Refusing To Follow The Narrative
Clifford at 2:37 am, November 16th, 2005
So at noon today I went to hear Robert Fisk give a talk on campus, only a five minute walk from my office. It was exciting to me since Robert Fisk’s is a voice I know well from his reporting and excellent writing as a foreign correspondent for the Independent (the British newspaper, not the Santa Barbara free one). His is a voice I’ve learned to trust, and who can be relied on for considerable depth and vision in his pieces. In fact, until I learned of Juan Cole’s excellent blog Informed Comment last week (I sat with him in a day long meeting I reported on here) -which I recommend- his was pretty close to the only voice that I trusted to tell me what is really going on in the Middle East.
So to learn (from a graduate student here in Physics, Tameem Allbash [thanks!]) that he was on campus was a pleasant surprise, and I thought it was rather odd that I did not notice the announcement. Surely this will be a huge event, and I should R.S.V.P. to someone, and arrive on time to make sure I get a seat. Right? Wrong. There was harldy any advertising (actually I saw none at all.) So in fact, there was a huge crowd (standing room only) in a huge open air square on the USC campus when Michael Moore came last year, and there were people standing at the back for lack of seats at the really large Presbyterian church, where George Galloway came to talk (I reported on it here). Now both of these guys came with a message that I actually (largely) agree with (and yes, people get angry and confused and not listen to Galloway because of who he is and who we’ve been told he is…..), but this guy, Robert Fisk, is really it! This guy has had 30 years experience in the region, and is everyday on the ground in Iraq, dodging bullets to report to us what is going on. He’s interviewed all sorts of people on all sides of the political divide(s) over many year. This is the guy for whom there should be fighting in the aisles to get tickets and seats to hear him talk.
So I showed up, and… there was about 50 people. Actually, I think I’m being generous in this estimate. Amazing. Just amazing, and sadly ironic. (You can’t excuse it all by saying that the people in the USA don’t know him as he is from the UK, because that’s the point. Given that there are so few clear voices on the issues he talks about, more people should know about him….)
Well, moving on from that shock, let me tell you a little about what he had to say. Let me say at the outset that he’s written a new book, and he was (in that apologetic manner that we British are so good at when it comes to money changing hands) promoting it. From what he said in the talk, I’m happy to tell you to go out and get it if you are interested. (Perhaps I should have bought a few copies and got them signed and sold them on to you, but I did not.)
This won’t be a complete report, but just some bits here and there to give you an idea of what he was saying, and how he said it. If you ever hear that he is talking somewhere near you, please consider going to hear what is really going on in the Middle East because frankly, it is at least as bad as you’ve feared.
One of his themes was, as he put it
refusing to follow the narrative laid down by our betters
and by “betters” he is referring, with tongue in cheek, to our political leaders, the Bush- and Blair- types; the Rumsfelds, Powells, Rices….. you get the idea. He spoke of the book as being a tribute to his father, with whom he did not see eye-to-eye (his father was mostly sympathetic to politics that the speaker did not agree with), but who nevertheless he had a lot of respect for, chiefly as a result of actions (or rather refusing to do certain actions) during the Second World War. In fact, the title of the book (”The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East”) came partly from the inscription on the back of one of the medals his father wore proudly every November 11th (Remembrance day in the UK - the analogue of Veteran’s day in the USA). Fisk of course questions the very notions in the title.
He says that the book is depressing, and was hard to write. He has poured in a lot of himself into this book, as you can tell from the strains in his voice as he talks about parts of it. Another excellent quote I managed to write down from him was about reporters in the region:
We should all carry history books in our back pockets; the reporters notebook should be a secondary concern.
And of course he is right, and painfully so. One cannot understand what is going on there without looking at the history of the region, particularly the “fine” work done there by the Western powers in the last century or so. To know the history is to see and recognize the same mistakes that were made in the past being made there again with eerie accuracy. He gave many examples. Some large scale some small. The large scale involves recalling the invasions by the British in that area of the world on a number of occasions, and the politics that was going on at the time, and the similarity of the situations and arguments. The small scale involves noting that the first British soldier to be killed by “insurgents” during the occupation was in 1920, near or in Fallujah. Many years later, he as a reporter, drove near the spot where the first American soldier to be killed by a roadside bomb during the occupation had fallen, in 2003. He saw his blood still on the ground. It was in Fallujah, not very far from the 1920 spot.
This year of 1920 of course saw Lloyd George (the British Prime Minister) under attack to “bring the troops home”, and of course there were huge numbers of innocent Iraqi civilians being killed daily, rumours of maltreatment of prisoners, and of course the claim was that if they pulled out, there would be a Civil war. There would be the attempts to shape a government while trying to give the appearance of not retaining control, etc, etc, etc. We’ve learned nothing. (Actually, I’ve just found an article written by Fisk on this here, and so you can read more.)
