Aftermath in Iraq
The advent of the Downing Street memo and other previously undocumented memos that have come to light only after long scrutiny and persistent, principled stands by a remarkable group of congressmen have launched public information sessions to bring to light evidence of apparent deception leading to the rush to war in Iraq.
Indeed, CNN reported that the partisan Republican leadership of Tom Delay sought to pressure the congressmen not to hold hearings: official or public: "The Democratic congressmen were relegated to a tiny room in the bottom of the Capitol, and the Republicans who run the House scheduled 11 major votes to coincide with the afternoon event." CNN http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/16/downingst.memo.ap/index.html
The basic problem with Mr. Bush's War, though, is less about the administration's misleading and deceptive tactics inciting the rush to war, as it is about the assumptions on which the war were based.
Under the lead of neoconservatives---like John Bolton---the U.S. assumed that the disposal of Saddam Hussein would lead to a groundswell of support for a sudden, miraculous demos in the Fertile Crescent. That assumption was not based on historical analysis and has proven misplaced. A much more probable analogy would be the "liberal" debates over the Iranian Revolution in 1979 between de Beauvoir and Foucault: not between Robbespierre and Murrat. The Iranian revolution is, in fact, still in the phases of revolutionary cycles as we note in viewing the upcoming Iranian elections. Iran is a much more likely vision of what democracy will look like in Iraq, and that is a troubling scenario. So in the final analysis the Downing Street memo provides evidence that the President misled the country into war based on faulty assumptions.
It seems to me that the White House doesn't understand the "true nature of the enemy in Iraq," not the American people. The American people see it all too well. Instead of explaining to us "the nature of the enemy in Iraq," they ought to be explaining how in the world they intend on "binding up the nation's [Iraq's] wounds" and getting us out of Frankly, if the administration hasn't been able to explain the nature of the threat in Iraq since March 2003 it is doubtful they will do well in explaining it now. Let's just hear about the strategy, the plan of action.....
The administration's plans and strategy must address these issues:
1. since Islam is a global religion, like Christianity, by its very history and civilization, have we put too much faith in Islamic creativity within a real politik situation on the ground?
2. since middle eastern governments tend to be dominated by religious factions, what would an Islamist democracy look like; and isn't Iran and the Iranian Revolution a better model?
3. Should Iraq be secular? Can it be secular? What religious doctrines---freedom to exercise and/or no establishment clause---will be included or excluded from the final Iraqi Constitution?
4. To what extent should the Shariah be the model for Iraqi civil law? Since Islamic law was closed by the 10th century; that is, the closing of the door of ijtihad;to what extent is it even desirable to allow Shariah precedents in the law? Or should Iraqi criminal/civil (secular) and equity/family law, etc (sectarian) be split between secular and sectarian institutions?
5. since the sources of authority in Islam are 1. Qur’an: direct word of Allah as revealed to Mohammed 2. sunnah: example of the Prophet (includes hadith, or sayings of Mohammed) 3. shariah: body of Islamic law as interpreted by theologians over the centuries (development of Islamic jurisprudence ceased about 10th c.) 4. ijma: consensus of Islamic scholars and theologians on a particular issue, to what extent should these influence Iraqi civil government? And how will the politics of the various Islamic groups play out given divergent interpretations and the unwillingness and narrowness of some religious groups to accept religious pluralism?
Republican attempts to downplay the Downing Street Memo will not water down the fall out from this damning document. The Republican House leadership's efforts to dampen the Democrats' forum---where witnesses were called, like former Ambassador Joe Clark---who Republicans have tried to discredit in the past raises important questions about this country's entry into a war which was predetermined to be launched by a White House playing the military card at a critical juncture in its first term half life. The consequences couldn't be clearer.
The President and his White House team are re-focusing their PR efforts away from domestic agenda items---proposals like Social Security reform on which the President has staked much of his political legacy--- to revive dissipating public support for a mismanaged, ill-conceived, and costly preemptive war. Already the President plans a major June 28, 2005 address on the Iraqi insurrection. The tide has turned however and the White House knows it. With midterm congressional elections threatening Republican losses--over the electorate's dissatisfaction with the economy, the war, and what they view as unwarranted intrusion into the realm of American privacy (e.g. Schiavo case), the Republicans are concerned they could lose not just the Senate, but the Republican-controlled House in a big way.
