You Have To Conquer It To Know What’s In It
By Mitch Berg
SCENE: Mitch BERG is waiting in line at the box office to buy advance tickets to see PJ O’Rourke.
Suddenly, Bill GUNKEL, chairman of the Inver Grove Heights chapter of Former Republicans for Ron Paul, walking by to find a place that sells pancakes, notices BERG.
GUNKEL: Hey, Berg! Ron Paul was right all along about Iraq!
BERG: Huh?
GUNKEL: He opposed the war in Iraq from the very beginning.
BERG: Well, no cigar for that; he opposes the Civil War.
GUNKEL: Well, yeah for good reason…
BERG: Before you launch into that, Bill, why doncha tell me what it was that Ron Paul knew about Iraq that the rest of us didn’t?
GUNKEL: He had no WMDs!
BERG: OK. Right. Now – forget for a moment that the authorization to go to war had 23 different separate reasons, grouped into four different categories; Aggressive actions against its neighbors including sponsoring terrorism and paying for suicide bombers in Israel; gross human rights violations, including two separate mass genocides against the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs; violations of the terms of the 1992 peace accord, and WMDs. WMDs amounted to three of the 23 reasons for the authorization.
And pretty much everyone in the world that wasn’t regarded as a crank…
GUNKEL: …hey!
BERG: Sorry, everyone in the world that wasn’t regarded as a crank and Ron Paul looked at the same evidence that the President did, that showed there were WMDs, and believed it. Including Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Joe Biden.
GUNKEL: But Ron Paul was right about the WMD!
BERG: Right. And almost nobody – none of the world’s major intelligence agencies, diplomatic services or anyone else – agreed. And as long as Hussein was in power, nobody was going to know any better.
GUNKEL: So Ron Paul is smarter than all of them!
BERG: Er, sure. And how do we know it?
GUNKEL: Because there were no WMDs. Or not many.
BERG: And we know this why?
GUNKEL: Because we never found any!
BERG: Who never found any how, or when?
GUNKEL: Our troops, in Iraq, after…the… [GUNKEL pauses]
BERG: In other words, the invasion, and only the invasion, confirmed Ron Paul’s thesis, and without the invasion, there’d have been no foreseeable way to confirm or deny it.
GUNKEL: Statist RINO!
And SCENE.
May 20th, 2015 at 1:06 pm
Ronulans say Saddam was a crazy bugger but he had no Weapons of Mass Destruction so the United States has no national security interest in invading.
President Obama says the Iranians are crazy buggers but they have no Weapons of Mass Destruction so we should give them some.
May 20th, 2015 at 2:17 pm
Who was he threatening with his WMDs?
May 20th, 2015 at 2:35 pm
He went well beyond threats with the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs, using chemical weapons on both.
The implied threat to Israel was unmistakeable.
He’s known to have used poison gas against the Iranians.
That’s four.
May 20th, 2015 at 2:43 pm
I don’t see the USA on that list.
May 20th, 2015 at 2:59 pm
Summary of HJ 114 from congress.gov:
May 20th, 2015 at 3:38 pm
I need to post HJ 114 once in a while because there are attempts by Democrats, the media, and isolationist minded conservatives to redefine the justification for the Iraq war based on what happened after the March 2003 invasion. The complete text of HJ 114 describes the violations of UN resolutions carried out by Sadam Hussein’s regime.
HJ 114 passed the house 293-132. 214 GOP and 81 Dem voted for it.
HJ114 passed the senate 77-23. 48 GOP and 29 Dem voted for it.
Dem senators voting “yea” included Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, and Joe Biden.
John Kerry was the Dem presidential nominee in 2004 (Edwards was VP choice). Hillary ran for the D nomination in 2008 and is running in 2016. Both Hillary and Kerry were selected by Obama to run the State Department.
May 20th, 2015 at 3:49 pm
I don’t see the USA on that list.
Use of WMDs against any nation-state in the Gulf on any significant scale would cause an oil price shock that would send the US economy reeling (and do worse for Europe, Japan and especially the Third World).
Like it or not, a threat to our economy is a threat to us.
May 20th, 2015 at 4:33 pm
I get DMA’s point and generally support it: if there’s no national security threat, we shouldn’t be invading.
It’s hard to know whether statements constitute a “national security threat” when the guy making them is hiding the evidence. Prudence might demand we take him seriously.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/iraq/sadquots.htm
May 20th, 2015 at 4:36 pm
DMA said: I don’t see the USA on that list.
old school isolationist GOP thinking from 1939-1941. Think DMA how many lives, how many millions potentially were lost needlessly because we had to wait for Pearl Harbor.
