Explaining Iraq, pt. 1
There are a number of questions about Iraq. I'm going to take a few days and try to cover some of them. If you have a question, please let me know and I'll see about addressing it.
QUESTION 1: Is this a successful war?
A: It depends entirely upon your perspective. It's not inaccurate to describe this as one of the most successful wars in the entire duration of human history, although that's a take which few people hear. It's also an inherent failure, depending on your point of view. I'll explain.
Whenever you have anything as complex as a battle or a war, there are going to be a large number of elements you can compare. Here are some of the terms under which this conflict is successful:
1) Civilian casualties. Historically, most conflicts tend to run into high percentages of the locals being killed and/or displaced. The numbers in Iraq have been extremely small. The greatest damage to the civilians have been in the years since the original phase of the conflict was completed, both due to internal conflicts and terrorist targeting. And, while those numbers are large, they still don't equal the average civilian death toll per year under Saddam, which means that a) civilian casualties as a result of coalition military are minimal and b) civilian casualties as a function of living in Iraq are down. The only figures which have contested this was a poll under which people went door to door and asked how many friends and family had perished recently. All measures of actual bodies show lower figures than under Saddam. Iraq is, in this case, one of the most successful conflicts in history.
2) Speed of objective completion. This was a war to eliminate a sitting government. That task was completed in a time unheard of, historically. Later objectives, whether elections for the creation of a constitution or the creation of a coalition government, have consistently occurred ahead of schedule. That, despite the fact that naysayers continued to assert those goals as being impossible to reach. Think about it: we managed to overthrow an enemy government, clear the ground for free elections, provide protection during two contested elections, and hand over control. All of this was done while allowing the overwhelming population of combat-age males to survive. In places like Germany and Japan, where most of the combat-aged males had been killed in the conflicts, and where there were no bordering nations wishing to perpetuate the domestic violence, the transitions were far easier; even though there were residual attacks, there were few which resulted in fatalities in Germany and none which resulted in fatalities in Japan. But both of them took far longer, even with the comparative peace, to achieve what the US acheived in Iraq in terms of transition. Despite the continued targeting of police forces, training of the Iraqi police and military is running ahead of schedule. In this case as well, Iraq is one of the most successful conflicts in history.
3) Troop casualties. In most significant conflicts in the past, the US has lost in a single week more soldiers than we've lost due to a combination of combat, accident, and natural death over in Iraq since the initiation of hostilities. Barring Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield, this has been the most successful war the US has fought, in terms of damages both fatal and nonfatal to our own troops.
So... Civilian casualties and property damage, objective completion, and troop damage all rate this conflict as being among the most successful wars on the history of the planet. Where are the failures?
1) Monetary cost. This conflict has been incredibly expensive, beyond the ability for most people to comprehend. Not only have we had to support our own troops, as usual, we have also been building up a military which was drastically shrunk during the previous administration. We have been spending more money on both creation and distribution of cutting-edge weaponry and defensive materiel like body armor. On top of all of that, we have been propping up the Iraqi economy by funnelling cash into it, sometimes in disgustingly wasteful ways (more on that in a following post.) This is, quite simply, a war cost which is unheard of in terms of real dollars. As a percentage of the economy, it doesn't approach many conflicts in the past, so an argument can be made that it's not a significant amount of money in that regard. But when you're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars every year, that -is- a lot of money being poured into the conflict.
2) Morality. This is a shaky one, but it is among the most important. There are many people who feel that, because it was a pre-emptive war, it was and is inherently immoral. To those people, the moment we put the first boot on the ground in Iraq we failed. Everything afterward was simply a continued drill bit into their teeth, whether the news was good or bad for the US soldiers. There can be no victory in Iraq, because we lost years ago.
3) Propaganda. If you ask most Americans how the war is faring, they'll tell you it's going poorly. Now, there is solid evidence that progress has stalled, but that's as far as it goes. As an analogy, it would be akin to a marathon runner traversing 23 miles in only a half hour, but then standing there panting and drinking water before they feel comfortable continuing. On the whole, their activity would be nothing short of amazing, but if the only glimpse a person got was of the runner standing and drinking, the viewer would walk away suspecting the worst.
Most people don't pay attention to recent history: they hear the current sound bite, and go off of that. It's also true that bad news tends to lead broadcasts. As a result, people have been hearing bad news over and over, with only occasional spikes of positive news. And, while the levels haven't been proportional, their coverage has been roughly equal: the deaths of three soldiers over a day receives about the same amount of coverage as the Iraqi parliament approving the country's first Constitution. In this regard, this is an even worse failure than Vietnam. In Iraq, the propaganda failure has been nearly as great, but with far greater and more visible evidence of success.
