Fragmenta Philosophica

Occupied with the occupation

My frequent interlocutor, Roger Gathman, is not impressed with the conduct of the occupation of Iraq. A recent post of his (Wednesday, April 28, 2004) provides a good jumping-off point to consider some issues related to the occupation.

"... It wasn’t that the occupation wasn’t planned well – the problem was that it wasn’t imagined well. Or even at all. Its planners had not only never served in uniform – for all of their constant analogizing to Japan and Germany, they apparently never asked a WWII vet what it was really like."

(There follows a long and colorful excerpt from the diary of a WWII correspondent, detailing the occupation-chaos of Italy - including the humorous observation that "everybody fucks constantly ...
The latter might not be happening now in Iraq – alas, our journalists are much more hidebound about such things than the journalists of yore.")

I wonder what the basis is for the frequent assertion that American war planners failed to excercise their imaginations sufficiently - is it that things aren't going well at present? But that's not sufficient to conclude to a lack of careful planning and imagining; there might be too many variables to consider - all of the possible combinations would elude any conceivable deliberative process.

One might say that specific avoidable errors, made in WWII, have been repeated in Iraq; e.g., tolerating looting (as was done in Italy, and elsewhere). But maybe the tolerance of looting wasn't a mistake then or now - maybe it was the least bad option; or maybe it was now and not then, or vice versa.

Did the occupiers in WWII, prior to spearheading the occupations, themselves imagine well (or at all) the contours and exigencies of the "occupation dynamic"? Is that the lesson - that they did not, and hence we don't want to imitate them - or is the lesson that they managed a difficult situation well, all things considered, and we ought to generalize and abstract from their experience a guideline of sorts for action?

A certain strain of criticism of the occupation seems to treat the population of Iraq as a kind of lumpenproletariat, beyond blame, and eternally empathized with as to its antipathy to the alien occupier. But prescinding from the question of blame, surely the "human element" in any social situation entails a hugely indeterminate factor; especially when a society has been harrowed by years of totalitarianism, many pressures long stifled will erupt - and hence the hapless occupier will have to improvise and marshall ad hoc measures to contend with multitudinous social paroxysms.

I don't deny that mistakes have been - and are being - made in the course of the occupation. But even in speaking of "mistakes," care needs to be taken in distinguishing between those that are judged as much with the benefit of hindsight, and those about which it is claimed that a certain dire outcome could and ought to have been foreseen in advance.

Roger concludes with,

"One of the reason those New Deal occupations were more successful than this failed effort was that the men in charge had had enough of the self-righteousness cut out of them by the Depression that they could actually listen. No such luck with our contemporary crew, who have gorged like pigs on their own p.r."

The time factor inherent in declaring the occupation "failed" is an interesting one; the example given of Italy in 1944 would have led one to conclude, at that moment in time, that the occupation had "failed." Germany, in, say, 1946 might have inspired the same conclusion. As the cliche says - it's not over 'til it's over; the challenge is determining with any certainty when it's over. Whenever "it's over" for Iraq, surely there's a way to go, yet.

Beyond Left and Right

'To mitigate the penalties of failure, without weakening the incitements to success, and to effect an insurance against the disasters incident to advance, without weakening the forces of advance themselves, is the problem which civilization has not yet solved.'

(Philip H. Wicksteed, The Common Sense of Political Economy)

If you've read A Guide for the Perplexed by E.F. Schumacher, you may recall the metaphors he employs to distinguish between philosophical investigations and scientific ones. The latter can/do "converge," whereas the former "diverge." Hence in science we observe cumulative insight, progress. Philosophy often seems like hopeless disagreement.

To my mind it's an open question whether the dialectical tension which Wicksteed notes represents a "divergent" problem or not; perhaps this is a variation on the theme of the age-old antagonism between Liberty and Equality.

But I think we can effect a more harmonious accomodation of stability and change, safety and encouragment of risk-taking - and to do so might lead beyond Left and Right.

Teasing a Tyrant

DJ's in Miami are in hot water for placing a "crank" call to ... Fidel Castro!

