Wednesday, February 02, 2005
War in Iraq - How to deal with bad deeds
An article in http://nationalcatholicreporter.org/fwis/(about the tragic shooting in Iraq (From Where I Stand by Joan Chittister, OSB) reminds me of incident at the Naval Air Development Center in, Pennsylvania when I was working there. A drunk drove past a guard without stopping so the guard shot and killed him. This was the same gate I passed through hundreds of times without a problem. But the guard was convicted of manslaughter. The system handled it.
It's one thing to demand justice but you've got to expect that people will make mistakes. Putting guns in their hands won't prevent them from making errors in judgment and no personnel screening system will catch 100% of those prone to errors and misbehavior of this type. The military needs to handle incidents like this and move on.
Whether "move on" means to continue to enforce the UN mandate, enforce Deuteronomy chapter 19 (Sadam Hussein was a mass murderer after all), or grow an Iraqi government with sufficient mandate to ask the US to leave, it's all better than the alternative. It's better than useless hand wringing about the dark side of this mission. Moving on is also better than the Ted Kennedy alternative, which is to leave regardless of the Iraqi will and regardless of the impact. Imagine how much the world (much less the US) would be willing to help the Iraqis if we let the terrorists have their way and leave as we did in Somalia. What would happen to the hope in the future that the majority of Iraqis feel now if Ted Kennedy has his way. Apparently he doesn't want to wait and find out.
It's interesting that Chittister mentions "Sadam Hussein is still alive" as a negative for the US effort. If some US soldier would just shoot him, would that make our efforts look better? This would be just be another scandal and a court martial. Does Chittister believe in the death penalty?
Also I believe that all lives are equal in value. The growing % of death of civilians in war is bad if you believe the value of the soldier's life is less than that of a civilian. Soldiers are not supposed to be criminals. They do what civilians tell them to do. Is it good to devalue the life of the one taking the orders compared to the ones giving the orders or funding the government? I think not. The powerless have just as much value and right to life as the powerful. If Chittister is a real Christian, she believes this too.
Civilians will be accidentally killed when the enemy uses civilians as human shields and when terrorist act under civilian cover. Sadam Hussein and the terrorists kill civilians deliberately. Any effort to stop them will entail collateral damage. The US has killed civilians accidentally and is likely to kill more. It's a fact of life. We have to get over it.
We need to focus on what is actionable: I believe the US is more likely to succeed in Iraq if we prepare for failure. We need to ask the Iraqis to decide whether our presence is productive. Maybe Bush has already done this implicitly by having an election, but he needs to say this explicitly. The Iraqis need to ask themselves whether they deserve good government if they give in to fear and do not vote or fail to take actions to save their country. They need to have the responsibly of sending us home when the time is right. This is mostly a win-win for the US. We get to help and are appreciated for what we're doing, or we get to go home and save our money and necks. The only bad side for the US is, if they send us home too soon and the place degenerates into chaos, the price of oil will rise and some Texan oil barons will get richer at the expense of the economy. This is a risk but a price we should be willing to pay. I believe that placing more responsibility for success on the Iraqis will reduce the risk of failure. They need to look at failure straight in the eye and see if it is acceptable.
Would the prospect of US troops leaving be seen as a bluff? If so, the Iraqis may call this bluff with one of their own. Many think the US is there for the oil. Those who think that may just pretend like they want us to leave so they can complain about their victimhood after we refuse to leave. We understand. We have plenty of people who behave like that in this country. But the Iraqis just might wish us out too soon whether by their stupid bluff, miscalculation, or whatever reason. And once we have a legitimate Iraqi government in place, we will have no choice to comply with an Iraqi resolution that we leave. Even if we believe that Iraq will degenerate into chaos, we must let it happen.
If we are prepared for the economic damage of Mideast chaos, the damage becomes, not only mitigated, but less likely since the reason for bluffing goes away on both sides. We need to make the prospect of US troops leaving Iraqi credible to highlight the prospect of failure. This will force the Iraqis to suck in their bitterness about victimhood and tribal dominance and to do what is necessary to make their country work.
We need to let the Bush administration know that (1) we are ready to take a chance in Iraq by leaving them to work out their problems, but we do not want to be irresponsible about leaving, (2) we have resolved to join a carpool to get to work, buy a more fuel efficient car, turn down our thermostat, insulate our house, whatever it takes to mitigate the energy crisis that may happen if the Iraqis fail to make their government work, and (3) we expect the government to stop wasting energy and to implement alternative sources of energy.
