Wednesday, April 11, 2007

McCain at the Virginia Military Institute


John McCain delivered a very important and moving speech today.

An excerpt:

The war on terror, the war for the future of the Middle East, and the struggle for the soul of Islam — of which the war in Iraq constitutes a key element — are bound together. Progress in one requires progress in all. The many complex challenges we face require more than a military response. This is a contest of ideas and values as much as it is one of bullets and bombs. We must gain the active support of modernizers across the Muslim world, who want to share in the benefits of the global system and its economic success, and who aspire to the political freedom that is, I truly believe, the natural desire of the human heart. No matter how much attention their ruthless tactics receive, terrorists are not the true face of Islam. Devout Muslims in Lebanon, Indonesia, Pakistan and Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain, and in Iraq, aspire to progress for their societies in which basic human needs are met for more than the privileged few and basic human rights are respected.

The United States needs stronger alliances, coalitions, and partnerships worldwide to engage this long and multidimensional struggle. We need to pay careful attention to America’s image and moral credibility. And in this broad effort, the outcome of the war in Iraq will play a pivotal role.

On my trip I traveled to Baghdad, Ramadi, and Tikrit, met with Iraqi cabinet officers, our top military leadership, including Generals Petraeus and Odierno, and with embassy officials, including our new ambassador, Ryan Crocker. I also had the privilege of spending time with our soldiers, from generals to privates. Their courage and resolve in this frustrating war is an inspiration, and serves as a reminder of our obligations to avoid the expediency of easy, but empty answers or the allure of political advantage to choose the path in Iraq that best honors their sacrifices.

We’re going to need their courage more than ever. The divisions in Iraqi society are deep, and the need for greater security critical. Innocent Iraqis are still being murdered, and our soldiers are braving dangers no less threatening than in the past. Every day we read about or watch on television the latest car bombing, IED explosion or sniper attack. But something else is happening, too. There are the first glimmers of progress under General Petraeus’ political-military strategy. While these glimmers are no guarantee of success, and though they come early in the implementation of the new strategy, I believe they are cause for very cautious optimism.
It is just as important when building relationships with other countries that we not only prove reliable partners in peace and diplomacy, but show determination and squelch our reputation of retreating at the first signs of adversity, breaking promises, and leaving the helpless at the mercy of tyrants. I would argue that the latter has been our legacy far more than the former, at least in the past 30 years.

8 comments:

Framer said...

Sirocco,

International moral credibility in a nation state is a myth. There really is no such thing. And to boot, there never was such a thing. Only interests.

I lived in Russia for a while, had many good friends, lost a lot of them as a result of American unilateral warmongering. Funny thing is, it was our intervention in Kosovo. Was this brought up as a problem for the US then? I'm pretty sure that it wasn't just the opinion of the Russians I knew.

Were we right or wrong in in Kosovo? Certainly blowing up a Chinese embassy was pretty bad for relations. I would argue that it was far worse than Gitmo or Abu Ghraib. In my mind, we are entirely justified in shooting non uniformed enemy combatants upon capture. Its what we did back when we actually fought wars to win.

I digress. The biggest problem we face today in relations is our unwillingness to be feared. Hit us hard enough, and we will go away. In fact, you don't need to hit us hard anymore, just make it consistent. We lack the resolve to hit back harder, and the fortitude to stay with it until finished. This has what has led us to disdain in the rest of the world. Take away our ability to prevail and we are just another nation, which is what the world wants from us. They are not looking for a moral compass.

Framer said...

Sirocco,

I would argue with you, "what moral surplus?" When and if such a thing did exist, it only existed as applied to interests between the US and another country co-existing. Take away the shared interests, and it disappears entirely.

We should have bought enough "moral surplus" to last for 1000 years in France, but the wheels were falling off of that long before George W. Bush hit the scene.

And again, the Chinese embassy thing did matter, its just that our media ignored the international "conspiracy theory" junket surrounding it. Not so much Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. Gitmo is far from a concentration camp, and Abu Ghraib, while terrible, and extremely unfortunate, was an aberration. The people responsible have been or are being tried and sentenced.

Do you wish to compare Abu Ghraib to the daily violence meted out by Al Quaida? There is no comparison at all.

We wil never be a "better choice" for Iraqis or anyone until we can prove that we will see something through. How much credibility did the Bay of Pigs buy us? How about allowing millions to be slaughtered in the aftermath of Vietnam? What about leaving Lebanon to the mercy of Syria? Or how about leaving the initial uprising of Shiites in Iraq in the nineties to fend for themselves and end up in Saddam's mass graves?

If I were an Iraqi, I would think long and hard about uniting with the US against persistant tyranny, no matter what the payoff. Evil thugs and murderers will still be in Iraq two years from now. Will the US or the government they support?

Until the US proves it can take a bloody nose, and still see things through, nobody will gravitate to our side in our war against terrorism, at least as far as there is any degree of personal risk involved. And as long as terroroists do not fear that we will see them to their end, the bloody noses will still keep coming whether we directly engage them or not.

You defeat an insurgancy by crushing its soul and convincing others that it has no chance of succeeding. Al Quaida certainly isn't concerned with the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqis. They seem to have got the memo on how to win a war. Obviously, our war planners thought as you did initially, which is why we were failing. I must admit that I fell into the same trap as well.

We are weak and have been for some time in the world's eyes. No this may just be the way things are, and it is indeed all we can expect. I would hope that this wasn't the case, however.

Framer said...

