4,000 Deaths

In the last day U.S. deaths in Iraq has reached a milestone mark of 4,000.   While any death of a U.S. person, soldier or otherwise, is sad and unfortunate, this number should be a sign of the incredible ability of our military.  When taken in context of previous wars and years in country, 4,000 is an extremely low number and is laudable. 

We invaded Iraq five years ago this month.  We are averaging about 800 deaths per year.   That is nothing in the scheme of things when one analyzes War on a macro and historical scale.  Now I need to interject here and recognize that this is not “nothing” to those whom have lost a son, daughter, friend, sibling, etc.   The death of one of their own is very personal and painful and my heart goes out to them.

Nevertheless, this number is not a sign of abject failure and destitution.  On the contrary, it is a sign of success and is demonstrative of the incredible quality and ability of our military and their medical staff.  War is an awful and terrible thing.  There is nothing to like about it, yet it is sometimes a necessary thing.  We can go back and forth arguing over the merits of this particular war and why we are there, but ultimately, what it now comes down to for the troops on the ground is protecting themselves and the soldier at their side and ensuring a measure of hope and freedom for the Iraqi people.  They are doing a great, great job and, if we stand by them, will ultimately stablize Iraq enough to leave without Iraq turning into another Somalia.

Undoubtedly, today and this week, all the news will be about the 4,000 deaths.  The President will be attacked, McCain will be attacked, the war will be criticized, Obama and Hillary will promise to bring the troops home immediately.   We Americans love to get riled up and react to every talking point in the most negative way possible without ever thinking things through and trying to understand what the issue actually is telling us.  So let’s give some context to 4,000 deaths:

• 1968 was the deadliest year of the Vietnam war, they had 16,592 deaths.  Four times more than we have in this war in five years
• In the 3 years of the Korean War, the United states lost 36,516
• In June 1944 in the Battle of Normandy, WWII, the United States lost 1465 people.  About 1/3 the number we have lost in 5 years of Iraq.
• In the Battle of Gettysburg there were about 8,000 dead in three days of fighting.

The only war we have had with less casualties was the the Gulf War in 1991.  That spoiled us and set our expectations way too high as a people and caused us to have unrealistic expectations for the military and caused us to forget the realities of war. 

I recognize that the way we fight war today is different from the past, nevertheless, the numbers are telling.  It tells us that the money we spend developing new and smart weaponry, protecting our soldiers, and investing in continued R&D is paying off.  It tells us that our soldiers are more sophisticated and skilled with better leadership than at anytime in our history. 

All in all, things are not great in Iraq, but they are not dire either.  And regardless of what we all may think of why we went to war or the justness of it, it would be evil and disgusting if we pulled our troops out now only to allow Iraq to fall into utter chaos, ruled by vicious gangs and tribes – basically allowing Al Qaeda in Iraq to run rampant.  Instead of complaining and attacking our government and military for 4,000 deaths in five years, we should be remorsely impressed that there has ONLY been 4,000 deaths in this war, a war that consisted of invading a foreign country and occupying hostile territory for five years.  That is an impressive feat.  I applaud our Military, of which I am part, for their bravery, patriotism, and dedication to duty.

Part II-War, National Interest, and Iraq

Last week I wrote about the first part of the following quote.  In the piece, I discussed reasons we went to War in Iraq, why we are still there, so on and so forth.  It came to my attention that it was really long and so with Part II today, I will attempt to keep it considerably shorter.  Now let’s address the 2nd sentence of the comment below. 

I guess my problem is I can’t honestly justify attacking a country for its oil when there are so many worse countries and regimes around the world. The situation in Darfur is much worse than it ever was in Iraq, and we don’t do something about it why?

There are two ways to address this sentence about Darfur and that is to discuss why we don’t get involved in Darfur due to interests (or lack thereof) and also to address the utter hypocricy by those who use this as a counter argument for Iraq.

