Stabbing and Backs

Brian Beutler gives Jonah Goldberg a good fisking. Jonah seems upset that when I complain that American conservatives are perpetuating a "stab in the back" theory of the war in Iraq to explain away their own hideous errors of strategic judgment without bothering "to make a tight link between the National Socialist reaction to German surrender at the end of WWI." Kevin Baker's already lay it out in Harper's at some length, so I haven't bothered personally because it wouldn't be a Very Serious, Thoughtful, Argument That Has Never Been Made in Such Detail or With Such Care if I did it.

Suffice it to say that I think the main point of analogy is that mainstream contemporary American conservatism, like inter-war Nazism, believes that military defeats are primarily due to failures of national will. They believe this in part because they massively overestimate the significance of will in determining outcomes of this sort. They also, like Nazis, seem to deny that it might ever better serve the national interest to abandon a military adventure than to continue it. These beliefs serve to foster the further belief that several constitutive elements of liberal democracies -- committed to free speech, to unfettered political debate, the existence of active political opposition movements -- are a source of national weakness.

Comments

So Jonah thinks that WWI should have gone on for another couple of years or so? Just to see if the trench warfare strategy was going to work out? Or to prevent those rabid nationalists from feeling let down?

Posted by Jackmormon | June 27, 2007 5:57 PM

"Suffice it to say that I think the main point of analogy is that mainstream contemporary American conservatism, like inter-war Nazism, believes that military defeats are primarily due to failures of national will."

Is Matthew serious? Doe he really think that you can take views about war and peace and declare that someone is a Nazis because something they said might agree with something that was said in Nazi Germany?

Gee if this were the case what is one to say about Mearsheimer thesis of inordinate Jewish influence in the American government?

I doubt that Jonah who has read his Hayek holds is a Nazi.

Has Yglesias read his Hayek? Does he know on how many issues his views parallel those held by many National Socialist intellectuals?

Posted by Apter | June 27, 2007 6:06 PM

Eric has a nice little post on this too, with a bitchen vintage graphic.

Posted by jonnybutter | June 27, 2007 6:11 PM

Is Matthew serious? Doe he really think that you can take views about war and peace and declare that someone is a Nazis because something they said might agree with something that was said in Nazi Germany?

He didn't say conservatives are Nazis, he's saying that the views of conservatives are analogous to the Nazis on this particular issue. Which they are.

Believing that we lost in Iraq because liberals broke our "will" is wrong, and one piece of evidence that it's wrong is that the Nazis were wrong when they believed the same thing about WWI. It doesn't mean conservatives agree with Nazis on every issue.

Posted by M.A. | June 27, 2007 6:15 PM

Jonah's comments just seem like intentional (or maybe unintentional) obtuse-ness. The "stab in the back" of today has nothing to do with the Nazis, except of course they invented a cool German word for it, and were the first to use the phrase to whip up political hysteria.

There's no need to link today's "stab in the back" to post-WWI Germany, because the phenomenon of conservatives blaming liberals for foreign policy errors can happen independantly of anyone acting like a Nazi.

It's besides the point who invented the "stab in the back" political gambit--what is important is that it's being rapidly moblized for a debut before the '08 election. Jonah doesn't even bother to argue with that.

Posted by Ben | June 27, 2007 6:16 PM

Why bring Nazis into it? Nazis didn't make up the Dolchstosslegende - it was endemic to the whole German right, which was, until 1930, dominated by "respectable" Conservatives who wished to end the republic and restore the monarchy.

Posted by John | June 27, 2007 6:21 PM

PS: Why would Goldberg (or his editors) decide that instead of putting Mussolini's and Hillary's name on his book cover, they're going with Hegel and Whole Foods.

I doubt very much more than 0.5% of the country knows of both those two entities.

This suggests that he's writing less of a political hit piece, and more of an intellectual train wreck. With a possible lible suit on the front dust jacket. Wacky.

Posted by Ben | June 27, 2007 6:22 PM

Ross Douthat wrote, "I think the term has a general application that's independent of the connotations Jonah imputes to it."

And I agree. It's a rhetorical device used by militarists the whole world 'round who want to (1) argue that earlier military actions were noble and worthwhile despite their results, and (2) discredit as treasonous anyone in the country who expects their nation's invasions of other countries to have costs in some sort of proportion to benefits.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | June 27, 2007 6:27 PM

Big lie, stab in the back, fifth column - we've heard all of these Nazi-era terms applied to the opponents of the Iraq war. Is it just coincidence that the proponents of the war gravitate to these terms and the attitudes they embody?

Posted by Bloix | June 27, 2007 6:35 PM

to make a tight link between the National Socialist reaction to German surrender at the end of WWI and what? I'm glad the rest of you were smart enough to figure out what he meant. If you were.

Posted by sniflheim | June 27, 2007 7:15 PM

"Believing that we lost in Iraq because liberals broke our "will" is wrong, and one piece of evidence that it's wrong is that the Nazis were wrong when they believed the same thing about WWI. It doesn't mean conservatives agree with Nazis on every issue."

I am no conservative and I don't support the aims in Iraq which I think are not realistic.

However, I do think that the only way to fight a war is to do so seriously. In this sense Jonah is half right. The antiwar fever did work against the war effort, but also Bush unwillingness to engage the whole nation in this effort by raising taxes and demanding some sacrifice also did much to sap support for the war.

If you are going to fight a war do it seriously if not don’t go there.

Posted by Apter | June 27, 2007 7:17 PM

Apter writes "The antiwar fever did work against the war effort, but also Bush unwillingness to engage the whole nation in this effort by raising taxes and demanding some sacrifice also did much to sap support for the war."

The anti-war fever? Was that in 2003? 2004? 2005? 2006 Or is it now?

We know Bush never demanded sacrifice from anybody but the soldiers and still only dies to this day. Hell, they said we'd have less than 50k soldier in Iraq by the end of 2003. Was that die to "anti-war fever?"

Seriously, what a crock of shit.

Posted by Armando | June 27, 2007 7:24 PM

Apter smells of concern-troll. Try to wash that off buddy and come back when you no longer stink.

Posted by Spec | June 27, 2007 7:33 PM

What's up with Matthew and straw man posts these days? None on the right believe that free speech is "a source of national weakness". Plenty believe that some of the things leftwingers say is a source of national weakness, but that obviously not the same thing?

Is it too much to ask Matthew to grapple with the actual arguments rightwingers make, rather than inventing fake arguments, ascribing them to the right, and them knocking them down? The quantity of posts is way up since the Atlantic move, but the quality has declined.

Posted by Al | June 27, 2007 7:37 PM

Maybe there is something to this 'failure of will' thing. I mean, here you have an incredibly wealthy country of 300 million souls, unable to beat into submission an impoverished country of only 1/10 the population. At stake, control of the world's richest energy reserves. I think it is a legitimate question to ask: WTF?

Also, I don't accept the validity of Godwin's law, because I don't accept the invalidity of comparisons to Nazi Germany. Say what you like about Adolf and his friends, they were keen students of human nature and wildly successful at exploiting mob psychology. It stands to reason that other political factions, with similar ambitions, would recycle their methods, and why not? The idiot public gives no sign of having learned anything from history. If 'back-stab' legends worked for a certain subset of the population in Germany, I see no reason why they should be any less effective in America. Most belief systems, by definition of the term 'belief', prosper because they pull the right emotional triggers, not because of how well they fit the available facts.