He talked about how he first came into journalism. He wanted to be a foreign correspondent because the hero in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film “Foreign Correspondent”, which he loved. Later in life, well into his career and as recently as a few years ago, he realizes that correspondents in his position are not primarily charged with helping to write the first draft of the history books. He’d got that wrong, as his friend Amira Hass explained to him. She told him (I paraphrase) that:
Journalists’ role is to monitor the centers of power. To challenge authority. Especially when such powers are about to engage in war, murder, lying, torture……
He talked about how their role is also to remind us that war:
War is not about victory, or defeat. It is about death, and the inflicting of death, and the total failure of the human spirit.
He talked, quite shockingly, about the two types of journalism left to do on the ground in Iraq now. “Hotel journalism” and “Mouse journalism”. Hotel journalism is the type where the journalists only operate from their suites in the Green zone. They’ve been told not to go out, and they obey. The make calls to various officials during the day and then file a report that could well have been written in Washington or New York. He does not blame these journalists, he says. It is dangerous out there. Some of them have young families to go home to. Mouse journalism is of a different type. You hear that there has been a bomb, say, and you get into a car with your local guides and get there as fast as you can. You get out of the car and you take pictures, and maybe grab an interview. In a short time a crowd of the locals will have assembled and they will be banging on the car, since he’d have been spotted - a Westerner. At that time you scarper. Get into your car and get out of there. Similar for a visit to a hospital, or other notable place. There’s always a guy with a phone nearby he says, and he has 20 minutes to get in and out, since he reckons that it takes about 25 minutes for that guy with the phone to get a truck load of armed insurgents (he does not like that word) to come along and snatch him. A prize to put in front of the video cameras and demand troop withdrawal on that night’s news.
He talks about the problems of language usage, and how little words can make a difference. The politicians choose those words, often, and the journalists can often buy into them and reinforce the biased imagery they were designed to evoke. “Wall” becomes “fence” and “colonies” become “neighbourhoods” or “settlements”, referring now to the West Bank. He mentions (and I did not know this) that the “fence” is higher than the Berlin wall was, but it is still called a fence by its supporters….. which takes away its general all around horror. (I found a Wikipedia article on this here.)
I’m getting tired now, and I’m only half way through my notes from the talk. I’ll try to finish, but I’ll be rather sketchy in places. Sorry.
He spoke of his (and others in the region) feelings that there was something on the way, close to September 11th 2001, and his frustration that their warnings about what was building up in the region (resentment) were not more effective.
He spoke about the terrible situation of not being able (even now) to as the “why” question after 9/11. You could ask the “who” (19 terrorists) and the “how” (boxcutters and planes), but the “why” got you in trouble. You got punished for it. He talked about arguing with Alan Dershowitz on the radio, who called him a “dangerous man” for raising such issues at the time, and how he was Anti-American, and how “To be Anti-American is to be Anti-Semetic”….
He projected (with his words) terrible images that he has witnessed. Scenes immediately following a suicide bombing, bodies brought into the mortuary in various states of disrepair - some with hands tied behind their backs, having been executed. (He mentions at this point the fact that there are rules that there are no post-mortem examinations on bodies brought in by US troops. He does not know why, and does not indicate how widespread this policy is, as it is not his main focus…) He recalls watching the one of the largest modern movement of troops ever to take place as the USA did a massive changeover of troops along a road, with full military alertness, of course, seeing all the armour, helicopters, troops, etc, which took four hours to pass by. And then he reminded himself that this is partly what this is all about (besides oil, which obviously plays a huge part): Superpowers have a “visceral” need to project power, in order to survive. He notes the wall that the USA has, made of troop concentrations, running from Greenland in a straight line through Iceland, the UK, Germany, the former Yugoslavia, Turkey……
He notes the astonishing and incomprehensible level of intensity that the suicide bombing has got to, which no reporter has seen before in any region, and reports the common belief that many of the bombers believe they are dead long before they detonate their cargo…
He talked a lot about who the insurgents actually are. The homegrown Iraqi ones are made up of trained former officers. He gave an example by talking about an interview with some of them where one of them recognized him and asked how he was. Noting Fisk’s confusion, the fellow explained how Fisk had interviewed him a long time ago when he was an Iraqi officer, at another time, another place, and another war…. he explains his thoughts about their motives, their hopes to inherit power when the vacuum comes, as it will. He talks about the fact that there has never been a civil war in Iraq, and how therefore the “fears” of what will happen if/when there is a withdrawal are incorrectly stated/focussed. Oversimplistic. (He worries about the Kurds, and what turkey might do.) He talks about Osama Bin Laden’s statement to all who would listen about five weeks before the US invasion, and how that was the turning point for so much in terms of the acceleration of the insurgency.