First, let’s answer the question.  The hard and cold truth is we aren’t going into Sudan militarily because we have no interests there and because Sudan poses no threat to the outside world.  If you think that justifying war in Iraq was difficult, wait until you have to justify war in Sudan.  The reality, as cold and sad as it may be, is that Iraq and the Middle-East is of great interest and value to us and to the civilized world.  First and foremost they provide the world’s energy needs.  That is the only reason we have any relationship of a significant value with that part of the world.  If they didn’t have oil or natural gas we would treat and view them no differently than we do Mali or Chad. 

Today, admitting the fact that oil is a national interest and adding that it should be draws the gasp of millions people.  But why shouldn’t it be, we need it, the world needs it, and the middle-east has it.  But, people say, we are exploiting those people and making their lives worse. B.S., they and their governments are what determines whether or not their lives suck; how that money is used and spent is entirely up to them. I don’t see the UAEers or Kuwaitis complaining.  But I digress.

I completely understand the desire some have for more action in Darfur.  I have a great fascination for Africa, it is my favorite region to study.  I wish so much that we had the means and justification to use force to end genocide and ethnic cleansing. I remember studying the Rwanda genocide and then watching Hotel Rwanda and just being so disgusted with the actions of the western World and the inaction of the UN.   As I pondered those things, I realized the catch-22 the United States is in.  On the one hand, we are the world’s most powerful and prosperous nation.  Our people enjoy immense freedom and partake of democracy, don’t we have an obligation to help and defend those who can’t help and defend themselves?  I wish the answer were ‘yes’ and in a perfect world, we would do so.  But unfortunately, we just can’t do it.  First, if we did start getting involved militarily, where does it end?  Are we going to attack Sudan, then Uganda, Nigeria, Somalia, Eritrea, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, etc?  We would be involved everywhere and undoubtedly, both sides of the conflict would wish we would go home.

Second, we have limited resources, just because we have the largest military in the world, doesn’t mean we have the ability to fight multiple wars on multiple fronts.  Third, the entire world would be outraged and we would have no support.  We can’t force democracy through the barrell of a gun, no matter how much we may want to.  The sad reality is that there is only so much we have the ability to do and only so much we can legally do. 

This brings me to the hypocricy of those that make comments like this.  There are two hypocricies herein.  First, they imply the argument that that we should leave Iraq to go stop a genocide in Africa, they try to come across as so compassionate and caring about human rights, yet they they either fail to realize or blatantly ignore the fact that if we leave Iraq too soon, we would inevitably have a human rights crisis created in Iraq.  All of these people who say we need to get out of Iraq also claim to care about freedom and human life, yet are ok with us pulling out to make a political point and indicting Bush, all the while creating a major humanitarian crisis.  Fixing one humanitarian crisis while creating another one does not sound like a productive move to me.

The second hypocricy is that people who make comments like this want us to think they would actually support military action in Sudan.  This is utterly ridiculous.  These people will yell and scream for us to leave Iraq and say that we should be helping in Sudan, if we actually did it and sent our military in there, they would call us murderers, empirialists, etc.   Straight hypocricy. 

Finally, as I said earlier I have great affinity for Africa.  What is occurring in Sudan and other parts of that continent break my heart and is very sad.  The U.S. does need to do more, but we also need to do more smartly.  Throwing money at it won’t help.   I personally believe that this should be a EU and UN matter.  It was European countries who colonized that continent and they have a significant amount of blame on their shoulders.  The UN needs to allow their peacekeeping forces to use force when necessary, just minor force.  Peacekeepers are worthless if they can’t do anything to keep the peace.  We also need to put much more pressure on the African Union.  Most of the responsibility falls on the backs of those people and countries who surround Sudan. 

Addressing War, National Interest, and Iraq-Part 1

On a previous post that I wrote, oddly enough one about Josh Romney possibly running for congress, a debate has broken out in the comments section about war and President Bush.  Anytime this is discussed between me and someone who wants us to withdraw immediately from Iraq, a few of the same arguments are made, two of which are stated in comment below, given to us by SLCondensed:

I guess my problem is I can’t honestly justify attacking a country for its oil when there are so many worse countries and regimes around the world. The situation in Darfur is much worse than it ever was in Iraq, and we don’t do something about it why?

