'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Is one of these countries actually an enormous invisible rabbit named "Harvey"?

January 21, 2005

Terry Lee: You know the problem with being smart?
Joe: No.
Terry Lee: You always know what's gonna happen next. There's no suspense.
Bandits

“Does Job love God for naught? But touch his body and he will curse thee to thy face.”
The Tempter in Job

Dear Helena,

I appreciate your having answered my question. I read your answer carefully and I thank you for it. I've been reading your column for some months and I thank you for the contribution that you've made to my understanding of Near Eastern politics.

The American people, on average, aren't like you or me, Helena. The taxi drivers, the WalMart clerks, the guys who build the satellites in the high bays, the butcher, the baker, the candle-stick maker, the high-bucket guy, the cross country driver, the volunteer fireman, etc. etc., don't hang on the latest issue of New York Review of Books or Foreign Policy as you do or I do. They don't learn that way. For them life isn't an intellected process; it's affectual. They live through the affect and they organize their lives through the affect. It's because George W. Bush can appeal to the affect that he won the election. Terry Lee Collin's ability to foretell the future isn't part of their experience. For them life is suspense. You and I and all of us who have college degrees, experience of the world, foreign travel, foreign languages, vast vocabularies, subtle thoughts, refined tastes - cannot reach the American people. They won't learn by listening to us ... ever. We intellectuals don't have a dialectical relationship with the American people (as John Kerry just demonstrated). They will learn through suffering and only through suffering. They don’t have Job’s patience. As Poor Richard says: 'Experience is a dear school but the Fool will learn at no other.' In Kafka's The Penal Colony the punishment of the prisoners (as I remember it) is to have their crimes and their sentences engraved on their bodies. That's the exact position of the American public. The people of this country, arrogant and stupid as they are, will only change their behavior when they're immediately punished for it. There are no other circumstances under which they will change. But you would protect them from their folly ... as you show in your answer to my question.

Let's look at your reply:

Bob, you make a good point about the risk they might pack up from Iraq and head for Iran. But I honestly don't think they'd do it.
I appreciate that that's your honest opinion but it isn't much of an argument, now is it? Seymour Hersh in the latest issue of the New Yorker makes a far stronger argument for the exact opposite. And I know that you've read that article. All the administration needs is a source of manpower. What other source can there be but Iran - after all, the troops are already there! And the whole thing can be covered with a fig-leaf justification appealing to the kind of language that you employ yourself. Perhaps something like this: 'The Iraqi people are now free, the evil-doers are punished, our further presence there can only be a perturbing force; it's time to free the people of Iran. God's Holy Army is on the march!' It wouldn't surprise me if George Bush approvingly quotes your blog to justify withdrawing from Iran.
Maybe Cheney and many of his neocon and Israeli friends are beating the war-drums for that.
Now there's some imprecision of expression here, isn't there? 'Beating the war-drums'? No. That won't work. They're already planning this effort. Black Ops against Iran have been approved and are being carried out. The political pieces are all falling into place according to Sy Hersh. The entire Pentagon is gearing up for a conflict in Iran. Gentlewomen may cry 'Peace! Peace!' but there is no peace. The war has already begun.
And you further suppose that the influence of the Israeli lobby on Congress will weaken. Do you think that?
But there are huge countervailing constraints
And these constraints would be? Come, let us count the ways.
including Tony Blair,
That the U.S. would need Great Britain to invade Iran is part of a vanished political order, Helena. That is so two years ago. The scare words are 'nuclear weapons' and 'dirty bombs' and no one will say 'We can't do that because Tony Blair can't survive it politically or because there is no coalition of the willing.' In Molly Ivin's phrase this government is now in the hands of men who don't want to govern. They want to rule.
hopefully the US Congress,
When I read things like that I don't even know where to look from sheer embarrassment. The US Congress? The new Republican majority that is right now in the process of confirming a stupid and conceited woman to be Secretary of State whose only noticeable skill is the ability to lie her brains out and who thinks that George W. Bush is her husband? That US Congress?
and hopefully also a much greater sense of realism inside the administration re what military force can and can't achieve...
The word ‘hopefully’ is playing too large a part in your dialectics. For the men currently in charge of the government realism in the use of military power consists of this: if military power didn't achieve the goal then they didn't use enough military power. Believe me when I tell you that I understand the mentality.
Anyway, I personally don't feel I can let the fear of that hold me back from advocating a speedy and total withdrawal from Iraq.
I respect that this is your belief and won't argue it. But it is a belief - NOT an argument. The Law of Unintended Consequences operates here. The US might withdraw from Iraq and that would make it much simpler to invade Iran. Would you be proud of your counsel then?
If this letter seems bitter in tone then that's because it is. I'm a combat veteran of the Viet Nam war and I well remember the ineffective liberal comment on that war. How well I remember the columns, the editorials, the peace marches, the sit-ins, the demonstrations, the angry letters to the editor, etc. etc. ad nauseam. And all of it for nothing. The war went on until finally South Viet Nam couldn't put up a government that could organize the population of the south. And then they were conquered and the war ended. Liberals accomplished nothing in the Viet Nam war except to give themselves the satisfying feeling that they had been right all along.
I can't understand why you won't let the American people suffer from the consequences of their own folly. People around the world say this: You American people are generous and good, but your leaders are so bad. But in fact, it is the American people who put these leaders into office. We love to castigate George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and so many other antediluvian leaders. But the fact is that these antediluvians will always be around; every population contains them. It is the American people who put them into office. These leaders then proceed to act against the interests of the very people who elected them (Have you seen Edward Luttwak's article about Iraq in the latest Foreign Affairs? He explains this phenomenon very succinctly.) When the American people are allowed to suffer they will then learn. Why would you deprive the American people of their learning moment? Would they vote more intelligently in the next election if their fantasies about the world were confirmed by some anodyne, some Hollywood, conclusion? And if they were would they feel more warmly towards liberals?
You're a good liberal, Helena, and I’m sure that you’re a good person. You want to minimize the killing; to keep the injustices to a minimum. You understand, I’m sure, the historical cycle of revenge. But, Helena, the fact is that a very large number of people are about to get killed. Certainly in Iraq where the odds for a civil war look awfully good to me. Probably in Iran - better than an 80% probability and ... where else? There's nothing you can do about this. There's nothing you failed to do that has allowed this to happen. You shouldn't PRETEND to try. Your personal beliefs about this are good and sincere; they are also completely and totally irrelevant and ineffective. And, in fact, I think, wrong-headed. The only thing that can be done now is to mitigate the consequences of the folly of the current administration. But even this can't be done until the American economy risks severe damage. No one in power cares how many thousands of troops are killed in the conflict. It’s no one that they know. Increasing casualties won't end the war. 58,000 men and women died in Viet Nam and I'm not aware that that was a factor in bringing that war to an end. Nor will it be in this war. The people in power care about the economy and the economy only. But all these things taken together .. when the coffins of sons and daughters come flooding home from overseas, when the economy collapses under the strain of the war and millions are out of work because interest rates are astoundingly high, and the social safety net is a golden memory then, then, perhaps the American people will learn to vote for leaders who have their interests at heart. But there are no other circumstances under which that will happen. Why would you prolong that day?

Bob

May I suggest to Bob that if he cannot be positive then this is not the place for him?

Let him rather find a post-modernist site where there are already people who agree that nothing can be done except wait.

Just to open the bidding, helena, for a name for the "smaller group of 28 with troops in Iraq, how about?:

THE SHILLING

Well, I wasn't aware of Luttwak's article and looked for it. You have to subscribe to get more than the headlines and the intro.

After a quick google search, I found that Luttwak's arguments were presented and commented on the "Legal fiction blog : "Zen and the Art of Democracy Repair, part II".

Justin Raimundo at antiwar.com also has a good review of all the exit strateties recently proposed by realist Republicans. His article ends with a detailed summary of Luttwak's piece.