Ultimately, however, the real question does not concern politics: it concerns the lives of young Americans sent into a situation that has turned from a handful of rock-throwing insurgents to a full-scale civil war in Iraq. The President's invasion of Iraq was ill-conceived from the start: but, the Democrats to their credit are not asking for a cut-and-run exit strategy, but rather for an exit plan. Planning is something that has been sorely lacking in the administration's intentions in Iraq from the outset.
A bipartisan group of House members have wisely called on the President to set strategic objectives for "success" in Iraq. Of course, only time and history will determine success in Iraq, but the administration has a responsibility to protect and preserve the Americans caught in the mired mess Iraq has become. The days of open-ended requests for troops, funds, and equipment are over. The administration is to be held to account for the President's decision to put American soldiers in harm's way. That sort of executive carte blanche, without appropriate and necessary oversight from the Congress, is finished.
Now the administration will need to set specific goals for winning the war in Iraq. And America will largely be accomplishing that task on her own thanks to the administration's Tough guy, gun-toting, do-it-alone approach to foreign policy that the White House actually wishes to reinforce with its nomination of John Bolton as UN ambassador.
Let's see a plan: 1. concrete, objective benchmarks for achievement in Iraq2. military performance objectives with timetables for completion3. the recruitment and involvement of five allies, for starters, that did not previously support the invasion to assist in stabilizing Iraq4. concrete objectives of US and other contractors for completing rebuilding tasks (e.g. such-and-such a neighborhood in Baghdad will have running tap water and electricitry by such and such a date5. a candid and honest---not optimistic----appraisal of training Iraqi forces to assume major operations
Representative John Conyers (D-MI), a stalwart of the U.S. House of Representatives having served in the Congress since 1965 Mr. Conyers, a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus and himself an army veteran, is to be highly commended for his decision to hold open public forums on Mr. Bush's "rush to war" in Iraq.
Indeed, these discussions and these questions were not asked in the "rush to war" in 2002-2003; and the fact that they were not asked is a blemish on the part of a large segment of the public and the press alike. The United States Congress is also culpable for their failure to provided the necessary oversight, inquiry, and probing questions that ought always be asked before any American Government calls upon its citizens to bear the measure of our nation's greatest sacrifice. Of course, that was not the case.
This war and the rush to it were fanned by the urgency of a radical neoconservative ideology of aggression that flew in the face of traditional American values and sought to dissuade the public from its true enemy---terrorism and protection of American borders and citizens from terrorists---by refocusing public and media attention on imperialistic,strong-arm tactics the White House hoped would cover up its own intelligence and security failures leading to 9/11.
From the pass to Saudi Arabia on the right to ignore transparent nuclear inspections in that despotic regime, makes one wonder exactly what lessons have been learned.
From the ease of the invasion, to the lack of protective armor, to the inadequate training of our own (e.g. Lindsay England, an apparently partially retarded, or at least low-level functioning, woman) and Iraqi troops and security forces, to the disgraceful and illegal operation of detention camps at Abu Grahib to Guantanamo Bay, to the Haliburton affair, to the firing of Arabic linguists because of their sexual orientation, to the cover-up of the killing of Pat Tilman, to the lack of preparedness for rebuilding and selling democratic reform, to the lack of new recruits and the current insurrection in Iraq, the "rush to war" in Iraq lays squarely on Mr. Bush's plate.
Perhaps had Mr. Bush been drafted and served in Vietnam rather than the Alabama National Guard, perhaps if he had been imprisoned and tortured like John McCain, perhaps if he had seen the ravages of war like John Kerry or Chuck Hagel, he would have been more deliberative, more probing, more thoughtful before exercising the ultimate presidential option: going to war. Mr. Bush and his cronies ought to be held responsible for the "rush to war" and its mismanagement, and they ought to be held accountable now.
In addition to running up unfathomable deficits that threaten our own economic and, hence national, security, and by embedding American soldiers in an apparently intractable conflict to which hundreds of young Americans will give their lives, he has done a disservice to his people and his nation. The least he could do is explain the Downing Street Memo to the American people, like a man--truthfully, and honestly---and accept responsibility for his hubris and folly. Mr. Conyers deserves much praise indeed. And, the Congress would be well-advised to follow his lead and hold hearings into the ""rush to war."