'[Enrique] Santos and [Joe] Ferrero host "El Vacilon de la Manana," or "The Morning Joker," show on Spanish-language radio station WXDJ-FM in Miami.

'On June 17 they phoned Cuba's foreign relations ministry and pretended to be aides to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an admirer of Castro. They said Chavez needed to speak urgently to Castro because he had lost a suitcase full of sensitive documents during a recent trip both leaders made to Argentina.

'The call was transferred through several government officials and when Castro came on the line, the pranksters used recorded snippets from a Chavez speech to make it seem the Venezuelan leader was calling -- phrases like "Fidel," and "How are you?"

'After getting Castro to agree to hunt for the suitcase, they called him a killer and told him he was on a Miami radio show. Castro replied with a string of curses and hung up. '

If you're charitably disposed towards Fidel, you'll be glad to know that the DJ's face a fine of $4000.

Is that a lower price than they'd pay in Cuba?!

Ritter's Metanoia

The metamorphosis of Scott Ritter has been a strange spectacle to behold.

In December of 1998, on the heels of UNSCOM's withdrawal from Iraq, he wrote in the New Republic:

"Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. UNSCOM lacks a full
declaration from Iraq concerning its prohibited capabilities, making any
absolute pronouncement about the extent of Iraq's retained proscribed
arsenal inherently tentative. But, based on highly credible
intelligence, UNSCOM suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like
anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient
quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as
well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq
probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well
as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery
shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains
significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to
rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production ...

"These capabilities may seem paltry compared with what Iraq had before
the Gulf war. But they represent a vital "seed stock" that can and will
be used by Saddam Hussein to reconstitute his former arsenal. His
strategy for doing so has emerged over the past seven years of struggle
with UNSCOM. That struggle began almost as soon as the commission was
created to verity a declaration Iraq was supposed to provide to the
Security Council 15 days after the end of the Gulf war. A Security
Council resolution required Iraq to set forth the totality of its
proscribed arsenal, as well as all its components and the means of
producing it. But, instead of telling the truth, Iraq gave a radically
misleading and incomplete account. UNSCOM's original mandate, a
seemingly simple exercise in conventional arms control verification,
evolved into an endless game of cat and mouse."

In a new "Afterword" appended in 2002 to his book "Endgame: Solving The Iraq Crisis," Ritter recounted a meeting with Tariq Aziz in July 2000, undertaken for a "documentary" Ritter was filming:

" 'Well Mr. Ritter," [Aziz] said, 'the question of inspectors is part of the whole story. There are U.N. resolutions, mainly Resolution 687, and we had to implement it. And we did. We accepted this resolution formally, and we implemented this resolution for seven-and-a-half years. And I can say also that we still abide by this resolution' ...Tariq Aziz was repeating the mantra of the Iraqi government, playing the innocent in the face of incontrovertible evidence that established that Iraq in fact had not fully complied with Security Council resolutions concerning its disarmament obligations."

So far so good.

"And yet now, more than ten years after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that had set this whole chain of events into motion, Tariq Aziz's words rang with a new credibility. As the lead investigator for UNSCOM, I knew firsthand the lengths to which Iraq would go to keep the inspectors, and the international community at bay. And yet I also knew that, during the course of our difficult work we inspectors had uncovered the lion's share of Iraq's illegal arsenal. What was left, if anything, represented nothing more than documents and scraps of material, seed-stock, perhaps, for any reconstitution effort that might take place in the future, but by and of themselves, not a viable weapons program." [emphasis added].

Not only is this assertion not supported contextually with anything other than a selective appeal to the authority of Rolf Ekeus - it flatly contradicts the details and tone of the book's Appendix, in which Ritter lays out his assessment of Iraq's WMD/prohibited weaponry inventory (the book was originally published in '99).

What accounts for Ritter's about-face? We may now know more definitively; in this article in The Australian it is alleged that,

"Documents found in Iraq's old ministry of oil reveal that hundreds of prominent individuals received vouchers to buy Iraqi oil at cut-rate prices and sell it on the open market -- at tremendous, often seven-figure, profits.

