Iraq: Look back in disgust

There are a lot of numbers in this link that should put the war in Iraq into perspective. I’m going to give you four of them. 162,000 is the number of deaths that resulted from the nine-year conflict. 80 is the percentage of that group that was composed of civilians, mainly Iraqi police. 3,911 is the approximate number out of that percentage who were children when they were killed. $757.8 billion is the direct cost of the war, not counting interest on debts and military care.

Major U.S. combat operations in Iraq have ended – for real, this time – with a surprising lack of fanfare. We all knew it was going to happen during this term; it was just a matter of which month. While Iraqi sectarian war exacerbated the unrest, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers as well as insurgents are in the mix as well, plus Saddam Hussein himself. Remember him? He was there at one point.

When I was a left-wing politico-in-training, writing standard peacenik drivel for The Daily Kos (no, really), I didn’t care about the fallout of ending the war as long as it ended right then and there. Entreaties to “stay the course” inevitably fell flat. We never should have started on that course, so why stay? Simple. When a foreign military invades a country and makes a big mess (insurgency), it’s their responsibility to clean it up. Sadly, that required sending in more troops to kill more insurgents and take out more command centers, with more civilians as collateral damage.

Did I just accuse the U.S. of creating an insurgency in Iraq? Actually, I accused the administration of the day, but whatever. They didn’t ask anyone to try to fight them off, but they sure as hell didn’t do much to avoid it. That would have entailed not bombing the hell out of a country that wasn’t threatening it for the purpose of getting rid of its leader. I cackle with as much glee as the next person at the idea of Saddam being forced to do an Andrews Sisters act with Osama and Gaddafi in Hell’s cabaret, but who asked the U.S. to send him there?

That’s the only argument for going to war that has held up. Saddam was and would always have been evil. But the weapons of mass destruction? The involvement in 9/11? Any imminent threat to the U.S. and its allies? Bunk, bunk and additional bunk. The Bush Doctrine is most commonly associated with pre-emption. I associate it with nation-building using outright war as a means, with costs stomping out benefits altogether. Sometimes, you can justify a war. This was not one of those times.

I’m not calling for anyone’s head. But someone in that administration must be held accountable for getting America involved in the dumbest of dumb wars. If you’re not convinced that it’s manslaughter, we can stick to calling it fraud.

Wait, what’s happening in Uganda again?

The U.S. mission in Libya established that there are legal barriers to a president’s authority to wage combat, even if said combat doesn’t quite meet the definition of “war.” Those barriers are ignored with frequency unbecoming the American political system, especially so for a current president who so often demanded that the previous administration justify its military actions. (Yes, I Harpered there. Bite me.) Yet President Obama did it again, seemingly believing, mistakenly, that the objective of the mission speaks for itself.

100 U.S. troops have been sent on a humanitarian mission to Uganda. This is the first time I’m hearing of any problem in Uganda that might call for American intervention; I tend to assume that every sub-Saharan African nation has something akin to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a U.S.-designated terrorist group that has engaged in virtually every heinous crime you can imagine, including the use of child soldiers. A May 2009 law made it U.S. policy to disarm the LRA and kill or capture its leader, Joseph Kony, after intelligence and logistical support failed to change anything.

That law is the only other justification offered by Obama. Except that it only promised “political, economic, military and intelligence support” toward the effort, and did not explicitly promise actual combat troops. That would have been enough for those who criticize this mission on purely procedural grounds. I assure you that nobody, least of all me, is criticizing it because they fail to see the necessity of disposing of Kony. People like him need to be cast into the nearest lava pit.

Nonetheless, there are a few things we have to keep in mind. One, the president does not have the authority to send troops wherever he or she feels like it, even if his or her intentions are sound. Two, missions of any nature cost money, and now is the time to be saving it as much as possible. Three, the U.S. has no interests in need of defending here. That may seem selfish and isolationist, but Congress was given the authority over declarations of hostilities to make sure that criterion is met.

