Iraq Causes Selective Intellectual Impairment
I know that people on the left do not suffer from low intelligence, but something is wrong with their ability to reason about Iraq. Their style of reasoning invariably involves simply making up a story that places the U.S. in a less favorable light than the facts actually suggest and then firmly adhering to that narrative until the evidence against it becomes overwhelming. When that happens, they simply forget the old narrative and repeat the process by making up a new one that again places the U.S. in a less favorable light than the facts actually suggest. This process is repeated without end.
For example, it was not so long ago that everyone on the left was running around gleefully supporting the idea that General Petraeus was lying about the fact that violence was on the decline in Iraq. This campaign culminated in MoveOn.org's "General Betrayus" ad that the New York Times rushed into print at greatly reduced cost (as part of their very special effort to "support the troops").
Now, even the New York Times actually admits that violence in Iraq has been greatly reduced. The reaction on the left should have been this: "gee, here I was thinking that the good general was lying, but it turns out that the entire left side of the political spectrum -- up to and including Hillary Clinton -- launched a malicious smear campaign that was itself grounded in a bald-faced lie. I should let this ugly episode teach me something about how I think about Iraq."
Of course, no such self-reflection has taken place. Instead, a new narrative -- a false one designed to place the U.S. in the least favorable light -- was seamlessly adopted. In the new false narrative, violence in Iraq is down because (a) there are no more victims to kill (they've all been killed or they fled the country) and (b) the Shiite militias ordered a cease fire and the Sunni tribes turned against al Qaeda. As such, the troop surge has nothing at all to do with it.
Before I go on, I'd like to address the style of reasoning in evidence here. Ordinarily, one reaches a conclusion after evaluating the factual evidence. Often, the evidence is somewhat mixed but nevertheless favors one conclusion over the other. Under such conditions, your thinking and your conclusions should be sensitive to the weight of evidence. But the new false narrative is not that way at all. It begins with the certain conviction that military force cannot possibly do any good. Therefore, the recent changes in Iraq must be due to something else. What could it could? Hmmmm, let's see. Maybe they just ran out of victims? Yes, that sounds good. What else have I heard lately? Oh yes, the Sunnis turned against al Qaeda (not that al Qaeda has anything to do with the violence in Iraq, mind you), and the Shiite militias also apparently declared a cease fire. That's why violence is down. And, by the way, it's complex over there, so the reduction in violence that has nothing to do with the troop surge is just a temporary phenomenon anyway. The true path to peace involves those hyper-glorified political benchmarks. If they don't pass those, all is lost (I know so because my liberal brain assumes so -- and not for any other reason than that).
I think I have all that about right. I believe that people who think along these lines have a kind of learning deficit when it comes to reasoning about Iraq. As such, they don't even recognize that they are just making things up and then adhering to their own fabricated narrative to avoid the painful reality that the troop surge has been spectacularly successful.
Now let's consider the most recent false narrative in some detail. First, if violence is down because of an absence of victims, this seems odd:
It was just this month that House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey was speculating that violence was down in Iraq because the terrorists "are running out of people to kill,” and because “[t]here are fewer targets of opportunity.”
The Democrats clearly understand that the better the American people understand that the situation in Iraq is improving, the worse their electoral prospects.
However, like most other pronouncements of doom regarding Iraq over the last few months, Obey's has been met with contrary evidence:
Iraqis are voting with their feet by returning home after exile
The figures are hard to estimate precisely but the process could involve hundreds of thousands of people. The numbers are certainly large enough, as we report today, for a mass convoy to be planned next week as Iraqis who had opted for exile in Syria return to their homeland. It is one of the most striking signs that not only has violence in Baghdad and adjacent provinces decreased dramatically in recent months, but confidence in the economic and political future of Iraq has risen sharply.
Violence is down. Iraqis are returning. The American people are beginning to see this progress, despite the efforts of Democrats and many in the media to hide it from them.
Why are Iraqis flooding back to Iraq all of sudden? Usually, the victims of genocide don't return in droves to offer themselves up for mass slaughter. Instead, they return when the security situation really has improved. So, if you want the evidence to influence your thinking about Iraq, go investigate what the refugees are doing these days. You'll find that they are streaming back into Iraq. That tells you something (or it would, if your brain were sensitive to evidence).
