How History Will View Iraq
On May 3 the gents at powerline thoroughly fisked a hideous Washington Post diatribe that tries to place the Iraq war in historical context. The essay in question, written by Eugene Robinson and titled “Torture Whitewash,” begins with this quote:
Twenty years from now, how will we remember this “global war on terrorism”? Assuming it’s over by then — assuming we haven’t escalated a fight against al Qaeda into an all-out clash of civilizations — will we look back on the GWOT, as Washington bureaucrats call it, and feel pride in the nation’s resolve and sacrifice? Or will history’s verdict be tempered by shame?
The answer will depend on how this Congress comes to terms with the documented mistreatment of prisoners in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Iraq and who knows where else in the secret archipelago of U.S. detention.
Robinson also invokes The Greatest Generation– but instead of Iwo Jima and liberating concentration camps, he points to a black-eye:
The thing is, history tends to be relentless in pursuit of the truth — and its judgments tend to be harsh. World War II may have forged the Greatest Generation, but the internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps will never be excused.
Robinson ends with this:
History, I predict, will not be kind to government lawyers who invented ways to interpret statutes against torture so that they supposedly permitted the abuses they were designed to prohibit. It will not be kind to medical doctors who attended interrogation sessions that clearly crossed the line — doctors who helped inflict pain rather than alleviate it. Ultimately, there will be no free pass for the Bush administration officials who permitted torture, or for a Congress that let them get away with it.
Pounding the Administration over the mistreatment of prisoners is one thing; however, claiming that Abu Graib, etc., are the historically determinative issues is nine notches below pathetic. But Abu Ghraib and anger are all our Eugene Robinsons have. While they can see Lynndie England and her dog leash, they miss Saddam’s mass graves. Ink-stained Iraqi fingers and pro-democracy demonstrators in Beirut. Why? At some level our planet’s Robinsons know they’re on the wrong side of history. “The Robinsons” once thought they were the forefront of progress, the leading edge of ideas and engagement; now they are habituees of the rear areas as a New Greatest Generation confronts embedded tyrannies and changes bitter history for the better. While the rest of us have entered the new era of liberation, the Robinsons are trapped in a decayed and fossil liberalism, cranky voices delivering a predictably negative and myopic prattle.
I wrote a column last year before I left for Iraq that addressed the issue of the Iraq war in history. It ran in several newspapers after I was in Baghdad. It features an interview with former Senator Bob Kerrey. Here’s the link to the StrategyPage archive, but I’ll put it up here on my website. (Here’s a link to my “New Greatest Generation” column written after returning from Iraq. I’ll add the lede below.)
Here’s the grand history Eugene Robinson et al are missing. It’s why I pity them.
Bob Kerrey: On Iraq and Democracy
by Austin Bay
June 18, 2004Editor’s Note: Colonel Bay is now serving with coalition forces in Iraq. Before he deployed he interviewed 9/11 Comissioner, former SEAL, and former Senator Bob Kerrey about the historical significance of Iraq.
Former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey has always struck me as the Democrats’ version of John McCain. It isn’t merely their Vietnam War connection, though demonstrated courage is surely a factor. When called upon to be partisan, they’ll play party hardball, but don’t expect national committee talking points. Both men have the maverick’s spine to openly speculate and frustrate, but they usually do so with a leader’s disciplined goal of constructive critique.
Kerrey is now president of the New School University in New York. He’s also a commissioner and major presence on the 9-11 investigating committee.
I spoke with him last month by phone, but the subject wasn’t the latest 9-11 soundbite, it was historical vision.
That’s a tough topic. But for good leaders — and I’d add, for responsible critics — it’s a vital exercise, making the creative attempt to “look back from the future at the present.” The goal is to slip the myopia of immediate emotions and focus on the long-term significance of current actions and events.
