Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

So then - just to be clear, your position is that Iraq is now ours to do with what we please. And that ultimately, it is perfectly okay to put our own financial and political gain ahead of what might be best for the Iraqi people and Iraq as a country. All I need here is a clarification about how this fits into the model of ‘America as altruistic democracy force, fighting for what’s right in the world being’.

The debate doesn’t seem funny to me. We will not be very effective in our War On Terrorism, if everybody thinks that WOT is a code phrase for “America gets to throw it’s weight around anytime it wants.”

And about changing position- wait a second, didn’t you just kick them out of the deal? What kind of incentive is that? First you get them in, then you get them to compromise.

Or rather, you dangle the bait, then you get the fish on the hook. Once their companies and their interests are at stake, don’t you think they will be more cooperative in enforcing the peace? Don’t you think we will have more cause to call them out on the floor if they neglect to bring their troops in?

Your people want to make it some kind of character test, some kind of “us or them” equation. You want to get back at those people who didn’t back you. Never mind that things turned out fairly badly for us.

Defining badly, that is, by having more troops killed in the mop-up operation, than in the invasion. Why don’t you face it? Bush did not take enough troops in, he alienated too many of our allies, and he failed to impose law and order on the country fast enough to keep a lid on the situation.

Your words indicate your belief that you actually think things are going well on the ground in Iraq, that they are under control. You think we have the country solidly under our control. But you see, the kind of help we are asking for is not to reconstruct Iraq at this point- we’re asking for the international community to come in and help us bring the country under control.

If you’re doing that, if you’re asking that, it is a fundamental slap in the face to tell people that their companies can’t go into country and reap the rewards of that order, once they help us establish it.

Wake up- the days of Freedom Fries and Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys are over. Right now, we’re the cowboys in quicksand.

So you’re saying we should give contracts to companies in the attacking countries, even if others could do it cheaper?

Iraq opposed the war; should Iraqis be denied rebuilding contracts in their own country? The Iraqis have the technical and cultural knowledge to do it; they have a higher per-capita Ph.D. ratio than the U.S. and lots of people with experience in construction (Iraqi’s build Hussein’s famous palaces, for instance), resource management (until the embargo, Iraq managed its own oil), etc. Given the state of their economy and typical wage levels, they can certainly do it for cheaper than paying American prices. And by paying Iraqis to rebuild Iraq, we would create jobs and wealth. If we rebuild the infrastructure, but leave the citizens poor and desperate, we invite further terror and a populist clamor for a return to Hussein’s socialist government.

Saying a country shouldn’t take part in reconstruction because they opposed the war in the first place is a bit like saying a senator’s constituents shouldn’t receive a tax break he voted against. They thought the war was a bad idea, but now that it’s happened, they think rebuilding is better than the alternatives.

“So then - just to be clear, your position is that Iraq is now ours to do with what we please. And that ultimately, it is perfectly okay to put our own financial and political gain ahead of what might be best for the Iraqi people and Iraq as a country.”

Do we all realize that these contracts are only for the money being donated by the US government? Any UN contracts or contracts with money from other governments are open to all comers. This isn’t a question of “Iraq is now ours to do with what we please”. This is a case of American tax money can be restricted to parties who supported us. And don’t even get me started on ‘best for Iraq’. Best for Iraq wasn’t Russia, Germany and France trying to keep Saddam in power. Best for Iraq isn’t France, Germany and Russia refusing to help stabilize post-war Iraq.

Let’s set aside whether the countries in question “deserve” the contracts. Let’s also set aside the fact that Bush and Blair gave the international community false information about WMD. The question, how does stiffing these people benefit US interests? I don’t see any upside to this.

Your definition of who is for us and against us is rather narrow. When the chips were down, and the terrorists attacked us, these were the people who voted unanimously to defend us. You understand what that means? We only lost support when we went for an elective war on shoddy evidence, and when we cut them out of the process despite all the help they were willing to give.

They would have helped us in Afghanistan, for heaven’s sake, but we failed to take advantage of that. Why? Because Bush wants to go it alone. He doesn’t like the UN or NATO unless they are toeing the line, and that leaves very political room for our allies to move.

Bush’s rigid adherence to Neo-Con policy is costing us lives, and costing us the loyalty of our allies. Instead of fully cleansing Afghanistan of the Taliban, asserting American control and rebuilding the war-torn nation, we chose to go off on a tangent on lousy, yes-man generated evidence, and go settle our scores with an old enemy. Bush should have taken his Ritalin, and gotten the job at hand done.

He has squandered American lives, he has squandered America’s wealth, and he has squandered much of the goodwill our country has built over the years, and the sooner we can see him out of office, the better.

It isn’t so much that the U.S. is limiting the contracts to coalition partners that troubles me, as much as the slap in the face diplomacy we seem to play. A less egregious method for the U.S. to earmark contracts would be to use the common method of having RFP evaluation criteria that asks for the economic benefits to the U.S. and coalition partners. This lets any company compete, but those that don’t show a clear economic benefit to the coalition would know that they were at a disadvantage. But at the same time, it would keep the Hallibertons from excessive profiteering by allowing some competition.

“Your definition of who is for us and against us is rather narrow. When the chips were down, and the terrorists attacked us, these were the people who voted unanimously to defend us.”

The immediate post-9/11 diplomacy was not nearly as simplistic as you are portraying. NATO invoked Article V and then immediately tried to use it to shackle our ability to respond in Afghanistan. NATO and France wanted to negotiate bombing target by target. If we had capitulated to their demands we could never have had the success that we had in Afghanistan because the 5-10 flexible bombing that we used would have telescoped into a 2-5 day window like in Kosovo (see General Clark’s book on that matter). That could not have worked in Afghanistan. Furthermore French pilots refused to provide covering fire when requested by ground troops. The idea that NATO and the French were whole-heartedly behind us even in Afghanistan is (unfortunately) not true. Stephen, since your analysis starts with this militarily false premise, it goes horribly astray from there.

The US is clearly saying that obstructing us and giving aid to our enemies (which both Russia and France did with Iraq in the months leading up to the war) will not be ignored. That puts us in a much better position in the future.

Though I suppose if a foreign policy does not allow for ‘slaps in the face’ of those who obstructed in the recent past and are not going to be helping anyway, it isn’t surprising to find that this same foreign policy wouldn’t want to use force to topple tyrants either.