May 20th, 2015 at 5:01 pm
I’m not a principled isolationist but I do think we need to pick our fights a lot more carefully.
As for 1939-41, we may not have had to go through 41-45 if we hadn’t dived head first into Europe in 1917.
May 20th, 2015 at 6:08 pm
It’s a little late to unring a bell from 1917.
May 20th, 2015 at 7:04 pm
Mr. D, I’ve taken to bringing up 1917 every time some super hawk brings up 1939 – which they do every time the subject of foreign wars comes up.
May 20th, 2015 at 7:43 pm
Mr. D, I’ve taken to bringing up 1917 every time some super hawk brings up 1939 – which they do every time the subject of foreign wars comes up.
Why stop there? Why not go with 1898? Or maybe 1853? Arguing counterfactuals is a fun little parlor game, but our government, such as it is, has been strutting on the world stage for an awfully long time now. We’re starting to see what happens when we leave the stage. Maybe it will work out. The early returns aren’t encouraging.
May 20th, 2015 at 7:57 pm
Mr. D. As none of us have a lick of power to affect the course of FP, the whole blogging experience is a fun little parlor game.
May 20th, 2015 at 8:12 pm
dmanfred = dma. Just notices on this computer my screen name is different. I apologize. Didn’t intend to project two identities.
May 20th, 2015 at 9:02 pm
“Mr. D, I’ve taken to bringing up 1917 every time some super hawk brings up 1939 – which they do every time the subject of foreign wars comes up.”
I do hope it makes you feel clever, it is,however, pedestrian sophistry. We can all waste our time spinning out elaborate hypotheticals about the past – it just never solves the problem at hand. In world affairs you have to deal with what IS, not what might have been.
In 1939 the problem (the war in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Mideast all active markets whose loss would cripple us economically) facing the US was exacerbated by GOP isolationism on one hand and leftist/communist interference on the other. That isolationist thinking ultimately did not serve anyone well.
May 20th, 2015 at 9:13 pm
As I said I’m not an isolationist. I have simply witnessed too may thoughtless ejaculations of explosives and blood that only made thing worse.
May 20th, 2015 at 10:51 pm
The reason that I posted the HJ 114 summary was to emphasize that the 2003 Iraq war was approved by large majorities in both houses of congress to enforce UN sanctions on Iraq. It wasn’t intended to get “revenge” on Sadam Hussein, or to get our hands on Iraqi oil. The votes of Hillary and other Dems can only be understood when you look at what they voted for, and when you see what they voted for their perfidy in withdrawing their support is obvious. They didn’t vote for a war to destroy non-existent WMD, they voted for a war to enforce the UN sanctions that Sadam was actively defying.
After WW2, the UNSC would only authorize a war against a nation that took territory from another nation or that used WMD, and even then only if it was not vetoed by a UNSC member. That’s why Clinton didn’t go to the UN over the Balkans, the Russians would have vetoed any UN force resolution.
If the US had not invaded in 2003, the UN would have been weakened because Sadam would have been able to successfully defy UN sanctions. The Dems, by first supporting the war, and then calling it illegitimate when it was politically useful for them to do so, have weakened the UN.
May 21st, 2015 at 7:54 am
The major problem with the whole “There weren’t WMDs in Iraq!” claim is that it’s just wrong (wmds aren’t just nuclear weapons that can level a city). I remember a few articles that admitted it last year, but more importantly, I know someone who’s job in Iraq was blowing the damned things up.
Also, post Desert Storm, an Iraqi invasion and deposing of Saddam Hussein was a question of When not If. Hussein spent over a decade thumbing his nose at the UN, but in typical fashion, the UN’s bark is worse than it’s bite. Chalk that up as just one of the reasons “I want the UN out of my country, and my country out of the UN.”
May 21st, 2015 at 9:23 am
“As I said I’m not an isolationist. I have simply witnessed too may thoughtless ejaculations of explosives and blood that only made thing worse.”
Name them.
May 21st, 2015 at 9:28 am
Actually, the dividing line in the 20th century was not 1917, but rather 1915, when we started to feed and arm the Allies. Had we told the Royal Navy that they could buy ammunition and food from us, but they’d have to get it to their shores on their own, the war might have ended in 1915 or 1916.
Guesswork on my part, of course.
