Thursday, December 01, 2005
Characterizing the Iraq war
George Bush is just about the only person in Washington these days who doesn't know that the United States has lost the war in Iraq.
When I read this, it struck me as yet another attempt to characterize the outcome of this war in advance for political or ideological purposes, not unlike similar characterizations from domestic political opponents of the Bush administration and foreign geopolitical rivals of the United States. Rolling Stone's characterization is, however, strange on its face. We have clearly "won" the war in Iraq by any tactical or historical standard, even if the country is not entirely pacified. Whether the war is a strategic victory or defeat for the United States is much more debatable, although I obviously tend to believe that it is the former, rather than the latter.
I have been struggling for days to write about this topic, but once again Wretchard has done a better job framing the question than I ever could:
The military situation in Iraq has certain attributes -- casualty rates, areas controlled, enemy weapons seized, enemy casualties inflicted, Iraqi Army units deployed, etc -- which are fairly objective. The struggle now is to take those attributes and paint them with either the colors of defeat or victory. Consider the question of troop withdrawals. The withdrawal of US combat units and their replacement with Iraqi forces has been a goal of OIF from the beginning. Yet it will be depicted as a 'failure' or a 'success' according to the political standpoint of the narrator. Which is it then? Which is it really? That's the subject which I hope readers will express their opinions on. One point of view, which I think is corrupt, is that defeat or victory is entirely a matter of perception. That is, that victory or defeat can be disconnected from the reality on the ground. According to that school of thought reality is fundamentally created by news coverage. I don't think that's right. But I may be wrong.
Damn.
3 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Dec 01, 03:03:00 AM:
Tactically, the victor in battle is the combatant who wins possession of the field, in this case the United States.
Stratetically, as TigerHawk points out, one must look at broader objectives. If the objective was to enforce UN Resolution 1441 and restore world order, the victor was the United States; if the objective was regime change, the victor was the United States; if the objective was stemming a source of genocide, WMD, and international terrorism, the victor was the United States. Admittedly, however, if the objective was winning the good will of France, Germany, The Democrat Party, The Guardian, The NY Times, or even Rolling Stone, the cause was lost before the war began.
As for Wretchard's inclination to gauge success by casualty rates, I would note that Iraqi Bodycount always fails to include the most telling statistic: 300,000 (the number of Iraqis murdered by Saddam during the twelve years that the world failed to enforce a single UN disarmament resolution).
By 
Cassandra, at
Thu Dec 01, 05:42:00 AM:
Pasquin makes an excellent point regarding goals. Furthermore you'll notice that the goalposts are always shifting.
Before the elections it was, "There will never be elections - the country will erupt in violence."
Then the elections were held peacefully and it was, "Yeah, but the Constitution will never be done on time." But it was. So then the rallying cry became,
"Yeah, but the Sunnis will never ratify it and/or the streets will run red with blood and there will be civil war." Ummm... but the Sunnis did participate peacefully and it was ratified even though it isn't perfect.
Now it's "Ooooh - there are more allegation of torture." This is going to be the new cri de coeur: things are no better than they were under Saddam. Except they are. People aren't perfect. Iraq isn't perfect. The process isn't perfect.
And every time we achieve another milestone, the goalpost keeps moving up in this silly game of reverse limbo.
By John F. Opie, at
Thu Dec 01, 06:39:00 AM:
Hi -
One of the points made here is that there is a culture of deception that has moved from Hollywood to the MSM.
At the risk of shameless plugging, take a look at:
http://21stcenturyschizoidman.blogspot.com/2005/11/culture-of-deception.html
to see how this plays a role in the poltical problems the US is facing in the world today.
Best regards,
John
