“Some Iraqis Express Doubts About New US Strategy:” why, who woulda thunk it?

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a wonderful headline that caught my eye, from, of all things, the Voice of America: “Some Iraqis express doubts about new US strategy.”

Why, goodness gracious me my, they do? I’m so astonished I hardly know where to begin. But I’ll try.

I’ve noticed lately (and by “lately,” I don’t mean in the last few days, I mean during the last decade or so) a growing propensity for the media to chew, swallow, digest, and excrete a story before it has even happened. A good example of the genre was the ISG report–remember that? Heard much of the report lately? No; despite the pre-report hype, it died a merciful death shortly after its release because it was so–to be blunt–profoundly stupid and misguided in its suggestion of negotiation with Iran and Syria, the biggest of a couple of whoppers that didn’t sit well most segments of US public, political, or pundit opinion.

And now it remains to be seen whether Bush’s new plan for Iraq, when announced tonight, will be the same one the media has been discussing endlessly. My guess, by the way, is that at least the broad outlines will be similar; I’m not sure about the details. Maybe it’s just me, but wouldn’t it be awfully nice to wait and see what the man actually says before we get incessant, 24-hour a day, worldwide coverage of the reaction to it?

In addition, this particular story struck me as especially meaningless, and transparently so. It is the quintessential “dog bites man” story–after all, a certain segment of a population is going to have an opinion pro or con virtually anything. Just listen to the late-night program “Coast to Coast” (I seldom do, but every now and then I turn it on for a moment) to get an idea of how many people believe, oh, in just about any wacky theory anyone can dream up.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Having doubts about the new US strategy is most definitely not akin to thinking the earth is flat, that we never got to the moon, or that Jesus was a mushroom (the latter was the subject of one especially flabbergasting “Coast to Coast” segment I happened to flip onto late one night. Ten minutes were quite enough, thanks you, but they were memorable.)

And as for doubts–well, even I have doubts about Bush’s strategy, whatever it might be. Doubts are part of human existence, especially in war. I’ve quoted Helmuth von Motke the Elder’s (love that name!) famous dictum before, but I’ll do it again: No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

And I am certain that the average Iraqi has plenty of doubts at this point about a plan he/she doesn’t know the details of yet, that hasn’t been implemented, and that follows so many dashed hopes raised by previous campaigns and promises. This is news?

The Voice of America article hits some sort of reporting low–at least, I hope it’s a low. It quotes three average unnamed Iraqis as expressing some rather reasonable-sounding reservations, then mentions the official Iraqi government line that states the plan will succeed (surprise, surprise!).

Why am I picking on this particular obscure story? Well, for one thing, I found it in the first place because it was highlighted by Google as one of its top stories for today, so it’s getting an awful lot of attention relative to any merit it might have. For another, even though it’s an extreme example, it shows the naked media tendency towards shaping the news in a negative and often meaningless way: write a headline that makes it look as though Iraqis have already rejected Bush’s plan (and perhaps they have, but you wouldn’t know it based on the evidence in this story), do a cursory job of interviewing a couple of people who subscribe to the views you’re seeking, and call it a day.

They say there’s no bad publicity: Pajamas makes the Times (sort of)

The New Neo Posted on by

In this story about how bloggers won’t let go of the controversy over the existence of quoted AP source Jamil Hussein, Maria Aspen writes (in the business section of the NY Times):

In a reference to a memorable swipe that Jonathan Klein, CNN’s head of domestic operations, once took at bloggers who work from their living rooms, Ms. Wagner wrote in an e-mail message: “Our reporters are not ‘pajamas media.’ ”

She added, “Our reporters tell what they’ve seen and heard to editors who ask tougher questions than many of these bloggers might imagine.”

Oh, I dunno; I can imagine some pretty tough questions, although not maybe NY Times-tough or AP-tough. “Have you stopped beating your wife?” for example. Or even, “Do you have independent corroboration of this source?”

Be that as it may, I have a sneaking suspicion that, unbeknownst to Ms. Aspen, Ms. Wagner’s reference was a double one–not just to Klein’s original memorable (and sexist!! Let’s not forget sexist!) statement (“You couldn’t have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of check and balances [at ’60 Minutes’] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.”) , but to the media group of which I’m a proud member, Pajamas Media.