The only thing I can do at this point is reiterate my call for a president to pay attention to the 1973 War Powers Resolution. This would be a great opportunity for the Republican candidates to commit themselves to defense spending within the government’s means and mandates. If one of them could add an idea for how to deal with these problems in countries that can’t deal with themselves, that would be icing on the cake.

But if we end up with just another chief of the police force of the world, no matter who gets elected, something else is going to have to change. This is starting to get tedious.

Two out of three ain’t bad

National addresses always provide commentators with something easy to cover for the next day. Last night, President Obama gave one about his plans to begin withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan this summer. By the end of this year, 10,000 of them will be back home; by next summer, that number will reach 33,000; and all troops will be home by 2014, with enough time to finish shifting security responsibilities to the Afghan army.

As we recall, the mission began in 2001 as a response to 9/11 with a twofold purpose: to dismantle al-Qaeda and to remove the Taliban from power. Later on, the government added the goal of enabling the aforementioned army to take care of remaining insurgents by itself. With the Taliban no longer running the country and even Osama bin Laden, prior to his killing, complaining about al-Qaeda’s failures there, I’d say the U.S. has done most of its job.

Of course, you’ll have a hell of a time convincing me that everything in Afghanistan is going “swimmingly.” (The link is outdated, I know, but it still applies today.) By most measures, President Hamid Karzai is far from the best prime minister the U.S. could have installed. The Taliban may no longer be in power, but they remain an insurgency. Osama is dead, but that had much less to do with Afghanistan than we originally thought. Flaws in the plan all.

But those need not be the U.S.’s problems much longer. According to Obama’s address, the purpose of the three-year transitional period is to forge an enduring partnership with Afghanistan (and, consequently, Pakistan) and assist it in putting an end to sectarian and insurgent violence through multi-party talks, including the Taliban. I have little optimism when it comes to talking to terrorists, but it’s better than using third-party military force to resolve the issue.

Perhaps 10 years of war, 1,500 troop deaths and $426 billion have made me a touch cynical, but I’d like Obama and/or the commanders on the ground to present some tangible evidence that the Afghan army is even close to independence. Once that comes out, I will feel freer to say that the mission, overall, has been successful. That it took this long to approximate even that statement is more than a little bit sad.

With public opinion tilting dangerously close to disapproval of Obama’s handling of the Afghanistan mission, will this address cause the tide to turn? Considering the war’s history, he could have done much worse. I think people just want it to be over.

Gaddafi 1, NATO 0

Two weeks ago, we discussed the legality of the U.S. mission in Libya, which I said was in question considering it’s a military action, even if it’s not technically a war. That debate is ongoing, good Lord. After almost three months with no real regime change, it’s now time to discuss if the U.S. or any other foreign military should be in Libya at all, in light of Canada, Australia and some European countries recognizing the leading rebel group as the country’s government.

The rebels have formed a de facto leadership known as the National Transitional Council. Its chairman, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, was a minister in Muammar Gaddafi’s cabinet, but was known for speaking out against Gaddafi’s various human rights violations. The chairman of its executive board, Mahmoud Jibril, was Gaddafi’s head of the National Economic Development Board. I suppose their disenchantment with their former boss lends some credibility to the group.

However, recognizing them as the government is an incredibly miscalculated risk, considering Gaddafi is still holding on to power. At best, they are the government of the rebels, more like a party or an advocacy group than anything else. This is how the U.S. has recognized them. Other countries have taken the “anything’s better than Gaddafi” position. I’ve known household appliances that could run a country better, but nonetheless, he’s still running it.

I have stated many times that any significant change in Libya would run up against this roadblock; nothing will move completely forward until he’s dead or in hiding. It’s well-known that various U.S. laws and executive orders prevent the assassination of foreign heads of state. I would welcome an exemption for known terrorists, especially if they were not legitimately elected.

No foreign country with troops in or over Libya is trying to assassinate Gaddafi (as far as we know). The thinking at the time was that their presence would serve as protection for the rebels. With their deaths outnumbering the deaths of Gaddafi’s forces by two to one, I’d say that’s working out delightfully. The conflict is described as a full-scale civil war; how do we feel about intruding upon other people’s civil wars?

