Sounds like you want to visit the sins of the father on the son. W is not responsible for the 12 years. He doesn't deserve the crap from Salam. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

W is the greatest friend Salam and the Iraqis have in the world. If it were up to the Bush-haters in the world (including the Democrats), Salam would really be up the creek without a paddle.

Amen

(to Dan)

Don't forget that although we may not be the only ones who "owe a debt", we seem to be the only ones to repay them; even if it takes 10 years and a man's son to reverse the bad advice given to the father; bad advice STILL given to this day to that son.

Both of you and Salam should get off your high horses. We have a hard fight and a victory to win.

mCrane

Uh, no, he's explaining why the average Iraqi has been a bit reluctant to pick up a rifle again after they DID do it, at the urging of the US, and were then slaughtered as we looked the other way. That IS the US's fault and responsibility - the current president doesn't get a free ride for past US decisions. He represents the country and its past actions.

And Salam didn't say screw you, go away W - he's asking for an honest appraisal of the situation and a more coordinated effort. The whole campaign has not gone as certain people in charge of it publicly boasted it would. Mistakes are fine, everyone makes them. But not ever admitting them leads to a problem in credibility, which then extends to weakening support.

So it's a "thank you, now come take a look, admit it's not all going to plan, and show us you're really doing all possible to improve it - including acknowledging what's not working and taking steps to change and improve the approach". Lileks is clearly a pissed-off bitter person about this. He sounds like a "how dare you question my decisions" type of person. At least from this little screed.

Everyone knows this whole thing is a bitch to deal with - not accepting or acknowledging any criticism doesn't make it any easier.

Let me ask this: why does our encouraging the revolt impose on us a moral duty to provide active (rather than merely rhetorical) support?

Fuckin' A, Dan.

Stan

Sounds like you didn't actually read Dan's post. The point is that Lileks has no right to sit in his frickin' rumpus room telling Salam Pax that he's "got no stones" 'cause he didn't single-handedly overthrow Hussein.

As for "sins of the father", GW may not be culpable for what his daddy did, but this is about the US government, not individuals within it. The US government hung the Iraqis out to dry not very long ago. It's fair for Iraqis to remember that.

Hey Daniel? Fuck you. (Sorry to do this on your own blog but its the format apparently). I know you're a thoughtful guy but automatically springing to the defense of the eminantly snarky Salam Pax is a little too much. Sure, none of us have lived in Iraq under Saddam or after, but does that mean we have nothing to say about the matter? And, truth in advertising here, is the best spokesman on the world stage for the Iraqi people an upper class son of a tribal chief who benefitted considerably more from Saddams rule than 99% of Iraqis? Besides that, I'm not sure a guy who has spent more time in London than Chalabi since the liberation is quite an accurate source for first hand reconstruction accounts.
Let me be clear, habibi, America has bled for Iraq. We can deal with disagreement and contraversy. In fact we welcome it. But what many of us wont shut up for is ingratitude and condescension. Especially from some know-it-all smart-assed kid off selling books whos only ideals were that Saddam is bad and America is bad. Not much to work with I'm afraid. But he does fit in nicely with his new transnationional European friends.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - I normally really enjoy Lileks and can even understand his reaction - however, he admits he would not have the guts to use a gun if he was in Salam's shoes too, so that weakens a bunch of his rant.

James is enjoying the good life here in the US - if he was writing this from Bagdad after having been thru alot of what Salam is experiencing, I might appreciate it more.

Salam did not deserve the torrent of disdain he got out of Lileks. Writing snarkily and insigthfully of life in Baghadad during the days of Saddam took far more courage than getting shot to pieces while charging the barricades. And it had far more impact.

I love Lileks' writing. But charming depictions of his daughter and well-written right-wing punditry doesn't hold a candle to what Salam accomplished. And heck -- though the tone may have been sarcastic -- I don't think Salam's letter said anything much different than what warmonger Andrew Sullivan has said. Thanks for dumping the dictator, but you still have a job to finish.

TG -

And Salam didn't say screw you, go away W - he's asking for an honest appraisal of the situation and a more coordinated effort.

Bullshit. Salam calls Bush "Georgie" in his letter. Salam's not a friend asking for some self-appraisal and introspection. He's openly mocking the president.

Lileks is right.

Bush 41's failure to help out the rebels in 1991 (which, had he done so would have infuriated the international community and the fickle 1991 coalition) is no excuse for Pax to get all snarky about the fact that the only country willing to get rid of Saddam hasn't made everything perfect in a few months.

If he keeps this up, he will HASTEN the erosion of America's resolve. Then he can put his lot in with those who would end up in control of Iraq, who he would be "bravely" complaining about only from a position of jealously guarded secrecy.

This combination of impotence (we wanted him gone, but couldn't mobilize the resources or the cooperation to do it, even though we had 30 years), shame (we're emberrassed that the Americans did what we couldn't), and unrealistic expectations about how quickly a 30 year mess in an Al-Qaida infested part of the world, which has never known democracy (save Israel) will prove to be an exremely difficult problem.

Randy M.

"doesn't hold a candle to what Salam accomplished"

What, exactly, has Salam "accomplished"? Not being killed or tortured by Saddam? Perhaps there's a reason for that...

..however, he admits he would not have the guts to use a gun if he was in Salam's shoes too, so that weakens a bunch of his rant.

I don't think so at all. He wasn't writing about the revolution, he was writing about the reconstruction, and Salam's apparent displeasure with its pace and progress. He was also pointing out that that reconstruction was taking place at the cost (in part) of someone else's blood, and that a certain level of gratitude for that sacrifice is in order. Instead of snarkiness over soup-stained carpet. Salam was way off target here, considering the forum of the message.

Let's see if I've got this straight: the reason Lileks is wrong to chide Salam, according to Dan Drezner, is because the U.S. still owes the Iraqi people for abandoning them after the U.S. urged them to revolt in 1991? Then what explains the failure to revolt before 1991? It's not like Hussein was a good boy before 1991 and it was the U.S. who made a monster of him and betrayed the Iraqi people by its actions in the first Gulf War. Sounds like Mr. Drezner has a stereotypical case of "Blame America First" disease.

The U.S. is doing something about Hussein and terrorism now, for the second time in under 15 years, and Mr. Drezner has the nerve to blame us for being willing, even conceding that we've made mistakes in our dealings with Iraq, to take on a tyrant when his own people have NEVER had the nerve to do so? I guess this policy amounts to this: the U.S. should never do anything about tyrants but if it sends U.S. men and women to fight on behalf of a repressed populace, it better get things right the first time.

I'm with Lileks. People sitting on the sidelines of a mess of their own making have very little right to complain when the U.S. steps in to do what they should have a long time ago. The mistakes of the first Gulf War fail to explain the Iraqi people's long acceptance of their tyrant. Now that Hussein's gone, to their clear benefit, they want to carp about cleaning up the mess? Hey Salam, I don't care how dangerous it is: it's your country, why don't YOU go back there and do something about it instead of sitting around bitching about the way we're handling it? It's easy to blog, Salam, but we've got people dying over there on your behalf. Show some respect.

"It's a tragedy. I'm betting, however, that to the ordinary Iraqi, the death of three Americans doesn't even compare to the loss of life that's taken place over the past twelve years in Iraq, be it through war, repression, or sanctions. So get a grip, suck it up, and allow an eloquent Iraqi the opportunity to vent some snark from time to time. He's earned it."

Earned what? What has Salam Pax earned? The fact of the matter is he was saved. Lileks is right. And you Dan are blowing farts out of your mouth.

You speak about Bush the first allowing Saddam to go on his rampage. Fair enough. But what about the ten years before when Saddam sent over 1 million Iraqis to their death over war with Iran? What about the ten years after 1991?

Well, someone finally stepped in and removed the curse. Not only that, 20 billion dollars are coming in from the United States alone. So much for leaving a job undone. It has been only 7 effing months for crying out loud.

Lileks has Pax pegged.

I don't see how anyone can read Salam's use of the word "service" and not have their teeth set on edge. The US military is not your servant, Iraq. We overthrew your scumbag because your whole sick part of the world is a threat to our way of life, and as your people overwhelmingly demonstrate when they move here, if we get a few things off your backs you're capable of becoming just as free and productive as we are. But unfortunately, all you're demonstrating is that you can become a whiny entitlement baby as fast as spoiled young Americans can, too. Lileks is right: any Iraqi who is hanging out being the toast of the London literary world, and shaping his opinions to suit that court, is an Iraqi who is betraying this chance to make something of his country at long last.

I totally agree that Lileks was way out of line, and this morning told him so. It's not only how unfair Lileks is, it's his contemptuous dismissal of Pax's words, like the coloniser to the native.
I would also like to agree with the poster who said that Lileks shouldn't be talkiing about stones to a guy who lived and blogged under Saddam. There's a whole world of difference between talking in macho-talk about taking governments out from a desk in Minnesota and living under Saddam.

Salam never discussed why "the average Iraqi has been a bit reluctant to pick up a rifle again after they DID do it, at the urging of the US, and were then slaughtered as we looked the other way."

He was complaining. Outright complaining.
"I am kind of worried that things are going a bit bad in Iraq and you don't seem to care that much."
"You have spilled a glass full of tomato juice on an already dirty carpet and now you have to clean up the whole room. Not all of the mess is your fault but you volunteered to clean it up."
"But I have to say that the advertisements you were dropping from your B52s before the bombs fell promised a much more efficient and speedy service. We are a bit disappointed."

Disappointed - really? Let's see, the last time the United States cleaned up a despotic society we had to fight four plus years, fire bomb tokyo and drop two nukes to get the despots out. This time it took us, what, a few weeks, almost zero civilian casualties and almost zero infrastructure damage? Things aren't speedy enough for you? We're spending almost a hundred billion dollars and hundreds of American lives, and we're not moving fast enough? We have to clean up the entire carpet - while you kick back in your La-Z-Boy and lift your feet off the carpet while we're on our hands and knees?

Lileks was right. Fuck you, Salam. Fuck you.

Salam Pax is a spoiled child. Lileks gives him the treatment he richly deserves. The US owes Iraq NOTHING. The fact that, in its own interest, the US decided to risk American lives and overthrow a despot. But for Salam, the fact that as a result of this Iraqis are now able to live in freedom only dreamed of under Saddam is not enough. Well, though.