Returning to the question of will, one thing to notice is that Americans, whether of the right or the left, are, in droves, failing to show up at the recruiting stations to actually fight the war (blasting away at defenseless people with high-tech weapons is a different story, of course). Most of the volunteers are effectively economic conscripts, persons hoping for educational or economic opportunities in exchange for military service that they would otherwise be denied.* If the nation were in genuine danger, I doubt very much that this would be the case.

The source of 'national weakness' in this case is thus that the war itself is not seen as legitimate. By that, I don't mean that no national interest is at stake (plainly there is), but that nobody is going to sacrifice themselves for such worldy considerations as 'profit' or 'dollar hegemony' when the nation itself is not threatened. It is grossly unfair to blame 'liberals' for this state of affairs, as 'conservatives' are obviously cut from the same cloth.

I suspect that Americans tolerate the fantastic waste and expense of the pentagon system on the understanding that it will bring them the perks of empire (global subsidy for the 'American way of life') without significant risks of death or injury for the citizen. Think Powell Doctrine: in-out, overwhelming force, clear exit strategy--all designed to limit casualties. This is a political statement, not a military one: obviously you are going to 'win' if you have overwhelming force available.

That unspoken social contract has now been broken: the elites continue to use the system to rob the public, but they are no longer providing a risk-free Empire in return. It is for this reason, and not because he lied to bully a weakling, that Mr. Bush's popularity has gone from 90% to 30%.

*National Guard troops excepted--they were drafted into the war through deceit. We also must make an exception for mercenaries, who are motivated by greed (perhaps the only honest Americans in Iraq).

Posted by RLaing | June 27, 2007 7:44 PM

I think that historically the majority in the US went along with Bush's plan (that is, it was Bush's show completely). Bush's plan had goals that were either hidden or extremely vague or constantly shifting or non-existent, depending on your viewpoint. The execution of the whatever plan existed was very bad. Does anyone really argue with that anymore? A very good argument can be made that the whole idea of invasion was a very bad idea in the first place. That is history, and I think there is bipartisan consensus in the US about it.

More 'will' would not have saved the actual, historical Bush policy. What would have happened if Bush could have persuaded the country, or it was self-evident, that a WWII style national effort be made is completely hypothetical. It belongs with alternate worlds science fiction. If Bush thought that extreme exertions of national will were called for, he could have talked about it, but he didn't, even when others pointed out that it contradicted some of the administrations other claims about the paramount importance of the GWOT. Now they trot out this line after their cakewalk has turned into a deathmarch for Iraq and a quagmire of the US.

Posted by anon | June 27, 2007 8:09 PM

None on the right believe that free speech is "a source of national weakness". Plenty believe that some of the things leftwingers say is a source of national weakness, but that obviously not the same thing?

So you have no problem with the right to dissent, it's just the actual dissent which hurts the country. You'll forgive me for pointing out that that's a rather fine distinction.

Posted by Steve | June 27, 2007 8:11 PM

Following up on Steve...

Kinda like how some conservatives believe in the Right to Habeas Corpus.. except when people they don't like actually demand their right to exercise it.

Posted by JKK | June 27, 2007 8:37 PM

Invoking Godwin's Law, I declare Matt's point specious. Try again.

Posted by James Robertson | June 27, 2007 8:52 PM

Fisking:

C'mon Matt. You are better than this. The term fisking--which you dont use but merely link to--is such a childish and clunky phrase that slanders a true journalist. The term has its origins in Robert Fisk's recounting of his beating at the hands of Pakistani youth. Instead of merely decrying the evils of the culprit and martyring himself, he placed the actions within the context of the assaulters' mindset.

Seizing upon this, Andrew Sullivan self righteously decried Fisk's acceptance of racism, placing the perpetrators' anger in a trite, manichean fashion.

Unfortunately Sullivan's analysis was wrong--people often react irrationally toward symbolic targets. It reminds me of 1960s America. If I were to walk through a Black ghetto and be the recipient of a beating for no other reason than my skin color, I would not be surpised, and my wilingness to understand the anger while not condoning it would not be just ok but thoughtful of the context.

I hope that a person's sober analysis I respect would refrain from perpetuating such slanderous language in the future.

Posted by Jeff | June 27, 2007 9:02 PM

Fisking:

C'mon Matt. You are better than this. The term fisking--which you dont use but merely link to--is such a childish and clunky phrase that slanders a true journalist. The term has its origins in Robert Fisk's recounting of his beating at the hands of Pakistani youth. Instead of merely decrying the evils of the culprit and martyring himself, he placed the actions within the context of the assaulters' mindset.

Seizing upon this, Andrew Sullivan self righteously decried Fisk's acceptance of racism, placing the perpetrators' anger in a trite, manichean fashion.

Unfortunately Sullivan's analysis was wrong--people often react irrationally toward symbolic targets. It reminds me of 1960s America. If I were to walk through a Black ghetto and be the recipient of a beating for no other reason than my skin color, I would not be surpised, and my wilingness to understand the anger while not condoning it would not be just ok but thoughtful of the context.

I hope that a person's sober analysis I respect would refrain from perpetuating such slanderous language in the future.

There are better terms than fisking, like repudiation, refutation and so forth.

Posted by Jeff | June 27, 2007 9:02 PM

Fisking:

C'mon Matt. You are better than this. The term fisking--which you dont use but merely link to--is such a childish and clunky phrase that slanders a true journalist. The term has its origins in Robert Fisk's recounting of his beating at the hands of Pakistani youth. Instead of merely decrying the evils of the culprit and martyring himself, he placed the actions within the context of the assaulters' mindset.

Seizing upon this, Andrew Sullivan self righteously decried Fisk's acceptance of racism, placing the perpetrators' anger in a trite, manichean fashion.

Unfortunately Sullivan's analysis was wrong--people often react irrationally toward symbolic targets. It reminds me of 1960s America. If I were to walk through a Black ghetto and be the recipient of a beating for no other reason than my skin color, I would not be surpised, and my wilingness to understand the anger while not condoning it would not be just ok but thoughtful of the context.

I hope that a person's sober analysis I respect would refrain from perpetuating such slanderous language in the future.

There are better terms than fisking, like repudiation, refutation and so forth.

Posted by Jeff | June 27, 2007 9:02 PM

Fisking:

C'mon Matt. You are better than this. The term fisking--which you dont use but merely link to--is such a childish and clunky phrase that slanders a true journalist. The term has its origins in Robert Fisk's recounting of his beating at the hands of Pakistani youth. Instead of merely decrying the evils of the culprit and martyring himself, he placed the actions within the context of the assaulters' mindset.

Seizing upon this, Andrew Sullivan self righteously decried Fisk's acceptance of racism, placing the perpetrators' anger in a trite, manichean fashion.

Unfortunately Sullivan's analysis was wrong--people often react irrationally toward symbolic targets. It reminds me of 1960s America. If I were to walk through a Black ghetto and be the recipient of a beating for no other reason than my skin color, I would not be surpised, and my wilingness to understand the anger while not condoning it would not be just ok but thoughtful of the context.

I hope that a person's sober analysis I respect would refrain from perpetuating such slanderous language in the future.

There are better terms than fisking, like repudiation, refutation and so forth.

Posted by Jeff | June 27, 2007 9:02 PM

Sorry everyone. Computer error.

Posted by Jeff | June 27, 2007 9:04 PM

Sorry Jeff. Jeff error.

