Indeed, atrios' entire post is hard for me to understand. He writes:
Well, no, not really. This is silly. Perhaps a detailed explanation of how those gears were turning tells us a lot about a person's views of the world, but the final up or down vote? Not so much.
I don't get that. Of course how they arrived at their decision is very important. In that sense, I always thought of Kerry's vote for war as a politically cynical move, not a reflection on his judgment, ecause if he were not running for President he would not have voted for the Iraq Debacle. Now that says something about his character, but also his foreign policy judgment because he did not envision the disaster to come. He lacked foreign policy judgment as well as a certain amount of character. Of course Kerry was utterly superior to Bush but I am not one to wash away the sins of Kerry's vote for war in Iraq.
Nor do I understand atrios on this:
I don't wish to to re-debate any particular military conflict other than the current one, but I do find it troubling the extent to which it's accepted that Gulf War I was a war that all sensible people should have supported. I'm not taking a position here, really, but I find it absurd and dangerous that conventional wisdom has solidified around the idea that this is now a closed question.
Atrios may argue if he wishes that it is not a closed question, but I think it is and if he does not he should present his argument for why not. Was fighting World War II a closed question? Sometimes decisions became clearly right or clearly wrong over time. Sometimes not - see Korea and/or Vietnam (I wonder if Duncan thinks that is closed question? I happen not to.)
On Desert Storm, Atrios argues:
Gulf War I was definitely a war of choice. It isn't clear how our buddy Saddam's occupation of Kuwait posed any additional threat to us. Sure, there are oil-related and other great game arguments that can be made, but they aren't really all that strong. It was a war which could have - and ultimately did - have some catastrophic unintended consequences.
This seems just utterly wrong to me. Does Duncan seriously doubt the threat Saddam Hussein posed to US interests with his military intact and his control or influence over more than half of the oil reserves in the world? Yes, it is a dirty thing to say, but it was a war about oil. Because oil is the most valuable resource in the world. Not having it or paying exhorbitant prices for it has real world consequences that also lead to death, poverty and misery.
That Saddam took Kuwait in a naked act of aggression in blatant violation of international law and civilization is of course also important. But I won't game play this. If not for the oil and Saddam - the most that would have been done by the internationl community and the United States would be economic sanctions.
But back to the Bush 43 Iraq Debacle. I am not at all sure what Atrios is trying to say here. Is he saying supporting a war that was destined to be a Debacle as many, not just dirty hippies - but real experts like Wesley Clark, said it would be does not reflect on someone's foreign policy judgment? Well, pray tell, what then does?
George Bush 41 and his advisors were roundly criticized by these same pundits for years for not going to Baghdad. In his 1998 book "A World Transformed, co-written with Brent Scowcroft, Bush 41 answered back:
Following his presidency, George H. W. Bush (i.e.,, no. 41), in (the 1998 book, A World Transformed, coauthored with Brent Scowcroft [Knopf]), explained why he didn't send Desert Storm forces into Baghdad at the end of the 1991 gulf war. His rationale, i.e., following a strict code of maintaining an internationalsit stance, makes striking reading now:
"Trying to eliminate Saddam... would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible.... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. . . . There was no viable `exit strategy' we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post–cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nation's mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land" ...
Personally, I think that makes any decision in favor of the Ieaq Debacle indefensible and the most marked of blemishes on someone's foreign policy judgment.
