Peace through Prosperity - Plan for Iraq?

People are too caught up with words like "democracy" and "ally" in trying to solve Iraq. What is needed is a government that supports some form of the right to speak freely, so that you do not have to live in fear of your neighbors and those with guns for questioning tyranny by small neighborhood warlords or religious zealots. And people need to accept that just because someone has a different religion, it does not mean they lose their right to property, to be safe in their home, to not be held up by thugs while the police turn away because you are not one of "them."
Because frankly, if you have these things, or at least a genuine effort to turn towards these things, you will have peace. And people can flourish. And a state with good natural resources can let business grow with very little taxation. But that resource will always be a problem. Control of the oil means money and guns. It could be used for other political patronage like construction (helping a broken nation form local construction firms that work of government patronages usually work well for a country, like Japan and Korea). A Marshall plan mostly funded by oil. Is this ideal transparency and perfect government?
No. But just try to get to "peaceful." No bombs going off daily, no massacres, no death squads in the night. Corruption is a luxury concern of developed and peaceful nations. Let us hope they can get there in a generation. But you can get peace now with some tolerance of financial corruption and tolerated with a nod and a wink.
But that also forgets the past 5 years of bloodshed. 5 years of death. In a culture very focused on "honor" and the need to make tribes or families look strong. But in that system was an old policy of reconciliation, repayment for wrongs, and the making of peace. And Islam is instrumental in that rekindling of faith between the warring groups quite often. So given sufficient money coming in from the government to help lubricate the area and quench some of the unemployment (which leads people to be susceptible to plating bombs against an occupying force for a few hundred dollars so they can eat for some time).
People could buy into this if the US strongly announces it as an agenda and also begins a drawdown (interestingly, many of the opposition groups like the Jihadi Milita and Sadr, and some of the Sunni guerilla groups have only asked for a timetable to leave in a year. And when they control their troops, they do keep attacks down. Like the ones we're bribing at the moment in Anbar. If we can get a drawdown rolling, a good and reasonable schedule, and get the central gov. to start kicking money to the local power groups so they can fund reconstruction and job programs (aka patronage = power in democracy), then things might be able to settle down.
But the US needs to always be the public advocate for a position of peace, prosperity, and respect for basic rights (but tolerant of economic corruption as long as all the groups are getting a piece of the pie...). Not of torture, of checkpoint killings, and home raids.
After all, Al queda is not loved by the population. It has strong points in Mosul. But if the rest of the country agrees to focus on peace more (which means Maliki can't move on Sadr before the elections, and the fed's start sharing more with Sunni Anbar), then the US can put more resources into Mosul and also gain allies among the populace if they see that the rest of Iraq can relax a bit too.
Perhaps the October elections will change the situation. If people with actual political legitimacy take power and agree to get fat together off of the patronage system that the country is capable of (see the U.A.E. for that), then we can declare peace, get out, and the local Iraqis can mop up any Al Queda remainder (which shouldn't be hard because they are there because we are there, and the Iraqis have come to loath their brutishness).
So if we get Obama in and focus on something realistic and mutually beneficial for all the parties in Iraq, maybe we met get it.
And if there are very few American soldiers in Iraq by 2010, then there's hardly any saber rattling over "American soliders being killed by Iraqi insurgents trained by Iranians."
We're an occupier. There are a sizable portion of people that think it is a religious duty to attack occupiers. So that means you will always take some small level of casualties in running an occupation. Then you can talk to Iran without all the current heat and noise that our bungled occupation seems to generate. They reached out to the US after 911 and Afghanistan. But President Bush and his circle smacked the hand away.
If the Iraqi government is fully on your side and knows you are on the way out the door, it can be a much better partner in protecting you as well. Because you will still be giving money. You still have arms and can be used to quell disturbances.
The ripple effects of achieving stability in Iraq would benefit the whole region (especially, I think, Lebanon and our Iranian relations). But that is a topic for another time.

Criticisms or suggestions about the plan are welcome. Please feel free to copy the text and remix it to your own agenda (but I would appreciate a hat tip). Give peace (and money... democracy, whiskey, sexy?) a chance.

The First Goal of Foreign Policy Should Be Peace

We have lived in security, across the oceans, and generally safe from foreign violence on our shore, for quite some time now (aside from 9-11). Considering the drubbing everyone else got in World War II, our States never really saw war (since Hawaii and Alaska were still territories). And our democracy and society has brought great wealth. So we have become very belligerent in recent years about trying to force our version of things down peoples throats, because deep down it is a pretty good basic system we had going (although things have been a bit broken down lately). So we forget that in most areas, some of which never really lived under democracy, and have been the worlds battlefields for hundreds of years, the people really just want a respite from violence. They want to live in peace.