They say there’s no bad publicity, but unfortunately, Ms. Aspen doesn’t seem to have heard of Pajamas; my guess is that Ms. Wagner has.

Now, here’s a Democrat who makes sense

The New Neo Posted on by

I like Joe Donnelly’s style.

Who’s Joe Donnelly? A very freshman US Congressman from Indiana, one of the Blue Dog Democrats (in fact, being a freshman, Donnelly might better be called a “blue pup”–and no, I didn’t make the term up, as you’ll see if you follow the link).

Donnelly isn’t all that pleased with Nancy Pelosi. Nor is he–despite his “pup” status–all that awed by Ms. Speaker:

If Pelosi “goes too far one way or another, we’re not coming back,” Donnelly says. He sees his party’s victory in the November elections as less an endorsement of its agenda than a rejection of Republican rule: “People just got real tired of this bunch, and they fired them.”

It turns out that there are thirty Blue Dogs in the House right now. And it also turns out that the Democrats outnumber the Republicans there by a margin of thirty-one. So you don’t need to be a math wizard to see that those Blue Dogs are the key to the whole thing for the Democrats.

In recent decades it seems that, more and more, each party’s leaders tend to come from the more extreme wings of their respective parties. And it’s the nature of such politicians to look on any victory as a mandate for their point of view. But–as I’ve said before–ignore the law of thirds at your peril.

Pelosi may be in the act of making the Newt Gingrich error. Coming on so strong against whatever plan Bush announces for Iraq might not only be counterproductive in terms of the war itself, and the world’s perception of our will and our ability to keep our word–but it may even be counterproductive in terms of what Pelosi really seems to care about, victory for the Democrats in ’08.

I’ll let Donnelly, no Bush sycophant (Donnelly refers to the war in Iraq as a “disaster”), have the last word on this one:

[Donnelly] doesn’t support the fixed timetable for withdrawal proposed by Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha that Pelosi, 66, has endorsed. Instead, like Bush, he opposes any withdrawal until Iraq is “stabilized.”

“My goal is to help the president,” he said in an interview. “I am not going to rip him to shreds. If he does a better job, then our soldiers can be more successful, Iraq can be stabilized and our troops can come home.”

Works for me.

“A Jewish veneer for the annihilation of Jews”

The New Neo Posted on by

They’re a fringe, it’s true–but a fringe that detractors of Israel have made much of.

I’m speaking of the ultra-orthodox religious Jews who are anti-Zionist. That’s their prerogative, of course; eveyone’s entitled to his/her opinion, yada yada yada.

But some of them go further then that; in fact, it turns out that six of the delegates to the mid-December 2006 Iranian Holocaust denial conference were such Jews. Collaborating with an Iran bent on the destruction of Israel and Jews is quite a stretch.

And, amidst the hatefest that the conference represented, you can be sure that those Jews were not ignored by the press. In fact, they were highlighted in many instances. Granted, it’s a sort of “man bites dog” story, inherently both fascinating and shocking–but still.

For example, several British papers had articles on the conference that featured only one photo illustrating the event. What visuals did they see fit to show? You guessed it; only the anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews (see this, for example).

It’s hard to know quite what to say about this one. I’ll start by simply quoting it:

[Austrian rabbi Moshe Friedman] noted, “We should focus on the reality that the behind-the-curtain individuals and financial providers as well as perpetrators of some of the World War II crimes had been Zionists themselves.” Now another Holocaust has taken place, this time involving Palestinians and Arabs — something unprecedented in history, he added.

The Austrian Rabbi also thanked Iran as the best venue for the conference on the Holocaust because it used to remain neutral during the World War II and was not involved in the event.

Friedman described Iran as a model country in dealing with and tolerating religious minorities.

I recall reading that the motivation for people such as Friedman is the idea that Israel’s establishment should only happen when the Messiah came, not through political maneuvering or the UN. So they regarded Israel as illegitimate from the very first.