Next, there is the idea that what the Sunni tribes and Shiite militias are doing have nothing to do with the troop surge. This is almost (but not quite) too laughable to address. We already know that the Shiite militias were killing Sunnis in Baghdad to put a stop to al Qaeda's suicide bombers (I assume I don't need to explain that story to you again). In February, when the troop surge began, Muqtada al Sadr ordered his militia to cooperate. That's why there was an instantaneous 50% reduction in the anti-Sunni execution campaign. Here is a story from back in January, in case you have forgotten about this:
Mahdi Army lowers its profile, anticipating arrival of U.S. troops
Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007
BAGHDAD, Iraq - BAGHDAD, Iraq—Mahdi Army militia members have stopped wearing their black uniforms, hidden their weapons and abandoned their checkpoints in an apparent effort to lower their profile in Baghdad in advance of the arrival of U.S. reinforcements.
"We have explicit directions to keep a low profile . . . not to confront, not to be dragged into a fight and to calm things down," said one official who received the orders from the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
...
Militia members say al-Sadr ordered them to stand down shortly after President George Bush's announcement that the U.S. would send 17,500 more American troops to Baghdad to work alongside the Iraqi security forces.
The very next month, execution-style killings dropped by 50%. The number has dropped even more in recent months. In light of all this, to suggest that the reduction in killings by the Mahdi Army has nothing to do with the troop surge is clearly preposterous. The Mahdi Army backed off because the extra troops were going to do something about al Qaeda's campaign against Shiite civilians.
What about the Sunni tribes? Maybe they just turned against al Qaeda for reasons entirely unrelated to U.S. military activities. This idea is equally ridiculous. The U.S. military has been working with the Sunni tribes for more than a year (well before the troop surge began) in an effort to turn them against al Qaeda. They were having some success in this regard, and it was one of the arguments in favor of going ahead with the troop surge (though I did not appreciate this fact at the time). If you really think the Sunnis could have taken on al Qaeda without U.S. military help, then I suggest you read this story (via Glenn Reynolds):
New boss turns the tables on Al Qaeda
Ex-Sunni insurgent becomes U.S. ally
The once-dreaded Al Qaeda in Iraq stronghold of Amariyah has a new boss, and he's not shy about telling the story of the shootout that turned him into a local legend and helped change the tenor of the Iraq war.
...
t was the beginning of the end for Al Qaeda in Amariyah. The next day, a firefight erupted. Al Qaeda fighters closed in on Abul Abed. Most of the 150 men who had joined him fled. Holed up in a mosque with fewer than a dozen supporters, Abul Abed thought the end was near.
"The blue carpet was soaked red with blood," he recalled. Then the imam of the mosque called in American help.
Now Abul Abed, a swaggering former major in the Iraqi army and reputedly a top leader in the influential Islamic Army insurgent group, reigns supreme in Amariyah -- with considerable help from the U.S. military.
...
"The question is, what's the break point? ... How long before people start getting sick of it and start checking out?" he said.
'Americans are our protectors'
Abul Abed said the Sunni revolution has gone too far for that.
"Americans are our protectors and saviors," he said.
The only reason the left wing mind can believe that the Sunnis could take on their former al Qaeda allies by themselves is that the left has spent the better part of a year denying that al Qaeda in Iraq was even a potent force. The fact that they were completely in the dark about the lethality of that terrorist organization is what allowed troop-surge-opposing liberals to imagine that the Sunnis could easily do the job themselves. But stories like the one above show how wrong it is to think along those lines.
Finally, about those revered "political benchmarks." As usual, Charles Krauthammer nails it:
The revival of ordinary life in many cities is palpable. Something important is happening.
And what is the reaction of the war critics? Nancy Pelosi stoutly maintains her state of denial, saying this about the war just two weeks ago: "This is not working. . . . We must reverse it." A euphemism for "abandon the field," which is what every Democratic presidential candidate is promising, with variations only in how precipitous to make the retreat.
How do they avoid acknowledging the realities on the ground? By asserting that we have not achieved political benchmarks -- mostly legislative actions by the Baghdad government -- that were set months ago. And that these benchmarks are paramount. And that all the current progress is ultimately vitiated by the absence of centrally legislated national reconciliation.
...