And to blame the US for leaving the 1st time is to make the same error Salam does: assuming a moral duty where there is none. If there's a moral duty involved, it's that of the Iraqi people to take responsibility for their own country and stop blaming the only people that ever helped them.

Yes, we've toppled Saddam, which is absolutely brilliant. But I would imagine that many Iraqis don't see this act in isolation. They probably also see the US's years-long support of the man who was gassing, torturing and killing them. They see how we encouraged them to revolt 12 years ago and then hung them out to dry for internal political reasons. They probably see how we overthrew the Iranian government in the 1950s and inserted a tyrranical, US-friendly dictator. In short, they see the cumulative effect the US has had on Iraq and the Middle East over the years. And that cumulative effect ain't exactly fabulous or benevolent. So even though it's wondeful that Saddam has been tossed out on his big fat mustache, can't you see how Iraqis reserve the right to feel slightly pessimistic and unsure about just how wonderful all this is going to turn out? Wouldn't you?

Mr. Lilieks seems to expect an unequivocal gratitude from Salam Pax. Salam Pax wrote a long time ago, and at length, why his feelings would never be better than mixed.

When soldiers from another country are being killed and maimed to get rid of your tyrant and help establish democracy and human rights, a dose of oh so clever snarkiness and condescension leaves a bad taste. Contrast the attitude of Zeyad of healingiraq.blogspot.com and Alaa of messopotamian.blogspot.com who, while having significant criticms of some reconstruction policies, are still able to articulate a clear sense of gratitude for the sacrifices that have given Iraq a chance to experience freedom.

I'm afraid I have to agree with James. "Salam" is tittering around London Town with the sneermeisters from the Guardian, probably eating hors d'oeuvres at cocktail parties, gyrating his butt at gay clubs after hours. Meanwhile his own countrymen and women and a hell of a lot of young Americans of both the military and civilian stripe are over in his country trying to clean those "stains" out of the carpet.

I'm sure the skills of an architect are needed in Iraq to aid rebuilding things. Maybe it is time for "Salam" to stop playing "Queer Eye for the Iraqi Guy" from the sidelines and go and try to help this country he purports to love.

Writing snarkily and insigthfully of life in Baghadad during the days of Saddam took far more courage than getting shot to pieces while charging the barricades. And it had far more impact.

Like hell.

Let's see. . . .

Guys killed writing snarkily: 0.

Guys killed liberating Iraq: 400-plus and counting.

Results from snarkiness: None.

Results from storming barricades: Toppled dictator, life getting better.

Dan, you blew it on this one. Lileks is right. Pax has been coopted by the right-wing (and I use that trem deliberately) crowd at the Guardian for whom fascism can be excused in the greater cause of anti-Americanism. Pax writes like a snarky staulking horse for this new know-nothingism, which has far less to do with anybody's understanding of Iraq that it does with brute envy and schadenfreude at their lowest levels.

[Oops. Here's a corrected version of my comment.]

Salam Pax is a spoiled child. Lileks gives him the treatment he richly deserves. The US owes Iraq NOTHING. In its own interest, the US decided to risk American lives and overthrow a despot. But for Salam, the fact that as a result of this Iraqis are now able to live in freedom only dreamed of under Saddam is not enough. Well, though.

And to blame the US for leaving the 1st time is to make the same error Salam does: assuming a moral duty where there is none. If there's a moral duty involved, it's that of the Iraqi people to take responsibility for their own country and stop blaming the only people that ever helped them.

It occurs to me that it's remarkable how patronizing this 'they owe us' attitude actually is. Fact is, all this punditry seems quite like Monday-morning quarterbacking. It's very easy to indulge in, but when it boils down to it, none of these people have a dog in this fight EXCEPT for Salam. It's not OUR country which could either descend into anarchy or develop into a stable, free state. He has every right to be worried, and it's an implicit responsibility on our part as citizens of the country which is now in charge to take that seriously.

Regarding Brain's post on the ten years before the Gulf War, when Iraq fought Iran. Who do you think was one of Saddam's supporters against Iran? It was US support of Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war that convinced Saddam he had enough goodwill with the U.S. that they wouldn't mind if he snuck in to Kuwait.
The U.S. did not invade Iraq for the benefit of the Iraqi people. The word was always "wmds", and the end of the Iraqi people's suffering was but a mere byproduct. Now they haven't found any WMDs and suddenly the welfare of the Iraqi people was always the top priority.
When the U.S. got rid of Saddam it was simply correcting a past wrong when it kept him in power. No more, no less.

Good post, Dan.

Question to the dissenters: at what point do Iraqis such as Salam Pax get to criticize the United States? Should they be grateful forever? If they see problems with the CPA, should they keep quiet? Where does this line of logic lead?

Lileks is partly right. It's more like this.

Salam, fuck you. If you don't like how the clean up is going in your homeland? Pick up a broom. Pick up a shovel. A paintbrush. Anything. Quit hob nobbing around with your new found dick smoking friends in Soho. Roll up your sleaves and get to work.

It's not the content of the criticism that L.
is dissing, it's the form of the criticism: the
petulant snark.

“Bullshit. Salam calls Bush "Georgie" in his letter. Salam's not a friend asking for some self-appraisal and introspection. He's openly mocking the president.”

“I don't think Salam's letter said anything much different than what warmonger Andrew Sullivan has said.”

Yup, and that’s why James Lileks is right and Dan Drezner is wrong. We should encourage brutally honest criticism of our efforts in Iraq. Still, Salam is acting like like a jerk. The President of the United States does not deserve to be called “Georgie.” This is especially true considering the grief he is enduring for freeing the Iraqis. Andrew Sullivan has never engaged in immature insults.

Mark: "The US owes Iraq NOTHING. The fact that, in its own interest, the US decided to risk American lives and overthrow a despot"

How was this in the US interest? I thought that the reason we invaded Iraq was for humanitarian reasons. Please, explain to me how Saddam's crimes of 10 and 15 years ago presented an imminent threat to us today.

Wait, what was that? Iraq was NOT an imminent threat? GWB never said the words "imminent threat"?

Weapons of mass des--? Oh right, forgot--that's yesterday's news. Mass Graves! Mass Graves!

What page are you on again? Clearly, you are a slow reader.

Nobody has pointed out that the rebellions after the 1991 war were mostly in the South, among the Shiite Muslimes, who were in fact wiped out in great numbers, with a failure of will on Bush I's part admittedly contributing to the crime. However, I believe it's generally believed that Salam Pax is a member of the Sunni class with ties of some sort to the Baathist regime, and many commentators have tended to discount the tone of many of his complaints as a result.

Salam has pretty much worked both sides of the street throughout this affair, and I would say that Lileks's comments about stones are appropriate. This is not a guy who would commit fully to anything, I feel pretty certain (and as such, he belongs, I suspect, in the moral category of the numerous folks in Europe who collaborated with either the Nazis or the Stalinists and came out smelling at least not totally stinky).

The question I have, reading Dan's blog on and off, is which sides of the street Dan plays -- a "Republican" who seems to give currency to some of the more hysterical positions of the angry left (cf. the Valerie Plame serial nonsense) -- well, gee, I want to be a Republlican, I'd like to be a Republican, but after all Bush lied about WMDs, the Iraq occupation isn't perfect, and those evil Bushies are willing to out our covert agents. . . . I sense a similar game here, to tell the truth. No wonder Dan sympathizes with someone piliable like Salam!

Wow some people here need to go buy some laxatives.

Yeah he's just some guy complaining, a rich kid, whatever. But he's basically said what many others have said, very much including supporters of the war from many countries, the US included.

The main reason it's perceived as "not going fast enough" (by many, including much of the US public) is because it was sold as a "cakewalk". That to me seems to be a big screw-up and misjudgment. They gave this forecast against the warnings of many smart people, and many military veterans.

I don't think anyone is completely ungrateful for the removal of SH. It's just hard for people to be smiley and appreciative when their family members are often being killed, things are still blowing up all the time, and just the mess involved in war. Heck, even our soldiers are bitching here and there. It's what people do under hardship. Mr Lileks out in MN should chill the fuck out, to use his vernacular.

Americans have bled for Iraq. In the 90's they did try to free themselves, at our encouragement, and too many died. They failed. Perhaps Bush the elder did promise that if they did rise up the US would come storming in to help, but I don't remember ANY such promise being made. What I do recall was that US actions were "multilateral" and that it was the will of the UN and ALL arab countries that we not go in.

Sure Salam has the right (thanks again to AMERICAN Blood) to be a whiny ingrate, but he's still being a whiny ingrate.

Fuck him. On a silver platter, with no sacrifice of his own, he has been given one of the most precious gifts anyone could get and he's bitching because it's not as shiny as the one others earned for themselves.

Kal

PS Yes, he didn't sacrifice anything. He suffered through privations due to the war, but not of his own choosing (though I recall him bitching about it then) and he didn't do it to support the US; so nothing he suffered was him sacrificing anything in the cause of freedom.

So... Lileks thinks he has stones because 3 Minnesotans died in Bush's war? 8000 Iraqis have died. And Pax was a hell of a lot closer to the front lines than Lileks was.

I would go further than Dan. Salam has has exactly the same right as everyone else to be insulting to Georgie. Salam is just echoing Thomas Freidman, "you break it, you buy it".

If the fact that Iraqis are normal people, not grateful and subservient peons, does not align with the warmongers earlier delusions, too bad. Lileks, Richard Perle, Instapundit and Georgie will have to learn to deal with reality without getting huffy.

But I doubt he, or those who agree with him, are going to learn.

"The question I have, reading Dan's blog on and off, is which sides of the street Dan plays -- a "Republican" who seems to give currency to some of the more hysterical positions of the angry left (cf. the Valerie Plame serial nonsense) -- well, gee, I want to be a Republlican, I'd like to be a Republican, but after all Bush lied about WMDs, the Iraq occupation isn't perfect, and those evil Bushies are willing to out our covert agents. . . "

Yes, Dan is committing ThoughtCrime.

He clearly must be LIQUIDATED from the GRAND REPUBLICAN PARTY for questioning GREAT LEADER HIS EXCELLENCY GEORGE W. BUSH.

