Andrew Hagen

The analysis of the war has just begun. Fred Kaplan has a good background piece in Slate. (*) He would attribute much of the military success in Iraq to the new warfighting doctrines that have evolved since the Vietnam War. Kaplan gives credit, as others have, to the excellent coordination between the different branches of service. (†) The coordination between the allies also deserves acclaim.

The Washington Post has an informative behind-the-scenes look into the war from the perspective of CENTCOM and the Pentagon. (‡) The Post reports on the real concern within the ranks that, especially, two aspects of the Iraq campaign were not sufficiently well coordinated with the rest of the effort. These two aspects were special ops and psy ops. Specifically, General Tommy Franks’s decision to initiate the ground campaign ahead of schedule may have harmed the effort to entice Iraqi forces to surrender. This concern might or might not be balanced out by others. The decision to enter Iraq early was remarkably successful in protecting Iraq’s oil fields from damage, preventing missile strikes on Israel, limiting missile strikes on Kuwait, and in keeping the Iraqi military off balance.

The speed of the assault was comparable in success to the blitzkrieg of World War II—except it was employed for the opposite purpose: liberation instead of conquest—and may have prevented Iraq from marshalling its full military strength, even from using weapons of mass destruction. The swiftness of the assault may, in my opinion, partially explain what some have called the ineptitude of Saddam’s military machine.

We will continue to learn more about the war over time.

In an essay in Slate, Steven Waldman, editor-in-chief of Beliefnet (*), urges President Bush to bar US-based Christian groups from undertaking charity or proselytizing work in Iraq. (†) Following Waldman’s advice would only undermine our country’s efforts to defend freedom in Iraq. The United States ought to respect the free exercise of religion in Iraq, and furthermore demand that Iraq’s new constitution guarantee that right to all Iraqi citizens.

Waldman has stated his concern over anti-Semitic remarks made by Billy Graham. (‡) His son, Franklin Graham, is leading one of the Christian outreach efforts to Iraq. Waldman now states his particular concern over the role that Franklin Graham will have in the outreach effort. These concerns and criticism have some merit. They do not outweigh, however, the greater value, free exercise of religion.

Waldman does not believe that religious liberty is important for Iraq. He says:

In fact, religious liberty does not trump all concerns. Among the concerns it does not trump is the safety of our soldiers and the desire not to have the entire Muslim world wanting to wage war against America.

(§ Slate, previously cited) In short, Waldman believes that if a Christian outreach program begins in Iraq, every Muslim will suddenly start killing Americans wherever they can be found. That is the exaggeration of an imitator of philosophy. In reality, we can expect some number of people, including some Muslims, and not all of them, to be revolted at the notion that the Iraqi people deserve freedom.

Yes, some Muslims will be angered. Osama Bin Laden, for one, will be beside himself. The tyrants of Iran will be quite ticked. So what? Their opinions should not count. Religious liberty is not a problem that causes “them” to “hate us.” Religious liberty is a human right that all are born to, all deserve, and some have. Religious liberty is not a mere convenience that we enjoy in liberal democratic countries. It is a fundamental requirement for a society of freedom. Religious liberty is the very thing the terrorists want to destroy.

The war on terrorism is the fight for liberty. There is no going back. We either surrender our rights or fight for them. The cowards of this world, like Steven Waldman, would like us to fail to defend our freedom, and fail to defend the freedom of, for example, Iraqis—each of whom deserve no less religious liberty than Steven Waldman enjoys in America. To the chagrin of the Steven Waldmans of the world, however, those of us who love liberty will not back down.

Waldman has a valid point when he states his concern over Franklin Graham’s apparent belief that Islam is “evil.” Islam is not evil. (**) Of course, there is a danger that some people may be intimidated or coerced into a religion. Nothing of the sort should be tolerated. That would, after all, be a violation of religious liberty. There is no indication, however, that this is the plan of Franklin Graham or of anyone else.

Whether Christianity or any other religion gains converts in Iraq is an outcome that may not properly be restrained by any government. It is an outcome that properly rests only on the decisions of individual Iraqis themselves. This may arouse the ire of a few, but their ire will be unjustified. The defense of freedom entails risk; the failure to defend it entails greater.

Paul Krugman lays out what may become the basic message of the Democratic Party in 2004: President Bush and the Republicans never finish the job. (*) From the domestic economy to the reconstruction of Afghanistan to now, perhaps, the reconstruction of Iraq, the Bush Administration starts off well, but doesn’t complete the task at hand. If it’s worth doing, it should be worth doing well.