We think of the first Iraq war as a spirited jaunt actoss the desert, an amazing tactical and strategic campaign. And it was, from our perspective. But to the people of Iraq, they took 100,000 casualties and had many critical pieces of infrastruture destroued. Then there was the Shia uprising, which we let Saddam crush (the Coalition, which included many Sunni leaders, weren't keen on lending a hand), and instability and war in the kurdish areas. Then crushing economic sanctions (with occasional surgical air strikes against military positions). Then another American invasion and a continuing occupation. Before all this was the Iran-Iraq war, a stupid futile and ugly thing that bled a generation out of each nation for 8 years. Iraq alone had 400,000 + casualties. So things haven't been too pretty there in the last 30 years or so.

Iraq and Iran aren't the only countries in the area that have a large number of veterans, of wars that didn't really go all that well either (which can leave some resentment in a nation). Turkey's been fighting an insurgency of their own for about 2o years. Lebanon? Hell, their last war was just a few months ago. There have been recent conflicts and strife in Syria, Egypt, Algeria, Gaza and the West Bank (Palestine?), Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, etc. All with wars. All with much destruction and loss of life. Some have even lived for years now with a steady drumbeat of war and death in their communities.

So maybe what they are really looking for is peace. Let's just get everybody some damn peace so we can all relax and catch our breath and just try to work things out, instead of shooting for "regime change," or to "shake up the status quo." We are a bunch of democratic revolutionaries with the most powerful army in the world. The last time the world really say that kind of aggression was the French Revolution, after it was seized by Napolean. An acquiescent Republican Congress combined with Bush's imperial presidency (hopefully ending soon), has led our young, idealistic democratic soldiers into the sands of Iraq. It's no Waterloo, but it's still stirring up a lot of ill will and leading people to fearfully unite against us and scramble for ways to defend themselves. They'd prefer we didn't roll in guns blazing and pushing liberty, democracy, whiskey and sexy.

Foreign Policy has many branches, there are always many options on how to finesse a situation. The key is you got to sell what's buying. You'd think an industrious nation like us should recognize this. And the people in the mid-east are ready to buy peace. All the leaders would like some peace, maybe some more trade, and a solution to Israel. Hell, the Saudis have a proposal on the table right now that the other countries are behind, but Israel is being to damned stiff-necked about things (and going off half-cocked like that in Lebanon didn't help much either). So we need to get serious about bringing Peace to the middle east, not more war. Not destabilization. We have created a violent monster in Iraq, in the heart of the middle east. That's not exactly what they were hoping the new century would bring them in the year 2000. And then the second intifada began in September of 2000 when Sharon visited the Temple Mount and everything started falling apart. And since Clinton left, we've only made things worse.

So we need to focus on peace. Forget any of the other goals in mind (democracy, oil security, the neocon desire to show a strong "will," etc.). Make Peace the number one priority, and put some muscle into it, damnit. If the Bush administration put as much effort and face time into this as he did to his ill-conceived social security plan or the atrocious Medicare bill, then something positive could actually happen (although we'll probably have to wait for a new president). Hell, Bush ran away from the whole Palestinian situation from day one, because they viewed it as unsolvable, and so didn't want to look ineffectual by getting involved (always putting spin and perception as #1).

We need to let everyone know that all we want is peace (John Lennon foreign policy, we'll brand it, get a good Beatles soundtrack. Now that's some image management). And mean it. And work for it like its the most important thing in the world. Every trip around the world for Bush is just a photo op with an occasional lecture on freedom. But he never really talks about working for peace.

We prepare for war, so that we may live in peace. But Bush prepared for war in Iraq, got inspectors in and could have secured peace, but choose war. We need to bring peace instead. If our home is attacked, we will respond, like in Afghanistan. But aside from responding to direct attacks, we will focus all our attention to championing peace, to find a way for people to just put their guns and bombs down. And if everyone can just have 10 or 15 years without all this bloodshed, the world will be a much better place. Let's keep the violence we face just from fanatical terrorists, and lets cut off the terrorist recruiting flows by preventing dead children in the streets (especially if killed by US weapons). And if we are living in peace, we can all work together to prevent and stamp out terrorism. Instead of picking fights, let's give the people what they want. The democracy, whiskey, and sexy will come. Just give it time. As Milton Friedman said, “The free market is the only mechanism that has ever been discovered for achieving participatory democracy."

The Wild Tribal Areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan

I think there is a failure of many Americans to even conceptualize what type of dynamic we are dealing with in Afghanistan. The Arab jihadis are one thing, but the Pashtun fighters are an entirely different people. They are fighters and Islamic, yes. But they are not oil rich like the Arabs. They are not of the desert. They are mountain fighters. They have lived by the gun for a long time now. And they are not afraid of stiring up trouble in the neighborhood, before and after we showed up. Naturally, our President and press have never really tried to understand any of this, or the realities and motivations of life in the Hindu Kush.