QUESTION 1: Is this a successful war?
A: It depends entirely upon your perspective. It's not inaccurate to describe this as one of the most successful wars in the entire duration of human history, although that's a take which few people hear. It's also an inherent failure, depending on your point of view. I'll explain.
Whenever you have anything as complex as a battle or a war, there are going to be a large number of elements you can compare. Here are some of the terms under which this conflict is successful:
1) Civilian casualties. Historically, most conflicts tend to run into high percentages of the locals being killed and/or displaced. The numbers in Iraq have been extremely small. The greatest damage to the civilians have been in the years since the original phase of the conflict was completed, both due to internal conflicts and terrorist targeting. And, while those numbers are large, they still don't equal the average civilian death toll per year under Saddam, which means that a) civilian casualties as a result of coalition military are minimal and b) civilian casualties as a function of living in Iraq are down. The only figures which have contested this was a poll under which people went door to door and asked how many friends and family had perished recently. All measures of actual bodies show lower figures than under Saddam. Iraq is, in this case, one of the most successful conflicts in history.
2) Speed of objective completion. This was a war to eliminate a sitting government. That task was completed in a time unheard of, historically. Later objectives, whether elections for the creation of a constitution or the creation of a coalition government, have consistently occurred ahead of schedule. That, despite the fact that naysayers continued to assert those goals as being impossible to reach. Think about it: we managed to overthrow an enemy government, clear the ground for free elections, provide protection during two contested elections, and hand over control. All of this was done while allowing the overwhelming population of combat-age males to survive. In places like Germany and Japan, where most of the combat-aged males had been killed in the conflicts, and where there were no bordering nations wishing to perpetuate the domestic violence, the transitions were far easier; even though there were residual attacks, there were few which resulted in fatalities in Germany and none which resulted in fatalities in Japan. But both of them took far longer, even with the comparative peace, to achieve what the US acheived in Iraq in terms of transition. Despite the continued targeting of police forces, training of the Iraqi police and military is running ahead of schedule. In this case as well, Iraq is one of the most successful conflicts in history.
3) Troop casualties. In most significant conflicts in the past, the US has lost in a single week more soldiers than we've lost due to a combination of combat, accident, and natural death over in Iraq since the initiation of hostilities. Barring Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield, this has been the most successful war the US has fought, in terms of damages both fatal and nonfatal to our own troops.
So... Civilian casualties and property damage, objective completion, and troop damage all rate this conflict as being among the most successful wars on the history of the planet. Where are the failures?
1) Monetary cost. This conflict has been incredibly expensive, beyond the ability for most people to comprehend. Not only have we had to support our own troops, as usual, we have also been building up a military which was drastically shrunk during the previous administration. We have been spending more money on both creation and distribution of cutting-edge weaponry and defensive materiel like body armor. On top of all of that, we have been propping up the Iraqi economy by funnelling cash into it, sometimes in disgustingly wasteful ways (more on that in a following post.) This is, quite simply, a war cost which is unheard of in terms of real dollars. As a percentage of the economy, it doesn't approach many conflicts in the past, so an argument can be made that it's not a significant amount of money in that regard. But when you're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars every year, that -is- a lot of money being poured into the conflict.
2) Morality. This is a shaky one, but it is among the most important. There are many people who feel that, because it was a pre-emptive war, it was and is inherently immoral. To those people, the moment we put the first boot on the ground in Iraq we failed. Everything afterward was simply a continued drill bit into their teeth, whether the news was good or bad for the US soldiers. There can be no victory in Iraq, because we lost years ago.
3) Propaganda. If you ask most Americans how the war is faring, they'll tell you it's going poorly. Now, there is solid evidence that progress has stalled, but that's as far as it goes. As an analogy, it would be akin to a marathon runner traversing 23 miles in only a half hour, but then standing there panting and drinking water before they feel comfortable continuing. On the whole, their activity would be nothing short of amazing, but if the only glimpse a person got was of the runner standing and drinking, the viewer would walk away suspecting the worst.
Most people don't pay attention to recent history: they hear the current sound bite, and go off of that. It's also true that bad news tends to lead broadcasts. As a result, people have been hearing bad news over and over, with only occasional spikes of positive news. And, while the levels haven't been proportional, their coverage has been roughly equal: the deaths of three soldiers over a day receives about the same amount of coverage as the Iraqi parliament approving the country's first Constitution. In this regard, this is an even worse failure than Vietnam. In Iraq, the propaganda failure has been nearly as great, but with far greater and more visible evidence of success.
posted by AM | 7:21 PM
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