Krugman draws a lot of heat from Republican critics, but here he seems to have hit on a message that could resonate with the public. The Democrats would still need a good candidate to deliver it.

This evening, CNN broadcast a report, and an interview with CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan, about how the Saddam Hussein regime planned to carry out a terrorist attack on the CNN compound in Irbil, in northern Iraq, and made other terroristic threats against Western journalists. The regime believed that CNN was being used as a cover for American and Israeli intelligence. CNN anchor Aaron Brown stated that only now, with the regime fallen, does CNN feel that they can tell the story without jeopardizing the safety of their employees and others. Iraqi agents were working to use one ton of explosives to blow up CNN’s operations center in Irbil. Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, Iraq’s unintentionally humorous Information Minister, threatened CNN’s employees with death if they placed reporters in northern Iraq. “Baghdad Bob” had a secret dark side.
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If you are a progressive or liberal or leftist who was against the war, it’s okay, I’m not going to gloat.

Just as a warning, you should avoid: Stephen Den Beste (*), Andrew Sullivan (†), Christopher Hitchens (‡), and Janet Daley (‡).

Just ignore that stuff. You came here because you are in doubt about Iraq. You want a fellow progressive to present a case that this war, for whatever reason, seems to lead to a lot of benefits. You’ve got people smiling and dancing in the streets. They couldn’t all be paid off or intimidated by the coalition’s military strength. Saddam headed a deeply immoral regime. You knew that a long time ago. The specific details are only now coming out about the toddlers being held in prison and the torture victims, and the nightmarish life of your average Iraqi. The Iraq regime was very bad, but many other regimes around the world are bad. Maybe not all are as despicable as Iraq, but are thoroughly despicable nonetheless. Take Burma, for example.

There are a couple of widely raised points against the war. The first is that the US has ulterior motives for leading the coalition. The second is that war doesn’t solve problems, it creates them. They’re both true. I’m going to argue that other arguments outweigh them in this case.

The US does have ulterior motives in Iraq. Human rights abuses, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism are valid concerns, and, yes, it’s true that Iraq was unique in the world in being in violation of seventeen Chapter VII UN Resolutions, but it still doesn’t seem like it adds up to a rationale. That’s true. Politically, the US would not have engaged in this war but for the psychological effect of the 9/11 attacks. Yet, rationally speaking, the 9/11 attacks do not justify an attack on Iraq. So, why should that matter? It’s because we should have knocked Saddam Hussein from power a long time ago. We should have done that after the 1990–91 Gulf War. We didn’t, and that was a screw-up. After 9/11, we finally had the resolve to put our foot down on Saddam. The terrible human rights violations, the support for terrorism, and the lack of compliance with disarmament requirements made the regime elgible for change a long time ago.

Legal scholar Philip Bobbitt’s opinion is that as a penalty for its many breaches of international law, the Iraqi regime forfeited its sovereignty over the country of Iraq. That’s a touchy issue, but you can see the point. If a regime, especially an unelected one, is truly dangerous to its own citizens and others, it would be best if that regime went away.

Now some folks will say that Bush wasn’t elected. That’s another debate, but the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate were definitely elected. They voted to give Bush the authority to wage this war. In contrast, no properly elected official in Iraq ever gave the Saddam regime any ability to do anything. Saddam shot his way to dictatorial power.

Why do I keep calling him just Saddam? His full name was Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti. In the 70s he ordered all Iraqis to drop their last names. This rather ridiculous decree was intended to hide the fact that many of the regime’s leaders came from Tikrit. Plus, Saddam called himself by his first name. The famous chant he made people constantly repeat translates into, “With our blood, our souls, we will sacrifice for Saddam.” He was usually known by just his first name.

So we’ve got Iraq doing a lot of bad things. The US does a lot of bad things, too. To name just one, Bush pulled out of the Kyoto treaty. Of course, the US does not imprison children, torture children or adults, dump poison gas out of helicopters onto civilian areas, or other such things, however. If Bush is defeated in the 2004 elections, no statues will be pulled down, and it will not be necessary to release thousands of political prisoners. Well, the shroud will come off of John Ashcroft’s least favorite statue, that’s true. Ashcroft may have bad taste, but he’s not a torturer, for example.

Yet, the US does have ulterior motives. We’d like to drink some of that Iraqi oil at market price. We’d like to “instill democracy” in the Middle East. It sounds nice, and I think it’s possible, but it won’t happen overnight by any means. American mass culture will be exported to Iraq. There is one joke going around that among the psy-ops leaflets dropped was one that said, “Collect four and get a free Coke at the new McDonald’s Baghdad.”