Regarding the Middle East, I would love to be an isolationist as much as anyone, but as long as western nations depend on Middle Eastern oil for fuel, we’re going to have to deal with these guys. The question is whether we do it intelligently or foolishly, and as much of a moralist as I am, I have to admit that a degree of realpolitik is probably necessary as well.
May 21st, 2015 at 9:56 am
Lie #1: “The Rush to War.”
WTC was destroyed on 9/11 2001. Thirteen months later, HJ 114, authorizing US military force to enforce UN sanctions against Iraq, was passed by large majorities in both houses of congress and signed by the president. Ground operations began in March, 2003, nearly a year and a half after 9/11.
May 21st, 2015 at 3:19 pm
Just read this…
“…everyone in the world that wasn’t regarded as a crank ‘and’ Ron Paul…”
Heh!
May 21st, 2015 at 4:10 pm
Has Ron Paul ever come out against WW2?
The Japanese just wanted free reign in Asia and the Western Pacific. The Germans just wanted us to stop us from supporting the English and the Russians. There was never any threat to the US mainland from the Japanese or the Germans, and most of the atrocities we associate with fascism had not begun (or we didn’t know about them) in December of ’41.
And talk about a rush to war! We declared war on Japan less than 48 hours after Pearl Harbor. The Germans declared war on the US because we had issued an order to attack any German ship sighted on Sept. 11 1941. Germany declared war on Dec. 11 1941, and the US reciprocated less than 24 hours later.
May 22nd, 2015 at 10:00 pm
If you wave the flag hard enough particularly after an event like 9/11 then the American public would support invading the moon. They always give the military option the benefit of the doubt until it invariably goes wrong. That support changed (like Vietnam) as the combination of mendacity, ineptitude and futility became apparent even to the most obtuse.
There was little Obama could have done to repair a policy of folly, foolishness and ineptitude. Sometimes when a product is engineered with so many critical defects and manufactured with such poor quality control the only thing one can do is abandon the project.
May 23rd, 2015 at 2:42 pm
Ah! The old “18 month long rush to war!” explanation.
May 23rd, 2015 at 3:10 pm
Emery, let me explain further. In a democracy, what you call “waving the flag hard” is a necessary prelude to war. “Rallying the people” would be a less colored way of expressing the same idea.
If you want to see what a failed war looks like w/o the flag waving, check out Libya.
May 23rd, 2015 at 8:02 pm
Cute ;^) Let’s stay on topic shall we?
Which Iraq did we (or the Shia) lose?
#1) The once stable and prosperous dictatorial Iraq that had little political freedom, but plenty of economic freedom?
#2) The “democratic” Iraq of Paul Wolfowitz’imagination – that never existed but might have been nice.
#3)The “democratic” Iraq that grew out the elections held under American occupation that shifted power from the Sunnis to the Shia?
#4) The almost fascist Shia Iraq of 2015 that is battling against the almost fascist ISIS?
**George Bush & co lost Iraq #1.
**Iraq #2 was only a dream – so nobody lost it.
**Iraq #3 May have been partly lost by Obama, but more-so by the incompetent local Shia political leadership.
**Iraq #4 – we are only in the second quarter of the game, but I suspect the big takeaway won’t be who lost, but who won: Iran.
May 23rd, 2015 at 9:58 pm
I’m not sure what point you are trying to make, Emery. ” little political freedom, but plenty of economic freedom?” Plenty of economic freedom? Compared to which country? Iraq was an economic basket case. Have you been reading the Huffington Post again? You know that stuff is poison.
https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/chap2_annxD.html
May 24th, 2015 at 9:05 am
I strongly disagree with your assertion. Compared to the current situation, it was far better. Furthermore I don’t blame the U.S. for the policies of the Iraqi govt.
We tend to forget that Iraq was artificially “created” by trying to merge three very different ethnic groups into a single European-style country by the Treaty of Versailles. Those ethnic groups never got along nor ever will. We would need to be there forever to keep the peace. Anyone who thinks things were fine before Obama was elected is delusional. ISIS represents all actors of Sunni society and there’s no point trying to pretend they are just a small core of fanatics.
Staying in Iraq indefinitely trying to create a country out of three barely speaking groups is a recipe for a permanent deployment. And let’s call that objective backed up with force (even a relatively small one compared to surge levels) what it is: colonialism.
May 24th, 2015 at 10:03 am
Emery,
We have “relatively small garrisons of troops stationed in Japan, South Korea, Israel, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and UK to name a few. Does that make them colonies?
May 24th, 2015 at 11:03 am
Kel: I don’t recall political violence ocuring in your aforementioned countries.