I posted a fairly brief response to this comment, but feel that there is so much more involved with this comment that it justified a whole post here.  The first comment SLCondensed writes comes down an issue of national interest and this is what will be addressed in Part 1 (the comment about Darfur will be addressed in Part 2).  After reading that sentence there are a few questions that need to be asked: 

1. Why did we go to war in Iraq?
2. Did we go to war in Iraq for Oil?
3. Were there worse regimes and countries than Iraq?
4. Considering how much conflict there is in the world, what responsibility does the U.S. have to intervene?  What is the threshold for such an intervention? How should the U.S., being the industrialized world’s security provider, determine when military intervention is acceptable?
5. Does the reason we went to Iraq in the first place even matter to the situation today?

Regarding why we went to war in Iraq, there was not one single reason.  Sure, the Bush administration sold us that there were WMDs and that was really the only reason given, but it was so much more than that.  First, I need to remind the reader that EVERYONE believed Iraq had WMDs before we invaded, everyone (except Saddam).  The question wasn’t, “Does Iraq have WMDs?”, it was, “how much of a threat are those WMDs?”  So I don’t want to hear anything about Bush lied, what a crock.

Anyway, here is the list of reasons why I think we went to Iraq: 1. WMDs (9/11 was still fresh on our minds), 2. Surround Iran with U.S. forces 3. Oil and Gas, 4. Send a message to other despotic regimes (which worked magically, just about 9 months after Iraq started Libya gave up it’s WMD program, perhaps Bush’s greatest acheivement and solidified my vote for him in ’04), 5. Revenge against Saddam for trying to assassinate Bush ’41, 6. To provide freedom to the Iraqi people, 6. To finally force people to take Western threats seriously (I mean, how many times can you say, “you better do this or else” and never follow through-lookin’ at you U.N.), 7. To fight terrorists somewhere not named the United States.

Some of those reasons are more honorable than others, some are more realistic than others, some are childish, but ultimately I believe all of those things were considered by the Bush administration during the decision making process.  Of course, the Administration could not come out and say all those things, it would have been political suicide. No President, whether GOP or Dem, would be that stupid. 

Question 2 was answered in question one, of course the need for oil played a part in our decision to go to war in Iraq.  So what?  The need for energy and fuel is essential to any society, the whole reason we have any interest in the Middle-East at all is because of energy.  If they didn’t have oil or gas we would view them and treat them the way we do Mali and Sudan.

Question 3, certainly there were worse regimes in the world, but not many.  North Korea, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Somalia, and Haiti to name a few.   But this brings us back to national interest and it’s role in our decision making process, which I will discuss in full in Part II.

Question 4,  these questions have no cut and dry answer.  But I will certainly share my opinion.  The way I view the current world is I see the U.S as the world’s only superpower and essentially, as the military for Canada, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand.   Each of these geographies, whether we or they like or not, rely on the U.S. predominantly for their security.  The reason they can get away with having such miniscule military forces is because they know the U.S. is there to back them up and we will so long as the reason is just.  This is a good scenario for both parties, it allows us to maintain our place in the world and grow and expand our economic interests.  It allows them to focus their more limited resources on providing for the people socially and economically.  The fact the U.S. acts in this role is precisely why the developed world blossomed.  Now these realities may upset you or you may like them, but the fact remains that this is the reality of the world in which we now live.

So, with the U.S. having such a large role in the world, both economically and militarily, it puts us in a place of responsibility.  How to use that responsibility is a question of great debate and the cause of much frustration and animosity, both on the part of America and the rest of the world.  The fact is, despite our current position as the world’s hegemon, we still have limited resources, we can’t do all things and we can’t be involved in everthing; nor should we.   Thus, all decisions are usually to be made based upon national interest.  Every country in the history of the world operates this way.

With the U.S. in such a unique and powerful position, we also have to show restraint.  Just because we have freedom and democracy does not mean that we have to force every other country to institute the same.  Forcing democracy seems like an oxymoron.  At the same time, the spread of democracy is in our national interests so we encourage democracy and try to demonstrate the value of it. 

Similarly, both because of national interest/limited resources and because we need to allow countries to largely work out their own issues, we just can’t and shouldn’t get involved everywhere.  Sometimes it is justified, but determining that justification is difficult.  I will address this much more in Part II.  Ultimately, though, the U.S. needs to make decisions based upon what is best for the U.S.

