David Brooks: George Bush, the Surge, and surprising results

David Brooks came out yesterday in something like defense of George W. Bush and the surge in Iraq. 

Brooks points out that the same bullheaded traits that caused the failures of the first 5 years of the Iraq War, were the same traits that made Bush so sure "the surge" was going to work. Essentially, that the lousy traits Bush portrays in leadership, actually led him to the right decision on the surge in the face of vociferous opposition. From his column...

Bush is a stubborn man. Well, without that stubbornness, that unwillingness to accept defeat on his watch, he never would have bucked the opposition to the surge.

Bush is an outrageously self-confident man. Well, without that self-confidence he never would have overruled his generals.....

Bush is also a secretive man who listens too much to Dick Cheney. Well, the uncomfortable fact is that Cheney played an essential role in promoting the surge. Many of the people who are dubbed bad guys actually got this one right.

He makes a good point, one more about the pros and cons of any leadership style. I think in the case of the surge though, the jury is still largely out. What Brooks and other conservative commentators miss is why we were all so opposed to "the surge" and why even after it's measurable gains most Americans are still opposed to it, and George W. Bush in overwhelming numbers. 

People opposed "the surge" because it was seen as escalation. Not only in a fight we were losing, that was costing American lives, but in a cause we didn't understand. The essential problem with the war in Iraq has been and always will be in the eyes of many Americans, that we never should have been there in the first place. Many Americans, myself very much included, don't understand what "victory" really is over there. I recognize that "the surge" has created security, and that the country might even be rebuilding itself on some level. But when/if we leave aren't we just going to be left with another Lebanon? Another supposed beacon for Democracy in the middle east, that we will always worry will become a subverted strong hold for the Iran/Syria axis? 

No one ever understood the long term goal of going to Iraq because it's always been sold in short-term gains. We're going to get rid of WMD, then depose Saddam, then liberate the Iraqi people, then we were defeating insurgency, helping the government, building an army. All to what end? 

In the vacuum of a clear set of long term goals, the American people, with the help of satirists, authors, and cable TV, have ventured their own creative goals. Perhaps the Bush wants permanent bases, perhaps we want our own personal oil supply, perhaps we're there to support the military industrial complex. Pick your straw man and run with him because this administration doesn't explain it's actions, we just all deal with them. 

So maybe "the surge" is working...but I'd like to know what it's working towards.  

Policy Difference: Obama and McCain on Iraq

A lot of hay has been made over McCain's comments on the Today Show yesterday (who knew the Today Show could make news). His sound bite-let came off more calous than I'm sure he intended but it leads to an important policy difference. McCain has consistently laid out a template wherein the US maintains a long term presence similar to what we have in Japan and all around the world. 

Here's the Today Show Clip one more time. 

Again, set the delivery aside. McCain believes a long term draw down is possible. But to a sustainable troop level.

Senator Obama on the other hand seems to want to get out of Iraq expeditiously. 

Above, Obama gets to lay out his Iraq Policy in some length (from a debate in February). He seems to suggest a draw down and a date certain, but then mentions all of these forces we will need. Embassy protection, counter-terrorism, humanitarian protection. What number are we drawing down to and when? His argument is about strategy on the world stage. It's cerebral and a breath of fresh air after the Bush administration. McCain's is about nuts and bolts military action. The question for voters on this issue is do they want erudite or do they want meat and potatoes? 

Are we still fighting a war?

It strikes me that we have talked an awful lot about the economy lately and the latest political gaffe. Many Americans have learned what a super delegate is and can now explain it by heart. But can we find Baghdad on a map? Are we up on the status of our troops? Where is the media coverage of what's going on?

If a country fights a war and there is not media to cover it, is it really happening?

Bush on the War

One last thing...