He talked lot about this all not being called what it is. Colonization, exploitation….etc, and how some of the root causes of so many of the problems stem from this alone:
Of course the region could use a little freedom, maybe some of our democracy, but what they most want is freedom from us….
He talked about the fact that the USA will have to talk to the insurgents. Just like the British did with Northern Island’s troubles. Just like happened in the Palestinian context. That they will have to withdraw from the region. That the USA will need the help of both Syria and Iran to withdraw (he did not elaborate…I would have liked to have understood his point on this.)
He talks about the problems with the word “insurgent” or any of the alternatives “resistance”, “rebels”, “terrorists”…. etc.
He talked about the health effects (on non-combatants and combatants alike) of using depleted uranium.
Finally, he talked about how it is just terrible there right now overall, and getting worse. How amazed he is when he comes to the West and sees what is on television. They’re just not showing anything like what is going on….
For the first time in 30 years, he is wondering if he can really carry with this. He was obviously shaken by admitting that, as it is his life’s work.
He says that he sees no cause for hope in the Middle East at the moment…..
-cvj
[Update: found another blog (Ed Strong) post of a similar talk.] [Update: here's a Pacificviews link to transcript of a recent interview.]
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Clifford,
I suppose we all perceive the world through the prism of our own biases. I am aware of Mr. Cole. You might see him an intrepid journalist-scholar bringing hidden truths to light. I see him as an anti-semitic conspiracy theorist blinded by leftist ideology.
Perhaps he’s changed since the time that I first dismissed him as an unlikely souce of unbiased information. If he’s like other zealots, however, this is rather unlikely.
“The fence is higher than the Berlin wall was, but it is still called a fence by its supporters…”
Yeah, that’s really really horrible. Almost in the same category as bombing a bus load of schoolgirls.
I heard Fisk on the radio, and he said something like, compared to the number of Muslims killed in various Western adventures in their homelands over the years, having only one 9/11 is a remarkably restrained reaction.
SF books in the 60s were talking about “the orgy of the living and the dying”, how most of the world full of despair and hopelessness would turn to nihilism of various sorts. Of course this was ignored. Now we see what this looks like in concrete form: “reports the common belief that many of the bombers believe they are dead long before they detonate their cargo…”
It’s only a matter of time before biotech gets involved. As the saying goes, what goes around comes around.
Commenters 1-3: Bringing some balance, real information, historical perspective, and reluctance to dehumanize either “side” to the discussion of the politics of the region does not mean that one is anti-semetic.
Neither Fisk nor Cole are advocates of killing anyone. They do not support suicide bombing or other terrorist acts. They also don’t support random adventures by western states, nor their killing of innocent civilians, and their failure to even report how many they’ve killed…..
Cheers,
-cvj
Cole, at least, is interesting to read once you get a feeling for his biases. Fisk, on the other hand, it pretty much just a twit as I remember it.
I fail to see how my comment implies that one is anti-semitic or an advocate of killing anyone. Rather, when one sees that another has been sinned against as much as sinned, then a better perspective follows.
Some Fisk for you:
http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles537.htm
wow this thread degenerated more quickly than one can say “complex situation that cannot be described in a series of one-liners”
btw, clifford did he say anything about the recent allegations of the use of napalm and white phosphorus on fallujah and other places?
War is macroeconomics.
The first Oxo process (1938 disclosure) manufacturing plant in Germany poured forth 10,000 metric tonnes/year of products. World War II ostensibly pursued tyrants, atrocities, democracy and such. World War II was a mostly agrarian United States desperate to steal, plunder, and defraud the patent universe of I.G. Farben A.G. to become an instant world-class industrial power. It did not turn backs on Ruhrchemie A.G. either. Otto Ruelen, who filed that first Oxo process patent, was their man. The US found him and wrung him dry, “Technical Advisory Committee Report A1ML-1″ (declassified).
http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/Bureau_of_Mines/reports/a1ml.htm
Let’s get Vlad Tepes’ real world with the Middle East. Day One: 11 September 2001 payback.
Ground effect increases as the cube root of weapon yield. Lofting an atmospheric plug removes containment and limits lateral effects. SOP is 100 kt hypocenter at 3000 ft above ground level (15 psi overpressure to level buildings through a 0.6 mile ground radius). Flash fry then punch ‘em down. Do it on a cloudless day or high clouds only.
http://terraserver.com/imagery/image_ermapper.asp?ulx=583326.5926&uly=2371224.1687&lrx=587326.5926&lry=2367224.1687&image=124&provider_id=150
21° 25′ 24″ N, 39° 49′ 24″ E 2-inch radius about the hypocenter
Load up a Tomahawk cruise missile and do a single W84 150 kt air burst at 3000 feet above ground level. That obtains adequate blast, major thermal effects, and prompt radiation lethality to a 1.5-mile slant range… so do it during the hadj. Fallout will be minor and well-dispersed. One thousand enemy dead or ten million enemy dead, it’s the same headline and gone a few days later.