Here's how a young Winston Churchill found the land in 1898 as a reporter covering the ends of the British Empire (compared with Bush, who never really left the country before becoming President and at the same phase in his life was just carousing in New Orleans with the 'Bama National Guard):

The inhabitants of these wild but wealthy valleys are of many tribes, but of similar character and condition. The abundant crops which a warm sun and copious rains raise from a fertile soil, support a numerous population in a state of warlike leisure. Except at the times of sowing and of harvest, a continual state of feud and strife prevails throughout the land. Tribe wars with tribe. The people of one valley fight with those of the next. To the quarrels of communities are added the combats of individuals. Khan assails khan, each supported by his retainers. Every tribesman has a blood feud with his neighbor. Every man's hand is against the other, and all against the stranger.

Nor are these struggles conducted with the weapons which usually belong to the races of such development. To the ferocity of the Zulu are added the craft of the Redskin and the marksmanship of the Boer. The world is presented with that grim spectacle, "the strength of civilisation without its mercy." At a thousand yards the traveller falls wounded by the well-aimed bullet of a breech-loading rifle. His assailant, approaching, hacks him to death with the ferocity of a South-Sea Islander. The weapons of the nineteenth century are in the hands of the savages of the Stone Age.

Every influence, every motive, that provokes the spirit of murder among men, impels these mountaineers to deeds of treachery and violence. The strong aboriginal propensity to kill, inherit in all human beings, has in these valleys been preserved in unexampled strength and vigour. That religion, which above all others was founded and propagated by the sword -- the tenets and principles of which are instinct with incentives to slaughter and which in three continents has produced fighting breeds of men -- stimulates a wild and merciless fanaticism. The love of plunder, always a characteristic of hill tribes, is fostered by the spectacle of opulence and luxury which, to their eyes, the cities and plains of the south display. A code of honour not less punctilious than that of old Spain, is supported by vendettas as implacable as those of Corsica.

In such a state of society, all property is held directly by main force. Every man is a soldier. Either he is the retainer of some khan -- the man-at-arms of some feudal baron as it were -- or he is a unit in the armed force of his village -- the burgher of mediaeval history.
The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War, (Churchill's first book)

Basically, like the Hatfields and McCoys (and the revenuers). You know, Bush has a bust of Churchill in his office. It is apparent that his speechwriters certainly favor the man. But does he have any understanding of the things Churchill saw in his formative years as a young man? Has he read "An Episode of Frontier War?" Somehow I don't think that was on his reading list in his little contest this summer. Good to know he did "read" Camus, though.

Their views about violence and attacks (and compare it to the current empty pundits advocating the need for more "will")

This state of continual tumult has produced a habit of mind which [reckons] little of injuries, holds life cheap and embarks on war with careless levity, and the tribesmen of the Afghan border afford the spectacle of a people, who fight without passion, and kill one another without loss of temper. Such a disposition, combined with an absolute lack of reverence for all forms of law and authority, and a complete assurance of equality, is the cause of their frequent quarrels with the British power. A trifle rouses their animosity. They make a sudden attack on some frontier post. They are repulsed. From their point of view the incident is closed. There has been a fair fight in which they have had the worst fortune. What puzzles them is that "the Sirkar" should regard so small an affair in a serious light. Thus the Mohmands cross the frontier and the action of Shabkadr is fought. They are surprised and aggrieved that the Government are not content with the victory, but must needs invade their territories, and impose punishment. Or again, the Mamunds, because a village has been burnt, assail the camp of the Second Brigade by night. It is a drawn game. They are astounded that the troops do not take it in good part.

They, when they fight among themselves, bear little malice, and the combatants not infrequently make friends over the corpses of their comrades or suspend operations for a festival or a horse race. At the end of the contest cordial relations are at once re-established. And yet so full of contradictions is their character, that all this is without prejudice to what has been written of their family vendettas and private blood feuds. Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and violence as virtues rather than vices, has produced a code of honour so strange and inconsistent, that it is incomprehensible to a logical mind. I have been told that if a white man could grasp it fully, and were to understand their mental impulses -- if he knew, when it was their honour to stand by him, and when it was their honour to betray him; when they were bound to protect and when to kill him--he might, by judging his times and opportunities, pass safely from one end of the mountains to the other. But a civilised European is as little able to accomplish this, as to appreciate the feelings of those strange creatures, which, when a drop of water is examined under a microscope, are revealed amiably gobbling each other up, and being themselves complacently devoured.

