This Is Good.

This is going to be a pretty fast entry, I am going to bed and I don’t have the time to get too deeply into my thoughts here at the moment.

We’re [[wp:2003_Iraq_war|kicking ass in Iraq]] and there is literal dancing in the streets about it. Obviously questions remain int he minds of many as to whether this war was necessary or correct; but I think we can lay to rest the belief that the Iraqi population is not happy to be free of the dictatorship of [[wp:Saddam_Hussein|Saddam]]. Nothing has been seen like this since the fall of the [[wp:Berlin_Wall|Berlin Wall]].

Heavy fighting is still ahead of us, but things would have to go very badly for us to ‘lose’ this one. The only thing we really have to worry about now is someone who hates us enough popping a [[wp:nuke]] or other [[wp:Weapon_of_mass_destruction|WMD]] as last gesture of defiance. The mix of soldiers and foreign fanatics who have made their way into Iraq to fight will simply not be able to stop us. They are going to try though, it sure looks like they are planning to dig in and make isolated last stands wherever they can.

At this point, the real danger is from the surrounding nations political concerns and fears as the world tries to accomodate a new balance of power in the [[wp:Middle_East|Middle East]]. This will be shifting a lot as the other dictators adjust to the reality that they are vulnerable.

Anyway, they is a huge thread over at Metafilter about all this, and I put up a few posts… they are below but you should also go see them in context. I have formatted them here a bit and fixed the spelling. The ‘net is pretty heavy with discussion of all this, some stark, some cautious and some apprehensive… in the end though it seems obviously good that the guy is gone.

While I was working on these, I made some changes to the [[wp:Saddam_Hussein|Saddam]] entry at [[wp:Wikipedia]]. Needless to say his entry is in rapid flux. Before my changes it looked like this, my changes brought about this version and were incorporated into this… almost certainly further change is happening so keep an eye on those versions 🙂

ed. note: updated on 04.10.2003 16:12:21

posted by soulhuntre at 2:54 PM PST on April 9

“Could any amount of liberation and jubilation compensate for those casualties?”

Yes, of course it can.

Liberty is an incredibly valuable thing. A free nation, a free people is something that is worth an enormous amount of bloodshed if necessary.

Freedom is good. Democracy is good. Not living under a government that will torture and murder you for speaking up is good.

Those good things will cost lives in the future, just like they have in the past. That sucks, and it is unfortunate… but it is worth it.

And it is certainly worth it to liberate an entire nation from a man who killed 100’s of thousands at the cost of less than 2,000 civilian casualties.

This is the most successful, least bloody national liberation in history as far as I can tell. The national infrastructure in Iraq is mostly intact, their industry is preserved and we killed very, very few of their citizens.

You don’t think the war was a good Idea? Fine. But it is amazing how many people simply are so prideful or set in their dissent that they won’t admit the obvious…

A Iraq free from Saddam control is better off.

posted by soulhuntre at 1:02 AM PST on April 10

“None of the reasons used to justify this war have panned out, and your side has a lot of explaining to do if they do not come out soon. Pointing to happy faces is not going to cut it, and the end does not justify the means.”

In fact every single reason >I< supported this war have panned out. My reasons do not depend, for instance, on the actual presence of WMDs in Iraq… the issue was never absolute surety that they existed; the issue was the fact that the risk was too big to take given the best information we had at the time.

If there aren’t any there then we STILL did the right thing – the possibility and threat had to be neutralized and the inspections were clearly useless in this regard.

“Why should we feel good about this? And why should we use this “victory” as an excuse to stroke our superiority complex?”

I’ll tell you why >I< feel good about it – because I am damn happy that we have overwhelming military force when we need it. That superiority did some really good things like keeping the number of US and Iraqi casualties to a minimum and keeping a potentially regionally inflammatory conflict contained.

• Our superiority allowed us to achieve our objective with an absolutely minimal loss of life on both sides while preserving the vast majority of the national infrastructure of Iraq.

• Our superiority allowed us to keep the conflict from being a “war” in any meaningful way. If there had been a large engagement with a significant chance of stopping the US the risk of Iran and others coming to the “aid” of Iraq would have been much higher… as it is the fact that it was so clearly a lost cause prevented that.

• Our superiority prevented the vaunted Saddam forces from being much of a factor at all (so far). Not only had they lost so far – but they have lost so badly and with such a complete lack of resistance that the entire basis for pro Saddam sentiment in the Middle East is eroding. The man who exhorted others to die in his name, who promised them the victory of Gods chosen over a corrupt force has failed to make any significant contribution.

This goes a long way to making people stop and THINK in the Middle East about the promises of such me.

“US goes to UN asking for support, US then says to hell with UN we’ll fight battle anyway, disregarding UN as inspections are underway. Tell me that isn’t a superiority complex. Tell me that the word “unilateral,” defined as “performed or undertaken by one side” or “emphasizing or recognizing only one side of a subject” isn’t even remotely arrogant within the great complexities of international relations.”

Arrogance is not a bad thing all the time. The reality is simple, the UN was a completely ineffectual tool for this job – they were paralysed by politics that had little to do with the merits of invading Iraq. The US eventually had to take action to accomplish its goals.