You people are ridiculous, you're worse than the Soviet appratchiks.

Even W admits the mistakes of the past:

"We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East. Your nation and mine, in the past, have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. Longstanding ties often led us to overlook the faults of local elites. Yet this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time, while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold."

However, look at what has been accomplished. The removal of the Taliban and Al Queda from Afghanistan. The removal of Saddam from Iraq. The planting of the seed of freedom in the Middle East.

And where does W want to go, what chart does he put forth?

"As recent history has shown, we cannot turn a blind eye to oppression just because the oppression is not in our own backyard. No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient. Tyranny is never benign to its victims, and our great democracies should oppose tyranny wherever it is found.

Now we're pursuing a different course, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. We will consistently challenge the enemies of reform and confront the allies of terror. We will expect a higher standard from our friends in the region, and we will meet our responsibilities in Afghanistan and in Iraq by finishing the work of democracy we have begun."

Hundreds of American lives, hundreds of billions in US dollars, and a sea change in official US government policy.

And Salam has the nerve to state, and I quote, "We are a bit disappointed."

Haven't done enough for you, Salam old boy? Not fast enough? Are you sure you don't have a little French in you?

Ikram, Salam is ingrateful little pasha. He needs to get out there and paint a school or something.

As for Iraqis not rebuilding their own countries, there are numerous reports of ineptitude by the CPA and overspending, and not giving the jobs to Iraqi companies. There are tons of engineers in that country, and since they *speak the language* (which it doesn't appear we have many people capable of doing), things can move quicker and faster. In the few cases where they managed to go ahead and rebuild things themselves, or perform estimates, they've been vastly faster and efficient (cheaper too).

Of course I'm sure someone will dredge up something claiming that's all wrong, but there are enough contractors in Iraq who'd love to be building things and making cash, and who'd do it faster, better and cheaper than people unfamiliar with the country. In many cases, we're not letting them rebuild their country. Well OK, you go sweep over there, you clean those few unbroken windows.

The reason Lileks is wrong is that it's premature to expect gratitude.

Why? Because the situation in Iraq is not settled. A new system is not established. It's not secure. There's still the possibility of another tyrant being installed. Or a Shiite theocracy. Or maybe a Chalabi kleptocracy.

Basically, Iraq's in an interregnum, and it remains to be seen what the next government will look like. What the next government is depends in large part on how Bush handles things.

If Bush pulls out early, for political advantage at home, and Iraq dissolves into chaos and violence, then one could hardly expect gratitude from an Iraqi.

Iraq is like a patient getting a heart/lung transplant. Right now, the diseased organs have been removed and the patient is hooked up to a heart/lung machine. The new organs are yet to be installed, and even then they might be rejected. And, god forbid, there's always the possibility that the new organs will be the wrong blood type and cause massive system failure.

It's a little early to expect much gratitude when so much can yet go wrong, and so much is still under the control of Bush.

David,

It's somewhat irrelevant to the subject at hand, but I had to respond. Here's a small sample of Andrew Sullivan not engaging in childish insults.

(Scroll down a little bit to "Howell and MoDo are in the jacuzzi at 43d Street. The two masters of the Sulzberger universe have had a great week. And now with wrinkles almost prune-like on MoDo's cellulite, they just had to swig back the Jack Daniels and the Cipro-laced bonbons MoDo loves so much, and review the high-points.")

Wow. You folks are truly deranged.

Lileks (and a whole bunch of people in this thread) basically conflate George W. Bush and his Administration with the United States of America. A rather common error among Internet rightwingers, but incorrect nonetheless.

"Bullshit. Salam calls Bush "Georgie" in his letter. Salam's not a friend asking for some self-appraisal and introspection. He's openly mocking the president."

It is possible to mock a public figure while asking that public figure to please get on the ball. That's exactly what Salam is doing.

"Bush 41's failure to help out the rebels in 1991 (which, had he done so would have infuriated the international community and the fickle 1991 coalition) is no excuse for Pax to get all snarky about the fact that the only country willing to get rid of Saddam hasn't made everything perfect in a few months."

Bush 41's failure is a very good reason why Lileks & Co. so eager to proclaim Iraqis as eager Saddamite slaves should STFU. They already proved their willingness to die in the hundreds of thousands to overthrow Saddam in several revolts before '91 (see Kurds) and after (see Marsh Arabs). Calling Iraqis cowards is historically inaccurate, not to mention dumb.

"If he keeps this up, he will HASTEN the erosion of America's resolve. Then he can put his lot in with those who would end up in control of Iraq, who he would be "bravely" complaining about only from a position of jealously guarded secrecy."

Yes, because we all know that remaining silent is the best way to solve problems.

To those who believe that the United States owes the Iraqi people nothing and who call those Iraqis ungrateful:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

"then hung them out to dry for internal political reasons." Internal? Are you kidding? We held back because, so soon after the end of hostilities in the Cold War ("Mission Accomplished!!") there was no international sentiment for us to be bustin' up the map (without a plan, as they say in Oh-Three) and acting like modern day colonialists.

"Salam, fuck you. If you don't like how the clean up is going in your homeland? Pick up a broom. Pick up a shovel. A paintbrush. Anything. Quit hob nobbing around with your new found dick smoking friends in Soho. Roll up your sleaves and get to work."

Mishu--why don't you quit your snarking and go LIVE in Iraq for a month? Join the Red Cross or Peace Corps.

Explain what you do that gives you the right to criticize ANYBODY.

Good for you Dan. I don't think Salam is any more a fighter than Lileks is.
If I understand the Lileks/Reynolds axis, if a country is under a brutal regime and they don't "have the stones" to rise up then they don't deserve to be liberated. Someone from the same state as Lileks got killed. Wonder how many people Salam actually knew have died this year?

What makes me laugh about Pax and agree with Lileks is also an important question that hasn't been asked outright. Why the hell is Pax not working to help straighten out his own country? Does he have a job helping coalition forces hunt down Ba'athists? No, but he probably isn't too qualified to do that. Does he work for a construction company building new schools and hospitals to benefit his countrymen? No. Has he made an effort to join the new Iraqi police forces to help bring law and order to the streets? Not that I have seen. Is he working to help stabalize the economy, start new business ventures, or provide a good industrial base for the future of Iraq? Probably not. If Iraq is going to move forward and become a full part of the world economy there are things that Iraqis are going to have to do for themselves. America and her allies can help rebuild the infrastructure, but we can't be responisble for every single aspect of their society. Don't get me wrong, I am well aware that there are many many Iraqis doing exactly that. They are helping build a future for Iraq. They are the giving their all (and some their lives) to make Iraq a country that they can call their own again. They give their blood, sweat, and tears for a brighter future. And in the end I think Pax is disrespecting their efforts by whining about how America and Bush isn't doing enough.

Hey Pax!! Use your pen to write about the future you want for Iraq instead of complaining about the present you are doing nothing to fix.

Salam says we spilled tomato juice on Iraq's dirty rug. Now we gotta clean it all up. Salam, I got news for you, we built you a whole new house--an $18 B. mcmansion! All we ask is that you stop the neighbors from shooting us while we build it. Then we'd love it if you would move your stuff in and make yourselves comfy. What's not to be thankful for?

I don't see the point in arguing over whether Salam and his buddies could or should have picked up guns themselves. That was then, this is now. Now is the time to make himself/themselves useful. Apparently it's still too much to ask. That's why Lileks is more right than Salam and Dan. And please, boys, no more f words. We're supposed to be models of civil discourse, aren't we?

And the sentence before:

"But I have to say that the advertisements you were dropping from your B52s before the bombs fell promised a much more efficient and speedy service. We are a bit disappointed."

We created unrealistic expectations in the US and Iraq about the speed and ease of the task. Granted, in Iraq it was probably a necessary psy-op to encourage support. This is what people bitch about, the messy interim. Not the overall goal. Most Iraqis think the future will be better. That is gratitude. You're all giving way to much credence to this one person, who seems pretty clearly not the average Iraqi citizen.

Wow, Dan really hit a nerve here.

Anyway, I liked these questions: "at what point do Iraqis such as Salam Pax get to criticize the United States? Should they be grateful forever? If they see problems with the CPA, should they keep quiet? Where does this line of logic lead?"

Let me try to answer the first one, at least: when they repay their debt to us. I would analogize the situation to France: Our debt to France for France's help in the American Revolution was repaid in WWI ("Lafayette: we are here."). The reason we are so pissed off at France (more so than at, say, Russia) is that we still think they owe us for WWII. And you know what, THEY DO. Until that debt is repaid, we will look at France's dissent as ungrateful. Russia, of course, was not liberated by the US, and owes us no debt.

Similarly with Iraq, those (like Salam) who look at the situation and see us owing the Iraqis have it backwards. The Iraqis owe US for their liberation.

See, thumper. Fred's got it right. It's Salam's country. If my country was in the same state, that's what I'd be doing. That's what my parents did in the depression and WWII. Salam does not deserve to have US troops holding his sofa while he says, "No, a little more to the left."

Wasn't planning to comment, but I wanted to make clear that "spoon" above, isn't me.

For the record, I mostly agree with Lileks -- although Dan's exactly right about Bush I, which is why I refused to vote for him in '92.

Hey, Russians bled like crazy to liberate Poland. That hardly justifies their postwar behavior. The entire line of reasoning based on expected gratitude is simply a category mistake: the thanks the Iraqis owe us for toppling Saddam (after not doing so in 1991 and actively supporting his brutal regime before that) can't be used to cancel out incompetence in the conduct of the occupation, and more than the heroism of the Red Army cancels out the sufferings visited on Eastern Europe afterwards. As Jon H states above, there's no guarantee yet that the future of Iraq won't be almost as bad as Saddam: theocracy, kleptocracy, and the worst, which he omitted, a civil war.

As far as the three dead Minnesotan soldiers, who are the primary victims of the car bombs? A great many of Salam Pax's Iraqi neighbors, including children, are dying in the crossfire. You can hardly claim their sacrifice is less, and that their surviving kin must be silent.

Mishu,

I enjoyed reading Salam's blog for some time now, but you won't find him out there getting his hands dirty helping his country. He's in England now too busy looking out for number one to sacrifice a manicure for his country.

