MyDD :: TNR looks into the abyss.

TNR looks into the abyss.

by tlaura, Wed Jun 02, 2004 at 03:02:30 PM EST

(I solicited this article from the dailykos diaries. It is an excellent depiction of just how far some hawks want us to go in Iraq, and just how scary the future of Iraq could potentially be--Chris)

I'm a TNR-defender by and large. But yesterday's online edition of the magazine featured an article so scary it shakes me. Victor Davis Hanson (could he really fit TNR's -- or anyone's --model of a liberal interventionist?) writes a piece called "Stop Talking" (subtitle: "Kill the insurgents".)

Here are a few of Hanson's claims:

Please click on "Read More" for the entire article.

"Most of the time in war, diplomatic machinations don't create enduring realities--events on the battlefield do. After World War I, the defeated, but not humiliated, German army that surrendered in France and Belgium provided the origins for the "stab in the back" mythology that fueled Hitler's rise to power. After World War II, by contrast, the shattered and shamed Wehrmacht in Berlin was unable to energize a Fourth Reich."

It's interesting that Hanson is talking about the "stab in the back myth" since it's recently come up about the current situation: Matt Yglesias in particular deals with the new conservative idea that "liberal commentators are killing the war effort" which Hanson implicitly feeds here. Also, I'm not a history buff but my understanding was that the rise of Hitler was largely caused by diplomatic failure: specifically the allies' draconian demands for reparations that fed far-right populist hostility in Germany -- a mistake not repeated after WWII. Maybe that's just the liberal interpretation of history, but it's always the one I've read. Hanson doesn't give it a mention.

Later, Hanson opines:

A year ago, we waged a brilliant three-week campaign, then mysteriously forgot the source of our success. Military audacity, lethality, unpredictability, imperviousness to cheap criticism, and iron resolve, coupled with the message of freedom, convinced neutrals to join us and enemies not yet conquered to remain in the shadows. But our failure to shoot looters, to arrest early insurrectionists like Sadr, and to subdue cities like Tikrit or Falluja only earned us contempt--and not just from those who would kill us, but from others who would have joined us as well.

I can't believe I read that. "Our failure to shoot looters?" What about the "contempt" we've earned by our actions at Abu Ghraib, or "we don't do body counts" approach to civilian casualties? Not even mentioned in the article.

Later, he says this:

There are other advantages to a force of some 138,000 rapidly responding soldiers, rather than 200,000 or so garrison troops. The more American troops, the less likely it is Iraqis will feel any obligation to step up to the responsibilities of their own defense. The more troops, the more psychological reliance on numbers than on performance of individual units. And, the more troops, the higher the profile of culturally bothersome Americans who disturb by their mere omnipresence, rather than win respect for their proven skill in arms.

But the IISS estimate (cribbed from Billmon) for how many troops are needed isn't 200,000 but about a half million -- enough to replicate the soldier/ civilian ratio in Bosnia. If you don't know that inconvinient bit of dissent from Hanson's grand ideas, his discussion sounds pragmatic on its face; but it's actually pretty sinister: not more troops, just more trigger-happy ones. As if lack of discipline in dealing with civilians and prisoners hasn't caused enough problems. Is he honestly suggesting things would be better if we'd gone ahead and razed Falluja?

Then comes the Neocon dream:

A consensual Iraq, then, even in the broadest sense, is a de facto revolutionary force in the region, whose daily televised parliamentary proceedings, free and open presses, economic transparency, and vibrant popular culture offer an alternative paradigm to the same old tired Middle East dichotomy between the Islamic fundamentalism of the masses and the fascist autocracy of the elite...

And the Realpolitik kicker:

The hard truth is that grand diplomacy and geopolitical calculus depend on the lethality of a few thousand American fighters in the streets of Karbala, Kufa, and Najaf. The more lethal they are today, the safer Iraqis and Americans will be in the years to come.

That combination of Realist shoot-first-ask-later dominance and Neocon pie-in-the-sky democracy-dreaming (for a country that's never known it; who's neighbors have never known it; who are still Third World in many social and economic aspects; that is culturally averse to everything else Western) is not only wildly contradictory, it's wildly scary. I usually defend TNR for offering the smarter side of hawkishness and making me think about my opposition to the War; but this, in my opinion, is the abyss.

