[lit-ideas] Re: Iraq and news
- From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 18:50:58 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
Had we overpowered them (shock and awe, remember?), the insurgency couldn't
have happened; infrastructure would have beeen spared; the Museum woudn't have
been raided; reconstruction efforts wouldn't have been sabotaged; and on and
on. Certainly Fallujah wouldn't have happened. Far more life would have been
spared, and we would have done much more to impress the Arabs as to our might
and ability. Like giving an antibiotic, you don't dribble it in and when the
infection becomes runaway in all body parts, start the intravenous. As it
turns out, we impressed no one except with our bumbling.
The elections have apparently gone well even if, remembering the euphoria after
the fall of Baghdad, it is premature to predict much. If nothing else, they
secured the country for the first time since the invasion. Better late than
never. It's not extremely surprising the turnout was high given Sistani's
fatwa that everyone must vote. Even if a secular government ultimately takes
over, Iran could have done worse. Their enemy Iraq and the atheist Baathists
are now neutralized. Still, at least for now it could be worse. It will be
interesting to watch it unfold.
I'm still wondering about Rationale #3 or 4 or whatever number it is for why we
invaded; after Iraq is on its feet and running, what happens to the war that we
took over there to keep us safe? Where's it going to go? And how does someone
with a conscience use that rationale to invade a country?
Andy Amago
-----Original Message-----
From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
Sent: Jan 29, 2005 11:47 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Iraq and news
Gee....imagine how many Iraqis we could have killed if Mark had been in
charge!! (Please tell me this is *not* the same Mark Helprin as the novelist
who
wrote "A Winter's Tale".)
Julie Krueger
========Original Message======== Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: Iraq and news
Date: 1/29/05 10:43:40 P.M. Central Standard Time From:
_eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) To:
_lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (m
ailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) Sent on:
Here's something to pop everybody's gusset: Mark Helprin, writing in
2003, arguing that the proper strategy against Iraq was to have gotten
VERY VERY VERY ANGRY instead of just a little bit annoyed.
The path of excess leads to the palace of...Saddam?
_____
The unprecedented military and economic potential of even the United
States alone, thus far so imperfectly utilized, is the appropriate
instrument. Adjusting military spending to the level of the peacetime
years of the past half-century would raise outlays from approximately
$370 billion to approximately $650 billion.
If the United States had the will, it could, excessively, field 20
million men, build 200 aircraft carriers, or almost instantly turn every
Arab capital into molten glass, and the Arabs know this. No matter what
the advances in regional power, the position of the Arab Middle East
relative to that of the United States is no less disadvantageous than
was that of the Arab Middle East to the 19th-century European powers.
But, given the changes listed in the previous paragraph, the signal
strength necessary to convey an effective message is now far greater.
In the Gulf War, the overwhelming forces marshaled by the coalition
might have sufficed as such a signal but for the fact that they were
halted prematurely and withdrawn precipitously, gratuitously leaving
both Saudi Arabia and Iraq an inexplicable freedom of action that
probably left them stunned by their good luck.
Before the Iraq War, high officials were seriously considering an
invasion force of 500 backed by air power. The numbers climbed steadily:
5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 25,000, 40,000, 50,000, 60,000, and so on, with
the supposedly retrograde "heavy army" prevailing finally, and 300,000
troops in the theater. When offered vehement advice to go into Iraq with
massive force and many times overkill, a brilliant and responsible
senior official responded, almost with incredulity, "Why would we need
the force that you recommend, when in the Gulf War we used only 10
percent of what we had?" In the Gulf War, we did not occupy a country of
23 million.
As of this writing, the army reportedly has 23 combat brigades, 18 of
which are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, three of which are in refit,
one in Kosovo, and two in Korea, leaving nine brigades, or about 45,000
men, to pick up the slack anywhere and everywhere else. Though
independent echelons and the Marines increase this figure many fold,
they do not have sufficient lift and logistics, and even if they did it
would not be enough. This is as much the result of the Bush
Administration's failure to increase defense spending appreciably and
rebuild the military before (and even after) September 11, as the lack
of real shock and awe was the result of the administration's desire to
go to war according to a sort of just-in-time-inventory paradigm.
Managers rather than strategists, they did not understand the essence of
their task, which was not merely to win in Iraq but to stun the Arab
World. Although it is possible, with just enough force, to win, it is
not possible, with just enough force, to stun. The war in Iraq should
have been an expedition originating in the secure base of Saudi Arabia,
from the safety of which the United States could with immense, husbanded
force easily reach anywhere in the region. The eastern section of the
country, far from Mecca and Medina, fronting the sea, with high
infrastructure and large spaces for maneuver, basing, and an air-tight
defense, is ideal. Had the Saudis not offered this to us, we might have
taken it, which probably would have been unnecessary, given that our
expressed determination would likely have elicited an invitation. As it
was, we were willing to alienate the entire world so as to thrust
ourselves into a difficult situation in Iraq, but unwilling to achieve a
commanding position in Saudi Arabia for fear of alienating the House of
Saud. One might kindly call this, in that it is about as sensible as
wearing one's clothes backwards, "strategic hip hop."
It was, in any case, some kind of deliberate minimalism. Sufficiency was
the watchword. The secretary of defense wanted to show that his new
transformational force could do the job without recourse to mass. The
president wanted no more than sufficiency, because he had not advanced
and had no plans to advance the military establishment beyond the levels
established by his predecessor. With the magic of transformation, he
would rebuild it at glacial pace and little cost lest he imperil his own
and Republican fortunes by embarking on a Reagan-style restoration after
an election decided by as many voters as would fit in a large Starbucks,
and that he won by leaning, un-Reagan-like, to the center.
The war in Iraq was a war of sufficiency when what was needed was a war
of surplus, for the proper objective should have been not merely to
drive to Baghdad but to engage and impress the imagination of the Arab
and Islamic worlds on the scale of the thousand-year war that is to
them, if not to us, still ongoing. Had the United States delivered a
coup de main soon after September 11 and, on an appropriate scale, had
the president asked Congress on the 12th for a declaration of war and
all he needed to wage war, and had this country risen to the occasion as
it has done so often, the war on terrorism would now be largely over.
But the country did not rise to the occasion, and our enemies know that
we fought them on the cheap. They know that we did not, would not, and
will not tolerate the disruption of our normal way of life. They know
that they did not seize our full attention. They know that we have
hardly stirred. And as long as they have these things to know, they will
neither stand down nor shrink back, and, for us, the sorrows that will
come will be greater than the sorrows that have been.
from http://www.claremont.org/writings/crb/fall2003/helprin.html
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