Question 5, ultimately SLCondensed’s comment basically was saying that we need to leave Iraq because we never should have been there in the first place.  Whether that reasoning is true or not, it has absolutely no relevance on the current situation.  The anti-Iraq people’s favorite argument against Iraq is this reason we are there thing and it is utterly ridiculous. The fact is, we are in Iraq, we destroyed their government, and we decided that we were going to help rebuild it and to provide freedom.  Essentially, we broke so we are going to fix it.

Why we went to Iraq in the first place does not change the fact that we are there.  Pulling out all of our troops and causing an even worse humanitarian crisis because you disagree of our original justification for the interaction is ridiculous, ignorant, and naieve.   Further, we are now winning.  Why are we going to pull out when victory and success is in our sights?

But you may say, what determine’s victory in Iraq? I would argue that victory is a country that is relatively stable, can provide for the basic needs of the people, and has a semblance of democracy.  We don’t need Iraq to be like the U.S. or even like Turkey right away, we need Iraq to just be able to largely support itself, defend its people from radicals, and provide an environment for continued economic development.

This leads me to briefly discuss U.S. history in war.  The United States has a large history of doing terrible in wars at the beginning but pulling out the victory in the end.  Let’s run down that history.  The U.S. had no business winning the revolutionary war.  We lost battle after battle and very nearly lost the war in the first year.  The war lasted about 8 years, in 1776 things were awful, yet by 1783 and ’84 we had come back and won. 

The War of 1812 was near disaster as well.  Our Navy was terrible and we lost many battles early on, but managed to pull it out in the end.  The Civil War is the perfect example.  From 1860 to 1863 the Union army was terrible, many people criticized the war and wanted us out.  had we listened to them the United States would be two countries. Fortunately we had a President that had resolve and refused to cower to public pressure.  Eventually, we won some big battles and won the war. 

In WWII the German military had the upperhand for the first year or two of our involvement, but again, American determination resulted in victory.  This takes us to Vietnam.  The reality in Vietnam is that when we gave up, we were on our way to winning, things were looking up.  The only reason we lost the War was because our politicians back home caved to public pressure.   We would have been outright victorious a short time later had we seen it through.

The only two wars that we haven’t been behind in were WWI, because we came in late and gave the Brits and French the boost they needed to break the stalemate with the Germans, and Iraq I, we faced a ridiculously weak military and only required Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.  (By the way, that was a War that was solely for oil, I wonder where all you were then?).

Today, we are going through a similar pattern to what we SHOULD be used to, except for the fact our people are historically ignorant.  The first 3 years of the “war” (I don’t even consider it a war, it more a peacekeeping and stability mission, we won the war when the Iraqi Army collapsed and Baghdad fell) were disasterous.  We made a lot of mistakes, just like the Lincoln administration did in the 1860’s, but year four has been a resounding success and year 5 is starting out much the same; even the Political situation is starting to stablize.  Yet so many of you still want us to throw in the towel.  It makes no sense!

As a result, the only conclusion I can come to as to why you want us to give up actually has nothing to do with Iraq or the realities there, it is that you hate and despise President Bush and want whatever it takes to bring him down to occur (short of assassination of course).   I am confident that had Kerry won in 2004 and followed the exact same path that Bush has taken in this second term, today you would be loving Kerry.  The reality is that so many of you are so blinded by your vitriol for Bush that you fail to recognize that the fastest way for us to get out of Iraq and the best way to ensure that a humanitarian crisis will be averted is by finishing the job there.  It reminds me of a common phrase our training instructors told us in Air Force Basic Training, “the fastest way out of here is to graduate.”   Things are going well in Iraq, sure they aren’t perfect, but they are still going well (you can tell that by the limited coverage Iraq gets in the media).  Give it a chance and try to look at the situation realistically.

Can’t Bush Be Given at Least a Little Credit?