Giving them toilet paper and pornography doesn’t address the problem.
Sometimes, and you point to this in our effective relations with our fathers, that counter thinking arises for what ever reason, as sons become men.
Is it not the lesson then, that what is of that past, that fathers would direct sons to a better future, or that by no inclination of themselves, their sons take a diffrent course. Some call it bias?
ON another level social underpinnings of the fabric of civilization, can raise a adverse reaction in the sons of countries?
If anything were to come into view of the capitalistic vision, then indeed words choosen by men who work to understand that fabric, will become the scorned.
So then we are left with the very historical situation, that lessons of history had been more then once used Clifford. But in the failures, new successes, but really, is it still about war and who is directing it?
While we witnessed the massacres in Serbian territores, what made one not think that the little hovels and towns, could not have been the small towns in the USA or Canada, where the selection process waould have seen young men rounded up and eliminated.
Media in this case, saw a value in reporting right from the front lines, as Croats used satellite phone and hookups to bring the devasting view of what had been done. These were real time images shot for the public view about this travesty. About the evil in men as years of resentment to the wars of of allegiance, come swelling up against the Croats for support of the wrong side. A Ethnic cleansing.
So what are we left with? The truth? Why would such resentment have the populace kill the messengers? What ever their race? A fevered pitch for justice that had the group swelled into a frenzy as the way good justice systems warrent retribution?
You have to remember that in the uncivilized emotive states of humans, we are at war with ourselves as well. So whose brutallity should we not recognize as strategists have a clear head about the histories and the ways in which wars are fought?
Who had removed themself then from those states, to take fact and create a really good plan to win that emotive war? Was mental clarity to say that we should divorce ourselves from these emotive states? No! But that we should include sensibility in our endeavors, to become better sons and fathers for a future? Better to direct our views of the future as sons of countries. As sons, of the world populace.
Our parents are within us. It is up to us to change that future.
I think this is what Fisk realized.
I’ll stop now.
X-
1)Do you really want to ignore the endless military action that the Israeli government has engaged in against the local Muslim population? The Israelis have killed plenty of civilians, they just do it with tanks and planes rather than suicide bombs. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are ‘right’ on this issue, and there is a significant proportion of either population that thinks that the actions of their “leadership” is completely bogus.
2)Just because one party to a conflict commits an injustice, it does not entitle the other party to commit some “lesser” injustice. Both actions are wrong, and should be treated as such.
3)Everyone hates terrorists. Everyone thinks that they are criminals that should be rounded up and dealt with. It is easy to criticise them. Comparing the actions of terrorists to the actions of a nation-state, however, is setting the bar of behaviour for the nation-state rather low. If all Israel can claim is that it is more even-handed than the suicide bombers, then Israel has a pretty sorry human rights record, by any objective standard.
4)the Wall will do little but consign the entire Palestianian population to poverty, as the Palestianian controlled areas are hardly contigious, making it very difficult to solely live and work outside the Wall. Therefore, people will simply be left without any jobs, making them poorer and more angry at the Israelis. How, exactly, will that stabilize anything? (hint: did the tenant farmer situation in Ireland, when combined with the potato famine, stabilize, or de-stabilize British rule in Ireland?).
I remember reading a couple of years ago about the verb `to fisk’. According to the Spectator it meant “the selection of evidence solely in order to bolster preconceptions and prejudices”.
He certainly generates strong feelings (of all persuasions)….
Anyway, I’m sure the talk was interesting, thanks for blogging about it.
I don’t know if Fisk suffers from this or not, but why are all Middle East “experts” so sure of themselves? Why do they think that they know exactly what happened and why? Juan Cole suffers from this fairly obviously (see British bomber posts), but so do plenty of other people with widely differing ideas. It is almost like the challenging and ferocity of Middle Eastern political discussions does not create light but just more heat.
I don’t know why the US invaded Iraq? Does Fisk know? Does he say? That would be a useful thing to get from the talk. I don’t buy this superpower needs to project power thing, because neither Clinton nor Bush invaded Iraq.
I personally resent the hijacking of the term anti-semitic by pro-Israeli spin-meisters. By implying that Jewish=Israel it suggest that all Jews support the policies of the Israeli government. This is patently false. Jews (particularly in America) have been instrumental in protecting the poor and disenfranchised. Many American Jews (myself included) are horrified at the policies of the Israelis and believe that an independent Palestinean state, removal of all West Bank settlements, and an International Jeruselem are the path to a just peace in the region.