Posted by Computer | June 27, 2007 9:56 PM

Well, I came here to say what Jeff had to say, and I am hopeful I will only say it once. say it once.

Posted by jerry | June 27, 2007 10:12 PM

Really Matt, to use "fisking" is to play right into the hands of all those right wing assholes AS well as the so called moderates who were wrong from the beginning on this.

I look forward to your scathing attacks on Ted Rall and Scott Ritter.

(I thought you were a Harvard Philosophy Major?)

Posted by jerry | June 27, 2007 10:14 PM

I think the internet maxim "Once someone compares someone to Nazis the intelligent conversation is over" is proven right once again.

Posted by Dave | June 27, 2007 10:19 PM

While the U.S. government and media keep focusing on defense policies and the war in Iraq, 1.2 billion people in the world continue surviving on less than $1 a day. We should not forget the commitment made towards the U.N. Millennium Goals (a pact of ending extreme world hunger by the year 2025) in 2000. According to The Borgen Project, an annual $19 billion dollars is needed to eliminate half of the extreme poverty affecting the world by the year 2015. To my sense, it is almost unacceptable to have spent so far more than $340 billion in Iraq only, when we have more than war immunities to change the world and eliminate poverty.

Posted by aileench | June 27, 2007 10:22 PM

Every time somebody uses the term "fisking," does someone have to come along and self-righteously point out once a gain that the term is an unfair slur on Robert Fisk?

It gets a bit tiresome. Yeah, the term began life as an unfair slur on Robert Fisk. And it's generally a stupid term. But we all know this. The fact that Jeff posted it six times is completely appropriate, because I've probably read exactly the same post a half dozen times before, whenever someone on the left side of the blogosphere uses the term "fisking."

Posted by John | June 28, 2007 12:34 AM

Ironically, Andrew Sullivan also asked not too long ago if it is really so impolite and inaccurate to refer to today's Republican Party as fascist. Everyday the answer gets closer to "yes." Stabbed-in-the-back type nationalism combined with the power of big business and scaring everybody with tails of the danger posed by people of a different religion that lead to unnecessary wars are just about all the Republican Party's mainstream has left anymore. Check out the Republican debates. Check out Giuliani implicitly comparing the Fort Dix idiots to Hitler and Stalin as a huge threat to Western civilization. Check out Romney talking about doubling Gitmo. Check out our huge budget deficit spurred on in part by military Keynesianism. Check out our mistreatment of our soldiers and veterans. Check out not giving a fuck when people of a different color than the Party's elite are in danger like during Katrina. When Ron Paul dared to mention blowback, he got attacked by all of the other Republicans and FoxNews. By relying on the American fear of humiliation to get their policy preferences put into action, they just ensure that Americans will be further manipulated.

Posted by Reality Man | June 28, 2007 2:21 AM

If conservatives really believe 1) this war was vital to our national security interests and 2) that a failure of national will would lead to its defeat, then maybe conservatives should have tried harder to be honest and actually get the other half of the country on their side. If this war was really so vital, they wouldn't have had to lie and say bin Laden = Saddam, Iraq definitely has WMD's (and we know those WMD's locations) and a nuclear weapons program that will soon have a nuke, Iran and Al-Qaida are behind the insurgency, we've turned the corner, we aren't torturing innocent people, it is the central front of the GWOT, that bin Laden doesn't matter anymore, the reconstruction is going perfectly, Iraq is safe, etc. We didn't need lies to get into WWI, WWII, the American Revolution, the Civil War and the first Gulf War, but we did needed lies to get us into the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War and the Vietnam War. Coincidence?

Second of all, here's a hint for the conservatives for next time: If you want somebody's support, it's best not to first lie to them and then insult them. War opponents have been called un-American, terrorist sympathizers, weak, pussies, fags, un-patriotic, etc. If conservatives really thought that the future of our nation and national security depended upon winning in Iraq, you would think they could muster up the self-control not to slander everyone who questioned their lies and actually engage them with facts and reasoned analysis to convert them to their viewpoint. To do so otherwise shows how un-serious the conservatives have been about this war because everyone, including them, know our national security does not ride on it. It is a sideshow.

Posted by Reality Man | June 28, 2007 2:36 AM

Since my accidental posting received so much fainfare, I would like to address Sir John--I have knighted you but beware, the Rushdie club is not always so kind. If you saw my final post(after the first five, im sorry i did not count) I said sorry. I did not try to post more than once. Thus the multiple postings was not an attempt at exclamatory indignation.

I was merely trying to point out that intellectually dishonest rhetorical flourishes detract from serious conversation. I am sure many in the "liberal" blogosphere get upset at the over use of terms like "breakneck girl" which dilute the important messeage of Mr. Edwards.

Or, for example, I think that many would be angry if a dishonest and slanderous term for Cindy Sheehan(there are probably many circulating--you've read them at least a half dozen times)like say "Sheehaning" was bandied about to describe activists who use personal tradgadies as cover for political agendas. Many would prefer if honest, thoughtful people did not incessentatly repeat them. That is all I ask.

Posted by Jeff | June 28, 2007 2:45 AM

Posted by M.A. | June 27, 2007 6:15 PM :"Believing that we lost in Iraq because liberals broke our "will" is wrong, and one piece of evidence that it's wrong is that the Nazis were wrong when they believed the same thing about WWI."

Sorry? Hitler believed that smoking caused lung cancer. Can we accept that sometimes Nazis believe things that we, you know, right?

That said, they are wrong to think America has lost because of a lack of will? Really? Then America must have lost because of some massive military defeat. I must say this passed me by. Could you please tell me where and when America lost in a military sense? Terrorists and guerillas cannot win in a military sense. They have to go to what Mao called the Third Stage and become conventional Armies to do that. They can however win politically - by breaking their enemies will. This is precisely what happened in Vietnam and now in Iraq. (And in Malaya, Kenya, Algeria and dozens of other places). I don't see what is wrong with pointing out the bleeding obvious.

Posted by Jeff | June 27, 2007 9:02 PM:"Unfortunately Sullivan's analysis was wrong--people often react irrationally toward symbolic targets. It reminds me of 1960s America. If I were to walk through a Black ghetto and be the recipient of a beating for no other reason than my skin color, I would not be surpised, and my wilingness to understand the anger while not condoning it would not be just ok but thoughtful of the context."

The line between "understanding" and "condoning" is very thin. Suppose I got mugged. Would you understand if I went home and beat the wife? Why would whatever pathetic little grievances those Afghan men have explain much less justify beating a British journalist who had nothing to do with them whatsoever? Fisk simply accepted and internalized their tribalism if not racism. As you seem to. I would not be surprised if you were so beaten but the people who did it ought to go to jail.

Posted by HeiGou | June 28, 2007 5:26 AM

My private political science sees a huge distinction between fascism and contemporary Republicanism.

Some examples:

fascists want their leader to be a genius, Republicans extoll virtues of idiocy

fascists want to make trains run on time, Republicans do not care about trains (or if ANYTHING runs on time)

Intelectually (or, anti-intelectually) Republicans draw on traditions of authoritarian and illiberal ante-bellum South.

So in his hometown, Guliani was behaving like a fascist genius-leader , whipping populace to discipline (success -- windshield washers, failure -- jaywalkers) and making subways run on time, and trying to be witty, and now, as he enters the national scene, he resorts to the rhetoric of idiot-child with "right moral instincts" ("I have no idea what to do with Iraq but I will do it very, very seriously").