For all the wrong reasons to fight this war, there were still the right reasons: the regime’s human rights abuses, support for terrorism, and unwillingness to disarm. Yes, the wrong reasons might come into play more and more now that the regime is gone. The people of Iraq could get a new oppressor. That would, I agree, be totally unacceptable. That’s a different argument, though. Right now, the Iraqi people are free. They’re going to set up a provisional, elected government. Eventually that provisional government will butt heads with the US. At that point, we’ll have to see what happens. We might have to struggle against imperialism at that time. That’s in the future, though.

The other argument is that war doesn’t solve problems, it creates them. That’s very, very true, and you just have to get to the next point. Once the war is over, a lot of problems are created. That’s when it’s time to win the peace. We’ve got to care for the wounded, stop the looters, feed the hungry, get the water and electricity flowing, and put medicine into the hands of doctors and nurses. We need to go to all those hospitals and schools, and help the Iraqi people fix them up. We need to get the Iraqi economy running strong and fair. We need to do right by Iraq. In short, we need to start solving the problems we created.

So, what does that justify? The point I’ve been building toward is that the war was justified. The problems that this war created are smaller and easier to solve than the problems created by the the war waged by the Saddam regime against the Iraqi people for the last 24 years. They are much smaller than the ones that Saddam would have created had his regime continued into the future. It’s not that one outcome is better than the other, it’s that one outcome—the one without Saddam—is less worse than the other.

The reason I’m a progressive is because I believe that we can change the world for the better. War is a blunt tool, but there just wasn’t anything else that was going to end Saddam’s tyranny anytime soon. We had to act now before Saddam connived his way to a nuclear weapon, or supported one more terrorist attack anywhere in the world on innocent lives, or did one more unspeakable thing to a human being. We should have dealt with Saddam a long time ago, but didn’t. We finally lived up to our moral obligation to the Iraqi people, and so I believe we have changed the world for the better.

Do your own thinking and come to your own conclusions.

The US military has come under criticism for the deaths of three journalists in Baghdad, including one employed by Al Jazeera. Due to Al Jazeera’s reputation for siding with the Saddam regime during the war, suspicions have been aroused that these journalists were deliberately targeted. Jack Shafer has a good exploration of the incidents in Slate. (*) At this early point, the deaths appear to have been the result of accident.

Even if the evidence clearly excuses US forces, the military should conduct some kind of investigation. It’s important to allow the world to scrutinize the facts of this controversy.

Khuder al-Emiri, an interpreter with the US Marines, finds his son after twelve years in Qalat Sukkar, Iraq. (*)

Dustin of American Empire has a great commentary on the war in Iraq and what made it necessary. (*)

The Washington Post editorializes against President Bush’s policy of relying on warlords to provide security in Afghanistan. (*) The free Afghan government’s position is deteriorating steadily, especially now as Taliban remnants mount their spring offensive.

With the war in Iraq quickly wrapping up, Democrats will have more and more political cover to make a big issue out of this. I hope they do. Afghanistan deserves better from the US than what it’s getting.

Update: Sohail Abdul Nasir is informative on the subject in Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. (†)

Update: 13 April 2003: The Los Angeles Times has some good news. (‡) Military units called “Provincial Reconstruction Teams” pair with humanitarian aid agencies to deliver assistance. Initially, the humanitarian organizations were not interested in participating, because they feared being indistinguishable from the military. This program is already paying dividends, though, and it may be extended throughout the countryside.

It is a time of jubilation. (*) The Saddam Hussein regime has fallen. The people of Baghdad are taking to the streets, celebrating, and destroying symbols of the regime. (†) Saddam’s house of torture is emptied. (‡)

There are tasks remaining. Northern Iraq, especially Tikrit, might continue to fight. Pockets of resistance throughout the country must still be rooted out. Fighters from other Arab countries must be killed or driven out. Security must be established and humanitarian aid delivered. Weapons of mass destruction must be found and destroyed. Anarchy must be prevented. A new, free government must be established. Our remaining POWs must be found and rescued. (§)

Congratulations to the Iraqi people, including to Iraqi refugees all over the world. The allies are helping you liberate your country, but through your suffering, sacrifice, and toil, you earned your own liberation many times over. Congratulations to British, Australian, and Polish troops: you were inspiring; and congratulations to our American heroes: you have inspired us and made us incredibly proud of your fighting prowess and faithful representation of our country’s best virtues and values. Some of your comrades made the ultimate sacrifice, and will not be returning home. They and their heroism shall not be forgotten.