You cannot out "will" these people. Your presence is an invatation to fight. They don't understand why America isn't playing along. If we could just have a good firefight, then perhaps a truce party (which we will all break later, but nothing says we can't have some fun now), everything would be better.

Even some of the religious issues were the same back then (as with some preachers today, no matter what God):

Their superstition exposes them to the rapacity and tyranny of a numerous priesthood -- "Mullahs," "Sahibzadas," "Akhundzadas," "Fakirs," -- and a host of wandering Talib-ul-ilms, who correspond with the theological students in Turkey, and live free at the expense of the people.

Now its the Saudis, and the Taliban, but the underlying culture is the same. Prophetically, Churchill imagines this scenario, of a local tribesman who once fought with the British as a young man, telling tales around the fire in his village:

He will speak of their careless bravery and their strange sports; of the far-reaching power of the Government, that never forgets to send his pension regularly as the months pass by; and he may even predict to the listening circle the day when their valleys will be involved in the comprehensive grasp of that great machine, and judges, collectors and commissioners shall ride to sessions at Ambeyla, or value the land tax on the soil of Nawagai. Then the Mullah will raise his voice and remind them of other days when the sons of the prophet drove the infidel from the plains of India, and ruled at Delhi, as wide an Empire as the Kafir holds to-day: when the true religion strode proudly through the earth and scorned to lie hidden and neglected among the hills: when mighty princes ruled in Bagdad, and all men knew that there was one God, and Mahomet was His prophet. And the young men hearing these things will grip their Martinis, and pray to Allah, that one day He will bring some Sahib -- best prize of all -- across their line of sight at seven hundred yards so that, at least, they may strike a blow for insulted and threatened Islam. …

Their allegedly sudden "radicalism" is nothing more than the same stories told since the fall of the Mughal empire. Except now they load clips of blowing things up on the Jihadi YouTube.

Iraqi Kidnapping as a Microcosm

The recent mass kidnapping in Baghdad shows what Iraq has become. This is the fruit of our effforts. Sure, most of the people were released or freed in raids the next day. But what of those who weren't? This is the new society we have built in Iraq. And it is a terrible place to live. You can't spin around the violence, anarch, reduction in the delivery of water and electricity, and general shititude. The administration likes to talk about some democratic example. But after branding the former professionals criminals and driving them into the insurgency, we've helped create a society focused more on vendetta and the spoils of power.

The breakdown of the whole mess from John Cole:

To recap, 80 gunmen walked into the Higher Education Ministry in broad daylight and rounded up between 30 and 150 Sunni men while the police stood by and watched. The regional chief of police and a chief deputy have apparently gone fugitive since the authorities didn’t simply arrest him in his office. Add this to your mental ledger regarding Iraq – entire districts are governed by security forces who have wholly gone over to the bloody sectarian conflict. How many Iraqi brigades do we have trained right now? How many police? Subtract the number who exist merely to kill their own countrymen and you have a force that might, on a good day, secure Liechtenstein.

Global Solution - Peace in Afghanistan Runs Through India

The War on Terror Part one: The key to cutting off support for the Taliban

The US has ignored the UN and the international community since getting the resolution in 2002 to put inspectors back into Iraq, in the lead up to America's new quagmire.
This is a global problem. We are in a global struggle. We need the cooperation and assistance of the world to win on a global scale, just like in WW II and during the Cold War. And we need a global solution.

This is includes significant action on the four main drivers of conflict across the middle east: Israel, Iraq, the Pashtun areas of Southern Afghanistan and the Tribal areas of Pakistan, and Kashmir. The Israel and Iraq problems need to be addressed by all their neighbors (including Syria and Iran). But Pakistan is the key to the other two. First and foremost, there must be true peace in Kashmir and between the countries that were once brothers, Pakistan and India.

Let me explain. The two have fought three major wars since the British Raj on the subcontinent split in two. They are both nuclear powers. They have almost gone to war several times in the last 1o years. And while Pakistan turns a blind eye to militant infiltration into Kashmiri India, Pakistan has basically lost all three of the major conventional wars. So once the US sort of abandoned the Pakistani government after the Soviets left Afghanistan in the 80s and began making nice with India, they planned for the worst. The Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, began to support a group called the Taliban. If India invaded Pakistan and took the capital (located very close to the Indian border), the Pakistani military could fall back into the mountains of the tribal areas and into Afghanistan, with their allies, the Taliban. Since India is majority Hindu, Pakistan supported a very religious sect so they could count on a jihadi sentiment (like we are experiencing in Iraq) to help them resist the outsiders. After the US gave an ultimatum after 9-11, Pakistan has mad some effort to change, but 20 years of investment in the Taliban creates a very close bond between many in the ISI, Pakistani religious parties, and the Taliban. So we must bring a true and lasting peace to the Eastern Indian border to change the dynamic on the Afghani Western border.