Kal

With all respect to Dan's outrage over the first Bush administration's conduct in 1991 -- and I agree with him on this -- Salam Pax was not making this argument. He may not even be thinking about this argument. His was the different, and much weaker though still true point that the current Bush administration's rhetoric about Iraqi reconstruction has been pretty heavy on unqualified optimism from the word go.

Now optimism is fine, and probably necessary in this case, but the administration did underestimate the obstacles, especially though not exclusively in the security area, to making Iraq a normal country, and its public statements reflected that. That having been said, though, even if the American army were able to wipe out all resistance elements it would have to leave Iraq sometime, and then it would be up to Iraqis like Salam to keep the republic we have given them.

Can they do it? I have my doubts about this, and one reason for them is reflected in what Salam Pax wrote. The tradition of modern Arab politics involves blaming all problems and difficulties on someone else -- the Israelis, governments Arabs have no say in, the Americans. None of the miserable conditions in the Arab world are the fault of Arabs or Arabs responsibility to fix. Now many Arabs are getting pretty fed up with this attitude. But not enough, judging from Salam Pax and much else. He takes the traditional Arab attitude that the whole situation is George Bush's to fix. Well, it isn't; it wouldn't be even if Bush thought it was. Iraqis can only make theirs a civilized country themselves, and Salam Pax at least doesn't seem to think it is his problem. If he speaks for many of his countrymen the coalition forces could do everything right for the next year and still see Iraq fall apart within the next five.

"Hey, Russians bled like crazy to liberate Poland."

Yeah. Poland was real "liberated" after the Russian chased out the Germans. Duh.

Nope, Dan, Lileks still has the best part of the argument. In fact, you really aren't taking on what he is refering to, instead building a strawman out of what happened in '91.

Lileks is right, Pax needs to grow up.

“But he's basically said what many others have said, very much including supporters of the war from many countries, the US included.”

That’s not the point. You fail to distinguish between just and rational complaints---and rudeness. Salam is acting like a petulant child. It’s the tone of his criticism which deserves to be rebuked.

To sum up, then. What's the problem Lileks and commentors have with SP? The fact he calls Bush "Georgie"? The fact he uses some indymedia speak about W's Rambo and superhero dreams?
The fact he might be ...um... "giggly". the fact that SP is performing the rhetorical trick of making his actually somewhat moderate message sound fashionably lefty?

Well, phooey (to coin a euphanism) everybody. Pax had the stones to write honestly about Iraq from Iraq, even though being caught would have meant death, and probably torture. I'm sure the tortures for a "giggly" person would have been worse. That's better than CNN or the BBC dared do. Lileks questioning his "stones" is absolutely beyond the pale, and Lileks getting in a lather about snark is an absurd position for someone who laces his writing with a ton of it.

Very nicely put Dan.

I want to add that there might be a prettty legitimate reason Pax is snarking: Deposing Saddam Hussein did not liberate the Iraqi people.

I know that might come as a shocker, but take a look, folks: Iraqis currently live under the control of an occupying foreign force with a predominately military face. They have no constitution, no electoral process, no independent self-rule, and none of the basic rights guaranteed under our Bill of Rights.

Now, this is an entirely understandable situation, especially given that loyalists and terrorists are still blowing things up on a regular basis. The point is, the U.S. showed up dropping bombs and is now running the country with 130,000 troops. I have a feeling that waking up to explosions and negotiating with heavily armed foreigners doesn't exactly feel like the liberty we know in America.

Iraq will be free if we follow through. But it is not until a basic level of security has been established and the Iraqi people take control of their country under a governmental structure capable of guaranteeing basic human rights that they will be liberated.

Until then, I can understand Pax saying "it is not over yet." Of course it's not. There's a lot of work to do. If I were an Iraqi, I'd take more than a little offense at the U.S. administration jetting around the world declaring a victory for human rights while I was still hoping the eleticity would come on.

the tone of the salam pax note fairly dripped with contempt. it was hugely lame. thus the animus of a lileks. he might have been a bit too feisty in his f$%K yous and such, but pax's smarmy (you know, effusively unctuous)little note pretty much merited it, me thinks.

maybe dan is jet lagged and cranky??? i've got more on the guardian letters at my blog including a brief message of salam pax lame note.

Well, almost everything's been said - especially after the initial shock of Prof Drezner's response. That said, two things stand out here.

1) Mr. Rastajenk above is dead on. That's exactly what would have been thrown in our face, Prof. Drezner. But you know that, right? As you're a college professor.

2) And as for appalled moderate's:

" Writing snarkily and insigthfully of life in Baghadad during the days of Saddam took far more courage than getting shot to pieces while charging the barricades. And it had far more impact. "

Mr. Joyner has you exactly right. Said Mr. White " You don't have any idea what you're talking about...".

I look forward to hanging that quote around your neck until you retract it, imbecile.

Salam is no different than any other Iraqi or American who is not currently in Iraq, fighting for American and Iraqi security and the universal right to bitch (let him also enjoy this non-constructive American tradition). God bless our troops, the Iraqi Police and Iraqi goverment personnel who are risking their lives every day.

Kelso's Right, Dan. What's your problem? You can't handle a couple of blueish Welsch quips and delete the posts, then you go all F-Bomb two days later?

You're Lame - and I can't think of anything worse to say about a person.

Oh wait - yes I can...hypocrite. But hey, it's your world, you don't owe us anything. Afterall, it's only a stinking blog.

Drezner is flat-out wrong. Lileks is flat out right. And "Salam Pax" is flat out snide, superior, callow, supercillious, and a moral weakling.

Since you decided to go into a puerile ad hominem attack in your post Mr. Drezner I'll return the favor. I wonder if you relate to "Pax" because he'll genuflect before whomever his benefactors happen to be (Ba'athists before, the European left now) just as you, who claim to be a relatively "conservative academic" of some sort kowtow to every liberal you can find, possibly to suck-up to your left-wing patrons in academia.

PS. You might want to check out what his buddy "G" has to say about these matters.

Hey, Dan. Fuck you.

Get your facts straight. Bush abandoned Iraq to it's fate in 1991 at the insistence of all our 'friends' and 'allies' amongst the European and Arab nations that comprised that coalition. Remember? They stated publicly that they would not support or participate in any action to remove Saddam. Bush's mistake was not telling our moral superiors to fuck off and doing the job anyway. Even with that, the Americans and the Kuwaitis were the only people on the planet who thought a status quo of Saddam gassing Kurds was a bad idea.

And while you're getting fucked, Salam can get fucked too. He's sitting on his ass in London, nose buried in Harold Pinter's ass, trying to grovel an invitation into the circle of London's intelligensia. So much for caring for his wounded Iraqi homeland. Do you really think he'd lower himself to doing the hard work of reconstruction when playing ungrateful smartass is rewarded so handsomely (and defended so brilliantly).

I know that blame America and blame a Bush is all you can muster, but I'm not inclined to be sympathic to that level of intellectual helplessness. Fuck you both.

I have lost all my hair, pulling it out after someone states that the U.S. supported Saddam in the 1980's.

It seems to me that REAL support who have meant that the U.S. military would be facing American hardware in the battlefield. Not Russian, or French arms. This supposed support was half-@ssed for sure and probably did not go further than a few intelligence hints about Iranian troop movements.

Someone please tell me how much money the U.S. supported Saddam with in the 1980's. I'm sure it was very little.

I also agree with Lileks. My problem with Pax isn't that he isn't grateful enought, it's that he is doing the same thing the Left in the U.S. does: Offer critism without offering any better solutions. Perhaps things would go faster if such people made suggestions coupled with their critisms. At the very least it would make them more helpful.

Whoops - I apologize, I see above that Iraq has fallen into despotism after having fallen into the hands of a dictator and "currently live under the control of an occupying foreign force with a predominately military face".

Ohhhhh I see, you mean us, Harry. You have got to be kidding me?

Remember that Salam gets his paycheck from The Guardian and his attitudes are likely to come from there, also. As Mark Twain quoted a childhood friend "Tell me where a man gets his corn pone and I'll tell you where he gets his 'pinions".

Generosity that demands gratitude is not generosity. . . is is an amoral system of barter.

And in this case especially, when there was no clear request for said "generosity," on what grounds does Lileks demand gratitude? No matter how many soldiers are sacrificed and no matter how brutal Saddam is/was, the US chose this war, not the Iraqis. Thus, the US is in absolutely no position to demand gratitude. Therein lies the colonial conundrum - the colonists, no matter how benign or noble their intentions, will never be fully welcomed or thanked. NEVER. To expect otherwise is folly, no matter how many Minnesotans are killed.
Indeed, Lileks is the petulant one in need of growing up.

Brian:

Those Chemical Weapons Saddam used to gas the Kurds? Courtesy of one Mr. Donald Rumsfeld.

Dan:

You have embarassed yourself. Pax was very wrong. Lileks called him on it. You should not be stepping in trying to re-write the Pax letter and incidentally, history. You are VERY wrong.

Pax and Iraqis may get what they don't want if they can't find the honesty to recognize what Bush did for them. Does Pax want a Kucinich approach to the reconstruction? The UN would be delighted to create a post war version of the Oil for Palaces program with a brand new Baathist regime to prop it up.

Lileks is seeing what apparently you can't Dan, gratuitous sniping from Europe, on behalf of fascists, communists and Saddam apologists is outrageous. I think your comments section now reflects the error of your opinion.

Hey Thumper...that may be what your radical liberal wiggies told you but it isn't true. The Chemical PRECURSORS were from private businesses, not from a US Senator. Ass Dart.

"Salam"'s and Lilek's tones are way off.

Salam's MoDo style snarkiness is way off. Salam is "a bit worried" about Iraq, so he feels the need to lecture Bush, but at least the man "with the hideous mustache" is gone. Lileks is right - Bush and Blair have gambled their political futures, we're spending hundreds of billions of dollars, and coalition soldiers are dying to help Iraq, and Salam is complaining about the "service."

I'm not impressed. If he has a point to make about what Bush should do, he should just make it. If he is honestly concerned about whether Iraq is going to be worse off than if Bush hadn't acted, he's certainly entitled to say that too.