Indeed, CNN reported that the partisan Republican leadership of Tom Delay sought to pressure the congressmen not to hold hearings: official or public: "The Democratic congressmen were relegated to a tiny room in the bottom of the Capitol, and the Republicans who run the House scheduled 11 major votes to coincide with the afternoon event." CNN http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/16/downingst.memo.ap/index.html
The basic problem with Mr. Bush's War, though, is less about the administration's misleading and deceptive tactics inciting the rush to war, as it is about the assumptions on which the war were based.
Under the lead of neoconservatives---like John Bolton---the U.S. assumed that the disposal of Saddam Hussein would lead to a groundswell of support for a sudden, miraculous demos in the Fertile Crescent. That assumption was not based on historical analysis and has proven misplaced. A much more probable analogy would be the "liberal" debates over the Iranian Revolution in 1979 between de Beauvoir and Foucault: not between Robbespierre and Murrat. The Iranian revolution is, in fact, still in the phases of revolutionary cycles as we note in viewing the upcoming Iranian elections. Iran is a much more likely vision of what democracy will look like in Iraq, and that is a troubling scenario. So in the final analysis the Downing Street memo provides evidence that the President misled the country into war based on faulty assumptions.
It seems to me that the White House doesn't understand the "true nature of the enemy in Iraq," not the American people. The American people see it all too well. Instead of explaining to us "the nature of the enemy in Iraq," they ought to be explaining how in the world they intend on "binding up the nation's [Iraq's] wounds" and getting us out of Frankly, if the administration hasn't been able to explain the nature of the threat in Iraq since March 2003 it is doubtful they will do well in explaining it now. Let's just hear about the strategy, the plan of action.....
The administration's plans and strategy must address these issues:
1. since Islam is a global religion, like Christianity, by its very history and civilization, have we put too much faith in Islamic creativity within a real politik situation on the ground?
2. since middle eastern governments tend to be dominated by religious factions, what would an Islamist democracy look like; and isn't Iran and the Iranian Revolution a better model?
3. Should Iraq be secular? Can it be secular? What religious doctrines---freedom to exercise and/or no establishment clause---will be included or excluded from the final Iraqi Constitution?
4. To what extent should the Shariah be the model for Iraqi civil law? Since Islamic law was closed by the 10th century; that is, the closing of the door of ijtihad;to what extent is it even desirable to allow Shariah precedents in the law? Or should Iraqi criminal/civil (secular) and equity/family law, etc (sectarian) be split between secular and sectarian institutions?
5. since the sources of authority in Islam are 1. Qur’an: direct word of Allah as revealed to Mohammed 2. sunnah: example of the Prophet (includes hadith, or sayings of Mohammed) 3. shariah: body of Islamic law as interpreted by theologians over the centuries (development of Islamic jurisprudence ceased about 10th c.) 4. ijma: consensus of Islamic scholars and theologians on a particular issue, to what extent should these influence Iraqi civil government? And how will the politics of the various Islamic groups play out given divergent interpretations and the unwillingness and narrowness of some religious groups to accept religious pluralism?
Republican attempts to downplay the Downing Street Memo will not water down the fall out from this damning document. The Republican House leadership's efforts to dampen the Democrats' forum---where witnesses were called, like former Ambassador Joe Clark---who Republicans have tried to discredit in the past raises important questions about this country's entry into a war which was predetermined to be launched by a White House playing the military card at a critical juncture in its first term half life. The consequences couldn't be clearer.
The President and his White House team are re-focusing their PR efforts away from domestic agenda items---proposals like Social Security reform on which the President has staked much of his political legacy--- to revive dissipating public support for a mismanaged, ill-conceived, and costly preemptive war. Already the President plans a major June 28, 2005 address on the Iraqi insurrection. The tide has turned however and the White House knows it. With midterm congressional elections threatening Republican losses--over the electorate's dissatisfaction with the economy, the war, and what they view as unwarranted intrusion into the realm of American privacy (e.g. Schiavo case), the Republicans are concerned they could lose not just the Senate, but the Republican-controlled House in a big way.