"Those named include not just [Benon] Sevan [administrator of oil-for-food] but a vast array of Russian politicians, close friends of French President Jacques Chirac (including France's former minister of the interior), British Labour MP George Galloway, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and, closer to home, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

"In short, it's a who's who list of high-profile anti-war and anti-sanctions voices, all revealed to be shills for Saddam."

(Tip of the hat to Glenn)

So perhaps Ritter had his own Damascus Road experience - Babylon Highway, actually - but the divinity that stirred his soul was Mammon. Old wine, new bottle.

Fragmenta Lagomorphica

Well, the day - April 20 - has come and gone, and so far as I know, no one in the blogosphere saw fit to commemorate it. Here we might recall Santayana's haunting aphorism, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (The Life of Reason).

Yes, just over 25 years ago, then-President Jimmy Carter was ... attacked by a furious rabbit!

In the Presidential campaign of '76, the erstwhile peanut farmer had declared that a UFO he spotted in 1969 'was the darndest thing I've ever seen.' One imagines that the menacing, aquatic rabbit he would meet a mere 3 years later would usurp the anomalous aircraft in the category of darndest-ness.

According to one synopsis:

'The rabbit incident happened on April 20 while Carter was taking a few days off in Plains, Georgia. He was fishing from a canoe in a pond when he spotted the fateful rabbit swimming toward him. It was never precisely determined what the rabbit's problem was. Carter, always trying to look at things from the other guy's point of view, later speculated that it was fleeing a predator. Whatever the case, it was definitely a troubled rabbit. "It was hissing menacingly, its teeth flashing and nostrils flared and making straight for the president," a press account said.

'The Secret Service having been caught flatfooted--I'll grant you an amphibious rabbit assault is a tough thing to defend against--the president did what he could to protect himself. Initially it was reported that he had hit the rabbit with his paddle. Realizing this would not play well with the Rabbit Lovers Guild, Carter later clarified that he had merely splashed water at the rabbit, which then swam off toward shore. A White House photographer, ever alert to history's pivotal moments, snapped a picture of the encounter for posterity.'

To see that photo click this (then scroll to the top of the page to see a close-up of the critter).

Who knows what drove the amphibious lagomorph to its mêlée with the American Commander-in-Chief? The truth is anyone's guess, though some have speculated that the furry fella was cross, being under the impression that Carter had penned the doggerel usually ascribed to "Anonymous":

The rabbit has a charming face:
Its private life is a disgrace.
I really dare not name to you
The awful things that rabbits do.

Huh? VI

According to the estimable Kenneth R. Timmerman, writing today in National Review:

'Although he had never been elected to public office, [soon-to-be former French foreign minister Dominique de] Villepin has written a political manifesto. It bears the improbable title, "The Gargoyle's Scream," and an even more improbable message. "[H]ow could some of us not feel tempted by nostalgia for a time when France was ruled by an all-powerful state, that had only to appear to be obeyed," he writes.

'His solution for France's agony of powerlessness and self-doubt is not more freedom, but more government — and authoritarian government, at that. Villepin believes that today's Frenchmen and women are yearning for a charismatic leader who, like Napoleon, will "vanquish or die" in pursuit of glory. '

Something about de Villepin has always reminded me of a be-coifed Jean Claude Frollo (from Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris); each is an alchemist in his own way, no?

Political Rhetoric and its Limits

In the course of considering the extent to which political rhetoric must adapt itself to the exigencies of a volatile political atmosphere, Justin Katz did me the honor of linking to my "Shrub for a day" piece. If I've read him correctly, the substance of his critique of my post - wherein I offer a hypothetical answer or speech that President Bush would give vis-a-vis WMD and Iraq - is that we can hardly expect candor when one's opponents will shamelessly exploit (by magnifying) any concession, especially with respect to an issue that is so contentious.

I think Justin's point definitely has merit; every time Bush and his administration have disappointed me with equivocation and avoidance of an issue, I have attenuated my disapproval by thinking of extenuating circumstances along the same lines. But if a politician is to stand for anything, at some point he/she needs to make bold and show willingness to be raked over the coals. And here I recall a valuable observation by one of my mentors at college: the moment anything interesting is said, it's amenable to misunderstanding and misrepresentation. There's little point in holding press conferences - which nominally aim at addressing questions of concern to the nation - if no serious effort is made to stake out a clear position.