The bottom line is we need to stop our useless hand wringing and do what we can to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
It's one thing to demand justice but you've got to expect that people will make mistakes. Putting guns in their hands won't prevent them from making errors in judgment and no personnel screening system will catch 100% of those prone to errors and misbehavior of this type. The military needs to handle incidents like this and move on.
Whether "move on" means to continue to enforce the UN mandate, enforce Deuteronomy chapter 19 (Sadam Hussein was a mass murderer after all), or grow an Iraqi government with sufficient mandate to ask the US to leave, it's all better than the alternative. It's better than useless hand wringing about the dark side of this mission. Moving on is also better than the Ted Kennedy alternative, which is to leave regardless of the Iraqi will and regardless of the impact. Imagine how much the world (much less the US) would be willing to help the Iraqis if we let the terrorists have their way and leave as we did in Somalia. What would happen to the hope in the future that the majority of Iraqis feel now if Ted Kennedy has his way. Apparently he doesn't want to wait and find out.
It's interesting that Chittister mentions "Sadam Hussein is still alive" as a negative for the US effort. If some US soldier would just shoot him, would that make our efforts look better? This would be just be another scandal and a court martial. Does Chittister believe in the death penalty?
Also I believe that all lives are equal in value. The growing % of death of civilians in war is bad if you believe the value of the soldier's life is less than that of a civilian. Soldiers are not supposed to be criminals. They do what civilians tell them to do. Is it good to devalue the life of the one taking the orders compared to the ones giving the orders or funding the government? I think not. The powerless have just as much value and right to life as the powerful. If Chittister is a real Christian, she believes this too.
Civilians will be accidentally killed when the enemy uses civilians as human shields and when terrorist act under civilian cover. Sadam Hussein and the terrorists kill civilians deliberately. Any effort to stop them will entail collateral damage. The US has killed civilians accidentally and is likely to kill more. It's a fact of life. We have to get over it.
We need to focus on what is actionable: I believe the US is more likely to succeed in Iraq if we prepare for failure. We need to ask the Iraqis to decide whether our presence is productive. Maybe Bush has already done this implicitly by having an election, but he needs to say this explicitly. The Iraqis need to ask themselves whether they deserve good government if they give in to fear and do not vote or fail to take actions to save their country. They need to have the responsibly of sending us home when the time is right. This is mostly a win-win for the US. We get to help and are appreciated for what we're doing, or we get to go home and save our money and necks. The only bad side for the US is, if they send us home too soon and the place degenerates into chaos, the price of oil will rise and some Texan oil barons will get richer at the expense of the economy. This is a risk but a price we should be willing to pay. I believe that placing more responsibility for success on the Iraqis will reduce the risk of failure. They need to look at failure straight in the eye and see if it is acceptable.
Would the prospect of US troops leaving be seen as a bluff? If so, the Iraqis may call this bluff with one of their own. Many think the US is there for the oil. Those who think that may just pretend like they want us to leave so they can complain about their victimhood after we refuse to leave. We understand. We have plenty of people who behave like that in this country. But the Iraqis just might wish us out too soon whether by their stupid bluff, miscalculation, or whatever reason. And once we have a legitimate Iraqi government in place, we will have no choice to comply with an Iraqi resolution that we leave. Even if we believe that Iraq will degenerate into chaos, we must let it happen.
If we are prepared for the economic damage of Mideast chaos, the damage becomes, not only mitigated, but less likely since the reason for bluffing goes away on both sides. We need to make the prospect of US troops leaving Iraqi credible to highlight the prospect of failure. This will force the Iraqis to suck in their bitterness about victimhood and tribal dominance and to do what is necessary to make their country work.
We need to let the Bush administration know that (1) we are ready to take a chance in Iraq by leaving them to work out their problems, but we do not want to be irresponsible about leaving, (2) we have resolved to join a carpool to get to work, buy a more fuel efficient car, turn down our thermostat, insulate our house, whatever it takes to mitigate the energy crisis that may happen if the Iraqis fail to make their government work, and (3) we expect the government to stop wasting energy and to implement alternative sources of energy.
The bottom line is we need to stop our useless hand wringing and do what we can to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