This comment by Kerrey, from December 2003, led to last month’s conversation: “I think (Iraq is) going well. It breaks my heart whenever anybody dies, but we liberated 25 million people who were living under a dictator. It puts us on the side of democracy in the Arab world. Twenty years from now, we’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who says it wasn’t worth the effort. This is not just another democracy. This is a democracy in an Arab world …”
He stands by it. Here’s why:
“If you look beyond the short term violence and instability, you do see significant activities on the part of the Iraqi people that indicate they understand the commitment necessary to govern themselves. It’s not clear how they will do it, but it never is. It’s not clear in the U.S. at the moment, either. We’re going through another election,” Kerrey added, with a touch of irony.But as for Iraq: “There are going to be in the short term terrifying, confusing moments (like) attacks on Iraqi police headquarters. The intent (by the opposition) is to produce destabilization, to cause people to say let’s get out of here, they don’t like us. … I don’t think the U.S. is going to cut and run. If we stay, then I am very confident that Iraq will build a stable democracy, have their own police … and (eventually) provide their own military for defense against external threat.
“The problem is you tend to look back and identify mistakes, and as a consequence of feeling terrible about mistakes you say you bungled this so bad, let’s get out of here. Any peaceful project I’ve been involved in … there’s always a moment where there’s a setback and you say, “Oh no,” and faith’s shaken. You can’t let that stop you.”
Why is Arab democracy such a significant goal?
Kerrey said “The West” underestimated the Arab world after World War One. “With Versailles (the treaty) in 1919, we viewed the Arabs as largely tribal, bedouin, backward. They couldn’t govern themselves … the French, British, provided the stable government that allowed commercial transactions. … As a consequence of our lack of confidence in them, we’ve communicated that democracy is a vital, difficult option for everyone but them.”
What a mistake, Kerrey argued. Democracy benefits everyone. “There’s democracy in India and South Africa. We have to put the spotlight on those places that demonstrate if you’re willing to work hard and sustain the effort through the disappointment of failure … but if you have people willing to sustain the effort, people who believe humanity has a good side, you can make it work. Terrorists in Iraq are saying we reject that, and we want control. That’s what’s important (to the Islamist terrorists), control through a corrupted interpretation of the Koran or because we (Baathists) want to control because we want to control.”
Kerrey said the “big argument” on the planet, and one motivating radical terrorists, is “How do we make modernism work? No doubt communism is completely discredited … but … how do you make globalism work for local communities. I don’t think we’ve figured out how to make it work.”
–30–
Here’s the lede to The New Greatest Generation. Eugene Robinson needs to get out in the field and meet these people.
A new greatest generation is emerging — in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in the other, less-publicized battlegrounds of the War on Terror.
Focused on the U.S. political cycle, America’s press elites are missing the extraordinary story of the 19-through-35 year olds who are winning this war. The detailed history of this new cohort of American and Free World leaders — the people who will shape the 21st century — is being written by themselves, chiefly on the Internet, via email or web logs.
This is a battle-honed bunch with exceptional talent and motivation, young people with a mature balance of idealism and realism, youthful cool and professional competence. I saw this cool and competence on every patrol and convoy I made this past summer in Iraq. I had the privilege of working with these “kids,” inevitably chastising myself for referring to such able young adults as kids. Their comeback was always “It’s OK, sir. We know colonels are old.”
Twenty years from now, GWOT will be seen as a prelude to the real war, much as World War I is often seen as a prelude to World War II. OBL will be seen as a threat as great as the Mahdi. The WTC tragedy will be seen as a precursor. And the generation that wins the next one will be seen as even greater.
Comment by Richard Heddleson — 5/5/2005 @ 8:41 am
“Twenty years from now, GWOT will be seen as a prelude to the real war, much as World War I is often seen as a prelude to World War II.” Leaving Germany destitute with crushing reparations payments set up the conditions for WWII. The “Cold War” created the conditions for Terrorism(any dictator would do, as long as he was on one side or the other). Setting up real democracies took too much time, and no sooner was there a success than a senior military officer bought off by the other side would lop off the head of the democratically elected leader and take control. These wars are the remnants of the Cold War. 20 years from now, the result will be peace. Alternatively, 20 years from now the technology will exist for any tin pot dictator/war lord/street gang to produce a NUKE for a lousy few millions dollars. The cost of high quality mahine tools to make things like centrifuges is dropping just as fast as the cost of the computers to work out the design.
