The School of Thousands Dead

I missed this yesterday, but Adam Blickstein notes John McCain absurd argument that we should ignore his record of catastrophic misjudgments on vital issues of national security:

We can look back at the past and argue about whether we should have gone to war or not, whether we should have invaded or not, and that's a good academic argument.

Over 4,000 people died in this academic arguments. People need to use the term "trillion" to express its fiscal cost. And, obviously, the question about whether or not it was a good idea speaks to some important points of doctrine and theory. This isn't like quibbling over some vote on some amendment back in 1983, it was the biggest national security policy decision of the current era.

Comments

People need to use the term "trillion" to express its fiscal cost.

Not true, not true: "thousand billion" is acceptable too, as is 10^9.

Posted by hw | April 17, 2008 11:21 AM

Oops, make that 10^12.

Posted by hw | April 17, 2008 11:24 AM

Over 4000 Americans died. Who knows how many Iraqis died as well. They're "people" too.

Posted by alli | April 17, 2008 11:25 AM

Over 4000 Americans died. Who knows how many Iraqis died as well. They're "people" too.

Posted by alli | April 17, 2008 11:27 AM

McCain reminds me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Lancelot slaughters a bunch of the party guests, and then Michael Palin, who is sucking up to Lancelot, calms the survivors with a speech that starts, "There's no need for all this arguin' about hoo killed hoo."

Posted by Helter | April 17, 2008 11:33 AM

"Over 4,000 people died in this academic arguments."

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead, and they are people too. Think before being so myopic, Yglesias!

Posted by Jennifer | April 17, 2008 11:38 AM

I'm with alli. Hundreds of thousands of people have died, Matthew.

Posted by The Animal | April 17, 2008 11:40 AM

This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let's not bicker and argue over who killed who.

Posted by jim | April 17, 2008 11:42 AM

He's simply running with the classic neo-con line. Prior to any arguments about the future, they want to hit the "reset" button so their hair brained predictions that were oh so wrong, wrong, wrong "don't count". The last thing McCain wants to try to defend (or even explain) is his statement that "we WILL be greeted as liberators".

Rule of thumb: Don't listen to people that have been continuously wrong.

Posted by LFC | April 17, 2008 11:45 AM

Yo, if Americans truly cared about the losses incurred in this war of choice, it would have been over a long time ago (the American presence that is).

Posted by Bill | April 17, 2008 11:46 AM

Yo, if Americans truly cared about the losses incurred in this war of choice, it would have been over a long time ago (the American presence that is).

I'd say that 2006 was not a great election for war supporters. I think 2008 will be worse, though the economy may have an impact too.

Posted by LFC | April 17, 2008 11:52 AM

Think before being so myopic

Agreed, but it’s more a matter of debating hawks on their own terms, instead of defining the terms of debate yourself. Conservatives seem to never discuss Iraq civilians death, except to question people that have tired to estimate the total deaths, etc. Just because they don’t seem interested in Iraqi deaths doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be.

Posted by Christopher Colaninno | April 17, 2008 11:53 AM

Conservatives seem to never discuss Iraq civilians death, except to question people that have tired to estimate the total deaths, etc.

"Oh, Christopher. You're missing the obvious. They're Muslims. It's not like they're human." -- Any Random Neo-con

Posted by LFC | April 17, 2008 11:59 AM

I'd say that 2006 was not a great election for war supporters. I think 2008 will be worse, though the economy may have an impact too.

2006 was a perfectly okay election for war supporters. We reelected most of the people who signed onto the war, and the ones who had changed their positions since signing on had no real intention of changing things.

2008? I'm certainly not betting against McCain at this point.

Posted by Bill | April 17, 2008 12:01 PM

The voting public doesn't give a shit about Iraqi deaths. If the goal is to elect leadership that will end the war, mentioning Iraqis is at best a waste of time. At worst it makes it sound like you care too much about people who are all sort of the enemy kind of.

Posted by aleks | April 17, 2008 12:02 PM

I agree with what Christopher said, but it's not just the hawks' terms. The voting public doesn't give a shit about Iraqi deaths. If the goal is to elect leadership that will end the war, mentioning Iraqis is at best a waste of time. At worst it makes it sound like you care too much about people who are all sort of the enemy kind of.

Posted by aleks | April 17, 2008 12:06 PM

Conservatives only claim to care about future Iraqi deaths....'If we leave there could be genocide'.....

Any talk of current or past deaths is needless nitpicking.