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Permalink :: 9 Comments :: Post a Comment

Thank you very much (none / 0)

This is excellent stuff.

by Chris Bowers on Wed Jun 02, 2004 at 03:12:54 PM EST

Winning a colonial war (none / 0)

In a colonial war, where the people occupying a country are sttruggling against a native population that overwhelmingly wants the occupiers to leave, there is only one for the occupiers to "win": genocide.

This why we were never going to win in Vietnam, no matter how many more troops we sent. This is why the British were never going to win in the Revolutionary war, no matter how many troops they sent.

Iraq has become a colonial war, and we are the occupiers. Unless we somehow concinvce the Iraqi populace otherwise, we have already lost. Of course, there is probably no longer any way to convince the Iraqi populace otherwise.

Victor Davis Hansen's piece strikes me as the beginning of Goldwater-like calls for genocide against the population we are liberating. It won't surprise me if we start seeing more of these as the months progress.

by Chris Bowers on Wed Jun 02, 2004 at 03:34:11 PM EST

Shorter Hanson... (none / 0)

We've got to keep killing them till they like us.

by Anonymous Citizen on Wed Jun 02, 2004 at 04:02:39 PM EST

The enemy is.... (none / 0)

not the just terrorists, "bitter-enders" and islamic radicalists,....

it is the population of Iraq (or any that offer any opposition to US forces.

This has been coming. Kimmitt in Iraq and Bush in DC always refer to the 'enemy'.

If the new government, backed by popular opinion, tells us to leave, they will be the 'enemy' too?

Scary stuff....

"Pay any price, bear any burden"

by JimPortlandOR on Wed Jun 02, 2004 at 04:06:02 PM EST

Off topic : Ak Senate race (none / 0)

Knowles 45.7%
Murkowski at 41.4%
Skyes 1.3%

MoE 4.4%

Murkowski 63%
Miller 28%

by Anonymous Citizen on Wed Jun 02, 2004 at 04:16:32 PM EST

Sheesh (none / 0)

Why do let these people who know nothing about security blather on about it? VDH is what, an ideologue classicist with no military or diplomatic experience, and now the TNR is giving this pulpit to uncork his morally abject and strategically suspect crap on stabilizing Iraq?

The very first claim was just amazing: a "failure to shoot looters." If VDH knew a damned thing about security, he'd realize that you can stop looters with a minimum of shooting and killing. You just need to have enough people around to wave guns at them--that's actually the best case: security without casualties. If you go for the "small amount of trigger happy troops" option, then you stupidly risk escalating small-time criminality into full-scale insurgency. Duh...

by Anonymous Citizen on Wed Jun 02, 2004 at 04:27:37 PM EST

The "stab in the back myth" (none / 0)

Just to clear up everybody's history Germany rarely and in some cases never managed to fullfill the economic quotas set out for them in the Versailles treaty. The Versailles treaty did little to damage the German economy during that time and as everyone should know the German economy was in a superior situation relative to its opposition by the late 1930's.

Germany prepared for World War II by, among other ways, securing all of its resources so that it was not dependant on any of the states associated with what would become known as the Allied Powers. We all know what happened thereafter. Of course shoddy diplomacy played a role in allowing for the development of WWII, but I would argue that every war is a diplomatic failure. Such is the nature of war and diplomacy.

In response to one of the earlierposts about this article stating that this Iraq war is a colonial war I would like to offer this distinction. At this point Iraq has the potentional to develop into a colonial war, but at the moment it issimply a so-called limited war, which as the author suggested would mean that a "win" could only be achieved through genocide. This is also true in a limited war. The main difference between the two is that one implies occupation and economic imperialism whereas the other does not. At the very least alimited war does not miply economic imperialism.

by Anonymous Citizen on Wed Jun 02, 2004 at 05:15:56 PM EST

It doesn't sound as bad as half the dribble (none / 0)

out there but then you realize it is entirely and completely devoid of any real suggestions except for ridiculous "if only we had" scenarios. What a waste of magazine space.

by Anonymous Citizen on Thu Jun 03, 2004 at 12:59:30 AM EST

Kill 'em all (none / 0)

Anyone else finish reading that piece and think of Heart of Darkness or Apocoplypse Now? Kill em all.

And no the Hoover Institute is not known as an enlightened intellectual bastion.

by Anonymous Citizen on Thu Jun 03, 2004 at 09:17:11 AM EST

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