Using the term anti-semitic by Pro-Israeli forces hypocritically preys upon the holocaust guilt meme to shame Jews and non-Jews into blind support for Israel.
For an interesting view on how the Israeli influence on American politics (via AIPAC) is largely responsible for the morass we are in, read “The Lobby” by Edward Tivnan.
Elliot
bittergradstudent, what about what I wrote or pointed to suggests that I disagree with you? I’m curious.
To come to specific points, I have the following comments:
1. No, I don’t want to ignore the endless military actions of the Israeli govt.
2. Yes - an injustice and an injust response to it - both actions are wrong. However, one (I won’t say which) is termed an aberration from an cherished ideal, because of great pressure of circumstances; while the other is termed to be essential, intrinsic to the nature of the perpetrator.
3. That everybody hates terrorists is a false statement. Terrorists have been happily given support, even by the governments who execrate them now, as long as the terrorists are doing things that further the ends of those governments.
This, too, might be of interest:
http://bookclub.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/15/7579/1423
X-
Apologies–I was in a hurry, and accidentially put your name instead of Fyodor’s.
Hektor Bim:- Well, Oil is involved in a big way too, wouldn’t you say? As he put it:
See more here.
It is at least a major part of the story, but certainly not all. But it is amazing to me how shy people are about mentioning oil in this context.
Cheers,
-cvj
almostinfamous (comment #9):- No he did not. At least not in this talk.
X:- (comment #7) I agree. Sorry. I misunderstood the intent of your comment #3.
Cheers,
-cvj
The invasion of Iraq (oil fields) was concieved and executed by a group of neo-conservatives associated with PNAC. Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al.
The basic premise is that since the U. S. is the only remaining military superpower we should project our influence throughout the middle east (where there is lots of oil). In other words “might makes right”. Or we should because we can.
And of course there is the oil and the fact that Cheney was anxious to generate a lot of no-bid work for Halliburton his former company.
And did I mention the oil?
Elliot
Elliot: - I think that you might want to take oil into consideration….
-cvj
Of course he does. And so do I. And so, perhaps, even do you. And I might even go so far to mention (pointlesslessly) that John Simpson is a self-aggrandizing self-publicist, But that being said it still remains, that as experienced journalists that have reported from the Middle East for years, they have a perspective from the ground that I don’t have and, I would argue, makes them worth listening to.
One of Fisk’s points was that after 9/11 we (the American public) were strongly discouraged to seek out the motive for the bombings (as one would do normally after a such a serious crime has been committed). Anyone questioning why people had done this to the US, were held up to be un-American by the Bush administration. As a foreigner living in New York at the time, I remember being particularly distressed by this.
And I am outraged again by Bush’s use of the same argument this week to suggest that the Democrats are as culpable as his administration is in starting the war (they saw the same intelligence that he did about WMDs and they then voted in favour of war). Does no one else remember the climate of fear that the White House was so adept at generating as they geared up to go to war? Those who questioned the intelligence evidence were labeled un-American etc … and yes, far too many Democrats either folded under that pressure or, perhaps, didn’t read the intelligence files carefully enough (I understand they got two, the original CIA files and one that the White House doctored). Why this behaviour from the Bush administration so quickly forgotten by the press?
Clifford, so you disagree with Fisk, then? Do you think it was all about oil?
I’m actually asking a serious question. I don’t know why we ultimately invaded Iraq. It wasn’t over WMD, that’s for sure. Wolfowitz said on the record that that was the only one people can agree on, which suggests there were some other reasons. Do you know what those are? I’ve heard ten or more reasons, all proferred with great certainty that their pet one is the real one. For you it is control of oil. For other people it is support for Israel, or remaking the Middle East, or a crusade for democracy, or a way to put pressure on Syria, Iran, and ultimately Saudi Arabia.
These can’t all be true. Why did we invade Iraq, after all? The fact that we still don’t know the answer to this question is important and very worrying. I would be more impressed with journalists if they could give convincing answers to this question.
Hektor said:
Er…why not? People are complicated. A lot of people is a lot more complicated. Several of those reasons can be true all at the same time. That’s how life works….there is never one clear reason for anything. This does not mean that one should not look for reasons: They each must be weighed against each other in context and then one acts accordingly.
-cvj
Hektor,
Lets consider a simple question. Suppose Iraq was in Central Africa and had absolutely no proven oil reserves or for that matter any other natural resources that would be of interest for the U. S. or multinational corporations to exploit. Lets further suppose that this displaced Iraq was a cruel dictatorship who engaged in numerous human rights violations on its own citizens. Its dictator was virulently anti Israel based on his deep belief in a fundamentalist muslim sect. However this country had never directly attacked the United States and there was no evidence connecting them to 9/11.