-GSD

Posted by GSD | April 17, 2008 12:13 PM

Hey, what are you complaining about? This brilliant strategy captured Osama bin Laden! And kept Al Quaeda from developing in Iraq! And snuffed them out in their home base of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border! We have nothing to fear from the terrorists anymore! Or we won't once we get this Iraq situation nailed down, which should be any minute now (unless we leave, which is the only way everything could go to pieces over there).

Did I mention the capturing of Osama bin Laden? Because that's what happens when you elect guys with the right kind of lapel pin.

Posted by anon | April 17, 2008 12:14 PM

*insert Santayana quote here*

Posted by Rich | April 17, 2008 12:15 PM

"This isn't like quibbling over some vote on some amendment back in 1983"

Are you referring to civil rights legislation? While it may not be all that important (directly at least) to white folks (yes, you count) - I'm not sure I would put it down like that - standard tho it may be for white folks to do that.

Posted by sherifffriuitfly | April 17, 2008 12:20 PM

Pretty Pathetic Matt.

If you are not American, you are not "people".

Posted by seedeevee | April 17, 2008 12:20 PM

Pretty Pathetic Matt.

If you are not American, you are not "people".

Posted by seedeevee | April 17, 2008 12:21 PM

Pretty Pathetic Matt.

If you are not American, you are not "people".

Posted by seedeevee | April 17, 2008 12:21 PM

Pretty Pathetic Matt.

If you are not American, you are not "people".

Posted by seedeevee | April 17, 2008 12:25 PM

Pretty Pathetic Matt.

If you are not American, you are not "people".

Posted by seedeevee | April 17, 2008 12:25 PM

Pretty Pathetic Matt.

If you are not American, you are not "people".

Posted by seedeevee | April 17, 2008 12:25 PM

sherifffriuitfly writes: "This isn't like quibbling over some vote on some amendment back in 1983"
"Are you referring to civil rights legislation? While it may not be all that important (directly at least) to white folks (yes, you count) - I'm not sure I would put it down like that - standard tho it may be for white folks to do that."

no, i think matt just pulled a date out of his hat. the major civil rights legislation was passed in '64 and '65.

Posted by dj spellchecks | April 17, 2008 12:29 PM

no, i think matt just pulled a date out of his hat.

No, I think the date Matt pulled "out of his hat" was the year McCain voted against a resolution to make Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday.

Posted by darrelplant | April 17, 2008 12:37 PM

Matthew clearly does not understand the concept of sunk costs.

As McCain correctly pointed out in the very next sentence, which Matthew oh so conveeeeeeeeniently omits, the relevant question now is where do we go in the future.

Posted by Al | April 17, 2008 12:43 PM

An academic question is "do quarks have mass" or "is string theory correct". These are _provable_ one way or another, and hence are the best kind of "academic" question. The minute International Relations as a field of study took on the air of being "academic" in this sense was the minute reason died. Having "theories" about whether or not a war is a good idea isn't an academic issue. There's no provable hypothesis there. Thinking of war in those terms leads to distortions like McCain is making, and the IR community is partly to blame (and I put most of that blame squarely on the shoulders of so-called "rational choice theory"). They support weasels like Michael O'Hanlon and his ilk who hide behind academic institutions and play at turning war into a question or hypothesis. The real problem is treating it as such ignores 99% of the real issue -- how does it affect the people involved. Hence McCain further propagates the stupid. But he's not the only one doing so.

Posted by Node of Evil | April 17, 2008 12:50 PM

Matt,
You really need to change your post to say >4,000 americans or hundreds of thousands of people have died. To leave the post "as is" is a lie, and you are much better than that.

Posted by jim moore | April 17, 2008 12:52 PM

the relevant question now is where do we go in the future.

Well, since the Pope's here, I suppose McCain might be embracing the concept of absolution, but that actually depends upon full confession, contrition and penance, none of which are in evidence here.

It's funny: during the ad hoc, unrefereed school soccer games that ran whenever there was a break, there was a strange interpretation of the advantage rule, in which you could foul someone, pass the ball away, shout 'PLAYED IT ON!' and keep going. But you grow out of that when you're about eight years old.

Of course, should Al happen to be run over by a bus driven by a drunk, I'm sure he'll not worry about whether his home town has a habit of employing drunks to drive buses. Sunk costs, see.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | April 17, 2008 12:56 PM

Hey Al, you might want to have your keyboard checked, the "e" key seems to be sticking.