And here’s a letter explaining this group, and likening them to the Judenrat in the Nazi era:

…the Muslims who thirst for Jewish blood are using the Neturei Karta [the orthodox anti-Zionist group] as the Nazis once used the Judenrat (a Nazi-organized system of “Jew Councils” staffed by local Jews and established for the purpose of liaising between the Nazis and the ghettoized Jewish population pending their deportation to the death camps) — namely, to provide a Jewish veneer for the annihilation of Jews.

A perfect way to put it: a Jewish veneer for the annihilation of Jews.

Here’s a discussion of the horrific dilemma that was faced by those tapped to become part of the Judenrat; the situation was not always a simple one of collaboration or self-centeredness. And the ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionists by no means represent an exact parallel.

These modern day ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionists are part of an ancient tradition, however, that of the “useful Jew” (somewhat akin to the “useful idiot“). It’s true that, under threat of death (as in the World War II Judenrat), the normal human desire to save one’s own skin operates in all groups. But what’s Friedman’s excuse?

[[NOTE: I was reminded of this phenomenon when I read Siggy’s post of the day, in which he likened the so-called “religious progressives” and their complicity with anti-Semitism to the Judenrat of World War II. He also discusses some of the moral complexities of the Judenrats’ dilemma.]

5 things you don’t know about me

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been tagged for one of those meme things by my friend Fausta, “five things you don’t know about me.”

Ah. what to divulge? I have an unusual breadth of choice, since some of the most basic facts about me are unknown on the blog (real name and specific place of residence, for starters). So I suppose I could take this as an opportunity for a huge unveiling.

I don’t think so. But I will reveal the following:

(1) Sometimes I do toy with the idea of “coming out,” and divulging my actual name and un-apple-shielded photo. Maybe some day.

(2) I am a fabulous cook, if I do say so myself (and I do say so myself). Maybe my trolls would like it if I put more recipes up here. Nope, suppose not.

(3) Doing the podcast was a big deal for me because I’ve always been a bit sensitive about my voice. Not my voice in private life–that seems okay–but as a public vehicle for getting points across. I have always been more comfortable writing; I prefer the ability to craft and to contemplate, although on a blog I rarely get the chance or the time to craft things as much as I’d like. Other times, when I’ve performed, I’ve been voiceless; a dancer. So the podcast has been a real stretch for me, but I’ve enjoyed it more than I imagined I would.

(4) I have small feet, hands, and ears. In fact, when I buy gloves, I need to go to the children’s section, and this despite the fact that I’m of more or less average height. I mourn the fact that gloves no longer come in sizes other than small, medium, large–the “small” being jumungous, as far as I’m concerned. I think I used to be a size 5, which they actually used to make, and they actually used to fit.

(5) I’m a wonderful friend. Ask any of my friends.

Oh, and here’s a sixth: a posed photo from my dancing days, just turned sixteen. I look exactly and precisely the same now, of course.

[ADDENDUM: I forgot to pass the meme baton. Take it or leave it, folks, as you wish: Sisu, Alexandra, Shrinkwrapped, Dr. Sanity, and Varifrank.

No surge, Dems urge: beware those helicopters!

The New Neo Posted on by

You think I sing a repetitious dirge
“Iraq, Vietnam; please let the two diverge!”
But here’s some news: the Democrats they urge,
“Oh Mr. Bush, don’t recommend a surge!”

And why? They say we’re surely on the verge
Of failure. It’s inevitable. A scourge
Successor Pres (a Dem?) will have to purge
As copters on the roof, they re-emerge.

Yes, you might accuse me of becoming a bit obsessed about this Vietnam/Iraq bitter end comparison. But it keeps surfacing in the news, even if I try to avoid it.

For example, in the article in the NY Daily News that inspired my poem, this is the statement by Senator Joseph Biden that I found especially infuriating in light of history:

In an obvious reference to Vietnam, Biden said Bush intended to leave it to the next President to land “helicopters in the Green Zone, taking people off the roof.”

Okay, Joe, you brought it up. And, if you want to be partisan about it, Vietnam was a war in which the major escalation and commitment of US combat forces was the decision of two successive Democratic Presidents and solidly Democratic Congresses (controlled by the Democrats with substantial majorities for the entire duration of the war).