This will not be easy. But we must break the log-jam that is stifling the relationship between India and Pakistan. We must find a way to neutralize their stiff-necked pride and bitter, recent past. And once this sort of existential threat is lifted from the East, support for the Taliban from inside the Pakistani government will plumet. It will lose any strategic value, and will instead become a source of trouble. There will be no more strong Pakistani ISI and military support

We must neutralize this threat to stability, and prevent a resurgence of violence and strife in Afghanistan. But we cannot declare war on Pakistan, and the pride of the people in that region would never stand American invasion. We must show Pakistanis, Pushtuns, and Afghanis that America wants peace for the region, not war. But this requires action on the periphery as well in the center.

As Winston Churchill said, "it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war." We cannot pretend we can bomb everyone in that part of the world away, since right now, the madrases are a veritable factory of Taliban production. The Pashtun tribesman on both sides of the border are bound by language, pride, and blood, and years of constant warfare and resistance from outsiders. They have lived through decades of conflict and war, first funded by Americans against the Soviets, then by the Pakistani ISI, which led to Taliban control of Afghanistan. And the motives and perceived needs of Pakistan that led to this alliance still exist. The instability in Kashmir. It is the key to the region.

This covers Kashmir and some of Afghanistan. I will discuss the rest of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel in future posts in the "Global Solution" series.

Update, 11-14-06:

The New York times just published a story about the recent rash of suicide bombers infiltrating into Afghanistan. It notes:

The would-be suicide bombers arrested recently, the Afghan intelligence official
said, emerge from two clear strands.
Some are linked to extremist groups that have long been set up and run by Pakistani intelligence as an arm of foreign policy toward rival governments in Afghanistan and India. They are technically illegal and the government now says it has cracked down on them.
Others are allied with Afghan groups like the Taliban and the renegade
militia commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, also a longtime protégé of Pakistani
intelligence, who has now allied himself with the Taliban, Afghan and NATO
officials say.

There are too many in Pakistan right now that either view the Taliban as either heroes or strategic assets. We have to change the dynamic in the region so that they are viewed as counter-productive and troublesome. The first step is to defuse the problem with India. Only then can the Pakistani government begin to take on the Madraseshat lionize the Taliban.

Update II:

For a smash up gathering of information on the tribal borderlands of Pakistan, go to this Frontline site. Movie clips, interviews, background stories and more. Only go if you want to know what we are fighting in southern Afghanistan though. And if you don't hate the troops. You don't hate the troops, do you?

What To Do About Iraq to Find a Worldwide Solution

Change is afoot in Iraq. But change in Iraq has been for the worse for quite some time. So it's time to understand that we cannot shift our policy, strategy, or troop levels and expect to erase the effects of the last three years. There is nothing we can do to change the fact that we are trapped in a low-grade civil war between many competing factions. To find a solution to our quagmire, we need to expand our horizon of possibilities. It's time admit to the world we've screwed up, we need some help, and we're willing to cede control to the world if its ready for that burden.

There was an idea infecting Washington at the end of the 90s of "We have this military so we might as well use it." Bush took this policy and ran with it, but running too far is one of the dangers inherent in such a reckless philosophy. We should always try to debate things in the arena of world opinion, and if we can't win that debate and there's no actual attack or actionable intelligence, we should simply remain vigilant and ready, like in the Cold War.

Lest we forget our history, The UN did authorize a rigorous inspection program, and Saddam let them in. An inspection team came in, and it made a report to the General Assembly only half-way through its search for WMDs (which we know now didn't exist). When they didn't find anything upon making a status report to the UN, Bush threw the inspectors out and invaded. He didn't adapt his belligerent policy to reality, and let his dogma rule his actions. Because in the minds of the Bush admin., resolve is all important, and never back down. So if you have started massing troops on the border, why not use it? That might a good surprise battle plan. But it is an utter failure politically. Invading before the search is done, against a crippled military we toppled in a few weeks? It didn't look good to the rest of the world, and it's all kind of gone downhill, with increasing anarchic violence and a decreasing Coalition of the Willing.