Posted by Edward, the mad shirt grinder | April 17, 2008 12:58 PM

Um, Al, I hate to break this to you, but McCain regularly employs the concept of sunk cost in exactly the opposite way. The entire body of his commentary on the war is guilty of the sunk cost fallacy.

Hint: if you ever employ reasoning that in any way resembles: "Well, we have sacrificed so much already, we have to stick this out to make sure that sacrifice means something," you really, really, really don't understand sunk costs.

Posted by Brian | April 17, 2008 1:00 PM

The academic aspect is simple (unless you're Matt):

We are in Iraq, and no amount of debating whether we should or should not have gone in back in 2003 changes that now.

The debate is over whether it makes sense to stay or go. If all you can do is argue over the 2003 era issue, then you aren't doing anything terribly useful.

Posted by James Robertson | April 17, 2008 1:02 PM

As McCain correctly pointed out in the very next sentence, which Matthew oh so conveeeeeeeeniently omits, the relevant question now is where do we go in the future.

Well that is certainly an important question. Now please explain to me, why would I trust somebody who was wrong about so much so far to come up with the appropriate answer this time?

Posted by LFC | April 17, 2008 1:18 PM

article on msnbc.com today:
"Mental health injuries scar 300,000 U.S. troops"

Posted by cha cha cha | April 17, 2008 1:25 PM

Since the same people who got us into this war and made the decision to invade are largely still the same ones running the war, then it's in no way an "academic exercise." Cheney and Bush are still the ones making the decisions, so to explain how they've screwed up in the recent past tells us very much about why they're still screwing up now and will continue to do so in the future.

Arguing about whether we could have avoided the War of 1812 -- academic exercise. Arguing about whether we could have avoided the Iraq War (pretty easy, actually, we could have done so by not starting it) is hardly the same thing.

Posted by Stefan | April 17, 2008 1:34 PM

Adam Blickstein notes John McCain absurd argument that we should ignore his record of catastrophic misjudgments on vital issues of national security

Why do I get the feeling that if Hillary becomes the nominee, you are going to ignore her record of catastrophic misjudgments on vital issues of national security?

Coulda, shoulda, woulda are not really the important points to make here. As far as I'm concerned, none of the three candidates have articulated a coherent plan for where to go forward from here. That's what needs to be discussed.

Posted by right | April 17, 2008 1:45 PM

"right", they won't be ignored. They will simply be considered the lesser of the two evils and the one slightly less willing to blindly follow the demands and desires of the current president.

I certainly don't think that Hillary would have petulantly vetoed the series of Iraq bills sent to Bush by congress that he saw fit to reject. However, I think McCain would have. So, improvement.

Why you didn't consider that set of reasoning for yourself and simply shot your mouth at wildly in an emotionally vacuous attack on MattY is difficult to understand.

Posted by Tyro | April 17, 2008 1:57 PM

"We can look back at the past and argue about whether we should have gone to war or not, whether we should have invaded or not, and that's a good academic argument."

Life once again imitates Monty Python's Flying Circus:

Cut to the great hall. Guests wounded and bloody, are tending to the dead and injured, sighs and groans, the princess in her white wedding dress is holding her chest and coughing blood. People dabbing the stains off her dress.

The Father and Sir Lancelot start to walk down the grand staircase. Talking to each other. One of the guests notices and points to Lancelot.

Guest: There he is!

Lancelot cannot be stopped. With fearless abandon he throws himself into the crowd and starts hacking and slashing. He has carved quite a number up before the Father can stop him and pulls him back onto the stairs. Renewed groans and cries.

Guest: He's killed the best man!

Second Guest: (holding a limp woman) He's killed my auntie.

Father: No, please! This is supposed to be a happy occasion! Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who...

Monty Python
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
1975

Posted by Peter Principle | April 17, 2008 2:02 PM

Arguing about whether we could have avoided the War of 1812 -- academic exercise.

And McCain should know that ... personally! ;-)

Posted by LFC | April 17, 2008 2:32 PM

'Well that is certainly an important question. Now please explain to me, why would I trust somebody who was wrong about so much so far to come up with the appropriate answer this time?'