Still, the tone of Lilek's piece isn't any better. A pox on both their houses.

no innocent death is celebrated ut Dan you couldn't have missed the mark more if you sympathized with anti-US whiners.

Surprising to me is you insistence on the "America started in" meme as if that excuses the rest of your rant. Sorry, can't believe that the strawman argument is how you truly feel...and if it is then so long.

Pax may have just had a bad day but the tone and snarky response is so very 'french' of him....hope he gets over it

Tammy: No, of course I'm not kidding. What exactly do you take issue with?

I think we're doing the right thing in Iraq...as long as we don't start pulling out prematurely. But call a spade a spade.

J Mann writes: "Salam is complaining about the "service." "

It's not just the 'service', it's the future of his country. If Bush screws it up, it has dire consequences for Salam's countrymen.

It's much higher stakes for Iraq than for George. George Bush has a comfy, wealthy life ahead of him, regardless of how Iraq turns out. I'm sure Blair will be okay too. But Iraqis face the possibility of things becoming very bad indeed, and possibly even worse than when Saddam was in power.

"Question to the dissenters: at what point do Iraqis such as Salam Pax get to criticize the United States? Should they be grateful forever? If they see problems with the CPA, should they keep quiet? Where does this line of logic lead?"

A huge portion of the commenters, and Dan himself, misunderstand Lileks' point. It has nothing to do with who betrtayed whom in 1991. It has nothing to do with a non-existent requirement of eternal gratitude. If Salam had offered sensible, carefully reasoned, constructive criticism, Lileks would have welcomed him. Instead Salam offers up high-schoolish contempt. He's getting FU'd for his attitude, not his facts. And he deserves it. 100%.

Re: supporting Saddam in the '80s... our policy was to keep Iran and Iraq fighting each other. We didn't want either side to win; we wanted both sides to lose.

Dan,

Nice response to an irresponsible rant. It would have been nice to have Lileks link to the article about the dead soldiers, but, like Reynolds, they'd rather we didn't see them or their injured comrades. They're only convenient as fodder for counter-attacks, nothing more. Can anyone remember the last time Reynolds has linked to an article about an injured soldier triumphantly struggling through rehabilitation? There have been plenty of them out there and you'd link someone who is such a strong supporter of our troops would honor their bravery with an acknowledgement rather than ignoring them because of fear that they'll discredit his pro-war stance. Look away, folks. Look away.

Dan,
Neo-Orientalism at its finest - the family of Ed Said may want to go read your post over his grave in the hopes of reanimating his rotting corpse.

Holding Bush 41 responsible for failing to do something that would have required fighting through the same gauntlet of international outrage Bush 43 has endured, but without the backdrop of 9/11, is absurd. Have you forgotten the 'highway of death'? Nobody loved Saddam more than his buddies in Europe, up to and including today - why aren't they providing any 'service' for Salam?

Salam is an enemy of a free Iraq. Why? If his attitude prevails in Iraq, WE WILL ALL FAIL. His 'service' meme is cancerous and deserves to be called out as Lileks did in exactly the language that he expressed it. If I thought Salam's attitude remotely echoed the attitude of true Iraqis, I would be extremely depressed because the results would make '91 look like a fender bender. No doubt US soldiers will continue to die for oppressed people who at least care enough to make the effort to lift themselves out of the pit. Salam hasn't even managed to wean himself from the smooth feeling of Real Corinthian Leather. I would no sooner have a single drop of American blood shed to provide Salam 'service' than I would any other Ba'athist-ocrat scum.

Your willingness to shift responsibility to the only single country that has ever done anything to remove Saddam from power and limit his dominance of the ME is mind boggling.

Lileks is correct. Dan is full of poo-poo and DennisThePheasant's earlier post explains exactly why...just think of the squealing if GHWB had tried to go to Baghdad, only to have our European allies cut and run and our Arab allies turn on us...
Time for Salam to grow up if he doesn't want to turn into a snark-bitch like MoDo...

Where have all the Americans gone?

Not you Dan - you get it. You understood the unsaid (and said) promises we made to the country we liberated. And you understand that as we get deeper into the conflict and start doing seriously questionable things and continue to screw over the people who supported us in Iraq, that back home, the urge to pull out will grow greater. You see what's happened to Afghanistan. You understand why people like Salam don't want that happening to Iraq.

But the rest of you... Did y'all leave your copies of the Bill of Rights at home? Or forget that whole Declaration of Independence? or do you just think that Americans ('cause our forefathers earned it) are the only folks on the planet who can complain about how they're governed?

You forget that democracy (and republicanism) means that any person has the right to speak. Salam's worried. He's a writer - not a solider, not an activity, he's a very good writer and semi-historian. He's using his medium to fight for Iraq and I think he's doing a good job of it. Just because he's Iraqi doesn't mean he can't criticize the government that rules Iraq - the United States.

He can't vote for a better government, he's not a member of the INC, if he took up arms now, we'd shoot him - so how else will the US gov pay attention to him?

He's worried (and I admit I'm worried) that the administration will do a force reduction in Iraq and leave it in the less than capable hands of Chalabi. The war isn't over. The peace hasn't begun.

We need to nation build in Iraq -- and that's a commitment the president hasn't made publically. Salam, like many secular, pro-western Iraqis, knows that Iraq's best hope for modernity lies in hands of the US. He's just afraid we'll blow it.

You should be encouraging this - a conquered, sorry LIBERATED, people seeking self-expression and wanting to work towards a better future. Instead you guys trash him for not being grateful. Y'know I don't remember the Japanese and the Germans being grateful until a generation or two later. You guys are criticizing the best type of ally we can have in Iraq - one who gives a damn about his country. If you want syphocants, go look at the governing committee full of people who'd rather loot the build their country.

Dan has it right and the rest of you just had knee jerk reactions to Bush administration criticism. It's constructive criticism. It's coming from someone who wants a democratic Iraq. So he's not fawning over us and offering to name his first born George. So what - we would respect him if he did?

disgusted,
t.

"Those Chemical Weapons Saddam used to gas the Kurds? Courtesy of one Mr. Donald Rumsfeld. "

Yes, this is what is known as "making stuff up". Extensive documentation was provided on the sources for Saddam's weapons programs after the first war. Russian, German, and French sources figured prominantly. I don't remember seeing any mention of US sources in the breakdown. Do you have anything to back up your claims? (Note: Anything Noam Choamsky says doesn't count)

Look folks, if you want to go around claming credit for giving the Iraqis freedom, don’t turn around and criticize them when they actually start to use it. It comes across as pretty arrogant.

Besides (and I say this as someone who supported the war), Salam’s mixed judgment of Bush is entirely appropriate. Bush made it entirely clear that the primary reason for this war was not to liberate Iraq. It was to stop terrorists from getting WMDs. His administration’s planning for postwar Iraq was both dishonest and incompetent. He ignored the advice from his uniformed military, his State department, and his allies, and instead left all the planning to small gang of civilian ideologues who had no experience in nation building, and no actual knowledge of the region. In the immediate aftermath of the war, we did nothing to try to establish law and order (except of course for protecting the Oil Ministry). We made the disastrous decision to fire the entire Iraqi Army. And now the administration has come out with a new schedule for transition to Iraqi rule that seems to be dictated by next year’s elections.

The fact is that right now life is worse than it was before the war for many Iraqis. Unemployment, crime and violence are all much higher. I hope that the country will stay together, that conditions will get better and democracy will take hold, and that the Iraqis will be much better off in the long run. But it hasn’t happened yet. We shouldn’t be taking credit for anything until the job is finished.

Yes, Salam is irreverent and snarky. But I admire him for it. He was willing to direct his snark at Saddam, even when he was risking torture and death to do it. That’s pretty damn brave, and unless any of the critics have exhibited similar bravery, they really ought to be quiet.

I seem to have missed that speech by George H. W. Bush (the president's father) where he encouraged the Iraqis to revolt and promised them whatever military help from the US to make sure it didn't fail and none of them would get hurt. If I generally encourage people to fight back against muggers, does that mean that owe them all assistance?

I would understand more clearly if Pax would come out and say that he wish the invasion never took place. I would think he is wrong and nuts but heck that view is not different from the average European elite.

But no, he supported the invasion and removal and now he wants Iraq to be fixed. NOW! He insinuates that George Bush has turned his back on Iraq. How so? Over two thousand American casualties and they continue daily. 20 Billion dollars in the reconstruction effort for this year alone! A diminished standing in world opinion (I know, what is new).

Criticism is fine. In fact it is needed as mistakes have been made. But Pax went beyond that. He was snide and derisive. It is his right, thanks to George Bush, and the U.S. military but we have a right to be derisive back to him.

"Contrast the attitude of Zeyad of healingiraq.blogspot.com"

"Rape his women. Yeah" - Zeyad.

Ikram - You sign on to Freidman's vapidity? "I would go further than Dan. Salam has has exactly the same right as everyone else to be insulting to Georgie. Salam is just echoing Thomas Freidman, "you break it, you buy it"."

Well, if it's broken and you insist I buy it then, having bought it, I own it. Are you and Freidman actually in a position to grant title? Shall we start sewing the 51st star on our flags? Of course Tommy and Salie have the right to be insulting. And you and Tommy have the right to stupidity. And I have the right to laugh at the three of you.

"However, look at what has been accomplished. The removal of the Taliban and Al Queda from Afghanistan. The removal of Saddam from Iraq. The planting of the seed of freedom in the Middle East."

Last time I checked, the Taliban are still busy wreaking havoc in Afganistan and Pakistan, Al Queda has moved its operations to Turkey, and Saddam hasn't been found. Oh, neither has Osama bin Laden, the guy who's really responsible for attacking our country. And, boy, what a seed of democracy we've planted there, what with Republican talk at the Restoration conference about installing a strongman in Iraq. Everything that we could have done right over there, we didn't. We've been sold a bill of goods over this war, and Lileks can't bring himself to admit that he's been had.

The State Department had plans to rebuild Iraq that were ignored by Defense and then by the CPA. We tried to put in an Iraqi government run by a bunch of exiles who were dubious at best and outright thieves at worst. We're destroying people's homes while an insurgent army runs around and picks off American kids WHO SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SENT THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. To paraphrase the Great Prophet Homer, we're doing a half-assed job over there when we should be using our whole ass.