The Republican President who succeeded the two Democrats, Nixon, presided over the drawdown of US troops known as Vietnamization. Those helicopters on the roof were the direct result of the abrupt and sharp reduction of funding voted by a Democratic-led Congress, which made the defeat of the South virtually inevitable and rather sudden, as well. A new Republican President, Ford, was left holding that bag””but the bag was filled mostly by Democrats.

President Bush is a stubborn man, it’s true. He has no intention of abandoning Iraq, although if the Democrats (and some Republicans, to be sure) have anything to say about it they will force him to. But to suggest, as Biden has, that President Bush’s motivation for wanting a surge is to delay things in order to screw the new administration (Biden probably hopes and expects it to be a Democratic one) that will succeed Bush is one of the lowest statements I’ve heard in a good long while, even from a Senator.

The article in the Daily News mentions that Harry Reid has said Bush’s commanders aren’t in favor of a surge, and so he’s “shuffling them in and out” till he finds one who agrees with him. This article in the NY Times describes the situation as far more complex (of course) than Reid indicates. The military has long been divided into two disagreeing camps on that score. The new commander, General Petraeus, labeled as “articulate,” is one of the strong advocates of the surge approach. He has overseen the drafting of a recent new counterinsurgency manual, an area in which he seems to be expert.

This doesn’t mean the new effort will succeed, even if it manages to clear the Congressional hurdles being set up for it. After all, it’s a military truism that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. But it’s not surprising that Bush has chosen a general who believes in the same approach that Bush favors, and who represents a different point of view than those who have gone before. And it’s no surprise, either, that this point of view is not in line with the defeatist stance of Democrats such as Biden, with visions of helicopters on the roof dancing in his head.

Interestingly enough, it was Saddam Hussein who presciently foresaw this course of events. As I wrote at the time of our November elections:

…no one’s ever accused Saddam of being dumb. Here’s an interesting tidbit that shows how smart he really was: in the buildup to the Iraqi war in 2003, Saddam was already making the Vietnam analogy:

In the days leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, television stations there showed 1975 footage of U.S. embassy support personnel escaping to helicopters from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon. It was Saddam’s message to his people that the United States does not keep its commitments …

Too bad he isn’t around to see it all, isn’t it?

Could Congress pull off a 1974-1975 redux, after all?

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday I wrote about the limitations Congress might face in opposing a “surge” of American troops in Iraq if–as rumor would have it–such a surge is part of Bush’s new Iraq policy to be unveiled next week.

Today I read this article by E.J. Dionne, which describes some more creative solutions contemplated by Democratic leaders such as Biden.

As I wrote yesterday, at this point the only direct way to oppose the surge would be some sort of vast reduction in military funding as a whole–as opposed to the mere cutting back of foreign aid to a specific country, as was done to the South Vietnamese at the tail end of 1974, when US combat forces had departed years earlier.

But there are indirect ways, as well–for example, a Congressional resolution which could, according to Biden:

…have a powerful effect if it drew support from the significant number of Republican senators who are increasingly alienated from Bush’s policies. An anti-surge resolution might not bind the president, says Biden, but it would exert considerable pressure on him to reconsider his approach.

I’m not sure he doesn’t underestimate (or “misunderestimate”) Bush’s ability to resist such pressure. After all, as I pointed out yesterday, it’s not as though Bush is up for re-election. And I’m not sure he cares all that much, either, about the re-election prospects of those Republicans in Congress who might be anti-surge, especially when weighed in the balance against what he sees as the importance of fighting the insurgency and terrorists in Iraq.

But Biden has a few more tricks up his sleeve. And in this, he’s also aided by (what else?) the ghost of Vietnam:

Biden is studying whether Congress might reconsider the original Iraq War resolution, which is now as out of date as the news stories of 2002, the year it passed. The resolution includes references to a “significant chemical and biological weapons capability” that Iraq didn’t have and repeated condemnations of “the current Iraqi regime,” i.e., the Saddam Hussein regime that fell long ago. In effect, the resolution authorizes a war on an enemy who no longer exists and for purposes that are no longer relevant.