It's true that to dodge, artfully, inconvenient queries is almost part of the job description of the politician. And of course there's the (important) truism that politics is the art of the possible. But in these difficult times I want - we need - a statesman, and one of the marks of that rara avis is to push the bounds of the possible (which often occurs when risks are taken). Still, if I didn't feel that Bush's practice of avoidance was "systemic" to his administration to some extent, over such important matters, I'd be inclined to view his performance regarding the MIA WMD more charitably. I just can't shake off the conviction that what's at stake deserves a better defense and accounting.

While there's probably no decisive answer to the question at hand - disclosure vs. legitimate obfuscation - it's worth recalling Kennedy's post-Bay-of-Pigs apology; and the fact that Presidents Nixon and Clinton were disgraced more by the lie than the offense. While I certainly know of nothing that implies a direct analogy between Bush and the latter, surely those examples show that it's more often lack of forthrightness which creates trouble for our political class.

Déjà vu

According to CNN:

"The two leaders met at the White House Friday, as Blair comes under renewed opposition at home ..."

Shrub for a day ...

I am not a Bush hater, though I'm not a great admirer either. I find him likeable in some ways, and respect and appreciate some of his actions as a leader - and I certainly find pathological Bush hatred offputting. But his inability to articulate - and here I mean much more than his elocutionary shortcomings - the rationale for his policies and actions is taxing my benevolence.

I read about a third of the transcript from the press conference a few nights ago, and liked it more on paper than as an audient. Still - and I'm sure many in the blogosphere feel this way - I think that many of his strategies and tactics (and, yes, missteps and errors) deserve a better explanation and accounting than he and his administration seem willing/able to give.

I know it's extremely difficult to speak fluently in extemporaneous fashion - but if I were Bush for a day, I would aim to deliver an apologia regarding WMD and Iraq along the following lines:

"We haven't yet reached a final assessment - the ISG, now under the direction of Charles Duelfer, continues its work under difficult conditions.

"Still, there's no question that we haven't found what we - and Intelligence agencies 'round the world - were expecting. And that's not good.

"Though we don't know to what extent, it's appearing more and more likely that we were all mistaken - our administration and Intelligence agencies, the previous administration, friends of the United States, UNSCOM, and others. I certainly am troubled at the possibility of our Intelligence being greatly off the mark, and I want to stress that we thoroughly vetted our views and represented them in good faith to the American people and the world.

"I ask that we be judged by the plausibility of the conclusions we reached, based on the information we had at the time; no one can seriously challenge that we had the appearances on our side, that our opinions were reasonable. And let's not forget that the actions and ommissions of the Iraqis certainly fortified us in our convictions, as they unquestionably acted as if they had something to hide.

"And, in fact, according to our intial conclusions, they were at the least hiding a breakout capability for WMD, if not the large caches about which we felt so confident. The difference in one way is great, and in another not at all: it confirms us in our central contention that UN Weapons Inspections would never relieve Saddam Hussein of his desire for, and eventual possession of, WMD. Rather, his plan clearly was to ride out another indeterminate inspections regime, and maneuver to get sanctions lifted - and be in a position to restock his WMD arsenals in relatively unimpeded fashion.

"Since a central concern of ours was collusion between Saddam and Islamist terrorists, it's frightening to realize that, not just weaponized agents, but the seed stock of scientific knowledge possessed by Iraq's scientists represented a commodity in great demand on the terrorists' black market - and a risk greater than we were willing to tolerate, especially considering Saddam's longstanding hostility to our nation. We have many examples from history of ideologically opposed groups setting aside differences to make common cause against a greater enemy. Our actions will have prevented - or disrupted - any such alliance between Iraq and Al Qaeda or Iraq and unaffiliated terrorists; or even the dispatching of Iraqi agents for an asymmetrical attack.

