perfidy

What evidence do you have that the overall situation is poor, and what metric are you using to to judge it? The reports that I have read indicate that the civil infrastructure is back up and running, schools are open, freedom of the press established - and hundreds of newspapers operating, goods are flowing into Iraq, the markets are full, town coucils created in most areas, and work on a national government underway.

On the flipside, you have a the attacks by foriegn jihadists and Baath party loyalists, who have killed 115 Americans and a number of Iraqis. This is not exactly Vietnam, and is less dangerous than New York, even after Guiliani.

The people who are fighting the US are those who lost the most in the fall of the previous regime (which certainly doesn't speak much for the moral worth) and non-Iraqi fanatics eager to martyr themselves. That leaves the remaining millions of Iraqis happy that Saddam has gone.

What other solution do you have in mind?

I'll direct you to this BBC story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3224723.stm Of course, the first thing every conservative does is say "blah blah blah BBC blah blah blah". Find some different figures, if you can, and we'll use them. The basics are clear. Somewhere around 4,300 Iraqi civilians killed so far. A lot more were killed, of course, but they were soldiers, so even though they're someone's son or daughter, we can't count them. That's more people than September 11, in a far smaller population base. I should think that would generate some anger. The Red Cross is pulling back. The UN is pulling back. Attacks have risen, from a resistance standpoint, from around ten a day to an average of around 35 a day, last time I checked. Warlord-like fundamentalists are trying to get power in some areas, and have large backings of millions of people. Ex-Army officers, with no visible means of support, are angry, and still have their weapons. At least some of them are using them. A flood of extremists has come into the country, and is actively blowing up Iraqi civilians in their lust to get at Americans, at any price. But the schools, which were open before the war, are now open again, and that, you feel, should assuage our feckless Iraqi civilian, who really ought to be thanking his lucky stars, right? A desire for peace and stability can be just as powerful as a desire for freedom. I wouldn't morally equate the two, but you must recognize that a significant portion of the population is very disturbed by the chaos and craziness of everything around them. Why should they react any differently? The longer we keep this population subjugated, the larger the numbers of it that will join the "resistance", whatever that is. I don't necessarily offer a different solution. We cannot find one, though, if we continue to blindly insist that the situation is just fine. It's not. It may be tolerable, from your standpoint.

I would strongly argue against saying that we are "subjugating" the Iraqi population. Compared to the previous landlord, we are nothing of the sort. Remember that in the aftermath of a despotic regime, there will be trouble. It is insane to insist that everything be immediately peachy. At a similar point after we defeated and occupied Germany, things were far worse.

I don't continually insist that the situation is fine. I do continually insist that the situation is not a complete loss, and that significant gains have been made.

If someone were to magically come up with a better solution, I would be happy to hear it, and for it to be implemented. But in the meantime, we would be foolish to give up on a solution that, while difficult, stands a decent chance of working.

Basically, yes, the situation in Iraq is tolerable. We are sacrificing, and so are decent Iraqi civilians, so that they may have a better future - not just for them, but for our benefit. No one in the administration, nor myself has ever claimed that this whole project would not be without sacrifice, or trouble, or pain. But it is better than the alternative.

Btw, I found [url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0522/p01s02-woiq.html]this[/url] on the Christian Science Monitor:

Iraqi civilian deaths

• Nongovernmental and media organizations have produced widely varying figures on the number of Iraqi civilians killed during the recent conflict. The range is a result of incomplete, unconfirmable, and unavailable information.

• Iraqbodycount.net, a website that draws on media accounts and eyewitness reports, estimates that between 4,065 and 5,223 Iraqi civilians have been killed as a result of coalition military action, both during and after the war.

• A May 15 Associated Press report gives an estimate of 2,100 to 2,600 civilian deaths, without citing sources.

• The US Department of Defense has refused to give any sort of estimate on deaths.

• Two news organizations have produced estimates of civilian casualties in just the Baghdad area by canvassing hospitals and tallying their records. The Los Angeles Times reported on May 18 that probably between 1,700 and 2,700 civilians were killed in and around Baghdad. The Knight Ridder agency published an estimate of between 1,100 and 2,355 on May 4.

The IraqBodyCount website seems to have a bit of an agenda. Also, their estimates are higher now than when this article was written. I haven't found anything on casualties since the major combat stopped. But it is unlikely to have been anywhere near as high as during the actual war part of the war. Estimates also tend to start high and drift ever downward.

Good thing I didn't quote the IraqBodyCount site. The casualty estimate of around 4,200 seems to be somewhere around right.

This Administration effectively closed off most alternate solutions to the problem with its actions earlier this year. There was a palpable disdain for the views of other countries. My gut feeling is that this war has been on the President's agenda since day one, and it came to pass. 9/11 had little to do with anything, other than being an effective means of creating support for something otherwise unsupportable.

Let's keep in mind that this war is going to cost upwards of $300 Billion when all is said and done. Your tax cut, the "give back" part of the President's plan, was $300. Then he gives $600 to Rich Folks. Then he writes a check for $1000 per person in this country (and quite a bit more per taxpayer) to the citizens of Iraq.

Then he puts the bill in a nice envelope, decorates the front with "Open Me In Twenty Years", and hands it to John Christian.