Comment by Soldier's Dad — 5/5/2005 @ 11:20 am
With Putin’s recent comments about the USSR, China’s rumblings on Taiwan and the turmoil in Africa, I don’t expect to see peace in 20 years. I expect another cold war-type conflict, with Europe less relevant (though Britain may be the exception if they don’t surrender their soveriegnty). I expect history to validate the war on terror, but there will always be those who complain that it distracted from the emerging threat of the next conflict, be it China or the mess that Africa will become.
Comment by Half Canadian — 5/5/2005 @ 6:44 pm
A book you’d like is called the “Peace to End All Peace” its about the treaty of Versailles. I don’t think that we underestimated the Arabs so much as Woodrow Wilson didn’t have a plan to enforce his vision (plus he’d probably had a stroke).
Comment by Opinionated Bastard — 5/5/2005 @ 8:21 pm
A book you’d like is called the “Peace to End All Peace” its about the treaty of Versailles. I don’t think that we underestimated the Arabs so much as Woodrow Wilson didn’t have a plan to enforce his vision (plus he’d probably had a stroke).
Comment by Opinionated Bastard — 5/5/2005 @ 8:32 pm
Robinson is an idiot. The next 20 years will witness massive changes on a scale more like the preceding 50 or 100 years. 20 years from now Abu Ghraib will be a footnote. The big story of the coming years is whether China can make the transition to a lawful, orderly, accountable government in a peaceful way or will it remain an authoritarian and menacing regime lurching from crisis to crisis, and will it suffer from internal disorder and violence or will it visit violence on its neighbors as it suffers from this process of change and resistance to change by the current corrupt regime. The seond biggest story will be the booming growth of India as an economic and cultural and military powerhouse, since India has already done the hard work China hasn’t started of establishing democracy and the foundations of the rule of law and a free and open society. The Muslim Middle East will be seen more and more as the tertiary area that it really is. As we move away from reliance on oil, the Muslim world will sink into the obscurity it enjoyed for centuries while it was ruled by the Turks.
Comment by Lexington Green — 5/5/2005 @ 10:11 pm
If I had my way, in 20 years the war would be interesting, but the Big story would be the budding civiliation on the Moon. Go Burt Rutan…
Comment by Dan Schrimpsher: Space Pragmatism Blogger — 5/5/2005 @ 11:13 pm
I’d only say that the “Greatest Generation”=interncamps analogy is abit of hypocrisy in that it’s Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld who are catching the flak over Abu Gharib, but somehow it’s the “Greatest Generation” that is responsible for internment camps not FDR. Could have something to do with whether there is a “R” or “D” after that president’s name.
Comment by MKL — 5/6/2005 @ 12:24 am
Excellent post. Robinson attempts to describe “the documented mistreatment of prisoners” by the US at Abu Gharib and WW2 Japanese internment camps as both inexcusable and deserving primacy among considerations as to the worthiness of WW2 or in Iraq in toto. Only leftists use this sort of calculation, wherein there is no moral difference beteween the Axis and the Allies in WW2, between the US and USSR in the Cold War, or betwen the US coalition and Saddam’s Iraq. It also equates the real torture, murders, genocide, disappearances, and slavery committed by Saddam, Hitler, Stalin, and Hirohito with putting underwear on the head of a nude prisoner. It literally equates the temporary imprisonment at internment camps in California with the ovens of Germany. Beyond being both offensive to Americans and belittling to real victims of state-sponsored violence, it is merely another leftist display of hatred towards all things American. Robinson could right the same article about baseball, Wal-Mart, the Civil War, health care, and voting . For all I know, he probably has. It deserved a good fisking, and then we should taunt him a second time.