Posted by piotr | June 28, 2007 5:31 AM

HeiGou: imagine that you really, really like a house to be your home, it is a nice 2.5k sq ft house far from any metropolitan area, and that you have a cool million dollars in a bank.

It so happens that you are bidding for the property, and the bids reach, say, 400k, the current price of "equivalent properties". Except that you really like the combination of location and house features. Another bidder is in the same situation.

Now, one of you two will have a "failure of will" and the other will overpay.

The analogy with wars is that 99% of the time wars are for limited stakes, at least for the stronger of the two sides. To Vietnamese opposing us, their national existence was at stake (the way they understood it). To us --- ??? Some rather abstract global goals. At some point we decided that "trillion dollars and 50k lives is about what we can reasonably pay, anything more is foolishness".

So what is insufficient will to some, it is insufficient idiocy to others.

Posted by piotr | June 28, 2007 5:42 AM

Can we accept that sometimes Nazis believe things that we, you know, right?

So...you're saying the Nazis were right that they lost WWI because of a failure of national will? Gee, and here this whole time I thought we beat them.

How about WWII? I believe Hitler thought he could still win that one too, right up until the end.

Posted by brooksfoe | June 28, 2007 5:50 AM

None on the right believe that free speech is "a source of national weakness".

Liar

Posted by novakant | June 28, 2007 6:13 AM

We will continue to laugh about this until these guys get their next (prayed-for) major terrorist attack on US soil. At which time we will either react admirably like the Spanish populace did to 3.11 or fall headlong into fascism.

Posted by SAO | June 28, 2007 7:02 AM

Posted by piotr | June 28, 2007 5:42 AM:"The analogy with wars is that 99% of the time wars are for limited stakes, at least for the stronger of the two sides. To Vietnamese opposing us, their national existence was at stake (the way they understood it). To us --- ??? Some rather abstract global goals. At some point we decided that "trillion dollars and 50k lives is about what we can reasonably pay, anything more is foolishness"."

I am happy to go along with that. The national existence of Vietnam was never an issue except in so far as the Communists wished to destroy traditional Vietnam and replace it with a new Communist country that happened to have a lot of Vietnamese people in it. Abstract global goals? To you they may have been abstract goals, but to the Vietnamese and Cambodians who were murdered they were a lot more concrete. The Cold War was a conflict that had to be fought and had to be won by the West. Luckily it was - no thanks to the students who did so much to make sure Pol Pot came to power. It may be true that 50,000 lives was too much to pay but I doubt it. What is the road toll in America? The other issue is the more complex one of choosing between 50,000 and defeat or another larger figure and victory. I think that a free South Vietnam would have been worth another 50,000 lives - even another 3 million Vietnamese lives - and it was within reach. Nixon went to China after all. An agreement might have been possible.

Posted by piotr | June 28, 2007 5:42 AM:"So what is insufficient will to some, it is insufficient idiocy to others."

Perhaps. But the fact remains that neither war was/has been lost in a military sense. The US Army is undefeatable. It is lost politically and it is lost through a failure of will. I think the Left is deluding itself about Iraq the way it deluded itself about the Nationalist Agrarian socialists in Vietnam. Whatever comes out of Iraq now will extract a high price from America and be worse than anything the Bush administration could have come up with.

Posted by brooksfoe | June 28, 2007 5:50 AM:"So...you're saying the Nazis were right that they lost WWI because of a failure of national will? Gee, and here this whole time I thought we beat them."

I am saying that even evil people get things right every now and then. They were not, as it happens, right about WW1. But they were about lung cancer.

Posted by brooksfoe | June 28, 2007 5:50 AM:"How about WWII? I believe Hitler thought he could still win that one too, right up until the end."

He did not behave as if he did but that is a different argument.

Posted by HeiGou | June 28, 2007 7:28 AM

HeiGou,

After we left Vietnam, it did not "extract a high price from America". In fact, we got a lot of very capable immigrants who have materially aided the development of the US. Vietnam and Cambodia paid a high price, and Laos and Thailand were affected, but not so much the US.

I submit the same thing will happen in Iraq. We will leave, Iraq will pay a high price. Its neighbors might pay a high price, and not that much of consequence will actually happen to America. (Of course, Iraq and its neighbors are paying quite a high price right now with us there.)

Posted by Hektor Bim | June 28, 2007 8:06 AM

Godwin's Law: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

Accept no substitutes.

Please to notice that it's practically a tautology and says nothing about winning or losing a discussion.

Notice also, you can substitute any other subject into Godwin's Law and it will have the same truth value. For instance: cribbage. Or Queen Ann desks. Or kumiss. Or Ethelred's niece Knucklehead.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 28, 2007 8:35 AM

> That said, they are wrong to think America has
> lost because of a lack of will? Really? Then
> America must have lost because of some massive
> military defeat. I must say this passed me by.
> Could you please tell me where and when America
> lost in a military sense? Terrorists and guerillas
> cannot win in a military sense.

That would be the moment that George W. Bush, in full control of Congress and with 80%+ approval ratings, chose NOT to institute a tax increase to pay for his proposed war nor an expansion of the Army (and perhaps a draft) to support it. That was the end of any thought that invading Iraq was an existential test of will for the United States as opposed to just another colonial adventure of the type that Great Powers have been indulging in forever and the US since 1805.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | June 28, 2007 9:31 AM

The US Army is undefeatable.

This is much like saying that the Maginot Line is impenetrable-- probably true but completely irrelevant. If the military's mission in Iraq was to confront an enemy army on an open battlefield, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. However, the US military is doing a job in Iraq which it cannot "win" at. If you claim that "leaving = losing" and "staying = winning" then yes, I suppose you face the dilemma of "how much is too much?" when it comes to having "the will to win." However, from the perspective of most people, the war has already been lost, and it's just a matter of getting out of the way to stop sacrificing lives and resources on something that isn't very productive.

It's my observation that those who reflexively believe that "leaving" is the equivalent to some humiliating loss of lives, treasure, and national sovereignty are the ones most obsessive about staying in Iraq. Honestly, I don't know why this association is so clearly fixed in their minds.

Posted by Tyro | June 28, 2007 9:32 AM

I think that a free South Vietnam would have been worth another 50,000 lives - even another 3 million Vietnamese lives - and it was within reach.

You're a genocidal loon. The South Vietnamese government we supported wasn't notably more democratic or inclined to the rule of law than the N. Vietnamese we opposed. Our reason for supporting the S. Vietnamese goverment was simply that they were more-or-less on our side in the great game against the Commies.

If "our" side had won, there would have been just as much in the way of killings and re-education camps as occurred when "our" side lost, simply with different victims. 30+ years down the road from the war, Vietnam today is no liberal democracy, but not such a bad place compared to N. Korea--or Burma. There is no reason to suppose that the situation there would be much improved if it were the successors of "our" guys in charge.

As for Pol Pot, he come to power when Nixon and Kissinger destroyed the neutralist Cambodian government--and later was our ally against the Vietnamese, who defeated him and removed him from power.

Posted by rea | June 28, 2007 9:47 AM

To repeat what John said: Dolchstosslegende and National Socialism are not directedly connected. The legend was invented by Ludendorf and Hindenburg during a appearance before a investigating commission of the Reichstag in 1919 or 1920. Then the rightwing Hugenberg Press and the mainstream rightwing partys DNVP and DVP picked it up and run with it. The most famous Dolchstoss poster for example was Election propaganda by the DNVP.