It's now a low grade civil war with us caught in the middle trying to keep the peace, but there is a substantial fraction of the various violent factions that view us as target number one. It creates a cloud of violence that hovers around our troops, and once the explosions start going off, neutrals get caught in the middle and bodies start to pile up. We're both targets and hunters, so we both inflict and invite violence. We do stop the local sects and militias from going at each other's throats 100% (we keep them down to about 25%, just assassinations, kidnapping, car-bombs, and the occasional ethnic cleansing bus hijacking). So that's what we're doing right now, the status quo we're defending. Here's what it looks like:

As a first step, we should scale back a heavy presence in the middle of urban areas. I think we can prevent the formation of armies or large mobs from mounting significant offensives, but from a more protected and remote position. That way, there will be less attacks on our forces (although I would expect it to increase some against our supply convoys), and less random violence against the civilians and kids. But that first step isn't enough for peace. And that is our goal. Peace. That's what winning is. And Bush doesn't seem to understand that.

We need to announce that we are open to a status quo change big time. And that means saying sorry to the world for kinda goin' off half-cocked into Iraq. We tell them we are going to establish a timetable for departure, but we're ready to commit to a totally different type of military presence in Iraq if the rest of the world is behind us. And we are willing to talk to the world and debate around the world how to handle this. And we're even willing to let another nation take the lead of any military force (subject to our veto, natch). Because leaving Anarchy in the midst of a bloody civil war and terrorist fanatics in the heart of the middle east would be a tragedy for the world.

Our last civil war? 141 years ago, and fought over slavery. There's been a hell of a lot of ugly civil wars around the globe over the last 50 years. We should ask around and see if anyone's got any good ideas on how to go forward. We understand economic based ideological civil wars a bit (like in Vietnam), but don't really get the nationalistic aspect much (also Vietnam). So let's ask around, and have some honest conversations about how to make peace and what the rest of the world is willing to do.

Right now, it's America, the local Iraqis, and the terrorists. But if it was the World instead of just America (and a few others), it could totally change the dynamic. We need to lay it on the shoulders of the world as well, so at the very least, if the world decides to let it all go to hell, we'll at least know where everything stands on the international level when we ask the world to deal with a problem collectively. We should offer to bear much of the burden and lend the firepower of our armed forces, but be open to whatever the world-wide debate produces. But we must put some real pressure on the world to find an answer to this question together.

But how often do we really put on the pressure in the UN? We put on some pressure in the run up to the Iraq war, but the UN needs general peace and stability to operate. Unless specifically authorized to use force, like in Korea, it can't operate in the violent anarchy of Iraq at the moment. We put on the pressure and got a serious resolution before the war. Let's get one to end the war too.

We'll establish a timetable to move completely to the periphery of Iraq (Murtha style re-deployment) in one year. But we will also announce our determination to ask all mankind to find a solution to this devilry. This will include a world-wide diplomatic tour for an honest conversation on the whole state of affairs in the Middle East and how to make it right: Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Iran's nuclear program, Hezbollah and Lebanon, the Golan heights and Syria: everything. Our executive leadership (President, VP, Secretaries of State, Defense) and our Senators will barnstorm the globe. Local Iraqis of all stripes will be invited to go travel for a solution as well, and the U.S. will pick up the tab. We will hold regional summits. And at the end of it all, with about four months left on our timetable, we'll take it to the UN for another month of debate. We will open the floor for a free-wheeling debate in the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council. Then we'll vote. And if one vote doesn't work, we'll make changes and vote again. And we'll vote on an official General Assembly recommendation, and then we'll have a vote in the Security Council. And I'll be damned if I know where we will be standing when the dust clears, but it can't be uglier than what we're looking at now.

I won't be naive. I won't expect this year-long bout of worldwide diplomacy to solve all our problems. But it might stop this downward spiral we're in of violence, threats, and suspicions. Let's pull away from this all-consuming fear-mongering and ascribing the fanaticism of Al-Queda to traditional Heads of State, and try to inject some rational cooperation on shared interests. It will be a noble and honest effort, unprecedented in the history of human conflict, and it might be crazy enough to work.

If it doesn't and things have deteriorated in the meantime...well, our I'll folks will be working on plan B. And we'll see what the Iraqi people and government think about things at the time. But I don't see how it could be a worse situation than our current trajectory.

Our Culture is Our Best Weapon in the War on Terror

Ideas are like viruses, spread through speech and writing. The ideas of John Locke about the rights of man spread to American and created a revolution. A strain of these ideas traveled back to Europe and, with some mutations, created the French Revolution. And these ideas have been travelling around the globe ever since; sometimes supported and sometimes supressed. The same can be said of the ideas espoused in the Communist Manifesto by Engels and Marx.

The principle works the same with Al-Queda and its doctrine of a unified, theocratic Islamic block, of the wahabbist umma that Bin Laden seeks. It is an idea, and the 9/11 attacks and subsequent American Global War on Terror have put these ideas on the map. Like it or not, the concept is acknowledged, discussed, and debated. However, while it is rejected by the majority of Muslims, Al-Queda and its oppenents still enjoy bringing it up. Al-Queda, because that is their goal, and elected western leaders (especially the Bush administration) because they use the idea of the umma as a convenient bogeyman. They argue if we leave in Iraq, Al-Queda will take over and then conquer all of Arabia. Of course, the people of the middle east reject the idea of an Al-Queda style umma just as they reject American occupation and military presence, so the argument is just disingenuous.

