That 70's Show

[selenite0]

I've been reading the current kerfuffles over what the presidential candidates were doing when I was learning to write the alphabet. There's a lot of amusement value in it. Especially when one comes along that lets anyone with a copy of Microsoft Word play, instead of only people with combat experience or something like that. But I can't get too worked up about it because I really, really, really, don't give a damn.

We've got a war going on now. Before that was another war with Iraq. And we overthrew the government of Panama. The Cold War got wrapped up. Lots of Latin America got into fights with us taking a side. And before all that was Viet Nam. I'm not interested in what people did during that war, I want to know what they're going to do about the current one. No amount of Bush screw-ups during the 70's will matter compared to my (very mixed) opinion of what he's done during this decade. As for Kerry--I proudly wear my NDSM and if anyone criticizes my right to wear it I'll come down on him like a ton of bricks. I'm not going to mess with anyone with medals higher up on the pecking order. But abovenyquist told me some good stuff that Kerry did in the Senate and I'd like to know if there's more.

So what are they going to do about the current war? Bush is straightforward--more of the same, and if it doesn't work try, try again. I've got a lengthy list of qualms but I understand what he's saying and I agree with the long-term goal. I've read lots of Kerry's speeches. He's got a bunch of interesting ideas and some valid complaints. But it's not adding up to a plan other than "not being Bush." I grant that's a plan some people really like but it's not enough for me. The one gaping hole I've seen in all of Kerry's comments in Iraq is that he apparently doesn't care if it's a democracy, "our SOB" dictatorship, or UN-midwifed theocracy. I do care if Iraq becomes a democracy. I think it's essential to winning the war. If Kerry can't convince me he believes in democracy as a goal he's not going to get my vote. And no revelation about what anybody did in the '70s is going to change that.

Comments

Catch-22 and Too Many Cooks

[abovenyquist.livejournal.com]

Here's the Catch-22:

Prong 1) I doubt a _stable_ democracy in Iraq is possible as long as American troops are there. The insurgency is fighting what they perceive as an American occupation, and it is our presence that primarily drives their cause. The fact that we "transferred power to the Iraqi people" doesn't seem to have made much difference to the Iraqis; Allawi seems to be perceived as a collaborator propped up by a foreign occupying power, and his government is looked on as a Vichy government. Trying to get Iraqi security forces to fire on other Iraqis _under the command of that foreign occyping power_ does not seem to have worked out terribly well. (If he's smart, Allawi will do some things specifically to piss the U.S. off in order to establish more street cred.)

It bewilders me why most Americans are so surprised that Iraqis bristle at having foreign troops on their soil for over a year. If there were foreign troops on American soil - however benevolent they claimed their intentions to be - and that same foreign power had previously been bombing the daylights out of you - how long would you tolerate their presence? Would you collaborate with them, or fight against them?

Prong 2) But then, democracy in Iraq will be impossible if we leave and no one takes our place; the country will immediate degenerate into civil war, and who only knows what foreign intelligence forces in the region will start mucking with things.

The latest NIE from the NIC is not optimistic: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/16/us.iraq.ap/index.html

The only way I see out of the Catch-22 is to develop a situation where the Iraqi people aren't fighting the American infidels anymore. That means getting troops from other countries to replace us, not in the 50 troops here 50 there thing, but a real international coalition like Bush should have established in the first place. I don't think such a think can happen while the Bush administration is in power. His name is mud pretty much anywhere except the U.S., and he is too arrogant to truly ask for help.

I think Kerry is suffering from too many cooks in the kitchen - or in this case, too many advisors, all feeding him contradictory soundbites from day to day. It's the same thing that killed Al Gore. He needs to throw the polls and the advisors out the window and turn into a more mature version of Howard Dean - in the sense that yes, Dean was nuts, but he left no doubt what his convinctions were.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the debates. Hopefully Kerry will galvanize himself and stop mincing words and start calling things as it is. The Democrats main strategic error has been its inability to battle the "if we didn't fight 'them' [impliciation of a finite number of N terrorists] THERE, we'd be fighting them [exact same N terrorists, not taking into account that a vast majority of the Iraqi resistance was just minding their own business fixing cars or something before we invaded] HERE" fallacy. (The long-term link - the question of rather in the long run having a stable democratic Iraq would help reduce terrorism 10 years from now, which I might be able to buy, is a different question.) Until the Democrats can break that thread, the artificial short-term link between the War in Iraq and the War on Terror will remain.

I do wish we could declare a moritorium on all discussion anywhere of the candidates service or lack thereof in Vietnam. I can't believe that that's dominating the current discourse.

Re: Catch-22 and Too Many Cooks

[selenite.livejournal.com]

I agree on prong 2--pulling our troops out of Iraq would be a disaster for many reasons. Prong 1 makes assumptions that history doesn't back up. Germany, Japan, and South Korea became democracies while filled with US troops. For that matter, so did Georgia, and Atlanta was trashed much worse by the US Army than anything that's happened to Baghdad. I went over who the enemy in Iraq is elsewhere (http://www.livejournal.com/users/selenite/53556.html?thread=109108#t109108). Only a fraction of them would put their guns down if the US left, most would keep fighting to impose their own tyrrany.

Where are you hoping to get the troops for this "real international coalition"? Just about everyone who could bring something to the party signed up with Bush (Britain, Australia, Italy, Poland, pre-election Spain). France and Germany don't have much to send, they can barely handle helping out in Afghanistan. Russia could donate 100,000 infantry but it can't supply them, and Chechnya doesn't make me think well of thier capabilities. China's worse off than Russia for logistics, and hasn't done well with the Uighur muslim minority. India might be able to help, but a country that's had a recent anti-muslim pogrom might not do better than us, even aside from the confrontations with Pakistan over Kashmir. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran would probably be delighted to take over for us, but that just adds players to the civil war while negating what we went there to do. So where are these troops going to come from, and what makes you think they'll do a better job than the US? When I look at the goal of establishing a democracy I don't see any other candidates for the job. And that's the goal Bush was stressing in his UN speech (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1803&e=1&u=/washpost/20040922/pl_washpost/a39747_2004sep21) this week. If we don't pull that off we're going to keep sliding toward Ragnarok.