I, for one, am glad that we have not so completely given over our national will to the UN and that at need we are still capable of acting in our own interests without needing to beg France and Russia for permission.

“The proof will be and can only be in the peace that will hopefully follow. Now the US has a chance to prove that Iraq had WMD, that Iraq was a growing threat. They now have a chance to prove that the US believes in an Iraqi democracy, even if that democracy chooses a path the US doesn’t want. Now is a chance to prove that we didn’t just fight a war to take control of oil and other resources to enrich the Bush cabal. Now is a chance to bring stability to the region by working in partnership with other governments.”

I agree. The tone of the next phase of international relations will be set in the next year or less. The US has taken upon ourselves a heavy moral burden with this action – and we will need to go well out of our way to show that we are up to the task.

We need to rise to the level of what the US can be and should be – this is an opportunity to be the country we see ourselves as – we can chose to be liberators or conquerors right here and now.

I hope that we will rise to the challenge and continue to be liberators.

“I don’t understand how the fall of Baghdad equals proof of anti-war demonstrators being wrong, ignorant, unpatriotic or pro-Saddam.”

Because it DOES prove many of them wrong. I listen to a fair amount of NPR and the silliness they have been spouting in the anti-war movement has been proven completely false.

• They told us this would be a long drawn out war – another Viet Nam with the whole population rising up to throws us out. No such thing happened.

• They told us that this war would bring the entire Middle East into a conflagration that would bring us to the risk of world war. No such thing happened.

• The told us this invasion would so fan the flames of Muslim hatred for the US that we would be engulfed by terrorist attacks as we were the subject of a multi-nations Jihad. No such thing yet.

• Similarly, the promised hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead never really materialized either.

Basically – a lot of people in the anti-war movement painted the direst pictures they could – and they were wrong. Flat out, dead wrong.

“So they send a few tanks to an undefended part of Baghdad and the CIA pays a couple of hundred Iraqi malcontents to jump up and down, ritualistically drape a US flag over and then pull down a statue.”

You must be joking. You know, they can still read your mind through common tin foil these days. Try 2 ply.

“I don’t think anybody realistically thought that billions of dollars of US ordanance/a quarter of a million coalition troops would have that much trouble with Iraqi forces sporting somewhat crusty munitions and bad organisation.”

Actually yes, many vocal people in the anti-war movement thought exactly that. They really predicted that the nation of Iraq would rise up – to a man, woman and child – to toss out the US satanic demons and defend their popular and benevolent leader.

“I like the ones stating that there are only select images of celebrations. These are the same folks who thow up one shot of a bandaged civilian and blast the effort.”

Now you know, if it’s anti US then its real, true and genuine. If it’s PRO US then the media staged it as tools of the Illuminati. What I find REALLY amusing is how many people who will claim that the US media is not to be trusted or believed still quote it so often when they need supporting information 🙂

posted by soulhuntre at 01:08 PM PST on April 10

if instability in iraq turns into ethnic violence, even if it is, like, months from now, it will be directly linkable to this war.

Hmmm… if the idea is that the only alternative to ethnic violence in that region is a brutal and repressive dictatorship that existed only because it was willing to torture, maim and rape its own citizens then I think you are sadly mistaken.

Why is the US attacking and killing foreign journalists?

That’s easy – we aren’t. A number of reporters were killed because they were in a WAR ZONE. A place they knew in advance was dangerous and a place they were told in advance they might well not be safe.

do you really believe that from now on everything will be rainbows and singing?

No, I don’t. I think there will be more violence – and a lot of pretty horrible people will try and use the perceived power vacuum as a good way to settle old scores.

If we keep a goodly amount of force in place, and ignore the rally this weekend yelling for us to “bring our troops home” (and thus guarantee a bloodbath of ethnic violence) we can show those who would do so that it would be a bad, bad idea.

posted by soulhuntre at 3:31 AM PST on April 10

So you do feel the ends justify the means.

The ends of any action should be sufficient to justify taking that action – that is simply common sense no? In this case, I believe then ends (liberation, reducing the threat and removing a enemy of the US) were justified.

The war is justified because you were afraid that weapons that so far do not appear to exist could not be proven to exist.

The war was justified because Saddam posed a real and credible threat to US security. If he had no weapons in reality then so much the better in my mind because he didn’t have them available to use on us. That’s life.

In my opinion we simply could not let the risk and danger remain, the information as good enough that intervention was ethical.

I train cops some of the time when I am not posting here on [[Metafilter]], and the ethical questions come up all the time – how far do you have to let things go before you act. In this case, a gun was pulled and intention declared – the fact that there may not be any bullets in it was not something we could have known, and thus the response was justified.

I imagine if these weapons were turning up everywhere, you would be crowing that you and yours were right all along, but since they are not you have to hide behind the liberation of the Iraqi people.

Hide behind? I don’t think so. One of the several reasons for action was liberation. The liberation is proceeding nicely. that’s not HIDING, that’s simple reality.

Bush gambled here with our soldiers lives, and our money. If he was wrong about the weapons, he should pay.

Pay for acting in a way to reduce a credible and immediate risk to the US? I don’t think so.

Think multi-dimensionally.