Dionne also points out that Senator Carl Levin has high hopes for the passage of a resolution he has crafted with another Democratic Senator, Jack Reed, calling for benchmarks and a withdrawal plan.

It remains to be seen what effect such resolutions might have on this particular President. But the drawback of any such “benchmarks and a withdrawal plan” is that they would make our schedule public and transparent not only to US citizens but also to the enemy, who would be more than willing to lay low during any “surge,” wait it out, and take over after we left.

The inherent telegraphing to our enemy of our lack of intent to–in that hackneyed, overused, but still important phrase, “stay the course”–would probably be a fatal blow to any campaign we might mount at this point. To put the kindest face on it, I wonder whether Biden, Levin, and their colleagues realize how important it is to communicate motivation and resolve to any enemy.

The consequences of the pullout in Vietnam were not only huge for those who suffered thereafter in Vietnam and Cambodia, but for the perception of American will and strength in the world. Our words and our promises were considered hollow; we were now a paper tiger. The same would be true–only perhaps more so–for an abandonment of Iraq.

The sharp cutoff in funding to South Vietnam that I mentioned in yesterday’s post was only one of several efforts by Congress back then, however, to tie the hands of the US in prosecuting the Vietnam War, even after our combat troops had been withdrawn. Vietnam timelines indicate the following, as well, acts which served to clearly telegraph our lack of intent there:

June 24, 1970 – The U.S. Senate repeals the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. [Perhaps a precedent for Biden’s current plans outlined above?]

June 19, 1973 – The U.S. Congress passes the Case-Church Amendment which forbids any further U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia, effective August 15, 1973. The veto-proof vote is 278-124 in the House and 64-26 in the Senate. The Amendment paves the way for North Vietnam to wage yet another invasion of the South, this time without fear of U.S. bombing.

This amendment was passed after all US combat troops had been withdrawn. It also would have tied Nixon’s (or any subsequent President’s) hands in any efforts to fulfill Nixon’s “secret promise” to South Vietnam at the time of the Peace Accords that the US would come to their aid militarily if the North violated the terms of those Accords in the future. Because of Congress, both the North and the South knew that was not going to happen.

Here’s another move by Congress from the timeline:

November 7, 1973 – Congress passes the War Powers Resolution requiring the President to obtain the support of Congress within 90 days of sending American troops abroad.

This somewhat controversial resolution, whose constitutionality has been debated, remains in force today. It’s an example of the constant tension between the executive and legislative branches of government on the question of the powers to wage war, especially limited actions that fall short of a full declaration of war.

If you go back to that Vietnam timeline and read about events during the year 1972, you’ll get a deeper appreciation of what was happening there as Vietnamization progressed. As US fighting forces withdrew, the South Vietnamese were not doing badly against the North. However, there were heavy Vietnamese casualties on both sides (although not US ones) and the international community was protesting.

Crucial US support at the time consisted not just of military and technical aid, but of bombing Hanoi and Haiphong and mining harbors in the North. Note, especially, that the various Linebacker operations had been fairly successful against the North. The Case-Church amendment, passed not long after as a result of outrage against the casualties involved, made it a certainty that no more such operations could be launched.

Read, also, the years 1973 through 1975. The Peace Accords represented a strange compromise that allowed Northern forces to remain in the South, against the will of the South Vietnamese, who were powerless to object because of their fear that the US would cut assistance (which, of course, ended up happening anyway). The successive acts of Congress mentioned above, even before the final financial blow at the end of 1974 (particularly the Case-Church amendment), effectively curtailed the US ability to respond, and the North and South both knew it.

The history of struggle between Congress and the President for control of war powers reached a head during Vietnam. Iraq and Vietnam are different, but they are linked in certain ways. The next few months will see a repeat, not of the specific details, but of the general principles of the jockeying for power between the two branches.

The consequences were huge back in the 70s. This time they will be even larger, no matter which way it goes.

Ford’s veto?

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday’s post of mine was linked at Dean Esmay, and my old friend mikeca wrote a critique in the comments section there.