Comment by Kevin Fleming — 5/6/2005 @ 7:01 am
Why do people not read Michelle Malkin’s book on Japanese internment? The MSM has yet to explain why Canada and Mexico also interned their West Coast citizens of Japanese descent. And to equate those detentions with Auschwitz, and Abu Ghraib with 9/11, is grotesque and moronic.
Comment by Robert Speirs — 5/6/2005 @ 9:16 am
Kevin nails Lefist moral equivalency for what it really is — the absence of morality altogether.
Comment by Cosmo — 5/6/2005 @ 9:28 am
I remember reading of a black staff sgt. in a unit that liberated a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. He began giving orders to an officer in charge of the camp. The Nazi officer refused and spat on him. He proudly removed his pistol and shot the officer in the face to the cheers of the jewish prisoners. in the camp. The current abuse “scandel” seems like small potatos next to this. He has now been an interviewie on a documentary based on the accounts of witnesses to the brutality of the holocost. I think history has treated this hero and his war quite favorably.
Comment by Nick Lauber — 5/6/2005 @ 12:14 pm
What sort of pinhead thinks the internment of the Japanese is even one of the major issues of World War II? 100 million people died, empires fell, entire idelogical creeds were vindicated or destroyed, war and destruction rained on most of the inhabitable earth, entire populations were exterminated, the geopolitical world was remade along drastically different lines, and quite frankly, no matter how disagreeable and regrettable, what happened to some Japanese-Americans in America who didn’t lose their lives and only lost some of their property doesn’t even make the top 500 of the most important things to happen during the war. I’m not sure that ANYTHING that happened on the territory of the US would even make that list, apart maybe from the sheer fact of the growth in our industrial capacity. Now that doesn’t mean that America shouldn’t have thought long and hard about it after the fact, it’s our job to think about things we did or that happened on our soil, but in the context of the biggest and cruelest war in human history, a European and Asian war, it’s a very small thing and pretty low on the barbarity scale.
Comment by Mike G — 5/6/2005 @ 1:03 pm
Mike G: Very, very true. But there are in fact these sorts of pinheads around. Consequently, their anti-Americanism can easily supply a thousand reasons that 9/11 occurred, and all pin the blame on the US, not the actual perpetrators. It’s a sort of magical thinking in which any problem in the the world can be summarized with “It’s the USA’s fault.” This leftist fundamentalism permits true believers to skirt complex issues and critical anaysis. That is, it’s an all-purpose solution, and inherently meaningless. They may as well blame the Vogons, except that the anti-US mindset has deleterious side effects.
Comment by Kevin Fleming — 5/6/2005 @ 1:18 pm
You wrote about Bob Kerrey, “It isn’t merely their Vietnam War connection, though demonstrated courage is surely a factor.” Was he demostrating courage when he lied on his action report saying his platoon killed VC when it was an old man, a woman and I think a couple of children and a teenager? He one a Silver star for that. When it came out that he lied he did NOT return the Silver star. Is that courage? You wrote, “Both men have the maverick’s spine to openly speculate and frustrate, but they usually do so with a leader’s disciplined goal of constructive critique.” When Richard Clarke was caught lying he was called back in front of the commission. Clarke did not deny it saying it was spin or business as usual. Kerrey then offered praise and said he would be honored if Clarke came to the New School to speak or teach. How is it constructive to reward someone for lying to a commission that was created to find the whole truth about 9/11? Kerrey is what is wrong with politics today and you are wrong Mr. Bay for praising this creep. Sincerely, Terry Josiah
Comment by Terry — 5/6/2005 @ 1:54 pm
Twenty years from now, nobody will remember Eugene Robinson wrote this crap. That’s probably good for Eugene.
Comment by Xixi — 5/6/2005 @ 9:33 pm