Comparing republicans to nazis would be unfair; but comparing their rhetoric to the poisonous and irresponsible rhetoric of the german right in the twenties and thirties hits the nail on the head.

Posted by IM | June 28, 2007 10:10 AM

I think that a free South Vietnam would have been worth another 50,000 lives - even another 3 million Vietnamese lives - and it was within reach.

Curious HeiGou, how many wars have you fought in?

Posted by Barbar | June 28, 2007 10:34 AM

I think that a free South Vietnam would have been worth another 50,000 lives - even another 3 million Vietnamese lives - and it was within reach.

Hey, jerk. I live here. In Vietnam. If you showed your head in Ho Chi Minh City, amongst a bunch of guys who fought for the South -- let alone in Hanoi, among guys who fought for the North -- they'd treat you the way Vietnamese treat people who horrify, disgust and offend them: they'd say you were very, very wrong, and then walk out of the room. Because, unlike you, most Vietnamese people have some respect.

I know Vietnamese whose brothers, parents, and children were killed by US bombs in that war. The US intervention here didn't accomplish shit. Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh beat the French; they were the authors of the independent Vietnamese nation. The last Emperor of Vietnam, Bao Dai, turned over sovereignty to Ho Chi Minh in 1945 (before the French forced him to recant it), and as anyone with a brain who was in Vietnam in the '50s and '60s knew, he would've won an open nationwide election by acclamation. Ngo Dinh Diem wasn't stupid, and he knew this too, which is why he never kept his promise to hold such an open election in 1956. RAND and Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg put it best: "Ho Chi Minh, dead, would have beaten any live candidate we could've run against him in an election in Vietnam."

South Vietnam fell for one simple reason: its people wouldn't fight for its government, because it wasn't a real, national Vietnamese government. It was a creature of the United States, fashioned out of the remnants of the French colonial regime. With few exceptions, its soldiers did not owe that state their allegiance, and they fought rival internal factions more than they fought the North -- the same weak factionalism we're encountering now with the Iraqi Army we pretend exists. When we pulled out the American backstop, the regime fell to pieces. Which is exactly what's going to happen in Iraq, because of the stupidity and doltishness of American conservatives, who persist in making this exact same mistake, over and over again.

Posted by brooksfoe | June 28, 2007 11:35 AM

Whatever comes out of Iraq now will extract a high price from America and be worse than anything the Bush administration could have come up with.

What comes out of Iraq now ***IS*** what the Bush administration has come up with. This shitstorm is the direct and predictable result of conservative ideology: the belief that all the evil in the world results from evil dictators running strong governments, and that if you just invade, kill the dictator, and eviscerate the government, and send in big corporate cronies on multibillion-dollar contracts to build oil refineries and gated housing complexes, then everything else will be just hunky-dory and you'll have Southern California in no time. This is conservatism in action: a world of endless low-level guerrilla violence, ethnic and religious mayhem, and rampant crime and corruption, with the helicopters circling overhead, the Humvees roaring down the boulevards too scared to slow down, and the guys in body armor kicking in doors, terrified girl crouched in her grandma's arms in the corner. And guess what? It looks exactly the same in Bagdad and in East L.A.

Fuck you assholes -- to the ashheap with the lot of you.

Posted by brooksfoe | June 28, 2007 11:47 AM

Ahhh, the North Vietnamese Politburo--the noblest of the just men of history!

Posted by Chuck Roast | June 28, 2007 12:23 PM

"I think that a free South Vietnam would have been worth another 50,000 lives - even another 3 million Vietnamese lives - and it was within reach."

You're a genocidal loon.

He's a genocidal loon, but he might be right that it was within reach.

All the arguments we make against the south vietnamese government applied pretty well to the south korean government. But once enough south koreans had been killed the survivors were ready to settle down and rebuild, and they had no intention of fighting against the dictator we imposed on them. They've been getting closer to democracy over the last decade or so, and so apart from all the dead people they're probably doing better than they would have if the north had won. And they're individually richer than they would be if they had a higher population, too -- lots more opportunities for the survivors after all that killing.

It might easily have worked that way for vietnam. With enough deaths the war would have petered out and our puppet government could stay in control. Ideally the north would have invaded and killed a whole lot of civilians in southern cities before they were forced back with more civilians killed as the armies rolled over them the second time. And a whole lot of north vietnamese killed, maybe with the sort of armaments we hadn't developed yet, that would collapse lots of bomb shelters on the sheltered. If we had arranged that, say, a couple million more north vietnamese and a couple million more south vietnamese had died pretty quick, we probably would have "won".

The big problem was that we were too much in control. We couldn't let the NVA roll over southern cities because we were too strong. If only the chinese army had gotten involved.... And we couldn't come up with a good excuse to decimate northern cities. They expected us to, but we couldn't bring ourselves to go through with it. If only the chinese army had been approaching saigon we would have done it, and we'd have shrugged and said it was part of our attempt to stop the supplies from getting through, and it would be disputed to this day whether we actually intended anything like that. But we weren't willing to do mass bombing of civilians, in those years. When we finally did do a spasm of bombing during the final stages of negotiations we claimed we were concentrating on industry, and we didn't kill enough civilians to come close to breaking them.

What makes HeiGou a genocidal loon is that he thinks it would have been better to kill millions of additional people. But I think he's right that we could have maintained a south vietnamese puppet on the south korean model, if we'd been the sort of genocidal loon he is.

Posted by J Thomas | June 28, 2007 12:38 PM

" I think that a free South Vietnam would have been worth another 50,000 lives - even another 3 million Vietnamese lives"

I know you're trying to make a joke, but it really isn't funny.

Posted by weichi | June 28, 2007 10:42 PM

Shorter Matthew Yglesias:

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/05/the_story_was_juicy_enough.php
Matthew Yglesias:

"I don't like to use the word "fisking"..."

Stop it Matthew, you're hurting America.

Posted by jerry | June 29, 2007 12:53 AM

What do any of you know about killing? No amount of training can prepare you for the experience. If it's your job in the military this sets up an inflexible mindset about 'what is right'. The WWI soldiers believed the lie they were told that they had not been defeated in the field. Germany surrendered because (fill in the blank) betrayed us and stabbed us in the back. That rage from perceived betrayal of breaking 'what's right' made some Adolf inevitable. The whole country was infected. Vietnam ran on a similar track. For the true believers we were doing right and noble thing being there. We just could'nt deal with our public support going away after TET. So we were told we did'nt lose a battle it was the liberals, the media and the hippie college kids that stabbed us in the back. Now Chicken Hawk Draft Dodgers like 6 deferrment Cheney who were part of the same cohort who apprenticed at Nixon and Ford WH that fed the lie that Vietnam was a winnable war. Over and over for the last 40 years to anyone who would listen that's been the message. You saw it operating during the Swift Boat shit slinging. That's who and why we are in Iraq and why they'll lie and spin and disemble and keep it going long past any rational point because its not rational.

Posted by Anambrose | June 29, 2007 1:02 AM

Posted by Cranky Observer | June 28, 2007 9:31 AM:"That would be the moment that George W. Bush, in full control of Congress and with 80%+ approval ratings, chose NOT to institute a tax increase to pay for his proposed war nor an expansion of the Army (and perhaps a draft) to support it."