I think its pathetic and disgusting that the President gets to stand, no hide behind the decorated chest of David Petraeus and the experience and expertise of Ambassador Crocker. Then the next day speak of a draw down in troops. Speak of how he can continue his "return on success" policy. The surge troop levels were unsustainable and we knew that before it began. By the way, last year and this time we had 130,000 American troops in Iraq, the surge put that number to 160,000, when the surge recedes we will have 140,000. That's not a draw down. That's an escalation. Remember those things as you watch the following....

The War that was and the War that remains

Calling our conflict in Iraq a war is not really accurate. It's not a war, its now an occupation and has been ever since our President declared Mission Accomplished. It's an important distinction both politically and factually. I'm sure the term occupation doesn't test as well with the focus groups, so we keep calling it a war.

In any case, General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker came back to Washington last week to testify before a salivating congress. The presidential candidates were out in full force both to grandstand and look as presidential as possible with the men that are crafting their biggest foreign policy issue.

Setting aside the questions of the candidates, all of which I actually thought was quite good, there was one tunning thing missing from the testimony last week. A clear picture of what results we are looking for before we can begin to execute a withdrawal.

Let me be clear here, there are the political games the candidates are playing McCaina nd the GOP promising an impossible victory (impossible because no one can define victory), and the democrats are promising an instant withdrawal upon stepping foot in the Oval Office. The truth was pretty well laid out by Colin Powell last week as he prescribed the reality the next commander in chief will face. What troubles me at this juncture with violence at least temporarily down, is that we haven't defined for ourselves under what circumstances we will leave. We have no operational or political fence posts we can point to and say, "when the Iraqis have done x,y,z, then we can begin to draw down." Instead we are left with vague policies and empty gestures from the President.

We need an end game in Iraq, we don't have the human or financial resources to keep this farce going.

Swan Song?

Hilary Clinton today has told voters to "Count on me" to end the Iraq war according to FirstRead. Clinton insists that she will withdraw troops within 60 days of being president. Really? Regardless of what happens in Iraq over months and months before that first day in office, Sen. Clinton? There are no circumstances under which you'd change your mind? Well, that sounds imprudent to me--the same gung-ho immovability we criticize Bush for. But well maybe that is just a symptom of a desperate effort to differentiate yourself from the crowd. But beyond that, isn't it interesting that "McCain's campaign has been especially quick about pushing back against Obama when he asserts the Arizona senator would be fine with staying in Iraq for a century, but has seemed less critical when Clinton has made almost identical remarks."

Perhaps McCain's campaign is gearing up for who they think they will fight in the general election. Is this another sign that Clinton is down and almost out? We'll see. I can't help feeling there could yet be a couple of surprises in store for us.

The War: Graphic Images Ahead

"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. "

-Thomas Jefferson

The Presidency of George W. Bush will be defined by the Iraq War. That much we know. More than any other American action of the new millennium the war in Iraq has defined our time. Yet we don't truly understand it. Lost in the never ending parade of explanations and justifications of why we went in, why we remain, and why there is no cohesive plan for the future, we forget there are governmental mechanics at play. We forget that Americans and Iraqis are losing their lives amidst the fallout of the decision to go to war and the succession of poor managerial decisions made in its prosecution.

PBS and it's news documentary series Frontline have made efforts to educate. Their two part series, Bush's War, is a painstaking effort to explain the run-up to the Iraq War. This is more than simply an exercise in recent history. It gives the viewer an inside look at how the war was prosecuted and why. It shows what can only be taken as President Bush's sincere belief that the war in Iraq was justifiable and winnable, and shows the step by step failure of policy and decision making. This special is important viewing for members of any political stripe, not because it justifies a political point of view. But because it promotes understanding. The characters we all remember, Rumsfeld, Bremer, Tenet and the others are there, but the characters we forget-Generals Sanchez and Casey, Ahmed Chalabi and others are also. We relive the things we saw on the evening news in thirty-second snippets, and get them in full context. From aluminum tubes to shock and awe. These terms and memories are critical to our understanding of future international diplomatic an military decisions. It is important because it breaks down how a nation makes mistakes and what policies we need to examine to prevent such atrocities from happening again.