If I voiced support for U.S. involvement before, I withdraw it. Past attempts at nation-building have never had a particularly good track record. Legal issues in Congress aside, expect this war to be added to the loss column. All NATO troops should exit before they lose more money on a fool’s errand.

The War Powers that be

Not long ago, I concluded that U.S. involvement in Libya did not meet the criteria of a war and should not be spoken of in such terms. But it is still a military action, thus deserving of certain checks from Congress – namely, the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which apparently has never been regarded as binding by any president. It was passed over then-President Richard Nixon’s veto, so I’m going to assume at least one branch of the government takes it seriously.

The text of the resolution can be found here. Note Section 3, which makes clear that the president must obtain authorization before engaging the military in a “hostility” for 60 days or more, unless Congress has already declared war or a national emergency makes engagement necessary. Of course, the actions taken in Libya are neither a declared war or a national emergency, so this rule sounds reasonable enough to me.

The legitimacy of the Resolution has been a long-standing bone of contention, when you view it within the framework of various clauses found early in the Constitution. A Supreme Court ruling may have decided the question over the separation of powers, as demonstrated by Myers v. United States in 1926; that court did not find President Andrew Jackson’s breach constitutional. Given the amount of times that ruling has gone unmentioned since, I would say it’s time for the Supreme Court to dole out a new one.

In any event, it remains Congress’s responsibility to appropriate the funding necessary for military actions, so they do have something to say when the White House sends the military somewhere. The House has already voted to ban funds from being used for ground offensives, which may be a waste of time considering all U.S. action so far has been carried out from the air. But Congress could go further.

Perhaps I’m exaggerating, but if President Obama wanted to prove he was serious about that hopey-changey stuff in the realm of foreign policy – which seems to be scoring him points, kind of – he would take the resolution as bond. I can’t tell that the U.S. military is having any sort of impact in Libya, and I didn’t think they would unless they killed Muammar Gaddafi. He at least needs to speak to that.

In the meantime, Congress ought to send this message to the White House: We won’t pay for it unless it works, and after that, your job is to make it work or get the troops out of there. If they’d sent that message to the last president, they might not be haggling over the deficit nearly as much. And if you can’t see the connection there, you must be new.

Libya: A war by any other name?

In an address to the nation last night, President Obama attempted to define exactly what U.S. forces were trying to accomplish in Libya and why they should bother trying at all. He spoke primarily in terms of the spirit of the mission: to prevent Muammar Gaddafi from continuing an assault on his own citizens. The trouble is that you won’t find very many people who disagree with him on that point. They’re more concerned with logistics and legality, and they didn’t hear much about either.

Going strictly by Wikipedia definitions, were American involvement in Libya an actual war, it would require the two nations’ militaries to attempt to cripple and dominate each other. The interventionist aspect of the mission, and the fact that it was authorized by a third party (the UN) and will be taken over by another (NATO), suggests it is more along the lines of peacekeeping, in which force is a last resort, but still a resort. Therefore, I’m drawing the conclusion that “war” is a misnomer.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean Obama can avoid going through the legislature. According to this congressional record from 2003, funds for peacekeeping were available in the budget as long as these steps were taken first (see page 18985):

• the Senate and House Appropriations Committees and other relevant committees were notified 15 days or best offer in advance;
• they were given a rundown of the exit strategy, the national interest at hand and the cost;
• the Secretary of State certified that American companies would be given the chance to supply “equipment, services and material” for the mission.

I can’t tell from the document if this is based on existing laws or simply budgetary constraints; can anyone confirm? In either case, these are appropriate criteria to meet before any peacekeeping mission is authorized, and Obama would have done well to meet them. And if anyone accused him thereafter of dragging his feet, well, I’m sure he’d rather have done that than risk censure or worse.

The hardest question Obama will have to answer from this point forward is why Libya deserves the U.S.’s aid and not wherever else a regime has lost legitimacy and gained insanity, as Gaddafi’s has. My only guess is that Gaddafi and his atrocities have been well-known enough to get the requisite amount of public attention. For the world’s sake, I hope it’s not just PR.