How about "The Bush Axis."

Hi,

I've tried to keep track of who was still maintaining troops in Iraq, but it's not so easy since the US doesn't like to publicize a weakening support.
At first, US bragged she had about 49 countries supporting the Iraq invasion. But she never disclosed all the names. Some have publicly requested that their name be taken away from the list after the UN refused to support the invasion, namely Norway and Iceland. Nicaragua or another small Latin America country who withdrew with Spain did the same.

Anyway, there was never more than 32-34 countries who sent troops to Iraq. Here are a few links :

The most up to date, at Global Security acknowledges that 27 countries were still in Iraq on the 15th January 2005 (look down toward the end for tables summarizing the foreign forces engaged).

PWHCE has severaé tables showing the situation in march 2004, which allow comparisons. They are not only listing the number of troops sent by each countries, but also the countries who opposed, stayed neutral or supported the invasion of Iraq without sending troops. Take these other tables with a grain of salt. They were optimists in their evaluation if not biased. For instance, they pretend Switzerland was neutral since we are constitutionally neutral, yet our foreign minister has met with Powel and has officially protested against the war because it was not authorized by the UN.

Here is a map of the Willing/Shilling

The Institute for Policy Studies in Washington has an interesting study on who participated in the coalition of the willing and why. Dominic, they have a suggestion for you, "the coalition of the coerced". The study was written in february 2003, but remains an interesting analysis of the motives of those who supported or opposed the war.

To sum up : there has been big defections already : first the Spanish who brought away 4 smaller Latin America countries (~-2500 less troops). In november of last year, the remaining members of the coalition met in Poland without the US and the general concensus was that after the Iraqi elections they would progressively get out. Poland and Netherlands announcements are in line with that. Denmark isn't named by Global Security, but I think she was also set for it. With Ukraine's announced withdrawal the only big remaining contingents apart of US and UK are Italy (3000) and South Korea (3600). But Italy, as well as Portugual face elections this year. The opposition is set to win in both cases and has promised a withdrawal of Iraq. So the future as foreseen by Global Security may be somewhat optimist. I wonder whether this is also a prelude to US withdrawal ?

Hi all. Thanks for the comments. I like the suggestions for the names of the "coalition/axis".

Bob, I really appreciate you putting what seems like such a pain-tempered viewpoint out there. I guess we won't immediately agree, but we should certainly keep on communicating in public on these incredibly tough issues.

As you may guess, I'm still against "punishment" as the way forward. And I still don't think the administration is about to "do" Iran. Maybe we should revisit the issue after 12 months and if you're right I'll send you a big box of chocolates (in between having to do even MORE anti-war demonstrating at that point.)

(Bob, you might also want to check out JWN's commenters' ,guidelines on length and relevancy. I'm somewhat relaxed about the strict word-count; but between length and the positioning of your comment here-- more relevant to the earlier post than this one? -- you were probably breaking two of them this time.)

Christiane, thanks so much for all your great research there. I'm planning to put that last post of yours up into main post...

al-lie-ance?

Ouch, now we, bloggers have our blogsearch toolbar - http://blogsearchengine.com/blog/index.php?p=123 !

Dear Helena,
12 months from today is January 22, 2006. I adore chocolates. But I expect to collect within six months time. That's July 22, 2005. If you win, the prize is whatever you like.
But forget the anti-war demonstrating. If you want to effect change, raise votes.

Best regards,

Bob

What about "Coalition of Bribed"?

"Coalition of the Bribed" wins the contest.

One cannot stress enough to what extent the US has bought the reluctant collaboration of those in Iraq, and also others like Pakistan and Egypt. The partnership with Pakistan seems particularly wrong headed, based on the natural allegiance of their masses, the history of their secret services, and dismal social value metrics (literacy, women's rights, etc.). One would think the US natural ally is India, a more populous, more democratic, entrepreneurial, and better educated partner. Pushing India into Russian and Iranian arms because of some short term interests in Pakistan is, in my humble opinion, just wrong.

E. Bilpe