghdad BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber assassinated a key leader of American-backed militia forces in a Sunni stronghold of Baghdad on Monday morning, the latest attack on nationalist Sunnis who have recently allied themselves with American troops. That attack, and a second bomb that exploded minutes later, killed at least six and wounded another 26 in total, hospital officials said. The killing of the militia leader, Col. Riyadh al-Samarrai, on the fringes of north Baghdad’s Adhamiyah district, was one of the most significant attacks so far on leaders of former Sunni insurgents who have band...

Michael J. Totten has a powerful essay in Commentary Magazine, a film review of James Longley's documentary Iraq in Fragments : Most recent documentaries filmed in Iraq can be fairly categorized as liberal or conservative. All are about the war, and most are cinematic equivalents of op-eds. James Longley’s lush and intimate Iraq in Fragments is different. While the director appears to be some kind of liberal or leftist, his film is refreshingly none of the above. Iraq in Fragmentsis about the war only insomuch as it was shot in Iraq during the war. This film is a collection of portraits of Iraqis, not Americans or the American military. And unlike almost any other documentary out there, Longley’s includes the Kurds.The director is invisible. We never see him or hear him, and he uses his camera as though he were shooting a fictional film. This is emphatically not the kind of documentary you’re accustomed to seeing. Longley’s camera and editing work are so stylish and deft that the e...

August 19th , op-ed in the New York Times by seven soldiers of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne serving in Iraq: In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are -- an army of occupation -- and force our withdrawal. Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities. We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through. September 12th : NYT reports that two of those soldiers have made the ultimate sacrifice for their na...

I think it's probably necessary to preface this post with the following disclosures: I was against invading Iraq; I am a pragmatic liberal interventionist as regards to foreign policy; I think that the argument for total and complete withdrawal from Iraq is a. genuinely harmful to America's self-interest (in a global sense) and b. not on the table, regardless of who wins the election in 2008. The very term "withdrawal" is in fact meaningless, but there's some irony in the fact that the rabid Article III/Section 3-quoting right-wingers and the reflexively anti-military ultra-leftists define the term in precisely the same way. Rather analogous to how Islamophobes and Al Qaeda interpret the Qur'an the same way, in fact, but that's truly tangential. Small-w withdrawal can take many forms, and there are costs and benefits accordingly. For the sake of discussion, let's define Withdrawal with a capital W as the total Vietnam-esque withdrawal of every last sol...

Consider that it is nearly impossible to "compare" atrocities. How can any meaningful comparison be made between the horrific human rights violations under Saddam's rule and the ongoing violations under the grip of anarchy and civil war? And yet, partisans of various stripes - for example, anti-war leftists or pro-war apologists - routinely seize upon one or the other to make their point that somehow, one state of afffairs was "better" and another "worse". What is even more disturbing is how perfectly legitimate and morally actionable facts get pushed to one side in favor of sexier propaganda. For example, during the Persian Gulf war, there were plenty of examples of brutality by the invading Iraqi forces; I know, because members of my own Dawoodi BOhra community in Kuwait bore witness to them. However, that "mundane" brutality was apparently not convincing enough. And so we heard the tales of Iraqi soldiers taking hundreds of babies out of...

At myDD there is considerable consternation about Hillary's statement that there would likely be a significant military presence in Iraq for the indefinite future . Now keep in mind I am no fan of Hillary - for reasons mostly relating to Dubai Ports World. My foreign policy prescription is to embrace Islamic liberals , not indulge in xenophobia . But I must respect the fact that Hillary is saying what all the major candidates are thinking. Now, I am aware that my pragmatic liberal interventionist views on foreign policy are directly opposed to the evolving anti-interventional conventional wisdom here. But I think that no matter your views on the use of military force (as an adjunct to other means!) you must understand the reality. That reality is that of the major viable candidates - Edwards, Hillary, Obama, Richardson - not a single one will ever fully withdraw all troops from Iraq. (whether thats the right or wrong policy is a matter for debate, but that debate isnt the purpos...