The military contractor complex

How many people felt an uncomfortable chill go down their spine when they first heard about private contractors in war zones? In my younger and more left-wing years, I might have opposed this on the ground that they are seeking to profit off war and will no doubt cheat taxpayers and troops alike out of, respectively, money and quality services. Today, my stance is this: Considering overblown defense budgets, it’s a good idea – if it works. According to the Commission on Wartime Contracting, that’s no guarantee.

What we can conclude at this point is that while it’s not unheard of for a private contractor to have a spotlessly clean record, there are enough of them who don’t to rack up an as-yet-unspecified percentage of $177 billion in waste. The initial costs may remain lower than they would if the Defense Department was doing all the work itself. However, when all is said and done, cost-effectiveness is the most accurate measure of contractor success.

The article lists the following as problems that have ensued:

• fraud
• cost overruns
• “shoddy work”
• bribes
• kickbacks
• money laundering

That might be all in a day’s work if, like notable contractor KBR, you’re pals with former Vice President Dick Cheney. But he’s gone, and the political appetites of most Americans have shifted from supporting the troops at all costs to supporting the troops within reason. The timing is right for (honest) accusations leveled at military contractors to escape the left-wing blog ghetto and debut in mainstream news.

The aforementioned Commission has some ideas about improving business: “the creation of a permanent inspector general to watch over war zone contracting, and requiring agencies to pay more attention to a company’s past performance before making new contract awards.” That it didn’t have a permanent inspector general or a sufficient level of past performance examination the whole time is almost baffling. Yes, this would be a great start.

I would also advise that the government send an appropriately vetted forensic accountant with each company, so they know they’re being watched from the inside. Admittedly, with multiple contractors, that might mean a hell of a lot of accountants. But I bet plenty of them are looking for work.

Happy Labor Day, war is over

The Associated Press seems to think President Obama’s address on the winding down of the Iraq War was confusing to most viewers/readers of the full text of it. I personally was not left with many questions, as the course of action troops in the area will now be taking is a course I have advocated for months. (I get results.) For those of you who are confused, however, here are the things you’ll need to know about what the Iraq War will look like from now on.

The end of the combat mission. This is probably from where most of any confusion has come. There will still be some fighting, as al-Qaeda is still in the area and they certainly aren’t taking a breather, but Iraqi troops will be joining U.S. special forces in pushing them back, and those efforts will have less of an offensive element than they previously had. My interpretation is that these fights are considered good training opportunities for Iraqi soldiers. You can’t give an army control over violence in their country until they know what they’re in for.

The end of going it alone. That’s the point of having 50,000 U.S. troops remain. One of their chief roles now will be to train and equip Iraqi soldiers to handle the insurgency, not to mention Iraq’s own potential problems with neighboring states. No doubt some will argue that the U.S. bears some responsibility for there being an insurgency, but there isn’t much we can do to change that now.

The end of sectarian violence. There isn’t really one in sight, and this prevents Iraq from enjoying a fully functional and democratic government. I can think of no surefire way to solve this, other than to remind all sects in the country that they have a few fundamental values in common: the desire to live their lives as they please, hold their own government accountable, and stop worrying about being blown up to hell.

The end of not rebuilding stuff. When I’ve talked about U.S. troops staying behind a while to “clean up the mess they made,” this is a big part of what I’ve meant. Not that Iraq’s infrastructure was fantastic from the beginning, but if you’re going to make this a standard for victory, you might as well do something about it. I anticipate that some international aid will be requested, but whether or not it’s granted is a different matter. I’m thinking yes, in the end.

People have complained that the definition of “victory” in Iraq keeps changing, possibly because nobody ever had a good one. It really hasn’t; it has always included the above elements. Governments just have a hard time deciding which one to mention most. I would also add the need for a new economy in Iraq. But none of this justifies the war itself. No matter what comes out of it, it was a waste of everyone’s resources.