If people want to treat this stuff as "academic", then let's apply all of the rules -- peer-reviews, citing sources, etc. And, this particular point is the most glaring omission of all. We stopped listening to people who believed that light was transmitted through "ether" because they were wrong. No amount of impassioned arguing on their part could change that. And, people who continue to promulgate junk are dismissed and ignored if they keep at it. At least that's how it ought to happen. By that standard the ideas of McCain et. al. with respect to Iraq are already prime to be dumped into the bin as we move on to the next thing. A large majority of the American people agree (I think they're about the best analog for "peer-review" that we can have in this situation). The war in Iraq has failed; it was a bad idea and nothing is going to change that. Because it was a bad idea to begin with it cannot be redeemed; no magic ponies, no "surge" or surges can do anything to redeem it. It is lost, in the sense that we've lost a lot (in terms of life and treasure) and the Iraqis have lost even more. It is time to get out and get our heads out of the sand and face the real world, instead of the cartoon substitute the Neo Cons so fervently believe in.

Posted by Node of Evil | April 17, 2008 2:36 PM

'Well that is certainly an important question. Now please explain to me, why would I trust somebody who was wrong about so much so far to come up with the appropriate answer this time?'

If people want to treat this stuff as "academic", then let's apply all of the rules -- peer-reviews, citing sources, etc. And, this particular point is the most glaring omission of all. We stopped listening to people who believed that light was transmitted through "ether" because they were wrong. No amount of impassioned arguing on their part could change that. And, people who continue to promulgate junk are dismissed and ignored if they keep at it. At least that's how it ought to happen. By that standard the ideas of McCain et. al. with respect to Iraq are already prime to be dumped into the bin as we move on to the next thing. A large majority of the American people agree (I think they're about the best analog for "peer-review" that we can have in this situation). The war in Iraq has failed; it was a bad idea and nothing is going to change that. Because it was a bad idea to begin with it cannot be redeemed; no magic ponies, no "surge" or surges can do anything to redeem it. It is lost, in the sense that we've lost a lot (in terms of life and treasure) and the Iraqis have lost even more. It is time to get out and get our heads out of the sand and face the real world, instead of the cartoon substitute the Neo Cons so fervently believe in.

Posted by Node of Evil | April 17, 2008 2:38 PM

Matthew clearly does not understand the concept of sunk costs.

That's right: lives lost, Iraqi and American, are exactly like money lost. If you're lucky or you work hard, you can just gain them back again.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | April 17, 2008 2:50 PM

I certainly don't think that Hillary would have petulantly vetoed the series of Iraq bills sent to Bush by congress that he saw fit to reject. However, I think McCain would have. So, improvement.

Well, first of all, I'm not so sure about that. Hillary's theory of executive authority seems as expansive as Bush's. She may not have vetoed Democratic bills for political reasons, but if there were a Republican congress sending her Iraq bills I have little doubt she would veto them.

Secondly, it's irrelevant to create counterfactuals about what one person or another would have done had they been president at a different time. By far the most important question is: what do we do after January 20.

While Obama and Clinton are signaling they want to leave, and McCain is signaling he's happy to stay, neither has articulated a coherent plan of (a) what conditions would enable a withdrawal, (b) how they would respond to various plausible scenarios that would follow a withdrawal, (c) how they would define "success" in Iraq.

Why you didn't consider that set of reasoning for yourself and simply shot your mouth at wildly in an emotionally vacuous attack on MattY is difficult to understand.

I did consider it, and found it lacking in persuasiveness. I don't know what emotional vacuity has to do with anything.

Posted by right | April 17, 2008 3:03 PM

Any number greater than 4000 is encapsulated by the concept "over 4000", you ninnies. Deaths as a result of the war may be anywhere from tens of thousands to over a million depending on who you believe and what causes of death you accept as war-related. If Matt had said 600000 people died there would be idiots in here arguing about the credibility of that number, hence picking the lower bound that everyone agrees on.

Posted by captain obvious | April 17, 2008 3:09 PM

McCain - We can look back at the past and argue about whether we should have gone to war or not, whether we should have invaded or not, and that's a good academic argument.

That is true. What we do in the future in the relevant poltical debate, rather than conjecture on how we would have done things differently if we only had perfect knowledge to apply by getting in a time machine and were magically transported back to 2002.

4,000 dead! 4,000! sounds like a winner for Lefties to stand on coffins used as their soapbox and make....

But 4,000 is very light for any war and does not account for tens of thousands of bad guys killed, tens of thousands more whose wounds mean their fighting days are over, and over 10 thousand Jihadis captured. And uncovery of the AQ Kahn nuclear bomb network. And massive intelligence on AQ networks gained. And "distracting" all Jihad away from the West into Iraq since 2005. Or the rejection of AQ by both Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites and other Arabs noticing that giving radicals power brings no solution to Arab problems - just horror shows like Iraq and Algeria in the 90s.