Iraq was largely stable before we invaded and occupied.
Our invasion destroyed the stabilizing institutions.
Our occupation created the new institutions of instability.
When we bemoan what we have wrought, America sounds rather like the little boy who cried out: “Mommy! Mommy! Somebody peed in my pants!”
Five sentences, time-order, causality. I’d like to cite this down the road.
May 24th, 2015 at 11:30 am
“I strongly disagree with your assertion. Compared to the current situation, it was far better.”
You are objectively incorrect.
The HDI of Iraq in the year 2000 was 0.606. in 2013 it was 0.646. Iraq’s per capita GNI has increased by about 40% since 2000. Life expectancy, years of schooling, etc., were all better in 2013 than they were in 2000.
The slow down in the rate of HDI improvement began in 2012. US troops were withdrawn in 2011.
You could argue that the increase in Iraq HDI was a result of American money pouring into the place, but you aren’t doing that. You are saying it is worse, not would be worse.
http://hdr.undp.org/sites/all/themes/hdr_theme/country-notes/IRQ.pdf
The idea that Iraq was worse off after the 2003 war than before is a false notion repeated, again and again, by anti-war people on the left and right. If you repeat a lie often enough, people will begin to believe it.
May 24th, 2015 at 1:52 pm
I don’t recall political violence ocuring in your aforementioned countries.
PM is right you have to stop reading HuffPo
But I understand your statement, you don’t recall because you never bothered to inform yourself. Here let me give you the list again so you can look it up: Japan, South Korea, Israel, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and UK.
” I’d like to cite this down the road.”
go ahead it won’t be any less rubbish then than it is now.
May 24th, 2015 at 3:18 pm
Kel: There is no sectarian violence or political instability within any of the eight counties in which we have bases. It’s a silly comparison. Unless of course you mistakenly believe it’s our presence that is preventing instability in those counties.
Our tendency is to conjure up wild visions of ruin and chaos to reinforce what usually turns out to be an adventure in over–reaction and disproportional to the national interests involved.
Time to smarten up.
May 24th, 2015 at 4:06 pm
Early in the Korean War, when the Norks were winning and before the US entered the conflict, significant numbers of South Korean soldiers deserted and joined the North Korean Army.
And I was wrong about life expectancy increasing in Iraq between 2000 and 2013. Alone among HDI indices it decreased slightly.
May 24th, 2015 at 4:44 pm
I have no issue with the CIA’s (encyclopedia) stats. The fact of the matter remains, Iraq is worse off now than prior to the invasion. The lack of a strong government in both Iraq and Syria allows ISIS to fill that vacuum. In a middle east that is increasingly divided strictly on sectarian lines, there must be a Sunni leadership for this Sunni territory. If not ISIS necessarily than something like ISIS. It won’t be governments in Baghdad and Damascus. It is also a good bet that ISIS (or whoever comes next) will make accommodations with Sunnis in Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. I see a long future for this new Sunni territory. This is the beginning of a long process to redraw the artificial borders created by the withdrawing French and British empires. Let the Middle East fight its 30 Years War without US involvement, please.
May 24th, 2015 at 10:28 pm
The proper question to ask is not if Iraq is better off (however you personally define “better off”) in 2015 than it was in 2003, but whether or not the goals of the 2003 invasion were met. Some were. Some were not. The number of Americans killed was quite small by historical standards. The money spent was a scandal. By 2010, Iraq was stable and recovering. The people who framed the conflict in 2002 and 2003 can be blamed for much of the immediate chaos in post-war Iraq, but they cannot be blamed for the feckless actions of Barack H. Obama.
The ME has been unruly since long before the formation of the state of Israel. The Turks were able to rule it for so long because they were happy to hold the cities and the main roads and allow the tribes to rule the countryside.
The decision that was made after 9/11, and which is forgotten now, is that the US and the West cannot contain the violence of the ME in the ME (remember 9/11?). A deliberate decision was made to attempt to reform and modernize the ME, starting with Iraq. No one else had a better idea in 2002. No one else has a better idea today.
A Mumbai-style raid is probably in our future. I am glad that I live in a rural area.
May 24th, 2015 at 11:21 pm
If all of the leaders of ISIS were to be killed in the next year (quite likely, actually), there would be a group under another name in 5 years, probably more violent. There’s little point in outsiders fighting to defeat ISIS when there is no alternative to fill that vacuum. I wouldn’t say disengage completely, but practice some prudent statecraft.