I've held off on commenting on the War in Iraq at any length for quite some time due to a general personal conflict as to the nature and necessity. The fact of the matter is this: I don't believe that the war was justified nor do I believe that our haste in initiating the conflict to invade a sovereign nation was proper or wise.
There are two typical justifications for the war by those who advocated it:
1) Human Rights
2) WMD's
As to the first argument, I find this to be largely inconsistent and hypocritical. Who are we to dictate Human Rights policy to the world and then selectively enforce it? If we are going to dictate policy or even enforce policy, it must be done thoroughly, honestly, and consistently. That means that we don't invade Iraq and wag our fingers at China and just wink at Russia. In short, I find this rationale to be reactionary and inconsistent.
As to the argument of weapons of mass destruction, I will allow that this could have been a justified reason to invade Iraq. That said, I am puzzled and disturbed by our haste to rush into Iraq. Here was a situation that had sat at a virtual stand-still for 11 years... and all of a sudden there was a pressing need to invade? I honestly hope for intelligence information some day to justify this sudden press into Iraq... but truth be told, I'm not holding my breath.
Aside from looking into the reasoning for invading Iraq, there is now the problem of enforcing peace in Iraq. The fact of the matter is that we are using a military force whose training lies in confronting problems with lethal force as a police brigade. While this doesn't justify or condone the resulting dilemmas that have cropped up in Iraq, it also goes to show that in the headlong rush into Iraq, someone should have been thinking harder about the peacekeeping to follow and the military isn't totally to blame.
As to those who say that the United States has unfairly and unjustly offended its allies, I must generally disagree. Granted, while US policy in Iraq has tended to alienate some allies, I would suggest that this conflict simply serves to highlight the tensions of modern global politics. The United States has not seen eye-to-eye with most of Europe in quite some time, and any allegations of financial opportunism leveled against the US by EU member-states are hypocritical and tinged in jealousy. In short, the relationship between the US and EU members is being re-defined and there is considerable penis envy on the part of EU members and a noticeable lack of consideration for the EU on the part of the US.
Finally, to those whose only comment on the conflict in Iraq is that John Kerry would make a better choice for President, I find your reasoning questionable at best. While I am the first to admit that George W. Bush is a second-rate president who has made some poor choices, I will also point out that his domestic solutions have been effective and his leadership in crisis has been decisive. I would also note that voting against the current president and opting to replace him with a silent political spin-doctor seems foolish. Kerry has used his Congressional tenure to prove his tendency to waffle on just about any issue available and prove himself to be principled only in a lack of solid principles. While I dislike Bush much of the time, at least he's reliable.
So... in a mad attempt to conclude this mess, I guess I'll say this: I don't like Bush a lot of the time, but he has principles that I tend to agree with that he can be trusted to follow. Kerry is anything but principled and his main platform is anti-Bush, and I really would rather pick a president who can be relied upon to stick up for something. If I lived in a non-crucial state, I would vote for the Libertarian or Constitutional candidates... but I am a resident of Ohio and will be voting for Bush because it beats the alternative.
I was talking to Mollie about this the other day, and really, I think that the trouble with what is going on in Iraq now is that we're unwilling to finish the job we started. Whether or not starting it was right is, militarily, completely irrelevant at this point. We have started it, so now all that matters is how we finish it.
When Bush started out this war, I was actually encouraged, because he went directly against the wishes of the UN and most of the EU. I was hoping that his balls would last long enough to finish out the war, in spite of what I knew would be ever increasing opposition from the other alleged world powers.
What Bush started was a conquest. What he's doing now is "peacekeeping". Peacekeeping is not the logical follow-up to a conquest. If you were going to conquer a nation, would you leave and ignore radical groups until they attacked you? Even if you did, would you let them hide in buildings that you wouldn't attack "on principle"? We stopped conquering months ago, and started policing, but the conquering wasn't--and still isn't--finished.
The policing we're doing now, near as I can tell, is some half-assed compromise between what the rest of the world wants us to do and what we want to do. Half-assed compromises don't work.
And in conclusion: I hate politics. The world should be run by a benevolent dictator with a big military.
Posted by: Toad at May 25, 2004 11:33 AMI'm not sure who you think the US should be killing in Iraq that it isn't already. On the contrary, I think the military situation in Iraq is pretty good, considering the bizarre ethnic, religious, and geopolitical interests active in the country. Even the situation with al Sadr has been handled fairly well from a military perspective; urban guerrillas are being slowly but effectively quelled without razing entire cities.
The problem in Iraq is the political situation. The CPA has a lousy public relations arm, and Bremer has proven his ability to alienate large groups of people. The US military is trying to police a nation that does not have a civil government with police authority. Until a reasonably stable Iraqi government is in place, the military can only tread water. The object of martial law is not to conquer but to stabilize; once an independent civil authority exists, the military can go back to its natural role. A definite legal framework will allow the military to act without causing total chaos. That is where Iraq stands or falls.
Posted by: Wilson at May 26, 2004 07:33 PM