Markos essentially declares Senator Hillary Clinton to be a nonstarter. I think he's wasting the netroots political capital; and that decision isn't his to make. Kos argues , I don't want her to apologize. I want her to say, "I made a mistake." Edwards did it. Just about every other Democrat who idiotically trusted this president and supported the war has done it. Had Hillary done this last year, the issue would be moot. And does she really want to argue that her vote wasn't wrong? The thing is, that by insisting that her vote was wrong, Kos is the one who is legitimizing the war , not Hillary. Clinton's position - that she stands by her vote, but in retrospect realizes she was misled by the Administration - is reasonable . The context of the AUMF was that the Administration would try diplomacy, would consult with allies, would allow the inspectors to do their job, etc. That was the case that the Administration made to the Congress, using Colin Powell as t...

I hate that there seem to be no good options in Iraq. Staying? Surging? Withdrawing? All options seem to do nothing to address the underlying problem of violence and strife. But one of my assumptions has been that however bad things are, they could be worse - and would indeed be worse should US forces leave. Which is why I've been against outright withdrawal. I do unequivocally reject the argument that opposing a "surge" in troops amounts to endorsing failure, an argument that the Administration's water carriers have been making with ferocity. If you can't acknowledge that liberals debating the war do so out of the same desire a solution that results in less threat to the United States, and instead bleat about "victory" without thought to what form it must take as constrained by events on the ground, then we can't and shouldn't debate it. We are on different planets. Best of luck to you. But surges aside, withdrawal is really the important issu...

Good Will Hinton has a scoop on the new Iraq proposal by Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia . As Johnson says on his blog, I have introduced a resolution that officially recommends the Administration effectively take the targets off of the backs of our brave troops and pull them off of street patrol duty. Over four years into this war, this should be the sole function of those Iraqi troops ready to take on the task. Even if they are not fully ready, a credible argument can be and has been made that the violence will be significantly reduced with the reduction of U.S. troop presence. These troops should, in turn, be used to fortify the Iraqi government, allowing it to function more efficiently and provide the country with the strong central government it needs. Maybe more importantly, we need to pay a debt we owe to innocent Iraqi civilians. We owe them what they have yet to receive since the beginning of American intervention – the ability to purchase food at the local market for their fami...

Confused about the debate in the Senate, the Warner-Levin resolution, the dueling conferences, the assertions that one side or the other wants/doesn't want "debate", the very definition of what the heck debate even means in the Senate, etc. ? Listen to this great piece on NPR Morning Edition . Should clear a few things up. Relatedly, see this post at TPMCafe about the Seven GOP Samurai (mentioned at the end of the NPR segment), this piece at the NYT , and this dissent from Pejman .

Thomas has a lengthy screed at RedState in which he decries all voters for the Democrats in 2006 as having blood on their hands. He lays into the Democrats to either put up or shut up about defunding the war, which is a false choice and simplistic narrative. I understand that it behooves the GOP politically to frame the issue of Iraq as a binary one: stay in status quo or quit tomorrow. But the truth is that serious solutions to Iraq will require more complex approaches, and not a single credible Democratic candidate for President in 08 supports an overnight withdrawal. Here is the text of my comment at RedState in response to Thomas's angry rant. What is your policy alternative? Is the surge of 20,000 troops to Baghdad sufficient? Will the surge actually serve to reduce sectarian violence? If more troops are needed, why didn't we begin a massive expansion of the Army five years ago, with the goal of restoring the size of the force to cold war levels? If we need more troops no...

Well, I wanted Obama to take a principled stand on the big issues of the day. He already committed himself to universal health care. Now he's drawing an unambigous line on Iraq : WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today introduced binding and comprehensive legislation that not only reverses the President’s dangerous and ill-conceived escalation of the Iraq war, but also sets a new course for U.S. policy that can bring a responsible end to the war and bring our troops home. “Our troops have performed brilliantly in Iraq, but no amount of American soldiers can solve the political differences at the heart of somebody else’s civil war,” Obama said. “That’s why I have introduced a plan to not only stop the escalation of this war, but begin a phased redeployment that can pressure the Iraqis to finally reach a political settlement and reduce the violence.” The Obama plan offers a responsible yet effective alternative to the President's failed policy of escalatio...