"As David Kay said, owing to reports of materiel being shipped out of Iraq, intimidation of witnesses, intentional destruction of WMD-related documentation and media, and - as Charlie Duelfer recently told us - the blatant lack of cooperation from key witnesses, we may never know the true extent of Iraq's WMD possessions before the war. But - carrying on inspections, if you like, on our own terms - we will learn more of the truth ultimately than if we had relied on Saddam Hussein to disclose his activities and ambitions to the UN.

"This much is certain: Saddam Hussein will never develop and use WMD again, and we are in the midst of finally winding down 12+ years of conflict between the United States and Iraq - or, more positively, finally on the road to cordial relations between the civilized world and a freer, more humane, and stable Iraq. We had multiple aims in toppling Saddam Hussein, and as we attempt to sort out exactly what transpired with respect to WMD, he have to stay focused on our other important achievements and goals."

-----

In hindsight, it's clear that a simple attenuation of pre-war pronouncements would have lost little rhetorically, been more rigorous intellectually, and saved face in the light of recent events. Maybe something along these lines,

"Not beyond a shadow of a doubt, but beyond reasonable doubt, we believe that Iraq is hiding and developing WMD. Recalling all of our experiences with UNSCOM throughought the '90's, the recent perfunctory 'cooperation' with UNMOVIC shows that essentially nothing has changed, and nothing new can be expected from the regime of Saddam Hussein. One could argue that in the '90's we had the luxury of tolerating deception and ambiguity vis-a-vis Iraq's WMD; in light of the new realities heralded by 9.11, we will tolerate them no longer. Saddam Hussein has had 12 years to make a clean accounting, and has chosen not to. Thus we aim ourselves to verify well and truly that Iraq is disarmed, and disarm it if it isn't."

A few thoughts on Fallujah

A threadbare narrative of recent events in Iraq might go like this:

After multiple warnings - and within the context of a long-simmering antagonism - on March 28 the U.S. shuts down Al Sadr's newspaper (Al Hawza) on the grounds of "incitement";
On March 31 four U.S. Contractors are killed in Fallujah;
The U.S. subsequently launches aggressive strikes against targets in Fallujah.
(For useful background, see this).

The precise chain of events wouldn't have been the same, but had Al Hawza's offices been left open, there's no telling that a similar showdown wouldn't have transpired anyhow. A prudential gamble may have been taken, either to get Al Sadr to back down, or force his hand - sooner rather than later. Unlike some, I don't see the muzzling of the newspaper as malum en se - though it may well have been imprudent. But to assess matters of prudence judiciously, one needs to be privy to the facts on the ground which supply the data for deliberation. "We" can speculate, but I'm not sure enough is known from this remove to make more than provisional judgments. Allegations of Iranian meddling further muddle the issue.

The killing of the contractors was undoubtedly the tipping point, but surely it's wrong to view the "siege" of Fallujah as simple retribution; hence it's not apt to try to draw up a balance of the hundreds of dead civilians vs. a "mere" four dead Americans. Rather, the killings catalyzed the commanders to suppress the insurrection decisively, which unfortunately entailed having to move on the militiamen in their urban redoubt.

With whom does the primary culpability lie for the civilian deaths - those who attack and then hide themselves within civilian enclaves, or those who are attempting to suppress militias pursuing unjust ends? Worst case scenario: there's a shared blame, if the intentions and objective dimensions of the American response are indiscriminate. Still, the militiamen bear the greater responsibility/blame for inviting combat within urban centers. So far as I know, there's no evidence that the American response has been grossly indiscriminate (e.g., carpet bombing); a Russian commentator on Chechnya, for example, explicitly denies any analogy to Chechnya along those lines (hat tip to Glenn).

In any event, urban warfare is extremely dicey morally, and there is no unproblematic casuistry related thereto, beyond the traditional notes: it's indefensible for military targets to be destroyed incidental to the destruction of a city; damage to infrastructure and noncombatants must be incidental to the pursuit of military targets. As to what quantum of damage evinces indiscriminate warfare, there's no easy formula or recipe to apply; as ever, the quantitative-qualitative dialectic is inherently imprecise, and must be viewed within the frame of what's at stake in a particular campaign. All one can say with much certainty is that it is illegitimate - in intention, and actually - to destroy virtually an entire city (life and property) in order to vanquish a foe sequestered there.