Thank you for proving my point - America's defeat is a defeat at home, not a military one in Iraq.

Posted by Tyro | June 28, 2007 9:32 AM:"This is much like saying that the Maginot Line is impenetrable-- probably true but completely irrelevant."

Well no on both counts. The ML was not impenetrable and the US Army is undefeatable except politically. That is precisely the point of this thread.

Posted by Tyro | June 28, 2007 9:32 AM:"However, the US military is doing a job in Iraq which it cannot "win" at."

That depends on how you define "win". I'd love to hear your definition. By any rational standard, no one will ever be able to drive the US Army out of Iraq if America does not want to go.

Posted by Tyro | June 28, 2007 9:32 AM:"However, from the perspective of most people, the war has already been lost, and it's just a matter of getting out of the way to stop sacrificing lives and resources on something that isn't very productive."

I agree - the political will is not there. And by "lives" you mean, as in Vietnam, American lives right? Because far worse things are going to happen when the US is gone. I agree that this war is lost but it was lost in the US and it was probably lost by 9-11.

Posted by rea | June 28, 2007 9:47 AM:"You're a genocidal loon. The South Vietnamese government we supported wasn't notably more democratic or inclined to the rule of law than the N. Vietnamese we opposed."

I do my best. It was notably more of all of those things even if it wasn't much on any count. The Communists were worse. The south did not slaughter tens of thousands of farmers to force the rest into plantation-style collective farms.

Posted by rea | June 28, 2007 9:47 AM:"Our reason for supporting the S. Vietnamese goverment was simply that they were more-or-less on our side in the great game against the Commies."

Sure and they were more or less on our side because they were not mass murdering homicidal intellectuals like the Communists. That tends to scare people and drive them into the US camp even if they don't like America much.

Posted by rea | June 28, 2007 9:47 AM:"If "our" side had won, there would have been just as much in the way of killings and re-education camps as occurred when "our" side lost, simply with different victims."

All the evidence of the Cold War suggests otherwise.

Posted by rea | June 28, 2007 9:47 AM:"30+ years down the road from the war, Vietnam today is no liberal democracy, but not such a bad place compared to N. Korea--or Burma."

Two other American-haters. Let's compare it with South Korea or Taiwan shall we?

Posted by rea | June 28, 2007 9:47 AM:"There is no reason to suppose that the situation there would be much improved if it were the successors of "our" guys in charge."

Except for the entire history of the region. See South Korea and Taiwan. As opposed to those other unreconstructed socialist states of Burma and North Korea.

Posted by rea | June 28, 2007 9:47 AM:"As for Pol Pot, he come to power when Nixon and Kissinger destroyed the neutralist Cambodian government--and later was our ally against the Vietnamese, who defeated him and removed him from power."

No he did not. He came to power when his Soviet and Chinese supplied, Vietnamese trained guerillas drove the Lon Nol government from power. They were in a position to do so because of the support from the Vietnamese soldiers stationed in Cambodia with the full support of the King's government who hoped to appease the Vietnamese. He was wrong. The Royal government was doomed from the moment that Pol Pot went to Paris and Vietnamese soldiers stepped foot in Cambodia. Most places Communist soldiers go Communist governments follow. The King was not neutral, he was an undeclared ally of the North.

Posted by HeiGou | June 29, 2007 4:41 AM

Posted by brooksfoe | June 28, 2007 11:35 AM:"If you showed your head in Ho Chi Minh City, amongst a bunch of guys who fought for the South -- let alone in Hanoi, among guys who fought for the North -- they'd treat you the way Vietnamese treat people who horrify, disgust and offend them: they'd say you were very, very wrong, and then walk out of the room. Because, unlike you, most Vietnamese people have some respect."

Respect? You mean fear of the political police surely? Care to come to my neck of the woods and meet some people who fought for the South or the Royalists in Cambodia and hear what they have to say about the War?

Posted by brooksfoe | June 28, 2007 11:35 AM:"The US intervention here didn't accomplish shit."

It delayed Communism in the south for decades. That is not nothing as anyone can see if they go to Saigon and Hanoi.

Posted by brooksfoe | June 28, 2007 11:35 AM:"South Vietnam fell for one simple reason: its people wouldn't fight for its government, because it wasn't a real, national Vietnamese government."

And yet, no matter how many times you claim this, self-evidently they did. The ARVN did not collapse until all US aid was cut off and only then in the face of massive Soviet hardware. This is despite the South being amazingly corrupt and incompetent. How do you explain that? Unlike the North, they did not shoot deserters either.

Posted by brooksfoe | June 28, 2007 11:47 AM:"What comes out of Iraq now ***IS*** what the Bush administration has come up with."

No it is not. It is a compromise between what the Bush administration wanted and what everyone else in the region wanted. They wanted something like Poland. They did not get it.

Posted by brooksfoe | June 28, 2007 11:47 AM:"This shitstorm is the direct and predictable result of conservative ideology: the belief that all the evil in the world results from evil dictators running strong governments, and that if you just invade, kill the dictator, and eviscerate the government, and send in big corporate cronies on multibillion-dollar contracts to build oil refineries and gated housing complexes, then everything else will be just hunky-dory and you'll have Southern California in no time."

Surely that flows directly from the Neo-Cons liberal, indeed Marxist, backgrounds? The conservatives have always tended to believe in evil, in humankind's irredeemable corrupt nature, and hence the importance of stability, order and traditional values and authorities. The belief in the Fallen nature of mankind leads them away from experiments in utopian government. As can be seen by the steadfast opposition to the war from the paleo-Cons like Patrick Buchanan. This is a liberal delusion, or an ex-liberal but an anti-Marxist and pro-Israel one.

Posted by J Thomas | June 28, 2007 12:38 PM:"They've been getting closer to democracy over the last decade or so, and so apart from all the dead people they're probably doing better than they would have if the north had won. And they're individually richer than they would be if they had a higher population, too -- lots more opportunities for the survivors after all that killing."

Probably better? They are democratic and the North has recently starved a fifth of its population to death rather than reduce the size of the Army. I utterly reject the cynicism and assumptions of the last comment as well. After all the North's population is much smaller now and they are only getting poor. People make wealth.

Posted by J Thomas | June 28, 2007 12:38 PM:"It might easily have worked that way for vietnam. With enough deaths the war would have petered out and our puppet government could stay in control."

I could easily see a deal with China in 1974 that would have been US troops in Hanoi, and end to all Communist-supplied weapons and a rapid end to major conflict.

Posted by J Thomas | June 28, 2007 12:38 PM:"What makes HeiGou a genocidal loon is that he thinks it would have been better to kill millions of additional people."

No, not additional people. Millions were going to die from the moment the Communists came to power. The question was only whether it was better to kill soldiers in the North Vietnamese Army or civilians. If we had kept Pol Pot out of power it would have saved millions of lives. The choice is not between killing or not killing, but America killing more to create a rich and democratic country or the Communists killing vastly more to create an enormous slave-state. Many leftists prefer the latter. I do not.

Posted by HeiGou | June 29, 2007 4:57 AM

"the Communists were worse, the South did not kill tens of thousands of farmers to resettle them on collective farms"

but "we" kill a lot to resettle in "modern villages" to isolate country people from guerillas.

The Communists had a mindset which was not "we want to be worse" but

(a) we do what Vietnamese did for millenia -- fight off a distant opponent bent on extending his empire -- so we will prevail

(b) we are building a better future for our nation, as oppose to lackeys of the empire (which we also had in all previous wars for independence).