Do you think the U. S. would have invaded?
Somalia. Humanity is a collection of mistakes that average to progress. Liberal social activism has maximized the process and minimized the product. Conservative Christ-besotted rule is a short, broad, expensive, bloody path to national ruin.
Reality is empirical. Either rape the Middle East and ablate iconoclastic Islam or get raped and ablated in turn. Can anybody do a spreadsheet?
Elliot,
There are very few places in Central Africa that don’t have abundant natural resources. That’s part of the curse of Africa. And, actually, you already have a partial answer to that question. Rwanda happened, and there was no response from the international community (aside from French support for the genocidaires). Of course, Kosovo is a good counterexample to that.
But that doesn’t necessarily make this all about oil. It could be, but I’d like some real journalism on this. I don’t see it so far. It isn’t enough to just assert that _obviously_ this is about oil. After all, we haven’t overthrown the Iranians or the Saudis, and Bush I was careful to not overthrow Saddam Hussein. So something clearly changed, and it still isn’t clear to me what that was.
Clifford,
Fine, I agree with you. Was Fisk doing this kind of weighing? I don’t see it in your transcript, but maybe he was. I don’t see you doing this kind of weighing either. That’s what I mean - the analysis so far is sophmoric.
Hektor,
I am not a professional journalist. However let me point out the following facts. We have not invaded the Iranians or Saudis YET. If you follow the PNAC philosophy to its logical conclusion we will eventually do this.
http://www.newamericancentury.org
These folks who are deeply embedded in the policy making apparatus of the Bush administration think we should have an American Empire. Is it all about Oil? No but it is certainly a huge factor. It is likely a constellation of issues but my belief is that without the oil, the invasion would not have happened despite many other factors that may/may not have contributed to the decision. Certainly the fact that Saddam tried to kill Bush I would be a “reason” but probably insufficient alone.
What changed was 9/11 and the neocons (PNAC) had their excuse to invade Iraq. The plan to go in there PRE-DATED 9/11. None of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi. But this was a War of opportunity and the attack on the WTC opened the door for this type of action.
If you are looking for a clear and unvarnished view of this you may have to wait until the historians get it right in the future. Clearly the Bush adminstration has done everything it can to spin this in a favorable way and controlled information flow, so it would be hard for journalists to have access to the facts/people they would need to tell the full story.
Hektor, I think what got lost with Bush jr was contact with reality. Earlier Presidents might have wanted to invade Iraq, but realized the complications. Bush was so convinced about the righteousness of their cause that they never stopped to think about if they could actually achieve their goal. It’s clear that after the invasion had succeeded they simply hadn’t a clue what to do.
After that statue of Saddam was toppled the Iraqis were just supposed to shower the US soldiers with flowers, they could then put Chalabi in power (in the foolish belief that he would be a good ruler) and go home. After selling off all Iraqi government property to private companies, of course. (and guess who’d have cash).
At least I think this is what Bush thought he was doing. I’m not so sure about the people around him. For example, some had had far too close ties to Israel and argued that USA should be persuaded to crush Iraq already while they worked for Israel.
Hektor Bim: That was not a transcript of his talk. Moreover, I say explicitly:
Cheers,
-cvj
Bush is really getting desperate now. He actually invoked WMD to argue why we have to stay in Iraq:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/11/bush.intel/index.html
”If the terrorists drive America out of Iraq, Bush said, they could develop weapons of mass destruction, intimidate Middle East regimes friendly to the West, attack the United States and “blackmail our government into isolation.””
Sadly, this part of his speech was not aired on t.v.
Hektor,
Ultimately Iraq was invaded because Saddam was thumbing his nose at the US. Saddam, like Bin Laden, had a boogyman image in the US, unlike other dictators like Kim Jung Il or historically Stalin.
Caspar Weinberger told just a few weeks before the invasion on CNN that he thought that Saddam didn’t pose a danger to the West and that’s why the US had to attack. Why wait till he does pose a danger, he argued. I’ve read that some US generals in the 1950s were for a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union for the same reason. They were convinced that WWIII was going to happen anyway…
This is so cute! Science-techie people being just as inept discussing world events as most of us are discussing science! A real change from the days I try to vaguely grasp something about string theory…
Well, if I had been on campus, I would have been there…
On the motives for the invasion of Iraq, I’m afraid that all you will find is a muddle, except at the level of domestic political strategy. This is the peculiarly shallow genius of Karl Rove and his protégés, cronies, and allies. Manipulating perceptions and winning (or stealing) elections is the man’s stock in trade. As far as I can tell he went to college* mainly to join the College Republicans and start his career as a political strategist. His model was Mark Hanna, who orchestrated William McKinley’s rise to the presidency.