A farewell to arms, a greeting to mouths

Plans to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq have been in the pipeline almost since the beginning of the Obama administration. There are still critics who believe that doing this is too hasty and would leave behind a negative impact on the region, not to mention the reputation of American forces. The State Department thinks it may have found the solution: Its diplomats who will be traveling to Iraq for transition efforts will be trained to act like the army!

Do you hear that? That’s a giant “WTF?!” rising up from the crowd. After all, what do diplomats know of the science of armed conflict? Training for this requires much more time and resources than they have available, right? Nonetheless,

In little more than a year, State Department contractors in Iraq could be driving armored vehicles, flying aircraft, operating surveillance systems, even retrieving casualties if there are violent incidents and disposing of unexploded ordnance.

As if the U.S. hasn’t had enough problems with contractors in Iraq. Now State wants them to fly their airplanes? Who are they going to get to do that, Delta’s second-string pilots? (I flew Delta. They’re good.)

The point of this concept is that by the time combat troops exit, State officials will be lacking security personnel. The reasonable thing to do would be to supply them with a proportional amount of soldiers who have already been trained for this, instead of relying on them to protect themselves, and definitely instead of relying on contractors to do the job. Even that has its critics: “[T]hat would require renegotiating the U.S.-Iraqi status of forces agreement.” I don’t think Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would have much ammunition against it, though.

U.S. presence in Iraq will have some permanence, as there is now an American embassy in Baghdad and five “Enduring Presence Posts” (similar to consulates) in rural areas. This is what State officials should be focusing their own efforts on. They have been educated and trained in the art of foreign diplomacy. Unless the lot of them have taken up target shooting, wrestling, or flying as hobbies, I’d say that all the equipment in the world – including Black Hawk helicopters, which they have requested – would be of little use to them.

The very idea sounds as if it was put together in five minutes. “Wait, I don’t want to run this stuff.” “Don’t worry. We’ll get contractors to do it.” “Oh! OK!” True, the war itself didn’t get much more planning, but no need to make the same mistake twice.

Ten years, no plan? Yeah, right

Sigh. I thought everyone was on the same page by now about the date of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. But once again, here come the buzzwords: “leaving,” “uncertain,” “self-defeating.” At least they aren’t saying “cut-and-run” again, which would be pretty silly given that, by July 2011, the war will have been going on for a decade. Too quick, indeed.

Senate Republicans are worried that the troops will leave Afghanistan by this date under any circumstances. As in, regardless of what’s going on in the country at the time. The accusation that President Obama would take that course of action is simply absurd; have we not seen by now that he loves to deliberate things? Especially things that involve military presence?

National Security Advisor James L. Jones says the date is “etched in stone”; does he mean the date of actual departure or the date of beginning to plan it? Republicans want him to mean the second one, and they feel insufficiently convinced that he does. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) complains that it’s only been said once. I wonder what the administration would have to do in order to really get it across to him. Bake him a birthday cake with “We’re just planning to leave, not actually leaving” written in buttercream on the top?

In the Republicans’ eyes, it should reflect well on Obama that Gen. David Petraeus is defending the current plan. Certainly the man is nothing if not skilled and accomplished, but they seem to regard him with disproportional reverence, as if he is the Jerry Garcia of the Armed Forces. Here’s how we can sum up his recent dialogue with his groupies, compared to their past dialogue with Obama and Co.:

PETRAEUS: “[July 2011] is not the day when we look for the door and turn out the lights, but when a process begins.”
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ): “Oh, we know. But does the president know? Does he listen to you the way we do? Of course not, nobody does. We love you, man.”

OBAMA: “[July 2011] is not the day when we look for the door and turn out the lights, but when a process begins.”
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ): “O RLY?”

The real trick is enabling the Afghan army to work without a U.S. presence. This piece from last month identifies the biggest issues at hand: “[A]ddiction, desertion and illiteracy.” If there’s any assurance we need to hear from Obama and his national security team, it’s that they’re finding viable solutions to those. This would have a greater effect on the timing of the withdrawal than just being there with big guns.