Because there is a broad rejection of an American military presence to transform the Middle East by the Arabs themselves, then how can the area be changed? The status quo of petty tyrants and schlerotic socialist economies cannot continue forever. But in this age of internet connectivity, the best weapon for change (albeit of a more gradual scale) is our culture itself. Our ideas. Our political system itself. Because these ideas cannot be supressed, and we must try our best to infect the middle east with these principles. When people are marching in the streets to demand fundamental civil rights as often as they protest Israel or America, we will begin to win this conflict.

As an example of this idea based (as opposed to weapons based power), take a look at this recent Washington Post article. A key paragraph that struck me says:

When he was a college student in Washington state, Saudi Arabia's most popular blogger, Fouad al-Farhan, donned a T-shirt emblazoned with "Animal Rights Equals Human Rights" and slept on the campus lawn during a hunger strike protesting the slaughter of foxes.

That type of freedom during six years in the United States gave Farhan a taste for expressing himself that he was unable to satisfy when he returned to Saudi Arabia in 2001.

You can't write whatever you want in the newspaper here; you can't even lift up a poster in protest," said Farhan, 31, a computer programmer who attended Eastern Washington University in Spokane.

We must give these people more tastes of freedom. We must infect them with ideas of democracy and liberty. We need to expose them to authentic North American culture (Canada is OK too, but I fear there is too much latent racism in Europe for a meaningful and free exchange at the moment), so they can expose their fellow citizens to our ideals. It can't just be through the internet and television. That creates a bit of a warped view of things (many misguided Arab men think that Western women all act like porn stars, for example). We need to open up more cultural centers in their countries, more libraries, more books, more freedom, so they can understand our ideals firsthand.

I believe they do respect our freedoms, and want to enjoy them as well. Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy, and all the rest of it. But they hate our militaristic foreign policy. We need to make sure they don't see dead Arab children on the nightly news. And we need to live up to our own ideals. Terror is a tactic. The theocratic rule of a Taliban style government is an idea, just like communism, and just like democracy and civil liberties. We have to fight ideas with superior ideas. You cannot bomb an idea away. You must show it to be bankrupt and empty. We did that with communism by standing firm and continuing to assert the ideals of liberty. If physically attacked, of course we must defend ourselves. It was right to oust the Taliban just as it was right to crush the Nazis. However, while we defeated Hitler with our military, we defeated the ideals of Nazism by exposing the Nazis' depravity in the holocaust and their war crimes at Nurenburg.

The most important tool in this long struggle is our ideals. We must change the thought of the next generation in the middle east, and must work to infect this generation with our ideas as well. And we must stay true to our ideals as well, so we do not become monsters who abrogate civil liberties, who tortue, who indefinitely imprison. This is how you win a war on terror. A war on an idea. By spreading your own values and holding firm to them.

Churchill and the Dignified Response to Terror

I was reading up a bit on Churchill, on the way he viewed a struggle of total war against an implacable foe, and for the umpteenth time, I again had to shake my head at the failings of our president. Especially this gem:

"You might however consider whether you should not unfold as a background the great privilege of habeas corpus and trial by jury, which are the supreme protection invented by the English people for ordinary individuals against the state. The power of the Executive to cast a man in prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government, whether Nazi or Communist. (my emphasis)
In a telegram by Churchill from Cairo, Egypt to Home Secretary Herbert Morrison (21 November 1943).

There you have it. Stalwart Conservative and the Lion of Brittania, declaring our new policy on imperial presidential power: The highest degree odious and the foundation of totalitarianism and the Nazi Party. And yes, I do think that the Nazi threat in World War II (which had alread killed hundreds of thousands of Britons by the time he made this statement)
was a more significant threat to civilization then a few thousand Al-Queda types sitting in caves, planning to blow up airliners. We all must deal with risks, and until the danger of driving to the airport is less then the danger of flying in the airplane, we frankly shouldn't waste so much time fretting.

Also, since this fight is said to be the defining moment of our times, I would also like to compare Bush and the reactions of Churchill to leading the British in the defining moment of their times.

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror..."
Speech in the House of Commons, after taking office as Prime Minister (13 May
1940).

He also introduced food rationing to the British public in 1940, to ensure that the soliders could get enough meat. Naturally, the draft was cumpolsory.