The Bush administration’s approach to policy-making has been dominated by an overriding effort to flatter the disparate parts of its political base with the illusion that their pet agendas are being coherently implemented. Of course, this strategy is coming unglued.
———————(* four, from which he never graduated)
Here’s my point:
We have a lot of different reasons for the invasion of Iraq right here:
Clifford: control of oil
Fisk: nature of superpowers to throw their weight around
Elliot: control of oil, domination of middle east, no-bid contracts for Halliburton, American empire, mixed in with anti-Zionist comments
Thomas Palm: Bush II lost contact with reality
Count Iblis: Saddam thumbing his nose at the US
Chris W.: driven by domestic political strategy
So which is it? It’s fine and good to speculate, but don’t kid yourselves that you know the answer. I don’t know the answer myself.
One more reason to add to Hektor Bim’s is that Bush II has a father complex.
Anyway, why should there be only one reason? Different people in the administration and in the think-tanks pushed for the war for a variety of reasons. The final decision rested with Bush, but he was in a position to make a decision because of all the supporting work done by a cast of dozens if not hundreds.
So, this search for the one reason why we’re in Iraq is futile, and IMO, it is the wrong question. A somewhat better question is - is there any reason for the war with Iraq that makes sense (or that made sense at some point in time, given the information that was available at that point in time)?
Hektor Bim,
With respect, you don’t seem to be listening. See my comment #24. There is no need to pick one reason. There is never one reason. This is not physics, this is life. It is complicated.
Cheers,
-cvj
Hektor,
To quote Deep Throat, (inside source of information for Watergate) “Follow the Money”.
Elliot
With respect, Clifford,
you don’t seem to be listening either. How do you weigh the reasons? Which one was dominant in Bush, do you think? Neither you nor Fisk are really answering this question, which seems to me to be of great importance. It’s fine to say that Fisk is a good journalist or commentator or makes you think, but shouldn’t he be able to answer this question if he really understands the Iraq war and the resulting occupation?
Part of the reaason to figure out why we got into it is to help us find a way to get out of it, hopefully in a constructive manner. If we can figure out the reason or reasons why we got into it (and I agree there may be more than one), then that means we can apply pressure and arguments to get out of it.
Arun, fairly obviously, the real reasons must have made sense to the people who had them. A lot of the reasons offered here make sense, in at least a superficial way. Part of the problem is that there are almost too many reasons to invade Iraq. I’m sure we could come up with a lot of reasons for invading Iran and Syria and Saudi Arabia too, and most of them were true 5, 10, or 15 years ago also. But it wasn’t done. There has to be an explanation for that, too.
Hektor,
The reason we didn’t invade Saudi Arabia is pretty clear. The Bush family and the Saudi royal family have been very close both politically and in business for many years. This is well documented. Remember the majority of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. The Bush adminstration made special provisions, while general aviation was grounded in the days after the attack, to ensure that key Saudis, including members of Bin Laden’s family were allowed to fly out of the United States. During this period Saudia Arabia has had a horrible record of human rights violations particularly with respect to women but the United States has failed to do anything.
I repeat my advice from my previous post “follow the money”
Elliot
Hektor Bim,
With respect, I am listening. You did not seem to be since you kept asking for one reason, I told you that I do not think that there is one reason. You asked for one reason again, so I refered you to my previosu answer.
Now that you’ve got the hint and are asking to weigh the reasons, as I suggested, you do now seem to be listening. Excellent. Thanks.
I don’t know how to weigh them in any more meaningful way that some of the others here (on this thread and others) have already done. I’m not going to pretend to have any answers. I’m still learning, and this is why I like to listen directly to people like Fisk (and others), who have actually been on the ground, and Cole, who have a historical perspective, rather than just rely on armchair pundits, the standard news outlets, and politicians who want to control what most people hear. I’m not claiming that these guys (Cole, Fisk, etc) are objective. Everybody has motives. It’s just nice to hear comments on the issues from people who are actually informed, from time to time. Call me old-fashioned.
I’m not the one to hear answers from. Sorry. Just reporting a little of what I’ve heard, and occasionally my own frustrations. I’m just a physicist.
All the Best,
-cvj
Hektor,
there was a program on NGC channel a few weeks ago about Chimp warfare. It was argued that human bahavior, the way we do politics etc. dates backs millions of years.
Chimps will patrol their territory and sometimes make incursions in teritory of their rivals. If they encounter another group of Chimps they will fight that group if that group is smaller than their group. They will retreat if the group is as large or larger.