Christiane Amanpour and her CNN cohorts released a report about North Korea’s nuclear program on Monday.  They were given a tour of a known nuclear powerplant that North Korea admits they were using to build a nuclear bomb.  Today that plant is empty and desolate but Amanpour rather than giving any credit to the Bush administration and their handling of the situation, simply decided to make fun of the President. Consider the following paragraph:

For a nation President Bush labeled as part of the “axis of evil,” it was not an impressive sight: a dilapidated concrete hulk, built with few resources back in the early ’80s.

Basically, we are supposed to laugh and say, “ha, ha, Bush is an idiot.  He claims they are evil and dangerous but their nuclear plant is empty.  Moron.”

Nevermind the fact that the very next paragraph in the article she acknowldeges this:

But it did produce plutonium, enough to make a few bombs and to test-fire a nuclear weapon 18 months ago.

Hmmm, so 18 months ago that same plant was fully operational and was making bombs, but Bush and his policy get no credit?  So what happened then. Did Kim Jong Il just decide to become a benevolent dicatator and lose his ambition for a nuke for the good of the world?

I doubt it.  In fact Amanpour continues to tell us why North Korea did it:

For all of this, North Korea expected a million tons of heavy fuel oil, a lifting of sanctions and removal from the U.S. list of terrorist sponsors. This has not happened yet, so North Korea has slowed down the disabling process at Yongbyon.

The United States says Pyongyang hasn’t yet fully accounted for its past nuclear activities. However, both sides seem determined to overcome this stumbling block and reach out in other ways, too.

So basically, North Korea decided to dismantle it’s nuclear program because the U.S. and other countries offered benefits.  That sounds an awful lot like it is due to U.S. policy dictated by the Bush administration. 

I find it quite telling that CNN and Amanpour would fail to give Bush any credit for such a turn of events.  I also find it outrageous that every other news source is ignoring this North Korea story, instead they are talking about the NY Philharmonic Orchestra playing in Pyongyang.  This is a major story and a major victory, not just for Bush, but for the U.S. and the world as a whole.  The sad thing is, Clinton’s agreement with NK was a complete failure, but if it were as successful as Bush’s it would have lauded and praised, but simply because it is Bush it is ignored and cast aside.  What a sad state for our society and media. 

As a side note, purely discussing the NK nuclear program, I am still quite skeptical that they have dismanteled their nuclear program.  I am not saying they haven’t, but I would not be the least surprised to find out that they have a secret plant elsewhere.  Also, it is quite possible that now that they have their multiple nukes, they are content and decided to appease the U.S.   I mean, how many nukes do you need to destroy Seoul.  All we have heard about is a plant being dismantled, not about bombs.

Robertson Endorses Giuliani, Why?… Mormonism

This morning it was announced that Pat Robertson is endorsing Rudy Giuliani for President. This could turn out to be the biggest and most costliest compromise of his career.  Pat Robertson has been a giant among dwarves in the evangelical movement.  He has been a vocal leader in the movement against Abortion, Gay Marriage, etc.   Now he has compromised all of that to support Rudy Giuliani, an unapologetically pro-Choice candidate.  Why did he do it?  One word, Mormonism.

In all reality one may consider Mr. Robertson to be between a rock and a hard place.  Like many other political observers, he likely viewed the GOP race to come down to either Giuliani or Mitt Romney.  Not exactly the ideal situation for an evangelical leader.

So Robertson had a choice.  He could support the one GOP candidate that furthest from his moral and political views or he could support the candidate who espouses his same views more than any other candidate but belongs to a religion he loathes, believes is a cult, and believes is a threat both spiritually and financially to him and his constituents.

He chose the former.  He chose to risk losing all credibility and being pushed to the fringes of the “moral majority” wing of the American electorate, all for fear of legitimizing a religion different from his own.  How disappointing.  Does he not know that despite doctrinal differences and misunderstandings, the LDS Church is among the biggest proponents of strong families, and pro-life and pro-marriage causes.   But that is not enough, Mr. Robertson could not allow a Church that he fears to potentially have the boost it would by Mitt Romney being elected as President.   So he chose to become a hypocrit and compromise all that he stood for.  He would have been better off endorsing a candidate that couldn’t win, aka Huckabee or Thompson or by not endorsing at all.