I’ve already debated mikeca’s viewpoint about whether or not the South Vietnamese ARVN might have held off against the North if our support had continued, here, so there’s no need to take that question up again. But I was intrigued by his assertion that Ford did not veto the late-1974 bill that pulled the financial plug on the ARVN.

It’s an interesting question, although not an especially important one, because I’m actually in agreement with mikeca’s contention that it was not only the Democrats who were for abandoning Vietnam; some Republican members of Congress were in favor of it, as well. Ford, only a few months into his unelected Presidency, most definitely didn’t have the stomach necessary for the fight, either. He saw his mission as a healing, uniting one, although he himself would have preferred the funding continue.

I went to the links mikeca gives on the subject, as well as doing a number of new searches of my own, and it’s still not clear what actually happened. There’s no question the funding was cut substantially, and that what was appropriated was woefully inadequate, and that this led to the unraveling of the morale and the fighting ability of the ARVN, as well as the opposite for the North–a conviction, quite correct, that they would now be able to achieve their goal of conquering the South, which occurred in short order.

But the rest of the details are murky. I got my original information that Ford had vetoed the bill from Wikipedia (see under the heading “South Vietnam Stand Alone, 1974-1975”), but no source was given there, nor could I find one.

Vietnam timelines state that the fund cuttoff occurred in Congress in September of 1974, which would have been a month after Nixon’s Watergate-inspired resignation. And yet Ford’s signing statement for the bill, which mikeca links to, occurred on December 30, 1974.

If I were more familiar with how long it ordinarily takes bills to go from passage to signing, I’d be more able to analyze what the four-month delay might have meant. One possibility, however, is that the bill was indeed initially vetoed by Ford and then overridden, and that he signed it after the override. That’s mere speculation, however; I could find nothing else on the subject other than assertions such as that in Wikipedia that there had been a veto, without citations or sources.

We do have the evidence of what Ford thought about the cutoff, however, in his words in the signing statement:

In South Vietnam, we have consistently sought to assure the right of the Vietnamese people to determine their own futures free from enemy interference. It would be tragic indeed if we endangered, or even lost, the progress we have achieved by failing to provide the relatively modest but crucial aid which is so badly needed there. Our objective is to help South Vietnam to develop a viable, self-sufficient economy and the climate of security which will make that development possible. To this end, the economic aid requested represented the amount needed to support crucial capital development and agricultural productivity efforts. The lower amount finally approved makes less likely the achievement of our objectives and will significantly prolong the period needed for essential development.

The understatement of the century.

Vietnam on the mind: Congress jockeys for position on Bush’s new plan for Iraq

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s an awful lot of speculation on what Bush’s new plan for Iraq might be. The consensus is that it will take the form of the “go big” option: the so-called “surge.”

The details–just how large that surge will be, how long it might last, and what other policies or plans it will be tied into–remain to be seen. The plan is not just a strategic one for Bush and for Iraq, but it presents members of Congress with strategic dilemmas and decisions as well. They not only have to take a position on the merits, but in the time-honored way of most politicians, they have to decide what’s in it for them in terms of re-election.

Bush, after all, has been released from that particular consideration. He only needs to take into account his own “vision” and plan for “success” (derided here by Fred Kaplan of Slate); Bush is exempt from serving another term. So, as Kaplan writes, “He’s playing for History (most definitely with a capital H), which, he seems convinced, is on his side.”

That’s for history (or History) to decide. But history isn’t written in the present, much as some would like to think it can be. Therefore the Democrats and Republicans trying to decide right now whether to support a surge in Iraq only know what has happened in the past, in distant times and places that may or may not be analogous; try as they (or we) might, they can’t foretell the future.

John Keegan, a British writer who specializes in the history of war, opines that a surge could well be helpful in Iraq if it consists of a force of at least 50,000 troops and takes the war to the enemy rather than waging it defensively. Robert Tracinski, a disciple of Ayn Rand and head of The Intellectual Activist, thinks the only worthwhile approach would be to wage war–literal, not metaphorical–against Iran (this option is probably not going to be part of Bush’s “go big” plan–he’s thinking big, but not that big).