Welcome to the sound of democracy, as Salaam stands up and says what he thinks. Last time I checked, that inalienable right to free speech meant people could say unpopular things, too. Deal with it.

Salam needs simply to get up from his keyboard, roll up his sleevies, walk out the door, and help our armies clean up, be it wit broom, information, or a gun.

Cut the blogging to fifteen minutes per day, boy, there's work to be done.

Y'all petty.

"Generosity that demands gratitude is not generosity. . . is is an amoral system of barter."

Who ever said anything about generosity? No one has denied that, whatever humanitarian concerns we might have, that the Iraq war isn't in the best interests of the United States, too. It may not be worth all the $$ without the humanitarian concerns, but that's arguable. In that case anyway, it's less generosity and more a moral compulsion. I don't think it hurts to expect gratitude -- who doesn't expect a "thank you" when they give a friend a birthday present? Tell me you wouldn't be irritated, at least a little, if you were never thanked for your acts of kindness.

Sheesh, people. Lileks is right, Pax is a whiny little do-nothing complainer with no constructive suggestions. No one is suggesting, either, that Iraqis being grateful means never criticizing. It just means we expect constructive criticism, not rude, heel-drumming, nose-in-the-air bullshit whines.

Oh great, T. says I'm un-American because I object to Salam's tone. Others ask when Salam lost his right to dissent. And so on. I love how the Left immediately construes every response as an attempt to silence.

Salam NOW has the right to dissent. And if in doing so he mainly sucks up to the new power that can help him enjoy a comfy life, namely the chattering classes of London, then I have the right to think he's an obnoxious little brown-noser whose opinion on the country he came from grows less interesting with every day he's away from it at its moment of greatest promise.

That's my right as an American and you can have it when you pry it out of my cold dead hands.

And p.s., Adam, "free speech" means no one can stop you from saying it, NOT that we can't make fun of you for showing the world what a jerk you are.

Get with it, boy.

Dan has it exactly right. Lileks can't stand it that some Iraqi has the NERVE not to suck America's dick in gratitude. Colonial powers since Rome have never figured out why they aren't loved by the countries they destroy in saving them. The facts are that life in Iraq right now is shitty, its going to get better slowly, and whether Iraqis are grateful or not, America is doing this in its own self-interest, and if it isn't in its interest than George Bush should be impeached.

The world was a different place in 1991, so don't judge what happened then by today's standards. Let's support the president and our soldiers, so we can do it right this time.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda's are a stupid waste of time.

Dan is exactly right. Lileks criticizes Salam Pax for not having the "rocks to face up to Saddam", but what Salam was doing was extremely dangerous. He could have been arrested, tortured and killed. It took as much courage to post from Baghdad as it did to publish resistance leaflets in occupied Europe in WW-II.

As for those who think that Salam owes the US immensely -- I don't think so yet. Saddam's greatest brutalities came 20 (chemical weapons against Iranians), 16 (chemical weapons at Halabja), 12 (Shia uprising) back. To suddenly wax eloquent over human rights abuses 12 years back is unconvincing. Key US personnel, including Paul Wolfowitz (probably the only man in the administration that would have gone to war purely on human rights grounds) admit that they could never have sold this war on those grounds.

TG says, "The main reason it's perceived as "not going fast enough" (by many, including much of the US public) is because it was sold as a "cakewalk". That to me seems to be a big screw-up and misjudgment. They gave this forecast against the warnings of many smart people, and many military veterans."

Actually, the President predicted that the struggle for Iraq, and the rebuilding and democratization of Iraq, would be long and hard. If you want to infer that by "long and hard," the President meant "cakewalk," I can't do much but roll my eyes and hope someone gives you a nice dictionary for Christmas.

With respect to your post, Dan, since this is your forum and I really want to fit in and follow your lead, "Fuck you."

Let me also add, I'd like to see your point of view, but I can't get my head that far up my ass.

Someone asked "at what point do Iraqis such as Salam Pax get to criticize the United States? Should they be grateful forever?"

No, but would it be too much to ask for at least a couple of years (or until the US pulls out of Iraq)? When Rumsfeld announced that the US was rethinking US force levels in Korea, the younger generation of Koreans was very excited. However, the older generations, the ones that had been spared the fate of those in the communist North, were quite upset and demonstrated in favor of a continued US presence.

A few other points that some may have missed:

Lileks warned us on Thursday that he had written a nasty screed, including some harsh words for SP, while he was feeling lousy. That may explain some of his vitriol (not that there is anything wrong with it).

And as for SP, he is nothing but a catty bitch. Now I enjoyed reading his blog, but it was obvious to me from the start that he enjoyed at least some level of privilege under Saddam and was not really looking forward to life after Saddam (despite his weak protestations to the contrary). A country in need of rebuilding could really use an English- and Arabic-speaking architect about now, but instead, SP is in London having his knob gobbled by the elite left (not that there's anything wrong with it). If he was blogging from Iraq and trying to help the reconstruction of his country and wanted to criticize the efficacy of the CPA, then fine. But having escaped to the perfumed salons of London's cultural elites, he should keep his mouth shut.

Right, Jennifer. You mind telling me just what the "it" is that I should get with?

No half-assed attacks, please. Use your whole ass.

Of course, everyone's right: Salam Pax, Lileks, and Dan. That's because they're talking past each other:

- Pax is sounding like a petulent brat who nonetheless is making a decent point.
- Lileks is pointing out that Pax sounds like a petulent brat (which he does).
- Dan is pointing out that Lileks didn't need to use the word "fuck" to point out that Pax sounds like a petulent brat, and that Pax may actually have a good reason to be acting like a petulent brat.

Oh, one other thing: the "chickenhawk" rule applies equally to both sides. If you haven't done shit for the people of Iraq, criticizing the administration is exactly as illegitimate as supporting it. Which is to say, not illegitimate at all, since the United States is a democracy, in which people should fully debate the issues, whether or not they've earned the Silver Star.

Well, aside from the debate at hand on who is the bigger asshole here, Mr. Drezner - you made a few historical errors in your post.

You wrote: Did we help in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein? Nope. We looked the other way while Hussein violated the no-fly zones to put down the Shi'ites, Marsh Arabs, Kurds, etc. We did it for realpolitik reasons, many of which the current Bush administration, to its credit, seems ready to reject. But we, the United States, did it. Why, on God's green earth, would anyone ever choose to rise up after that Mongolian cluster-fuck of U.S. foreign policy?

The US never gave permitted use of the no-fly zones for suppression of anytthing else. What you might be referring to was the use of armed helicopters, particularly in the south of the country. However, use of the helicopters was permitted under the Safwan (Cease-Fire) Agreement, negotiated by Gen. Schwarzkopf. During the cease fire negotiations, the Iraqis asked if the no-fly zone would apply to helicopters as well. The Iraqis indicated that they would need helicopters as interim transport, since many of the bridges had been blown, and Schwarzkopf assented. Unfortunately , that was merely a ploy to use helicopter gunships in counter-insurgency operations.

Secondly, contrary to what you remember of the history of the US in Iraq since 1991, the establishment of the no-fly zones did, in fact, allow the Kurdish insurrection to succeed, and they were an essentially autonomous part of Iraq, not at all beholden to Baghdad. In fact, the Kurdish areas are now among the most prosperous areas in Iraq, despite 12 years of sanctions, simply because they have avoided the most deleterious effects of mismanagement during the interregnum between wars.

Third, although you may claim that the reasons behind the refusal to intervene in Iraq were all realpolitik one must remember a few key facts. The best recap of the reasons that we didn't go to Baghdad in '91 are, ironically enough, the very same objections we heard about going to Baghdad in '03. In other words, we weren't going to go because we didn't have a UN mandate, we listened to the council of the Arabs and Europeans, we were afraid that the Arab street would rise up, we thought that it would result in a civil war and would destabilize the region, and finally, we were afraid of another Vietnam. So, for a few of your readers, an internal consistency check might be in order.

Fourth, you raise the question "Did we help in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein? Nope." Umm... sir, are you being deliberately obtuse here, or am I just reading this wrong. I think the US did a great deal to help in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, such as destroying his armed forces, humiliating him in front of the world, energizing the people to revolt, making Iraq an international pariah, and imposing a strong sanctions and inspection regime. I was rather under the impression that the '91 uprising would have never occured had it not been for the Gulf War. So, yes, we did help.

Furthermore, you may not be aware of the covert activies that occured in mid-90s. Among other things, in 1995, a CIA Operations Officer in Kurdish Iraq had been in contact with three seperate movements to unseat Hussein. A general approached the gentleman and indicated that a military coup was in the offing, should some visible sign of support be given. Chalabi was also working in Iraq at the time to orchestrate an uprisng, although the amount that he would have actually been able to bring to the table was unknown. Finally, the Kurds were planning a major offensive to the south and were looking for material support. It was entirely within the realm of reason to push all three efforts simultaneously. President Clinton, for whatever reason, declined to support any of the movements and pulled the CIA out of Iraq.

Perhaps you are right in an apparently unintentional sense. The US, in 1991, supported an uprising which ultimately failed, because we, among other things, were unwilling to launch a war of aggression without any legal pretext (like the violation of 16 UN Resolutions). We did, however, fail to encourage several uprising which had the chance to succeed in 1995.

Again habibi, I'm not interested in telling people "Fuck You" or pointing out who is and who isn't an asshole. I just thought that this might illuminate some of the darker recesses of this discussion.

Criticism and constructive disagreement is encouraged, certainly from an Iraqi citizen who lived under the Baathist regime.

But that is not what Salam is offering - he is simply being a condescending ass.

Salam needs to show some respect and consideration for the people who died to free HIS country, especially while he sits in a London cafe living the good life. He should show at least a modicum of gratitude for the US soldiers who are doing the fighting, the US citizens who are in Iraqi making things better for the country, and the US taxpayers who are singlehandedly bearing the cost of the full reconstruction to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. All while he sits on his ass logging complaints and calling the president 'Georgie'.

Fuck you, Salam.