The regime is destroyed, and now must be replaced. The Saddam regime promised our troops bullets, not flowers. The Iraqi people have showered on them flowers, not bullets. In this country, in the cradle of civilization, the time has come to replace the regime of the bullet with a government of justice.

Thomas Friedman says we have broken Iraq, and now it’s our job to fix it. (*) We Americans must understand that this military operation was only the first part of a long-term policy focus that we must retain on Iraq. Even as the war winds down into what we hope is a long period of peace, and regardless of our political convictions on the subject, it is our responsibility to help Iraq get back on its feet.

The first job is establishing security against continued resistance and looters. The second is delivering humanitarian aid. Both require haste.

The days ahead represent a turning point in northern Iraq. Iraqi troops continue to occupy Kirkuk, and for now that is a good thing. The US only has 3,000 troops in that region. If Kirkuk were to fall, creating a power vacuum, or if Kurdish forces were to enter the city, Turkey could very well respond by militarily intervening deep into northern Iraq for the purpose of putting down what it sees in the free Kurds as a destabilizing nationalist movement. (*) Turkey is in part concened with the well-being of the ethnic Turcomans who live in Kirkuk and other parts of Iraq, and in part concerned that Kurds could use Kirkuk’s oil to buy weapons, declare independence, and reignite the civil war in Turkey that the government has fought long and hard to end.

The Washington Post has an optimistic assessment of the 70,000 free Kurdish forces; it finds that the Kurds are pointedly not engaging in ethnic cleansing of Arabs from northern Iraq. (†) Many Arabs are leaving anyway, at least for now.

The English-language Turkish Daily News (‡) reports that Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denied that the Turkish military will commence a deep intervention to Kirkuk, unless there were a move by Kurds to take Kirkuk’s oil fields, for example. (§) Erdogan has constitutional control of the Turkish military through the civilian national security council, but many observers believe that he will defer to the miltary’s judgment on this matter.

The Turcomans of Iraq are voicing support for the idea of a federated Iraq. (**) It is not clear yet which ethnic group might dominate in what federal province, though. This uncertainty is due to the Iraqi government’s failure to deliver an accurate census for decades. Once peace, law, and order are established, the long, slow, and expectedly frustrating road toward civil government can begin. One thing that almost all groups agree on, at least, from Turkey to the US to Iraqi Arabs, is the need to maintain Iraq’s territorial integrity. It is mainly the Kurds who would threaten that.

The US has influence with the Kurds. Now is not the time to alienate Turkey, a longtime friend, a NATO ally, and critical partner in the region. The Washington Post, above, mentions that Colin Powell’s recent dipomatic visit to Turkey did not go well, or at least was not entirely agreeable. The US should take whatever steps are necessary to keep Turkey out of Iraq. More US troops will have to be deployed to secure Iraq. A free Iraqi armed service needs to be developed as soon as possible to create the law and order needed so that Iraq’s many diverse groups can start to solve their problems by talking, rather than fighting.

Ilnur Cevik has an optimistic column about the prospects for success. (††) To go further than Cevik’s commentary, what cannot be stressed enough is that now, more than ever, American and Turkish cooperation and swift, coordinated action is critical to achieving the right solution in Iraq. President Bush should not hesitate to get on Air Force One and fly to Ankara for a state visit to fully cement the alliance.

Update: 14 April 2003. So far so good. Kirkuk and Mosul fell to Kurdish troops, but they soon withdrew to allow the US military to take control. (‡‡)

President Bush’s large tax cut plan receives a heavy blow today from an important op-ed in the New York Times jointly written by a number of widely respected old establishment hands, all members of the Concord Coalition. (*) The statement calls for no new tax cuts. Republicans Pete Peterson and Warren Rudman join Democrats Bob Kerrey, Robert Rubin, and Paul Volcker in the piece. The Concord Coalition has a great deal of intellectual clout. (†) This piece will spark debate. If it draws in figures like Alan Greenspan to its side, the Bush tax cut could be buried.

The Concord analysis does not paint a pretty picture. Under realistic economic assumptions, federal debt as a percentage of GDP will climb from 33% in 2001 to 50% in 2013 under a Bush tax cut. The end result is that under the cut it may become economically and financially impossible to continue Social Security or Medicare for much longer past that point without drastic, even draconian, outlay reductions.