Ultimately, however, the real question does not concern politics: it concerns the lives of young Americans sent into a situation that has turned from a handful of rock-throwing insurgents to a full-scale civil war in Iraq. The President's invasion of Iraq was ill-conceived from the start: but, the Democrats to their credit are not asking for a cut-and-run exit strategy, but rather for an exit plan. Planning is something that has been sorely lacking in the administration's intentions in Iraq from the outset.
A bipartisan group of House members have wisely called on the President to set strategic objectives for "success" in Iraq. Of course, only time and history will determine success in Iraq, but the administration has a responsibility to protect and preserve the Americans caught in the mired mess Iraq has become. The days of open-ended requests for troops, funds, and equipment are over. The administration is to be held to account for the President's decision to put American soldiers in harm's way. That sort of executive carte blanche, without appropriate and necessary oversight from the Congress, is finished.
Now the administration will need to set specific goals for winning the war in Iraq. And America will largely be accomplishing that task on her own thanks to the administration's Tough guy, gun-toting, do-it-alone approach to foreign policy that the White House actually wishes to reinforce with its nomination of John Bolton as UN ambassador.
Let's see a plan: 1. concrete, objective benchmarks for achievement in Iraq2. military performance objectives with timetables for completion3. the recruitment and involvement of five allies, for starters, that did not previously support the invasion to assist in stabilizing Iraq4. concrete objectives of US and other contractors for completing rebuilding tasks (e.g. such-and-such a neighborhood in Baghdad will have running tap water and electricitry by such and such a date5. a candid and honest---not optimistic----appraisal of training Iraqi forces to assume major operations
Representative John Conyers (D-MI), a stalwart of the U.S. House of Representatives having served in the Congress since 1965 Mr. Conyers, a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus and himself an army veteran, is to be highly commended for his decision to hold open public forums on Mr. Bush's "rush to war" in Iraq.
Indeed, these discussions and these questions were not asked in the "rush to war" in 2002-2003; and the fact that they were not asked is a blemish on the part of a large segment of the public and the press alike. The United States Congress is also culpable for their failure to provided the necessary oversight, inquiry, and probing questions that ought always be asked before any American Government calls upon its citizens to bear the measure of our nation's greatest sacrifice. Of course, that was not the case.
This war and the rush to it were fanned by the urgency of a radical neoconservative ideology of aggression that flew in the face of traditional American values and sought to dissuade the public from its true enemy---terrorism and protection of American borders and citizens from terrorists---by refocusing public and media attention on imperialistic,strong-arm tactics the White House hoped would cover up its own intelligence and security failures leading to 9/11.
From the pass to Saudi Arabia on the right to ignore transparent nuclear inspections in that despotic regime, makes one wonder exactly what lessons have been learned.
From the ease of the invasion, to the lack of protective armor, to the inadequate training of our own (e.g. Lindsay England, an apparently partially retarded, or at least low-level functioning, woman) and Iraqi troops and security forces, to the disgraceful and illegal operation of detention camps at Abu Grahib to Guantanamo Bay, to the Haliburton affair, to the firing of Arabic linguists because of their sexual orientation, to the cover-up of the killing of Pat Tilman, to the lack of preparedness for rebuilding and selling democratic reform, to the lack of new recruits and the current insurrection in Iraq, the "rush to war" in Iraq lays squarely on Mr. Bush's plate.
Perhaps had Mr. Bush been drafted and served in Vietnam rather than the Alabama National Guard, perhaps if he had been imprisoned and tortured like John McCain, perhaps if he had seen the ravages of war like John Kerry or Chuck Hagel, he would have been more deliberative, more probing, more thoughtful before exercising the ultimate presidential option: going to war. Mr. Bush and his cronies ought to be held responsible for the "rush to war" and its mismanagement, and they ought to be held accountable now.
In addition to running up unfathomable deficits that threaten our own economic and, hence national, security, and by embedding American soldiers in an apparently intractable conflict to which hundreds of young Americans will give their lives, he has done a disservice to his people and his nation. The least he could do is explain the Downing Street Memo to the American people, like a man--truthfully, and honestly---and accept responsibility for his hubris and folly. Mr. Conyers deserves much praise indeed. And, the Congress would be well-advised to follow his lead and hold hearings into the ""rush to war."
posted by Constance Lavender at 11:40 AM
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