Well, what exactly does ‘success’ mean to Bush and co.? Rest assured it has little to do with a sovereign and democratic Iraq. It has been recognized for some time among scholars of Reagan- and Bush-style ‘democratization’ (see the work of Thomas Carothers, for instance) that what is really wanted is a sort of “top-down”, elite ‘democracy’ which really doesn’t have a democratic form at all. The kind of sovereign and popular democracy that the American people have been (and still are) struggling to acheive, that is not what Bush or anyone in the U.S. foreign policy elite want, because it would no doubt (given Iraq’s Shiite population and other factors) lead to nationalization of oil resources and alliance with Iran. What the leaders of the U.S. want, and what they have been trying (with only temporary success) to do around the world (especially in regions rich in natural resources, like the Middle East and parts of Latin America) is establish pro-US (meaning ‘pro-US corporation’) governments, whether they are democratic or not. This is the only way to make sense of the long sordid history of U.S. support for some of the worst criminals of the 20th century, including Chile’s Pinochet, Saddam Hussein, Nicaraguan death squads, and many others.

The truth about this is actually quite trivial, when one looks at U.S. history. How is it that we have obtained our individual freedoms and our relatively civil society? One certainly couldn’t argue with any plausibility that a superpower invaded and occupied us. In fact, American democracy and sovereignty were only able to come into being after rejection of the influence of foreign occupation and control, and centuries of popular movements for human rights and inclusion in society by workers, women, black Americans, and others. That is how democracy and civil society, in as much as they have taken tenuous hold in our society, have come about in America. That is also, incidentally, how things are happening all over the world, sometimes in opposition to the will of the American government and the multinational corporations that hold most sway over it’s policies (through the “revolving door”, kinds of bribery and lobbying, etc.).

If a person was convinced, as you must be, that the Bush plan from the beginning has been about bringing real democracy and stability to Iraq, then of course one would not want the effort to fail. But if one is convinced, given the evidence that has been collected and at least partially exposed to the public, that the invasion itself was an act of aggression and a serious war crime, then it makes sense to want to the U.S. to fail in its “mission” and start withdrawing (and one would hope, paying reparations) as soon as possible. This might be the source of that “beyond the pale” minority you bemoan. And also, this would be saving troops, not wishing harm on them.

Thanks.

“anti-Bush”? – C’mon Mr. Payton you should know better than to use such a childish evasion. This is about war policy and ideas, not whether I personally like Bush or whoever (on that note, I’m sure if I met Bush I would think he was a nice guy – but that’s irrelevant to his policies). If I disagree with you on something, am I “anti-Doug”?

My answer as to why a person might want the U.S. to fail was provided, but perhaps I did not make myself clear. A person who recognizes that this whole war was sold on false premises and is a total failure anyway naturally prefers if the U.S. leaves asap. This administration seems determined not to leave, in fact the planned “surge” is an escalation, which polls reveal almost no one (including a large bipartisan majority of Congress) supports – I think the number is below 10%. If the “surge” fails (as it no doubt will), the pressure will really be on for withdrawal, which is what people want because they realize the stupidity of this whole thing, and that American occupation has done and will not do anything but help lead to further instability and violence in the country (the evidence for this is overwhelming – have you read any of the pre-war studies on the probability of increasing the risk of terrorism by attacking Iraq? Or the post-war studies on casualities resulting from the U.S. occupation, the most reliable putting the number in the hundreds of thousands?).

Installing “puppet governments” and literal war crimes has pretty much been part of U.S. foreign policy for decades, as far as I can tell, through Republican and Democratic administrations with only slight variations. This is just a fact, based on the most straightforward interpretation of history and international law that our own government uses – when it comes to judging other countries (incidentally, our government also uses the standard method of measuring casualties used by the authors of the articles in the leading medical journal The Lancet that I base my figures on – that is, when it serves their purposes…). If you are interested in learning the truth I can give you plenty of resources, all from standard media sources and U.S. government documents if you like.

If by “anti-Bush” you mean I criticize his policies on ethical grounds, then I might as well be “anti-everybody-and-everything”, because I try to evaluate all policies on ethical grounds, as any responsible citizen in a democratic society should (by this criteria, I would be “anti-Peter Broady” too). My point is the concept is vacuous, and again I say it avoids the whole issue of whether, in fact, the policies are unethical or illegal, or whether leaders are literal war criminals, or whether they are setting up “puppet governments”. That is the real question, but instead of trying to take me to task on these statements with an evaluation of the supporting evidence, you call me a “Bush-hater”. I think you can do better than that.

There is just no reason, aside from the rhetoric of the administration and pundits (which does not count as positive evidence for anything), to think that our government has really humanitarian motives in Iraq. But motives are always difficult, so I think it wise to look at how the policies are actually playing out. And that is easy to do: listen to the people in Iraq, respected international experts, human rights groups, etc., and balance that with the opinions of our national leaders and opinion elites. As bad as things are and have been in Iraq, they are just not better with our military occupation, which is just adding to the violence. Of course no sane person supported Saddam Hussein (well, there was that time during the Reagan administration…), but that does not give us the right to install a puppet government there, especially if we really want Iraqi democracy and sovereignty. And install a sort of puppet government is what we at least tried to do. The New York Times (May 7, 2003 – Dao and Schmitt) published an organizational chart showing the structure of the new Iraqi government, with all U.S. and British officials in positions of power and responsibility and one box for Iraqi officials with no stated responsibility. The fact is, it is not in the so-called ‘national interest’ for Iraq to be a sovereign and democratic state. Why? Because of it’s majority Shiite population, a sovereign Iraq would probably become closer with Iran and might even (as has been tried, and violently prevented, before) nationalize their natural resources. So the U.S. government can’t let that happen, hence the need for a pro-U.S. puppet regime to ensure access, and probably also control of Iraqi oil as well as further influence in the region. This is probably an over-simplification in many ways, but it’s standard geopolitics and imperialism. Read some history or scholarly work on foreign policy and it’s all accepted as true, even by the ‘conservative’ scholars.