The jockeying for position goes on among members of Congress, with McCain being a major proponent of the “surge” policy, some Democrats (and a few Republicans) such as Biden saying a definite nay, and Democrat Carl Levin, new chief of the Armed Forces Committee, taking a middle, noncommittal, road:

While he would oppose an open-ended commitment, Mr. Levin said, he would not rule out supporting a plan to dispatch more troops if the proposal was tied to a broader strategy to begin reducing American involvement and sending troops home.

The dark shades of Vietnam hover over the proceedings, of course. Those who remember history know that US fighting forces had left Vietnam for several years when the US Congress pulled the financial plug on the South Vietnamese, against the will of then President Ford. Can, and will, there be a repeat?

As Kaplan points out, in this case it would be much more difficult for Congress to accomplish similar ends in Iraq:

…the Democrats are still plagued by the charge that they lost [Vietnam]. If Congress cuts off, or sharply cuts back, funding for the Iraq war, and if things subsequently get worse, who will be blamed in 2008 and beyond? The question answers itself. Purse strings are unwieldy instruments for such purposes, in any case. Few legislators of either party favor a total, immediate pullout from Iraq. Yet even if Congress somehow collectively decided how many troops should be withdrawn or redeployed, and what those left behind should do, it would be another task entirely to translate that decision into budgetary terms””and politically all but impossible to do so while the White House and its supporters sternly warn from the sidelines that the cuts will “hurt the troops.”

In Vietnam, it was relatively easy to cut funding to the ARVN. Because Vietnamization had been successfully accomplished, in the sense that there were no more US combat troops there (and had not been for years), Congress’s betrayal of the South Vietnamese to their fate was part of a foreign policy appropriations bill, the Foreign Assistance Act of December 1974, which was vetoed by President Ford but overridden and passed by the hugely Democratic Congress of the time.

Since Iraqization is far from complete at the moment, and American combat forces are most assuredly still in Iraq, appropriations for this war don’t come under the heading of foreign aid. Any withdrawal of funds would be part of the appropriations for the military as a whole, and that probably wouldn’t be a popular stance in this post-9/11 world, even for most Democrats, except those whose constituencies are profoundly and markedly liberal/Left.

And so Congressional leaders who might want to withdraw funds to Iraq and stymie Bush’s “go big” plans are in an interesting position, lacking the tools used by their Vietnam-era predecessors–although, if Iraqization were successful, it paradoxically would give Congress the power it had (and exercised) in late 1974, the power to abandon the country for which so many had previously sacrificed, when the cost had shrunk down to a relatively bearable one.

Saddam’s justice: a tale of two videos

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s a bootleg video of Saddam’s execution circulating online. Taken surrepticiously by a witness with a cellphone camera (the photographer has since been arrested), it shows a semi-carnival atmosphere, with the former dictator being mocked and exchanging taunts with some in the crowd before he is hung.

The Iraqis were in charge at that point. US officials say they would have done it differently, in an atmosphere of greater dignity. I believe them–and, from the descriptions of the video (I haven’t watched it), it would have been an improvement on what actually happened.

The footage of the execution has been condemned as inflammatory and likely to incite Sunnis. Perhaps this is true–although lately, predictions of what the “Arab street” will do have been dismal. But there’s little question the Iraqi government is unhappy that the footage was taken and released; it definitely shows the event as less controlled and more mob-like than they would liked it to have been.

And yet, when observers who number among a tyrant’s victims are witnesses to his execution, it’s almost inevitable that they will have a hard time keeping their mouths shut. I wrote previously about what happened to Mussolini’s body, for example; these images from Saddam’s execution fall very far short of that sort of desecration, obviously.

But it’s just as obvious that it would have been better if no taunting and exchange of insults had occurred at all. Yes, Saddam’s execution was way too much of a “spectacle,” and it’s unfortunate that it happened that way.

However, it’s hard to get too incensed at the Shiites involved for giving vent to their emotions, considering the murders Saddam perpetrated against that group (although it’s easier to blame them for their support of al Sadr; apparently they shouted his name as part of the taunting). And the words ““The tyrant has fallen,” which were spoken around the moment Saddam died, seem only appropriate.

