Last throes.
I've thought for a while that all this discussion of whether Iraq was falling or has fallen into a "civil war" was a maddeningly artificial dispute. It depends completely on what you consider the definition of "civil war", and nobody claiming the situation to be one way or the other seems able to supply one.
Yesterday, for instance, former Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi said: "We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."
Chuck Hagel agreed: "I think … the former prime minister is correct. I think we have had a low-grade civil war going on in Iraq, certainly the last six months, maybe the last year. Our own generals have told me that privately."
Ok, so cue Victor Davis Hanson to explain how the Romans would have laughed at such paltry figures in the provinces. Or Roger L. Simon to explain how a typical day's worth of casualties in Iraq is no greater than the carnage during last year's Thanksgiving rush on the California freeways. Or Glenn Reynolds to chalk anyone's contention that Iraq is a clusterfuck up to a pre-existing irrational loathing of Bush. And how this is all the perfidy and liberal lack of patriotism we've come to expect from the stab-in-the-back MSN.
The problem is that, somewhere buried deep in all this stupidity, Instapajamaline actually have a (minor) case that the fixation on "civil war" is unnecessarily ropey and overstates the extent of recent deterioration on the ground. If Hagel is right, why wasn't the press obsessed with "civil war" six months ago? What about during the bloodbath going on during the months leading up to the American and Iraqi elections? Why wasn't "civil war" a US campaign issue? I know, I know: back then it wasn't Shia killing back in an organized way, or not so openly. And there were still political benchmarks ahead. But it's really not worth arguing about, defending the existence "civil war" every time the casualty rate drops down to 20 or so for a few days or somebody files a happy story about a school being painted. Arguing about it is just a perfect outlet for Instapajamaline sophistry -- which, frankly, seems to be all they've got left at this point. They dispute and get passive-aggressively outraged over the terms of the debate as a way of avoiding acknowledging the actual human tragedy involved -- not to mention that precipitating mammoth error in judgement on the US political establishment's and particularly the Administration's part.
In a way, it reminds me of what Mark Benjamin wrote about "the return of body counts":
Traditionally, the Army's job is to take ground and hold it, a clear way to mark victory or defeat. Bogged down in atypical warfare with no tangible measure of progress, US commanders in Vietnam used the body count to show the alleged destruction of enemy forces. "To make the obvious comparison, you land in Normandy in June 1944 and you can liberate Paris in August and show that you are making progress," says historian and journalist Stanley Karnow. "You can make a measure of progress in a conventional war by showing you are pushing your front lines against the enemy. But in Vietnam, there were no front lines." a lot like the American military's obsession with casualty figures in the early days of the Vietnam conflict.
The same sort of thing. Meaningless figures. A meaningless phrase. The purpose is to distract, propagandize, to stop us from thinking too much, to trivialize the dispute into something entirely pedantic, academic, blah, blah.
But then I read this:
The vice president, speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation," said that "terrorists" in Iraq wanted to provoke civil war, but added, "I don't think they've been successful."
"That's been their strategy all along," Cheney said, "but my view would be they've reached a stage of desperation from their standpoint."
OK, fine. I was wrong. It's a civil war.
Yesterday, for instance, former Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi said: "We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."
Chuck Hagel agreed: "I think … the former prime minister is correct. I think we have had a low-grade civil war going on in Iraq, certainly the last six months, maybe the last year. Our own generals have told me that privately."
Ok, so cue Victor Davis Hanson to explain how the Romans would have laughed at such paltry figures in the provinces. Or Roger L. Simon to explain how a typical day's worth of casualties in Iraq is no greater than the carnage during last year's Thanksgiving rush on the California freeways. Or Glenn Reynolds to chalk anyone's contention that Iraq is a clusterfuck up to a pre-existing irrational loathing of Bush. And how this is all the perfidy and liberal lack of patriotism we've come to expect from the stab-in-the-back MSN.
The problem is that, somewhere buried deep in all this stupidity, Instapajamaline actually have a (minor) case that the fixation on "civil war" is unnecessarily ropey and overstates the extent of recent deterioration on the ground. If Hagel is right, why wasn't the press obsessed with "civil war" six months ago? What about during the bloodbath going on during the months leading up to the American and Iraqi elections? Why wasn't "civil war" a US campaign issue? I know, I know: back then it wasn't Shia killing back in an organized way, or not so openly. And there were still political benchmarks ahead. But it's really not worth arguing about, defending the existence "civil war" every time the casualty rate drops down to 20 or so for a few days or somebody files a happy story about a school being painted. Arguing about it is just a perfect outlet for Instapajamaline sophistry -- which, frankly, seems to be all they've got left at this point. They dispute and get passive-aggressively outraged over the terms of the debate as a way of avoiding acknowledging the actual human tragedy involved -- not to mention that precipitating mammoth error in judgement on the US political establishment's and particularly the Administration's part.
In a way, it reminds me of what Mark Benjamin wrote about "the return of body counts":
Traditionally, the Army's job is to take ground and hold it, a clear way to mark victory or defeat. Bogged down in atypical warfare with no tangible measure of progress, US commanders in Vietnam used the body count to show the alleged destruction of enemy forces. "To make the obvious comparison, you land in Normandy in June 1944 and you can liberate Paris in August and show that you are making progress," says historian and journalist Stanley Karnow. "You can make a measure of progress in a conventional war by showing you are pushing your front lines against the enemy. But in Vietnam, there were no front lines." a lot like the American military's obsession with casualty figures in the early days of the Vietnam conflict.
The same sort of thing. Meaningless figures. A meaningless phrase. The purpose is to distract, propagandize, to stop us from thinking too much, to trivialize the dispute into something entirely pedantic, academic, blah, blah.
But then I read this:
The vice president, speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation," said that "terrorists" in Iraq wanted to provoke civil war, but added, "I don't think they've been successful."
"That's been their strategy all along," Cheney said, "but my view would be they've reached a stage of desperation from their standpoint."
OK, fine. I was wrong. It's a civil war.
1 Comments:
Believe it or not, it's actually worse than that (from the US perspective). It's a civil war we've both helped to create and chosen sides in, in which many of our nominal allies wish we'd just go home, we have no secure line of withdrawal if/when things fall apart, AND it is obvious that the admin intends to use this sandpit as a staging area for an attack on Iran.
I was in the military in the 80s, and the US really does have the world's best at the moment. That does NOT mean they are supermen or can't lose. But the admin sure acts as though that were the case.
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