Why is top-down national reconciliation as yet unattainable? Because decades of Saddam Hussein's totalitarianism followed by the brutality of the post-invasion insurgency destroyed much of Iraq's political infrastructure, causing Iraqis to revert to the most basic political attachment -- tribe and locality. Gen. David Petraeus's genius has been to adapt American strategy to capitalize on that development, encouraging the emergence of and allying ourselves with tribal and provincial leaders -- without waiting for cosmic national deliverance from the newly constructed and still dysfunctional constitutional apparatus in Baghdad.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq is in disarray, the Sunni insurgency in decline, the Shiite militias quiescent, the capital city reviving. Are we now to reverse course and abandon all this because parliament cannot ratify the reconciliation already occurring on the ground?
Do the critics forget their own arguments about the irrelevance of formal political benchmarks? The transfer of power in 2004. The two elections in 2005. The ratification of the constitution. Those were all supposed to be turning points to pacify the country and bring stability -- all blown to smithereens by the Samarra bombing in February 2006, which precipitated an orgy of sectarian violence and a descent into civil war.
So, just as we have learned this hard lesson of the disconnect between political benchmarks and real stability, the critics now claim the reverse -- that benchmarks are what really count.
This is to fundamentally mistake ends and means. The benchmarks would be a wonderful shortcut to success in Iraq. But it is folly to abandon the pursuit of that success when a different route, more arduous but still doable, is at hand and demonstrably working.
Abandon your fetish for the passage of political benchmarks. The idea that all is lost if Iraq's parliament does not pass them is just an idea floating in your head (not a reality unfolding on the ground). If there is one thing you should have learned by now, it's this: when it comes to Iraq, don't place much value on the ideas that are running free in your liberal head. Instead, gather evidence and adjust your thinking accordingly.
POSTED BY ENGRAM
A great comment follows:
Garth Farkley says
War is a hotly charged emotional issue. People react to it with their guts. Most of those feelings are negative--fear, anger, disgust, guilt, shame. This is part of the war fatigue that democratic countries routinely experience.
As a former soldier I also acknowldege my own strong feelings of pride in our country and troops, tempered as they are by my disgust for war and killing. I believe I am fairly unusual in admitting any positive feelings about this war. It's a dangerous position to take nowadays.
But I am not unique. There definitely are "other" emotions associated with war. IIRC General Lee said that "It is good that war is so terrible, or else we should love it too much." On the other side of that conflict is the story of the amazing patriots depicted in the film "Glory." Of course, it is not fashionable now to find any glory in war. But these fashions come and go.
Without a doubt the actions of men in wartime demonstrate the highest potentials of human beings for nobility and glory on the one hand and depravity and horror on the other. You just can't completely write off the courage, sacrifice nobility and glory, no matter how horrible and depraved the whole business is.
My wife is a fairly reasonable liberal, but she shuts down and gets mad at me upon any mere mention of the word Iraq. I think it's important to her on some deep level to emphasize the utter repulsiveness of war. Of course, it's true, we must. Yes war is horrible, and the loss of a single soldier is a perverse, tragic loss to the nation and his family. But it does no one any good to abandon our objectivity and rationality.
Indeed, hotly charged emotional issues are the ones that require the most careful thought. It's hard to be analytical but we can never quit trying. That is just as much an abandonment of our humanity as is the surrender to blood lust and xenophobia. War is the ultimate test of humanity because it requires soldiers to make the most crucial decisions about life, death and morality--about heaven and hell really--on a daily basis under the most horrifying, and debilitating conditions of fear and utmost fatigue.
I personally believe that our Generals understand the horror of war and are trying to accomplish this most difficult and most human balancing act. I also believe Engram is on the right track. I do not sense even a whiff that he is glorifying this enterprise. He seems to be merely trying to make objective sense of it, which is his duty as a citizen of this country at war.
It is the duty of each of us, for or against the war, to analyze it as objectively as we can with the best evidence we can find. We certainly owe that much to the young men and women who are dying there and the families who are making the ultimate sacrifice. To shirk the hard, objective analysis and decisions just because war is so ugly is simply in my opinion cowardice. It may feel good to chant slogans like "War, what is it good for?" But falling back on a trite mantra, in the face of a compelling moral dilemna, is ultimately not life affirming but is in fact an abandonment of our humanity.
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