Sirocco,

The problem with the hearts and mind argument is that it is entirely rational to us as Americans, because it is how we do things.

Iraqis have been living with a violent and capricious dictatorship for over 40 years. They do not respond to the same stimuli.

Our best chance was to help them defeat Saddam 15 years ago. We abandoned them then. Of course they do not trust us. Would you bet the life of your family on American protection anywhere outside of the US?

The hearts and mind strategy has worked in Northern Iraq after we kept our word about protecting them for years before the war. Quite frankly we have put enough money into infrastructure and the Iraqi economy, and have done so from the beginning. This can never be successful as long as the population thinks they will be killed as collaborators tomorrow. Do you think that allowing murderous thugs like Al-Sadr become part of the "political process" helped ease fears or create new ones?

I believe that we have always tried to gain their trust. I would submit that our biggest mistake was misunderstanding the causes of their mistrust. and while it appears Petraeus is trying to address this, others seem intent on inflaming it.

Anonymous said...

And the crowd was silent . . .

Farewell St. John, we knew ye well! Or we thought we did!

Framer said...

Sorry for the delay in getting back, darn capitolism and such.

Comparing the situation in Iraq, and Poland for instance, is apples and oranges, as the culture, and tactical situations are completely different. But I suspect that you knew that. Ukraine seemed pretty intent on moving away from a totalitarian regime, but they continue to have problems with the transition. Additionally, as bad as Soviet Communism was, it was not nearly as harsh to Poland as Sadam's Baathism has been to the average Iraqi.

To say that NOBODY in Iraq wanted us there is complete revisionism. It is simply not true. There were large chunks of the population that certainly welcomed the change, and American forces. Read the articles back at the beginning of the war.

How do you know that nothing was done at a local infrastructure level? We certainly don't get reporting on that, but it is happening. You just have to look harder for news of it.

Fortunately, we will get a chance to see a strategy more focused to my way of thinking. If I am wrong I am wrong, and I'll admit it. I do believe that Petraeus deserves a chance, he has been effective to this point, even without all of the troops he has requested.

Look, I don't believe that we can turn Iraq into Germany or Japan. Turkey would be be a best case scenario, but probably unlikely. I would settle for Egypt at this point which would certainly be a huge win for us.

I do know, however, that playing the same games we are playing with Iran simultaineously with Saddam would have been a pretty bad deal. And that was where we were headed. France and Russia would have ended the sanctions shortly.

We will get to discuss this more on further posts. I'm sure that Frank will be back shortly.

And as always, thank you for your feedback Sirroco.

Anonymous said...

Framer,

Of course the overall situations vis-a-vis E. Europe and Iraq aren't perfectly comparable. However, you seemed to claim that simply living under a "capricious dictatorship for 40 years" was sufficient to cause far greater difficulties in bringing peace to the area, and I gave a counter-example to indicate it can't be _just_ that. More must be involved.

Nowhere did I say NOBODY in Iraq wanted us there ... in fact, I conceded the Kurds as a group did. Obviously, some number of Iraqis did as well. However, in general, it's not like Iraqis were begging us to come invade their country on their behalf.

Further, I said I _did_ think there were attempts to improve infrastructure, etc. at the local area. My claim was this occurred in a disjointed, unorganized manner, rather than in a better planned way where we secured an area 1st, then improved the infrastructure there.

As I have noted in this thread (and previous threads), I agree Petreus has the right approach (finally), but the wrong degree (by an order of magnitude). Had we tried this immediately after capturing Baghdad, then the number of troops we have there now may very well have been sufficient.

However, four years later things are in a far worse state, and the insurgency has far more traction. So now, if we are going to try things this way it is going to take a far greater commitment (similar to software -- the earlier you catch the bug, the cheaper it is to fix).

Finally, an aside ... throughout this thread I have been making a central claim which neither you nor anyone else who may have read this thread has challenged: that regardless of where we stand now and what we think is necessary going forward, we were wrong to be in Iraq in the first place. Is this point simply not generally in dispute any longer?


And as a P.S. ... I always enjoy posting here...

Framer said...

I won't even grant you that. We do not know what the world would look like now if we hadn't went into Iraq. You cannot simply look back on history, remove an event, and assume that everything would have been rosy. Things would be different, but we cannot know how or to what degree.

What is, is. Obviously it would have been great if we had known some things that we knew now back then, but we didn't. In fact, we don't even know what we think to know now to be the absolute truth. Things can often seem obvious in retrospect, especially from a detached view void of context.

I do know that Saddam Hussein is no longer a problem to us, I also know that our military is far more prepared for the decades of conflict ahead, I realize that Iraq didn't go as planned, and I also realize that the world will never return the way we believed it to be the day my first daughter was born on September 10th, 2001.

For us to forget any of those lessons, and try to hit a "reset" button is simply not an option that rational people should pursue.

Anonymous said...

Framer,

I didn't think so ... honestly, I don't see how one could agree with my claim and still make a coherent argument for your position on matters. I was just curious because there was no explicit denial.

You are, of course, correct to say we can't go back and remove an event, or know what the world would look like now had we not invaded Iraq. That's irrelevant, however. It's _entirely_ possible to look back and make judgments over whether decisions were correct or incorrect, and made for correct or incorrect reasons.

This is especially true since the consequences which have ensued were forseeable and, in fact, were foreseen. The administration simply "pooh-poohed" them away.

Our invasion of Iraq was an incorrect decision made for trumped up reasons. (My opinion, of course ... your mileage may vary.)