There can be no comparison whatsoever between the emotional outbursts that marred the “dignity” of Saddam’s last moments (and in which he, by the way, participated, giving back as good as he got), and the lack of “dignity” he afforded his own victims when he was in power. Everyone knows about the gassings, the rape rooms, the torture.

But I want to focus on another chilling sequence, back when Saddam first came to power.

Saddam was originally right hand man to his cousin Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, President of Iraq in the early 60s. Together, they eliminated rivals and modernized Iraq. The realpolitik of those Cold War times made the US take their side against Soviet-sympathetic rivals. The US role was not pretty, but it seemed pragmatic at the time, the best of a bunch of bad choices in the region.

And yet Saddam hadn’t shown his true colors yet. Murders of rival factions in Iraq were par for the course in those days–each modern succession had been accomplished by the assassination of the previous rulers. As al Bakr’s second in command, Saddam was the architect of a strong internal security apparatus, it’s true. But he also:

…became personally associated with Ba’athist welfare and economic development programs in the eyes of many Iraqis, widening his appeal both within his traditional base and among new sectors of the population. These programs were part of a combination of “carrot and stick” tactics to enhance support in the working class, the peasantry, and within the party and the government bureaucracy. Saddam’s organizational prowess was credited with Iraq’s rapid pace of development in the 1970s; development went forward at such a fevered pitch that two million persons from other Arab countries and Yugoslavia worked in Iraq to meet the growing demand for labor.

But Saddam’s real goal was his own personal power, and to that end he slowly usurped his cousin’s rule, taking charge of the country years before he formally became President in 1979 by pushing his cousin out for good (although he didn’t murder him).

It was at that point, finally in control, that Saddam’s Stalinesque tendencies became fully visible, in a true “show trial” of staggering sadistic intent (and note that Saddam had the proceedings videotaped):

No sooner had [Saddam attained the Presidency] than he purged the party’s Revolutionary Command Council. Hussein announced the discovery of a plot against himself and the Baathist regime. Then he held a kind of show trial, which he videotaped. The footage shows party members gathered in a large auditorium. Saddam Hussein is on stage, smoking a cigar. The alleged plot leader confesses his crime. Then he reads out the names of his supposed co-conspirators. As their names are called out they are led from the hall to be arrested and shot. Members of the audience shout out their allegiance to Saddam Hussein.

Here’s another description:

You notice the mounting hysteria as nobody knows quite who’s name is going to be called out next. And so of course this means that the survivors cheer even more frenziedly for Saddam Hussein. It’s a very chilling documentary. But Saddam Hussein wanted that to be seen. This was an exercise of power which he would use to impress upon the surviving Baathists in Iraq that he had absolute control over their lives and deaths.

According to Kanan Makiya:

And when the firing squad is assembled to execute these so-called traitors who does he use but the remaining members of the Revolutionary Command Council and his own ministers and so on to implicate them in a sense in his own rise to power. Because that is the event upon which he cements his own presidency.

At this point, the cult of Saddam had taken over. And that’s the way most of his decisions as President went; they were all about power, and about him. Shortly thereafter he managed to undo all the economic good the previous regime had accomplished by launching an ill-thought-out war on Iran, lasting eight years and accomplishing absolutely nothing except the death of hundreds of thousands (perhaps a million) of his own people, as well as huge numbers of Iranians. Next he pursued weapons of mass destruction at Osirik. Stupidity and desire for power also marked his Kuwait endeavor, although the length and the human cost of that foray weren’t as high as in the Iran war.

But back to that earlier video of the assembly of Party officials, Saddam’s show of sadistic force. It’s everything they say it is, and more. I’ve seen it myself, years ago, and I never forgot it. The look of satisfaction and enjoyment on the man’s face was extraordinary, the fear on the faces of his victims starkly chilling.

This was the essence of Saddam. If Iraq is a bloodthirsty place today, and if people are itching for revenge and accustomed to murder, Saddam, more than anyone else, is responsible for that. The video of his execution pales in comparison, I’m afraid.