And "4,000 dead! 4,000 dead!" is bleated out by the very people that loathe the military and try to block ROTC and recruiting. People who themselves come from groups (Jews, wealthy WASPs) - that shirk military service, who also didn't raise a peep when Jimmy Carter's unsafe military killed more servicemen per year than Dubya has.

Posted by Chris Ford | April 17, 2008 5:19 PM

i wrote : no, i think matt just pulled a date out of his hat.

darrelplant writes: No, I think the date Matt pulled "out of his hat" was the year McCain voted against a resolution to make Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday.

thanks. i stand corrected.

Posted by dj spellchecks | April 17, 2008 5:19 PM

McCain - We can look back at the past and argue about whether we should have gone to war or not, whether we should have invaded or not, and that's a good academic argument.

That is true. What we do in the future in the relevant poltical debate, rather than conjecture on how we would have done things differently if we only had perfect knowledge to apply by getting in a time machine and were magically transported back to 2002.

4,000 dead! 4,000! sounds like a winner for Lefties to stand on coffins used as their soapbox and make....

But 4,000 is very light for any war and does not account for tens of thousands of bad guys killed, tens of thousands more whose wounds mean their fighting days are over, and over 10 thousand Jihadis captured. And uncovery of the AQ Kahn nuclear bomb network. And massive intelligence on AQ networks gained. And "distracting" all Jihad away from the West into Iraq since 2005. Or the rejection of AQ by both Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites and other Arabs noticing that giving radicals power brings no solution to Arab problems - just horror shows like Iraq and Algeria in the 90s.

And "4,000 dead! 4,000 dead!" is bleated out by the very people that loathe the military and try to block ROTC and recruiting. People who themselves come from groups (Jews, wealthy WASPs) - that shirk military service, who also didn't raise a peep when Jimmy Carter's unsafe military killed more servicemen per year than Dubya has.

Posted by Chris Ford | April 17, 2008 5:22 PM

Al: "Matthew clearly does not understand the concept of sunk costs."

Al believes in the "Titanic" theory of foreign policy: once you've hit the iceberg, it's pointless to discuss who built the boat or who wasn't on watch. Now you need to run for the lifeboats - leaving the women and children behind, preferably - and then drive the lifeboats onto the iceberg.

"...the relevant question now is where do we go in the future."

Preferably not into very cold water or into the iceberg,

Oh, wait, there's Iran...

Meanwhile, Chris Ford ignores the latest damage done to the US military:

Study says 300,000 US troops suffer mental problems
http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSN17282413

Money Quotes:

The study by the RAND Corp. also estimated that another 320,000 troops have sustained a possible traumatic brain injury during deployment. But researchers could not say how many of those cases were serious or required treatment.

Billed as the first large-scale nongovernmental survey of its kind, the study found that stress disorder and depression afflict 18.5 percent of the more than 1.5 million U.S. forces who have deployed to the two war zones.

The numbers are roughly in line with previous studies. A February assessment by the U.S. Army that showed 17.9 percent of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from acute stress, depression or anxiety in 2007, down from 19.1 percent in 2006.

But the 500-page RAND study, based in part on interviews with more than 1,900 soldiers, sailors and Marines, also said that only half of troops suffering debilities receive care. And in half of those cases, the care is only minimally adequate.

"There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Terri Tanielian, a RAND researcher who helped head the study.

Maybe Ford is one of those with brain damage. Ya think?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 17, 2008 5:36 PM

The numbers are roughly in line with previous studies. A February assessment by the U.S. Army that showed 17.9 percent of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from acute stress, depression or anxiety in 2007, down from 19.1 percent in 2006.

And the numbers of the general population suffering from anxiety, depression, acute stress are 20%
So big fucking deal.

Good luck, Hack, on your plans for your perfect bank robbery. You'll need them. Because like most cons, even the smart ones, there are neurons missing or twisted in your head that made you a convict and outcast in the 1st place.

Posted by Chris Ford | April 17, 2008 9:11 PM

It's funny: during the ad hoc, unrefereed school soccer games that ran whenever there was a break, there was a strange interpretation of the advantage rule, in which you could foul someone, pass the ball away, shout 'PLAYED IT ON!' and keep going. But you grow out of that when you're about eight years old.

The hell do you come from that this paragraph sounds like something people would intuitively grasp, and yet still call it "soccer"?

Posted by Senescent | April 17, 2008 9:36 PM

Ford demonstrates his true concern for his military heroes:

"Big fucking deal."

'Nuff said.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 17, 2008 11:38 PM