I’m looking for a good, current analysis of the balance of payments problem. As the trade deficit continues to expand, larger federal deficits could exacerbate the situation into a financial crisis.

I’ve been supportive of further tax cuts for the purpose of sparking domestic economic growth. After this, I’m going back to neutral until I can find more information.

The Guardian carries a nice appreciation of William Hazlitt. (*) Now there was a writer.

Stephen Schwartz in the Weekly Standard lashes out at the UN mission to Kosovo. (*) He finds that the UN, EU,and OSCE are creating significant economic disruptions and doing little to promote development in a part of the world sorely in need of a boost. It’s a disturbing article that is helping to paint a slowly emerging picture of the corruption and ineffectuality of international development institutions.

In the short run, the failure in Kosovo argues against more than a symbolic role for the UN in Iraq. In the long run, the need for international development may require us to consider overhauling or perhaps even replacing the institutions that guide it.

Sean-Paul Kelley of the Agonist (*) and I linked to each other prior to the commencement of war with Iraq. He has covered the war thoroughly, but in many of his early stories provided unsourced material as if it were his own. (†) That is plagiarism, a serious problem. Sean-Paul has apologized, has now corrected all his old posts, and has an agreement with the source he plagiarized, Stratfor, a private company. He has not explicitly admitted plagiarism. Ken Layne believes the offense is unforgivable. (‡)

The exact problem is that while Sean-Paul made it clear that while the unsourced information he was providing—something like tanks now attacking in Najaf, for example—was clearly secondhand, there was no indication that another party had gathered that secondhand information, when in fact another party, Stratfor, had. Thus, this is not an edge case between plagiarism and something less problematic. It is plagiarism. Plagiarism destroys credibility.

Regretfully, I’m removing my link to the Agonist, but I am doing so provisionally. I’ll reevaluate this decision soon. The Agonist has been my chief referrer for a while now. That makes this decision especially hard.

Update: Gregory Harris has thoughtful reflections on the matter. (§) Chris Lawrence has further commentary. (**)

Update: Demosthenes comments. (††)

The Daily Times of Pakistan has a solid editorial on the increasingly negative situation in Afghanistan. (*) The Washington Post carries a good op-ed on the same subject. (†) The problem is that the new Afghan central government does not have enough power or money to implement its policies and enforce the law beyond the city of Kabul. US financial support for decentralized power—the warlords—is hurting the central government’s ability to effect change.

President Bush needs to increase the foreign aid package to the central government, and reevaluate financial relationships with the warlords. Afghan president Hamid Karzai has a plan to root out corruption and put the stamp of the central government’s authority on the countryside. As Afghanistan begins the process of writing a new constitution, (‡) a reaffirmation of American committment to a free, safe, and prosperous Afghanistan is needed now.

In every decade a few words and phrases rise to prominence, and later fall off in popularity. Tipping point is one of the modish formations of today. In a Pentagon press conference this afternoon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave an excursus into the ontology of the tipping point. (*) There’s nothing special or especially ontological about the term tipping point, however. Synonyms include: threshold, watershed, and brink.

Update: 8 April 2003. Phrasing.

US troops have uncovered what may be banned chemical or biological weapons in Iraq. (*) The chemicals could be a VX nerve gas compound, or a close chemical cousin used for civilian purposes, for example. Nothing is verified yet. This is an ongoing process that will take time.

Other people have made the point that if these chemicals are so suspicious, UN inspectors should have found them. UN inspectors were on the ground for months; allied forces, weeks. The evidence continues to mount that the Iraqi regime would never have fully disarmed voluntarily, that forcible disarmament was required.

At this moment, in the morning hours of Baghdad, the US Army has occupied the dictator’s main presidential palace in Baghdad, and is attempting to establish control of the city with a massive show of force. (*) “The other day was just an incursion. This is for real,” said Major Michael Birmingham, chief public affairs officer for the 3rd Infantry Division. Fighting and skirmishes are ongoing in central Baghdad. The major highways leading out of Baghdad are blocked by allied forces.

There are now rumors that Saddam Hussein and his sons have already fled to Tikrit, their home town. (†) (‡) The 4th Infantry Division is reportedly headed to Tikrit. (§)

If Baghdad is taken, I feel it is likely that the regime’s resistance will quickly die down throughout the country. Tikrit will probably hold out the longest.

Update: A US tank has just shot the legs out of a 40-foot tall statue of Saddam riding a horse. Nice shot.

Update: CENTCOM now says that this is an armored raid, not an attempt to take and hold positions in central Baghdad. I guess that will have to wait for another time.