Prof. Drezner, in rereading my post, I realized (aside from numerous Typos) that I used the wrong form of address. The slight was completely unintentional and is completely and total due to my carlessness. Please accept my apology.

Just a quick note. We're at 100 comments as I write this. And the comments run roughtly 90 Lileks 10 Drezner.

You're the "political scientist" so maybe you can tell me what that means exactly?

On the plus side you found that taking cheap personal pot shots at a better writer and human than you can ever hope to be is a good way of generating traffic.

What's really upsetting is your Mother Jones style shrill and factually incorrect "critique" of US foreign policy in the service of said personal attack.

What's really amazing is that some feel that in order to show how liberal and open-minded they are they have to hold Iraqis to a lower standard than normal humans, i.e. "Sure "Salam" is snarky, superficial, ungrateful, and immature, but, oh, he's been through so much, so to point it out is just, I don't know, not nice" However, now that we have other Iraqi blogs, written by those are better writers, better thinkiers, better Iraqis and better human beings they're not lionized the way that "Salam" was, and apparently, for some reason, still is. If you read Zeyad, Alaa, Ays, and even G, you find that there are Iraqis who know that Saddam's removal was unequivocally a good thing (though it probably wasn't for Salam), and they are willing to support and praise the brave Iraqi policeman and coalition soldiers who are working to help to reconstruct the country, and help in that effort themselves.

Salam, on the other hand, sits in comfort in London, making snide dismissals of these efforts in order to ingratiate himself with the know-nothings, copperheads, and fascist sympathizers of the euro-left.

I wouldn't worry too much for Salam Dan. He's a survivor. He worked the system in Iraq (foreign travel, internet access, high education, hanging out in air-conditioned comfort while the rest of the able-bodied men dug in for invasion) and he's working the system now. Maybe he's aiming for a regular gig at The Guardian, and I'm sure one day we'll see "riverbend" at The Independent.

Wow there sure are a lot of belligerent assholes here.

Salam has the right to say whatever he wants.

We have the right to call Salam an whiny, infantile jackass.

Who's silencing whom, here? Adam? t?

I'm just relieved to find out that Salam's buddy Raed has scored a new Mercedes and evidently it is cheap to score great Italian pistols and jewelry looted from decapitated Italian soldiers.

Sounds like the 'service' sucks but the shopping has never been better for the Ba'athist-ocrat set.

Amen, Dan. Salaam Pax was the warbloggers' darling for a long time...I'm not surprised that when he breathes the teensiest criticism he's dumped on by his former fans.

Wow. The lightning flashes have illuminated quite a bit.

If everybody would re-read their antagonists' comments, deleting the f-u's, I'll wager that consensus would be reached pretty quickly.

I regret that Mr. Lileks used the profanity; he's usually sparing with it.

But that's what got things going -- no question about that.

RT (or someone) wrote: "The fact is that right now life is worse than it was before the war for many Iraqis. Unemployment, crime and violence are all much higher."

This is BS. Life in Iraq is worse for members of the Baath Party and better for everyone else. While unemployment might be higher, that will change once the security situation improves and average Iraqis get off their asses to contribute to the rebuilding of their country. As for crime and violence being higher, that's doubtful. Sure car bombings and RPG attacks on US troops, civilians and NGOs are way up, but genocide, ethnic and religious cleansing and state sponsored rape are trending downward nicely. As for street crime, any rise is due solely to the fact that Saddam freed 100,000 criminals in the run up to the war.

Salam Pax is a writer, not a warrior. Fine. But he has a patriotic obligation to write well. If he wants the U.S. to help Iraq rebuild and make the transition to democracy, which I believe he does, then he could say:

1. Thank you for risking the lives of Americans to hunt down Baathists and stabilize my country. Thank you for spending billions of dollars to rebuild what Saddam ruined and my countrymen looted. Please don't give up and go home just yet.

2. Some of your policies should be changed to accomplish the goal more quickly. Let me explain what you should be doing and what we freedom-loving Iraqis should be doing . . .

I think many people want feedback from Iraqis on what could be done better. But if it's written in a petulant tone -- the master to the clumsy maid -- well, why should we listen?

Iraqis now have choices. There are many ways they can act to create a stable, decent and democratic Iraq. Someone like Salam wouldn't make a great policeman, but he should be writing to fellow Iraqis about what's going on, advocating for what he believes in, helping build the civil institutions of a free society. If he thinks Iraqis can handle democracy, he should be saying so. Because not everybody in the West believes that. "Georgie" needs Iraqis to say: Yes, we want to run our country and we'll show you we can run our country. We're not passive, whiney children eager to trade one dictator for another.

Was Lileks was a little severe? Yes. He grumbles that "the rug was soaked before we got there," but Salam already said that the "tomato juice" was spilled "on an already dirty carpet... Not all of the mess is your fault." Then again it was from Salam’s blog that I learned (through his complaints) that our munitions were so frickin’ accurate that the damage to people who lived next to legitimate targets mostly involved broken windows, so I’m more inclined to think that any real stains predate our visit, and we maybe spilled some water.

I think that Lileks is responding more to the childish disrespect and sense of entitlement. Suggesting that GWB has dreams of being a superhero, "Rambo-in-Baghdad"; that Salam wants "more efficient and speedy service" is what sets me off. Americans are indeed doing service in Iraq, but f*ck him if they think that makes them his servants.

Today Salam's Jordanian friend posts a bunch of crap and concludes with an aside that he just "bought a new Mercedes car (ML 430)..." This is not the typical Jordanian nor is Salam the typical Iraqi. Children of privilege, they view liberation as another "service" that they complain about if it is not quite fast enough. God willing there isn't a videotape of these party airheads.

Eric,

> On the plus side you found that
> taking cheap personal pot shots at a
> better writer and human than you can
> ever hope to be is a good way of
> generating traffic.

Irony is wounded....

>Salam, on the other hand, sits in comfort in London

Irony is slain. From your bio:

"it all started when I had way too much down time at my day job."

and

"I'll probably end up coming off a lot more pompous and screed-prone than that"

Indeed.

> What's really amazing is that some
> feel that in order to show how
> liberal and open-minded they are they
> have to hold Iraqis to a lower
> standard than normal humans,
> ....
> If you read Zeyad,

"Rape their women. Yeah" - Zeyad.

You obviously have high tastes, Eric.
-johnx

Eric, it means that the comments are running 90-10 in favor of Lileks. Frankly, I don't know that it means anything else; 90 people, could, in fact, be wrong. Hell, the most popular TV show in the United States is Friends, and it's complete dreck as far as I'm concerned.

James may be a better writer than Dan, ceteris paribus, but I don't think this screed was one of his finer moments, because (IMHO) he descended to Salam Pax's level.

And for those of you who think that nuanced praise--but praise nonetheless--of the Bush administration will get you accolades from political scientists, you're truly kidding yourselves. The median political scientist in the United States is politically to the left of Howard Dean.

You know how else you can tell how far afield you are, Danny Boy?

The well-written'Anticipatory Retailiation' sounds like you, and your post sounds like some ranter called 'anticipatory retaliation'.

Interesting thread.
There seems to be a lot of antagonism towards Salem and his lack of appreciation for the US saving his country.

The antagonism is based on the perception that US selflessly entered Iraq to help the basic Iraqi on the street, and they should be happy, dammit!

We all know that the original reasons that the US invloved itself in Iraq were self-protection:
- Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Stop the spread of terror
- Eliminate the threat Saddam posed to the world and specific US interests.

If that is accomplished, as many of you suggest, it has been done largely without providing the basics of physical security for the average Iraqi.

Salam is right in saying "You got your's. Now can we get some help with ours?"

I'm with Eric Deamer on this, and I continue to muse at the similarities (both Salam and Drezner getting trips to the UK to hobnob -- Drezner in particular using his "conservative" or whatever they are credentials) -- both are working both sides of the street and, it would appear, aggrandizing themselves mightily. I don't know enough about either Lileks or Drezner to be able to say which is the better human being, but Lileks is clearly the better, more honest, and more consistent writer.

"Oh great, T. says I'm un-American because I object to Salam's tone....[snipage]...Salam NOW as the right to dissent...[yet more snipping]... I have the right to think he's an obnoxious little brown-noser whose opinion on the country he came from grows less interesting with every day he's away from it at its moment of greatest promise. That's my right as an American and you can have it when you pry it out of my cold dead hands."

Well, I'll agree with the last sentence (although I don't know how you pry the right of speach out of someone's hands). You can say and think what you want. I'll even die for that right.

And I can disagree with you and call you un-American for agreeing with a guy who would supress writing he considers disparaging. That's because I think that abridging the freedom of speech or the right of people to petition the governement for a redress of greviances. You can disagree.

Btw, it's not leftist - is ye olde Patrick Henry libertarianism. I think that many on the left (like say, Stalin) would love to supress speech. And on the right (thanks Karl Rove!).

t.

Prof. Drezner, in rereading my post, I realized (aside from numerous Typos) that I used the wrong form of address. The slight was completely unintentional and is completely and total due to my carlessness. Please accept my apology.

Posted by Anticipatory Retaliation at November 21, 2003 02:56 PM

Um, actually, I think you're ok. When I attended U of C, we called professors Mr. and Ms. Or more likely Peter, Norma, Carl, Dan, John, Steve, Amy, and Ted. Or we called them by their last name like Lipson or Weintraub or a nickname (Tets) when discussing them outside class.

Dan - total side note, but what's the protocol now?

t.

When was the last time any of you Salam critics smelled burned human blood?

You expected what? Flower laden streets?

hey trollx:

It's amazing that you would use the fact that I'm polite enough to use my real name when I post to find information to fuel cheap personal insults, when you don't even have the courage to use your real name, e-mail etc.

Vent some snark? Vent some snark? Are we on the same planet here? You don't "vent snark" if you've had it rough under a horrible dictator (not "president") for umpteen years. Only computer programmers vent snark, and that when the administrative assistant doesn't know how to open an attachment.

Snark is never serious, and while Dan correctly fingers what it is Salam is peddling, he is wrong to justify.

How do we know Salam has had it rough? we really don't. But we can all agree that he doesn't now, as the snarky doyen frequenting what passes for the literary salons of London these days. Thanks to...thanks to...who now?