The major question I ask myself in looking back on the war is where were our checks and balances? Specifically our unspoken but most important check, our news media. In a day and age where we have more media outlets and means of communication that ever, we experienced a media with no dissent. Images like these never made the airwaves here in America. We didn't see the searing video shot daily in Iraq. Images of coffins, dead soliders, dead Iraqis, car bombings, and all other horrendous ramifactions of this conflict are scrubbed. The media had more respect for the public in the time of the vietnam war, when the public watched newsreel, then days or weeks old of combat misssions. Now we can have video in hours and yet we skip it for pictures of Britney Spears.

Please understand that I do not believe all Americans should march in lock-step that this war was wrong or is wrong. I think every American should look at as many facts and points of view as possible and always be formulating an evolving opinion. But difficult truths and hard-to-watch footage don't make for good ratings on cable news. So instead of watching this war unfold as our parents did, or rushing to movie theaters to see newsreels as their parents did. We sit home and watch "reality TV" while we ignore reality's real problems. Many of the images included in this blog post were scrubbed from TV broadcast. Believed inappropriate for television, we watch a war the censors, and the Pentagon would like us to see. Or worse we ignore it altogether, we bask in the glow of celebrity gossip and the latest political name-calling instead of keeping our eye on the ball. It has been more than five years and we still don't fully understand this conflict, all the players involved or what our end game could be.

Let us remember that we are blessed with a free press and we must resist all governmental, societal and indeed corporate pressures on that press. It was that lack of balance, foresight and honesty that allowed the people of the United States to be duped into supporting this war in the first place.

Body of War

We've all seen the headlines over the weekend. 5 Years. Over 4,000 American soldiers dead. After awhile the numbers becoming numbing and begin to stop telling the story of what it is to give so much for your country. The story of a veteran is a deeply personal and sobering one. The sacrifice one makes lasts not just through their tour of duty but for the rest of their lives. Such is the story of Tomas Young he is now paralyzed from the nipples down after taking a bullet in Iraq during his first week there.

His story is the subject of a new powerful documentary called Body of War. Film makers Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue (yes, that Phil Donahue) take a look into the daily life of a young man who joined the army on September 13th 2001, and has lived a different life ever since.

For many of us the armed services are remote. We don't have a family member or even a close friend in the service, and so we are as a population removed from the burdens of service. Perhaps if we weren't there would be more of an outcry against the ongoing travesty that is the Iraq War.

What war?

For those who were celebrating Easter on Sunday, you might not have had time to notice the little reported fact that American casualties in Iraq have now reached 4000. What was even more interesting in a BBC article was their assertion that Americans are quickly losing interest in the Iraq war as opposed to a few months ago. I think you would agree that even CNN has strayed from their once rabid coverage of the Iraqi conflict. Most Americans couldn't tell you how many americans died in Iraq, but they can give you a blow by blow of the Brittany Spears saga in sequential order. I have always thought Fox News was a joke, where even at the height of the conflict the lead story would be "Camel Escapes from Zoo, Public Runs for Life". Aside from the movie Stop Loss, Hollywood has seemed to cool on their message of ending the war when compared to only a year or two ago. Why? Why does it seem like the media has somehow forgotten to report on one of the most compelling daily stories aside from the upcoming election? It's because we the public have lost our desire to hear about it. It could be that Americans are more preoccupied with losing their homes and the phantom recession (that the current administration will not recognize).  I'm not really a chest thumping kinda guy who loves the machismo of war, but people need to stop and recognize the sacrifice that our soldiers are making every day. Regardless of how one feels about the war, it's shameful that it's become back-page news. It's gut check time people, either you really care about ending this thing or you don't. Please don't use it as political fodder every fall and then forget about it for the other nine or ten months a year.