To them, it was a war for everything, and there were millions of them, not few people who wake every morning thinking "what a new evil thing can we do today"?

American proponents of war were quite a bit less clear what is it for. Communism was a global enemy, it was enemy of freedom and evil and it had to be contained. Vietnam was a proxy of big evil Soviet Union (and, alas, China), getting shitloads of weapons and other vital supplies, and a strategic umbrella (nuke Vietnam, get nuked, invade North Vietnam, get Chinase human waves). A fall of Vietnam would mean slavery to Vietnamese and all inhabitants of "dominoes states", who knows how many. So far, so good.

But

global freedom is somewhat abstract, especially if half world away

the cause of freedom looses moral clarity if you commit massacres, indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, concentration camps, corrupt dictatorships etc.

the cause of solidarity with other folks looses clarity if we are ready to "kill another 3 millions" for that cause.

The last point is a simple "moral mechanics": to "steel ourselves to commit the necessary atrocities" (beautiful phrase of the ever creative David Brooks) we acquire certain racist contempt for the folks being killed, but that undermines the cause of solidarity.

Summary: Communists motivation for war was self-sustaining, "ours" was self-defeating. (I write "ours" because I was not an American at the time.)

This moral mechanics is at work in Iraq. Proponents of war oscillate between the wish of democracy to all Muslim and contempt for all Muslim (ingrates! ingrates!). One difference is that people who fight us do not get shitloads of weapons and other vital supplies from outside, second difference is that there is no one really who likes us there.

Besides moral mechanics, there is also this sobering reality: America has little of the spare capability to escalate the war, the opponents did not even start to escalate. If our opponents in Iraq get shitloads of modern weapons and our vehicles and helicopters get hit by guided rockets and state of the art mines, it can get very nasty indeed.

Posted by piotr | June 29, 2007 7:24 AM

Posted by piotr | June 29, 2007 7:24 AM :"but "we" kill a lot to resettle in "modern villages" to isolate country people from guerillas."

Care to demonstrate that claim and I notice you ignore that whole "slave labor down on the farm" thing.

Posted by piotr | June 29, 2007 7:24 AM:"(a) we do what Vietnamese did for millenia -- fight off a distant opponent bent on extending his empire -- so we will prevail"

I think that is part of the Western liberal mythology over the War. That is not what Vietnamese have done for more than one millenia and I doubt that is what the locals thought the VC were doing. After all, the North was as much of a puppet of the Soviets as the South was of the US. Probably more.

Posted by piotr | June 29, 2007 7:24 AM:"(b) we are building a better future for our nation, as oppose to lackeys of the empire (which we also had in all previous wars for independence)."

I agree with that. But intentions are not enough. I have no doubt that a lot of people thought and think everything will be fine if only they could get rid of all the Jews for instance.

Posted by piotr | June 29, 2007 7:24 AM:"To them, it was a war for everything, and there were millions of them, not few people who wake every morning thinking "what a new evil thing can we do today"?"

No one suggests otherwise except of course you are assuming all Vietnamese think alike when there is still ample evidence that the Communists did not have a monopoly on popular opinion.

Posted by piotr | June 29, 2007 7:24 AM:"American proponents of war were quite a bit less clear what is it for."

Sure. Failure of will.

Posted by piotr | June 29, 2007 7:24 AM:"global freedom is somewhat abstract, especially if half world away"

True. Especially if it means White guys dying for Asians. No one liked that much.

Posted by piotr | June 29, 2007 7:24 AM:"the cause of freedom looses moral clarity if you commit massacres, indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, concentration camps, corrupt dictatorships etc."

Sure but all of this applies to WW2 as well. I do not demand clarity - that is for utopians like the Communists - all I ask for is a reasonable balance between human rights abuses. We ought to support the side that commits and wants to commit the least. They are inevitably the ones fighting with Uncle Sam.

Posted by piotr | June 29, 2007 7:24 AM:"the cause of solidarity with other folks looses clarity if we are ready to "kill another 3 millions" for that cause."

I doubt if it does actually.

Posted by piotr | June 29, 2007 7:24 AM:"The last point is a simple "moral mechanics": to "steel ourselves to commit the necessary atrocities" (beautiful phrase of the ever creative David Brooks) we acquire certain racist contempt for the folks being killed, but that undermines the cause of solidarity."

And yet funnily enough no one would apply that to the Left that supported the VC. Indeed they were inclined to support them in their "necessary atrocities" - which I do not recommend by the way. I assume most of those deaths, like the 3 million before them, would be committed by the VC and the rest would be in the course of normal military action. No doubt that the Left has always had a certain racial contempt for the victims of Communism elsewhere.

Posted by piotr | June 29, 2007 7:24 AM:"One difference is that people who fight us do not get shitloads of weapons and other vital supplies from outside, second difference is that there is no one really who likes us there."

I agree with both of those.

Posted by piotr | June 29, 2007 7:24 AM:"America has little of the spare capability to escalate the war, the opponents did not even start to escalate. If our opponents in Iraq get shitloads of modern weapons and our vehicles and helicopters get hit by guided rockets and state of the art mines, it can get very nasty indeed."

It depends on the nature of the escalation. A little light bombing of Syria or Iran is hardly likely to be much of a problem. Besides, they are getting loads of modern weapons. They are too busy killing each other to care about the US by now.

Posted by HeiGou | June 29, 2007 7:55 AM

Posted by Tyro | June 28, 2007 9:32 AM:"However, the US military is doing a job in Iraq which it cannot "win" at."

That depends on how you define "win". I'd love to hear your definition. By any rational standard, no one will ever be able to drive the US Army out of Iraq if America does not want to go.

This is a central and important point, far more than your historical revisions.

Within broad limits, you're right. The USA spends more on our military than the next 15 or so nations combined. We have a very strong will to win wars.

We are spending close to half a billion dollars a day to stay in iraq. ($15 billion/month / 30 days/month. Some estimates suggest we're spending less, perhaps as low as $12 billion or even $10 billion / month) If things get worse we may need to spend $1 billion/day to stay in iraq. Or maybe even $2 billion. As long as we have the will to keep pumping in the money, and as long as we have sufficient soldiers, we can stay in iraq.

And if we kill or drive off enough iraqis, the cost will go down. If in 30 years there are no iraqis left in iraq then we can probably stay there for only say $100 million/day, but of course the oil will be gone and it isn't obvious why we'd bother.

The USA has far more political will for war than anybody else in the world. We have far more political will to stay in iraq than any other nation -- we are the ones who invaded iraq, nobody else particularly wanted to.

The only way we could have to leave iraq without losing the political will, would be if we ran out of money. Then we might get stuck in a position where we *can't* bring our troops home, because we simply wouldn't have the resources to do it. Theyd have to hitchhike home, depend on charity. maybe the chilean navy would bring some of them home for us.

As long as we're the economic powerhouse of the world, the economy that produces more than half the global product, we can't lose. What's that? We dno't produce more than half the global product any more? Each year we consume more than we produce? We're getting deeply in debt to china? Well, but still we can't be forced out of iraq while we have the political will and while china finances us....

The will to be stupid is powerful. No one can stop us from doing what we want, no matter how stupid, until we run out of the resources it takes to do it.