The US was making incursions into Iraqi ”territory”. They were patrolling the air space and they ware maintaining the UN sanctions. Their objective was to topple Saddam, just like Chimps want to kill rival males. Saddam was a rival because he had attacked Kuwait, which is ”US territory”.
So, the Iraq war was sort of ”territorial” behavior.
Actually, Clifford,
what I said is that “they can’t all be true.” You can’t have both a spread of democracy and an American empire. You can’t have both control of oil and a fully sovereign local government. That’s the point. A lot of reasons for going to war with Iraq have been given, and some of them are incompatible. Maybe Bushco have lost control over events (which I think is quite likely), but that still doesn’t explain the rationale(s) for why they went in, which remains important.
Maybe lots of people had different rationales and they all cooperated to invade Iraq. Maybe, but I don’t think it is likely that Bush himself had ten different rationales, some conflicting, for going into Iraq. Merely saying that “people are complicated” isn’t particularly helpful. Fisk’s claim that superpowers just “throw their weight around” also isn’t that helpful, because it means that there isn’t anything to be done about it - it just happens regardless merely by being a superpower. If you are interested in mitigating the current disaster or preventing future ones, which I would think most of us are interested in, we have to go farther.
This is a side point. Of course Fisk and Cole are not objective. There’s something about Middle Eastern studies that kills objectivity in people. The issue is their level of expertise. I don’t know enough about Fisk to tell one way or the other beyond the superficial (knows Arabic, traveled around Iraq, etc.). I know a little more about Juan Cole - he’s an expert on Shiism and a scholar of Arabic and Islam. He doesn’t seem to know much about northern Iraq beyond what anyone reasonably educated on the region would know, and he has some kind of animus against the Kurds which I don’t understand. It’s important to know these kind of things about the people you read for information, even if you think they know more than you.
Count Iblis,
I think you are taking the “Chimp” moniker for Bush a little too far.
Elliot,
Right, because everything everywhere is about money. Every decision human beings make is about money - every single one. Sounds like vulgar marxism to me.
Actually Hektor Bim,
What I said was
In other words, despite what you seem to think (rather amusingly), Bush is not the sole person making the decisions. In fact, he may be one of the least important of the decision makers. There are lots of people involved and therefore, contrary to what you say, several conflicting reasons can all be true at the same time.
I repeat: People are complicated.
Despite what you say, it is in fact helpful to remember that.
Cheers!
-cvj
Hektor,
I didn’t say every decision human beings make is about money. I was referring to decisions by the Bush/Cheney regime. I am not trying to argue with you here. I am suggesting that the Bush/Cheney regime (not administration) is the most corrupt in American history and in place only to do the bidding of their financiers.(including the Saudia Arabian government/royal family)
I realize there may be a cultural gap and you may be unfamiliar with the Watergate history. “Follow the money” was a comment made to a journalist investigating the break in. It was a clue as to who was involved.
I sense you frustration at not getting clarity to your query but as stated previously, things are not always simple in politics. My viewpoint, and I am not a professional journalist, is that the decision to invade Iraq was primarily a business decision.
Also to consider, IMO, The Saudis who felt Iraq was a threat to their country, were likely complicit in this decision as were the Israelis.
Regards,
Elliot
Hektor: ”I think you are taking the “Chimp†moniker for Bush a little too far.”
Well, ”You are either with us or with the terrorists” is not that different from Chimp doctrine.
Lord Acton- “Power corrupts- absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The proof is left to the reader.
Hektor,
No, actually, given the information available at any time, it did not
make sense to invade Iraq for WMD or to spread democracy or to
defeat al Qaeda or to start putting an end to political Islam.
Anyone other than a complete head in the sand could know so
for the second, third and fourth reasons, and anyone with access
to CIA analysts could know so for the first reasons. One has to
be willfully blind or obtuse to go to war for these reasons.
-Arun
[...] The journalistic world has several obvious (her word) but important mirrors of ideas we encounter in physics (quantum mechanics or otherwise - she began with an account of the physics for the layperson, by the way), and she spoke of some of those. These include such ideas as the sharp dependence on the observer, and the sources that a journalist uses. In fact, she said, a story is utterly meaningless if the reporter is not careful to make clear what their sources are. She recalled living for some time in several Eastern block (old Soviet Union) countries and being frustrated by the complete disconnect between the stories she’d read in Western newspapers and the reality of what was going on in the streets. The reporters were largely writing what the US state department told them about; very seldom were they on the ground themselves. (You may well recall a blog post, “Refusing to Follow The Narrative”, that I wrote about Robert Fisk’s expressing frustration about this, in the case of Iraq reporting. He came to USC last year.) [...]