The second story was that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. It is necessary to clarify why that is insufficient reason to have a war. The United States worked very hard to establish that any war that didn't have Security Council approval or was not actual self-defense would be an illegal war. The costs are vast -- as we are beginning to see -- and the consequences unpredictable.
The third narrative is that the war in Iraq is somehow part of the "war on terrorism." Finding bin Laden and putting him on trial in New York City would clearly have been an attack on the terrorists who attacked us and fit that description. Organizing an international police and military effort to round up al Qaeda members would have too. So would following the money. Why didn't we do those things? Why did we invade one country in order to get bin Laden and the man who harbored him, Mullah Omar, but let them both get away? Why did we invade a second country, Iraq, instead of doing the simple things listed above? What are we doing to actually pursue the war on terror? How are we to measure our success or failure?
It is apparent that the administration made a decision to go to "the dark side." That is they decided not to catch and prosecute terrorists publicly as criminals or war criminals. Instead -- if they gone after them at all -- they've done so secretly, kidnapping them, puttting them in secret prisons, interrogating them with deprivation and torture and handing them over to others for even more severe tortures.
We need to ask if that is a good choice, if it's better than public trials following the rules of law. Has that policy been successful? How can we measure it? Call the their statements before the war what you will -- lies, spin, misstatements, inadvertent inaccuracies -- they demonstrate that we can't accept claims at face value. They need the strongest kinds of documentation and support.
That establishes that the war in Iraq was not a counter-attack against the 9/11 attackers and that it doesn't make much sense as part of the war on terror either.
That takes it back to George Bush and why he, personally, wanted this war.
The most generous explanation is that the president was pursuing a visionary policy, that he saw himself cutting the Gordian knot of the Middle East, that he believed that after Saddam was removed Iraq would become a western style, secular democracy with a total free market economy -- a real neo-con paradise -- and it would become, in turn, a center of stability and a beacon for change.
If that's why we're in Iraq, is that still our goal?
If not what is our goal? That must be articulated in a clear and measurable way.
Then we can ask how are we to get there? What will it cost and how long will it take? The things we've been doing so far don't work. What will we do differently? Should we consider the people in charge thus far to have failed? If so, who will replace them? Who will be responsible for oversight and review?
How will we get real information about what's happening in Iraq?
That's important and apparently difficult.
At the moment there seems to be two separate narratives.
George Bush was there for five hours and was mighty impressed.
At the same time there is a secret embassy memo that says no Iraqi dares admit that he works for the Americans or he'll be murdered. That no one can go outside the Green Zone without an armed escort. That militias and gangs are actually in control of most parts of the country.
Reconstruction has not taken place. By most material measures -- hours of electricity, education, clean water, working sewers, available fuel, garbage collection, security, the rights of women -- the country was significantly better off under Hussein.
The third narrative is that the war in Iraq is somehow part of the "war on terrorism." Finding bin Laden and putting him on trial in New York City would clearly have been an attack on the terrorists who attacked us and fit that description. Organizing an international police and military effort to round up al Qaeda members would have too. So would following the money. Why didn't we do those things? Why did we invade one country in order to get bin Laden and the man who harbored him, Mullah Omar, but let them both get away? Why did we invade a second country, Iraq, instead of doing the simple things listed above? What are we doing to actually pursue the war on terror? How are we to measure our success or failure?
It is apparent that the administration made a decision to go to "the dark side." That is they decided not to catch and prosecute terrorists publicly as criminals or war criminals. Instead -- if they gone after them at all -- they've done so secretly, kidnapping them, puttting them in secret prisons, interrogating them with deprivation and torture and handing them over to others for even more severe tortures.
We need to ask if that is a good choice, if it's better than public trials following the rules of law. Has that policy been successful? How can we measure it? Call the their statements before the war what you will -- lies, spin, misstatements, inadvertent inaccuracies -- they demonstrate that we can't accept claims at face value. They need the strongest kinds of documentation and support.
That takes it back to George Bush and why he, personally, wanted this war.
The most generous explanation is that the president was pursuing a visionary policy, that he saw himself cutting the Gordian knot of the Middle East, that he believed that after Saddam was removed Iraq would become a western style, secular democracy with a total free market economy -- a real neo-con paradise -- and it would become, in turn, a center of stability and a beacon for change.
If that's why we're in Iraq, is that still our goal?
If not what is our goal? That must be articulated in a clear and measurable way.
Then we can ask how are we to get there? What will it cost and how long will it take? The things we've been doing so far don't work. What will we do differently? Should we consider the people in charge thus far to have failed? If so, who will replace them? Who will be responsible for oversight and review?
How will we get real information about what's happening in Iraq?
That's important and apparently difficult.
At the moment there seems to be two separate narratives.
George Bush was there for five hours and was mighty impressed.
At the same time there is a secret embassy memo that says no Iraqi dares admit that he works for the Americans or he'll be murdered. That no one can go outside the Green Zone without an armed escort. That militias and gangs are actually in control of most parts of the country.
Reconstruction has not taken place. By most material measures -- hours of electricity, education, clean water, working sewers, available fuel, garbage collection, security, the rights of women -- the country was significantly better off under Hussein.
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