If we can believe Herodotus, there was a time that nobody in the world could stop the persian empire. They marched their army south, and it was unstoppable, and after they conquered egypt they kept going south until they fell apart. They did that sort of thing repeatedly, every few generations after their population grew up again. The will to be stupid is powerful.

Posted by J Thomas | June 29, 2007 9:37 AM

Posted by J Thomas | June 29, 2007 9:37 AM:"This is a central and important point, far more than your historical revisions."

I agree it is both central and important but there is no historical revisionism here. There is a simple acknowledgement of the facts. And I notice that although a few insults gets thrown, very very few people are even trying to deny that the US Army could not have been driven out of Vietnam if the Americans did not want to go. It was not a military defeat but a political one. At home.

Posted by J Thomas | June 29, 2007 9:37 AM:"Within broad limits, you're right. The USA spends more on our military than the next 15 or so nations combined. We have a very strong will to win wars."

Actually no America does not. Look at the wars America has fought lately. America has a very weak will to win unless it can win quick. In fact America is basically isolationist and prefers to fight small unimportant countries if at all. Grenada for instance - but not Hezbollah.

Posted by J Thomas | June 29, 2007 9:37 AM:"As long as we have the will to keep pumping in the money, and as long as we have sufficient soldiers, we can stay in iraq."

My point exactly I think.

Posted by J Thomas | June 29, 2007 9:37 AM:"And if we kill or drive off enough iraqis, the cost will go down. If in 30 years there are no iraqis left in iraq then we can probably stay there for only say $100 million/day, but of course the oil will be gone and it isn't obvious why we'd bother."

True. But there is another alternative which is that the Iraqi population will get so tired of the conflict that they will accept peace on America's terms - as I expect most of them do already. It happens in the region - Lebanon's Civil War ended in exhaustion. The Algerians would have elected FIS but in the end seem to have become reconciled to endless FLN rule. The Algerians are good counter examples to your claim about America's will to win. Not by Algerian standards.

Posted by J Thomas | June 29, 2007 9:37 AM:"The USA has far more political will for war than anybody else in the world. We have far more political will to stay in iraq than any other nation -- we are the ones who invaded iraq, nobody else particularly wanted to."

Again no. America has little will for war at all. 9-11 silenced most of the usual suspects for a while, but it changed nothing. A broad range of American public opinion, perhaps a majority and certainly a majority of educated Americans I think, opposes any war that either benefits America or involves America. They are not a minor force in American politics. The Iranians and Syrians are have stronger will because they cannot withdraw to the other side of the ocean and they tend to be more patriotic anyway.

Posted by J Thomas | June 29, 2007 9:37 AM:"As long as we're the economic powerhouse of the world, the economy that produces more than half the global product, we can't lose. What's that? We dno't produce more than half the global product any more? Each year we consume more than we produce? We're getting deeply in debt to china? Well, but still we can't be forced out of iraq while we have the political will and while china finances us...."

Come on. As if China matters here. America's economy is built on American strength. If China stopped buying US securities, the dollar would drop and exports would go up. The economy does not produce half the world's G"N"P, but it produces a good share.

Posted by J Thomas | June 29, 2007 9:37 AM:"If we can believe Herodotus, there was a time that nobody in the world could stop the persian empire. They marched their army south, and it was unstoppable, and after they conquered egypt they kept going south until they fell apart. They did that sort of thing repeatedly, every few generations after their population grew up again. The will to be stupid is powerful."

Sorry? They kept going south? To the Sudan? It is true that America will one day face limits. The doomsayers have been saying doom since the 1970s at least if not longer. Paul Kennedy built a career on it. I notice that doom has not yet come. Nor is America slipping noticeably down the list of powerful countries in the world. The long term impact of a withdrawal from Iraq cannot be guessed at yet. It turns out Hezbollah's leaders were inspired by the defeat in Vietnam so it is likely to be long and deep. That is not good. In the meantime, most soldiers are happy to be in Iraq. Most Americans are happy to pay for them. Everything could have been done better in hindsight, but America is there now and America only has a choice of bad options. At any rate, America will not be forced to do much any time soon no matter how much comfort it would give some on the Left to think their defeatism is actually realism.

Posted by HeiGou | June 29, 2007 9:55 AM

"Within broad limits, you're right. The USA spends more on our military than the next 15 or so nations combined. We have a very strong will to win wars."

Actually no America does not. Look at the wars America has fought lately.

We at least have a very powerful will to spend money on our military. We have by far the most expensive military in the world. It's our intention that we should win wars without taking any casualties ourselves. We were well on the way to doing that in the Gulf war at first. It was getting downright embarrassing how few casauties we'd taken, we had fewer casualties in the war than we'd had in training exercises leading up to the war, until the iraqis got a lucky hit on a US bunker in saudi arabia and got a whole lot of casualties all at once from that. Then it wasn't quite so embarrassing.

Of *course* we want quick wars. We want to win quick and not take any casualties and go home. And we're ready to pay heavily to do that.

Posted by J Thomas | June 29, 2007 9:37 AM:"As long as we have the will to keep pumping in the money, and as long as we have sufficient soldiers, we can stay in iraq."

My point exactly I think.

Yes. So the question is when we decide we're being just too stupid. We can keep being stupid for a long time, but at some point people start asking "What's it all about, Alfie?".

As if China matters here. America's economy is built on American strength. If China stopped buying US securities, the dollar would drop and exports would go up.

It's very strange, with the last few devaluations the dollar dropped and exports didn't go up much. That's why it's still going on. Very strange.

Posted by J Thomas | June 29, 2007 9:37 AM:"If we can believe Herodotus, there was a time that nobody in the world could stop the persian empire. They marched their army south, and it was unstoppable, and after they conquered egypt they kept going south until they fell apart. They did that sort of thing repeatedly, every few generations after their population grew up again. The will to be stupid is powerful."

Sorry? They kept going south? To the Sudan?

Apparently they followed the nile river. Herodotus thought that after a ways the nile went to the west, and went through southern libya. He said they went to libya. But he claimed that they fell apart in ethiopia somewhere, before they got to libya. Modern accounts say they indeed failed in sudan.

In a later invasion they fell apart in greece. They had a system. They'd march their army in and invite people to surrender. If a nation surrendered they took their food to feed the army and drafted a lot of the men to join the army, and kept moving. If the nation didn't surrender then they beat the army and took the food and drafted a lot of the survivors as slaves to join the army, and kept going. When they got held up in greece, losing a naval battle and a land battle both, so it would take them too long to conquer the area and grab the food, the giant army was going to be on the edge of starvation win or lose. So the top leaders ran home quick before anybody knew quite what was happening, and the mass of the army was taken as slaves by the greeks.

The long term impact of a withdrawal from Iraq cannot be guessed at yet. It turns out Hezbollah's leaders were inspired by the defeat in Vietnam so it is likely to be long and deep.

Inspired by vietnam? Our war was a catastrophe for vietnam, far worse than the harm the USA suffered from our revolution against britain. We did run out of steam but we did a whole lot of damage in the meantime. That's a horribly bleak inspiration. Too bad we can't offer them anything better.

In the meantime, most soldiers are happy to be in Iraq. Most Americans are happy to pay for them.

Where are you getting your statistics? This doesn't fit what I hear.

At any rate, America will not be forced to do much any time soon

What timescale are you thinking? I figure we have at least 3 years before things really crunch, but I'm not sure. Maybe 5 years. Do you think we could go on as we are for 10 more years?

Posted by J Thomas | June 29, 2007 12:47 PM