Bush...lowered taxes on stock dividends. He also decided to invade a country that had no link to 9-11. Victory was apparently not the aim. But he has won the suspension of Habeus Corpus. Odious. Odious. He has apparently recently read Camus. He should also read a little Nietzsche.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146

We have looked into the abyss, the ledge has given way, and we are falling. Despite the damage done, perhaps soon we shall begin the long climb back up, the climb to decency, liberty, and truth.

I leave you with more of Sir Winston.

"The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair."
Churchill's last major speech in the Commons, 1 March 1955.

Never flinch. Hold your head high. Do not lose your convenctions when you peer into the abyss (which lies within all our souls). Refuse to be terrorized. Important principles, all of which our executive has discarded.

Just how do terrorist win in Iraq?

This is an important question. The administration likes to define terrorists winning if Americans do something he doesn't want us to. Like dissent, or call on a pull-out of Iraq. But if we leave Iraq, do the terrorists actually win? What do they define as a victory? Could Al-Queda turn Iraq into another Afghanistan before 9-11? Of course not.

I do not want to make the mistake of claiming that all who use the tactic of terror are united. So let us look specifically at our enemy of september 11, Osama and Al Queda. How do they win?
Well, they define it as creating a theocratic, Sunni fundamntalist state. Something like the Taliban. That was a win for them, and they wanted to spread it from Afghanistan and the border areas across the Islamic world. So, if we pull out, do they win? Of course not.
The foreign terrorists comprise only about 7% of the fighters in Iraq. Additionally, the Al Queda types are the enemy of: Bathists, Secular Iraqis, Turkomans, Shi'ites, and the Kurdistan north. Who does that leave on their side? Some of the Al Queda inspiried sunnis (not much), and some foreign trouble makers. Could they actually conquer Iraq? When they consist of only a small number of the population, and are actively hated by the vast majority because of their Sunni religious extremism and acts of terror?

Of course not. There is no way for the terrorists to win. There is no way the terrorists can win in Iraq if we are there (because we have the firepower to destory them if they sieze command of even a sizeable municipal government). There is no way they can win if we are gone, because the Sunnis, Kurds, and even Bathists would not let them. Furthermore, if there is no US in Iraq and there is constant acts of terror, I believe that the general Arab community would be repulsed and more border countries would take action to help stabalize Iraq.

As usual, the president is giving Osama and Al-Queda the one thing they don't deserve: our respect, and fear of their power.

Now, why can't anyone in the media ask this simple question? "How is it even possible for Al Queda to take over Iraq when A: the vast majority of Iraqis hate them, and B: the vast majority of Iraqis are heavily armed?"

Reflections on Saftey after 9-11

Are we safer today? Some say yes, some say no. 3000 people died in 9-11. There has been no major terrorist attack on American soil since then. But there was no major attack on our soil the five years before. And many Americans have died since then. According to the official statistics from the Department of Defense, 2,669 American solidiers have died in Iraq. 19910 have been wounded. Also, this war has been fought with mercenaries, CIA operatives, and American contractors. Their casulties I do not know, although I'm sure the numbers are out there.

Not counting respiratory illness and other lingering chronic problems from 9/11, there were a total of 5367 casualties (adding dead and wounded) as a result of that terrible day.
As a response, we went into Afghanistan. To be frank, we appeared to score a quick victory, and then the political leadership lost interest. Troops began to leave the country before we even had a chance to catch Bin Laden at Tora Bora. Since we entered that country, we have lost approximately 336 soldiers killed and 901 wounded, a total of 1237 casualties.
Imagine if that was the final number. Just 1237. Instead, our total casualties from the war on terror after 9-11 is 23,816 American soldiers, and probably a few thousand more government civil servants, contractors, and U.S. mercenaries.

So has the president kept Americans safe? Or did his actions lead to the death or maiming of about 30,000 Americans since 9-11?

As usual, the only ones asked to sacrifice by the President are the military. Their deaths are not honored by acknowledging this grim toll, but instead, they are hidden. The administration has censored their pictures and downplayed the cold facts.

The administration did not keep these young men and women safe. That’s a fact. So since we have had a bit less than 10 times the casualties of 9-11, of Americans hurt in our “war on terror,” does it matter if a shopping mall in Topeka is “safe,” when it never was going to be a target anyway? Does the life of civilians now matter more than a soldier? What kind of respect is that for our military?These casualties are a cost of our struggle. I believe the enemy is Al Queda and Bin Laden. He is the one who struck on 9-11. And yes, he has an ideology. But you can’t kill an ideology with bombs. Nor can you do it by invading Iraq and then managing an incompetent occupation. So if you ask are Americans safer, remember that our military consists of Americans too, and the policies of the Bush administration did not make them safe.