Is there anyone here advocating supressing anyones opinion? Could someone point it out to me? This is a new lefty technique (not all that new), when people are ignoring you pretend that they are silencing you. Go walk down the national mall during a protest someday and watch some 19 year old airhead screaming on the capitol steps live on CNN that they are being silenced. Right.

"Bush's call worked perfectly. Seventeen out of eighteen provinces were in open revolt. Hussein was at his weakest. And what did the United States do after our call was answered by the Iraqi common man? Did we help in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 1991? Nope. "

Ummm, exactly WHY were 17 of 18 provinces in revolt? Exactly WHY was Hussein at his weakest? Your complaint seems to be the same as Salam Pax's.... that the US didn't do EVERYTHING for them.

If the revolution had waited until a French army threw the British out, we'd still be singing 'God Save the Queen'.

Pax was churlish, Lileks was rightfully outraged, and you are out of line.

Soviet appratchiks?

Like saying your misguided "dissent" is aiding and comforting the enemy.

Silly hippocrite.

> The world was a different place in
> 1991, so don't judge what happened
> then by today's standards. Let's
> support the president and our
> soldiers, so we can do it right this
> time.

The soldiers role is to kill.

That has already been done right,
wouldn't you agree?

My point was that Lileks elides over some relevant recent history.

You elide over some relevant recent history yourself, and get some of it wrong, as has been pointed out by antipatory retaliation above. (Perhaps I should be more respectful in my forms of address the way anticpatory retaliation is, but I tend to take my behavioral cues from my host, you know "my anger got the best of me" and all that).

"The fact is that right now life is worse than it was before the war for many Iraqis. Unemployment, crime and violence are all much higher."

This is BS.

How do you know its "BS"?

Why should I listen to you?

Looks pretty fucking bad over there.

”Bush's call worked perfectly. Seventeen out of eighteen provinces were in open revolt. Hussein was at his weakest. And what did the United States do after our call was answered by the Iraqi common man? Did we help in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein? Nope.”

Hmmm? Let me recall, who else had significant ground forces in Kuwait and Western Iraq at the wars end. Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, France and England.
Which country is responsible for not supporting the uprising? The US. Which of the above countries were supportive of this more recent war, and which insisted we wait for permission from the UN? And wasn’t it the UN which set the very limited terms of the first Gulf War resolution, terms which “legally speaking” precluded our doing any supporting. If ol’ Salam has a gripe about 1990 it isn’t with George Bush

The reason Lileks is wrong is that it's premature to expect gratitude.

No kidding, look at France.

Sorry, Danno, update still no good. Salam should have no problem picking up a gun now and fighting. I hear the Iraqi army is recruiting and he could always join the police force.

Which is the bigger point about Lilek's piece: it's piss-poor form to snark about progress in Iraq from the safe haven of London. If he really cared, he should get the fuck back there and participate. I'd respect the complaints of someone working there more than that piece of oh-so-clever shit published in the Guardian.

Thumper -

"Soviet appratchiks"? Weren't they on the left? So those on the right are just a little worse than those on the left?

Run it by me... how does taking issue with a hole-filled post, and then agreeing with those that find Dan's rebuttal inadequate, similar to those Stalin-apoligist/sympathisers' sentiment?

Oh yeah... its just hyperbole. At least to sane people.

1. Yes, SP was not doing his best work when he wrote his letter. the rambo and superhero stuff was unecessary. But, so what?

2. Lileks' post was personally dismissive to SP:

"I know you’re the famous giggly blogger..."

"He died doing what you never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face the Ba’athists. You owe him."

"The Saddam regime would have prospered into the next generation precisely because of people like you."

Lileks comes pretty f-wording close to calling SP out as a "cowardly faggot." I don't think that's what you should be doing to the guy who was blogging at some risk to his life -- particularly when his closest brush with danger is taking his kid to the Target in rush hour traffic.

"We need to nation build in Iraq -- and that's a commitment the president hasn't made publically."

t,

What dream world might you be living in? Where have you been?

90% in favor of Lileks as of 100 posts? We're up to 120 or so posts now -- who's keeping score?

I vote for Lilkes, by the way.

Is the Electorial College going to decide this or is it pure majority rule? Or are we still working on the constitution before we decide how to decide?

I am reminded of a story about Southern Baptist "missionaries" who go, rather than to third world nations and rather than to preach the gospel, who volunteer to go to the sites of disaster such as tornado or hurricane or apartments in New York City contaminanted by the dust and debris of burned and fallen skyscrapers, (the ashes of human remains, the pulverized asbestos of fire-fighters' uniforms...) anyhow, the volunteers who go to help disaster victims clean up the mess after a disaster. Did y'all read some of the same stories? Come to find out the N'Yawkers came to start asking for "those Baptists." They'd wait -- so the story I recall had it -- the N'Yawkers would WAIT to get back into their apartments, distaining other offers of clean up from other providers, waiting to have "those Baptists" come in and do their sad and drudgerous chores. Some said, IIRC, their apartments were cleaner after the disaster than before.

Bush is, IIRC, a Methodist ... maybe his efforts to clean up the spill he made on an already dirty rug are NOT up to Baptist standards.

Still, it seems that Salem Pax might show at LEAST as much patience and civility as that shown by the citizens of New York City, for which they are, after all, FAR from world-renowned.

Now you got me trying to remember how many volunteers from Jordan, Syria, Iran, France, Belgium, Luxomburg, and elsewhere came in to help New Yorkers clean up the fallout in late September 2001 ... you know, all that goodwill the President squandered ...

Daniel, you've gone overboard on this one. I understand your point about the US going back on its word from '91. However, I generally agree with Lileks that Salam should show a little gratitude to his liberators, rather than act like a little brat. Remember, Lileks did NOT criticize him for not taking up arms against his oppressor.

Canucklehead-

I would have no problem with Salam if what he had said was "Now can we get some help with ours." But that isn't what he said. What he said was "Hey, Asshole, you're too stupid to help us with ours. Thanks for nothing." And he said from the vantagepoint of London, not his beloved Iraq.

And let's remember, the crowd Salam is sucking up to is the same crowd who preferred we didn't send 87 billion. Right? That 87 billion was at the insistence of the man he deliberately insults as "Georgie", and not the insistence of Pinter or 'The Guardian' or LeCarre or Livingstone or any of the rest of the cadres.

Salam's idea of a career seems now to center on becoming Iraq's version of George Galloway. And that lofty goal seems well within his reach. He can still get fucked.

Those who chastise Lileks for calling out Salam for not doing anything obviously have not read Lileks' full story, since he claims that he would not have had the 'stones' to do it either.

"God willing there isn't a videotape of these party airheads."

Salam Pax as the Paris Hilton of the Iraqi set! That made me LOL... literally!

I think it's because the analogy seems to have some truth to it...

Have any Lilek fans actually read Pax's letter?

Pax is upset that Bush is traveling the world claiming to be a champion of democracy. Pax's point: it's a bit premature for Bush to sing his own praises.

There is no functional democarcy in Iraq right now. None. The job is not done. Iraq is not yet a land of free and equal people.

I know, in our American imaginations, the one evil the Iraqis faced, the one detriment to free elections and freedom of religion, Saddam, is gone. But the situation in Iraq was always much more complex than Saddam. Removing him alone couldn't wash the country free in a giant wave of prosperity.

If Bush is drawing up escape plans while fundamentalists and Ba'athists wait in the wings sharpening their knives, the vacuity of this war will be exposed. Pax will hardly sounds so snarky and Bush's lately-so-called humanitarian mission will have amounted to nothing.

Bush needs to hear Pax's message. So does Secretary "No More Troops Needed" Rumsfeld.

Lileks can tell Pax to fuck off when he takes a break from trips to Target to spend a month living in poverty in Iraq.

Bill, Esq:

US Sources and Chemical Weapons.

"We know that Iraq has acquired CW production capability, primarily from Western firms, including possibly a US Subsidiary."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq24.pdf

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq59.pdf

Am I making stuff up now? Or are you?

Since the end of the invasion phase of the war, Salam has been working as a translator (not for the Guardian) rather than an architect. As such, he is at genuine risk of being killed as a "collaborator." As such, he is earning foreign exchange for his family; genuine conservatives or libertarians would recognize economic productivity as "contributing to the rebuilding of Iraq."

If people want to get their feelings hurt on the President's behalf, fine. (And it's the President to whom Salam was snarky, not Minnesotan soldiers.) But Salam has taken real personal risks both before and since the invasion phase of the war, he has contributed greatly to the Western understanding of what things are really like in Iraq, both through his own writing and his translating, and in a thoroughly free-market way, he's helping his country.

Dan, thanks for your post.

Another thought occured to me briefly, so I've copied here (lest it never happen again) :)

Or, if you look at it another way, is that yes, many Iraqis had the courage to rise up, even after 1991. Granted, these attempts at freedom all failed miserably and fell on deaf ears throughout the west, but the simple fact is that we saw fit to let them die without lifting a finger, despite our willingness to claim Human Rights as a causus belli in Kuwait under George H. W. Bush, Kosovo under William J. Clinton, and Iraq under George W. Bush.

So back to the fundamental question of who should have laid whose life on the line and whether or not this willingness (or past history) has some bearing on the right to voice opinions (no matter how ill-mannered or badly phrased), is simply that Iraqis did rise up during the nineties. I'll leave the discussion of who is or isn't an asshole as an exercise to the reader.

A 20 billion dollar grant is nothing to sneeze at. Do people realize how much the annual Iraqi GDP is? And keep in mind the Bush Administration fought to keep it from becoming a loan.

I wouldn't expect a thank you, but perhaps a realization the the U.S. and Great Britian are in it for the long haul and are attempting to fix a mess. A mess that is largely the fault of Saddam Hussein.

Salam Pax has become a spoiled rich kid in a amazingly short amount of time.

It doesn't matter WHAT the context, when someone does you a huge favor (risks their life to make yours better), then you owe it to them to be polite. Even if they could have done the favor for you in a better way, you still have to be polite. You don't have to agree with them all the time and you don't have to fawn all over them with thanks. Just be polite.

Salam Pax was being anything but polite. He was sneering, trying to score rhetorical points, trying to show how smart he is. I don't think Lileks used quite the right expression, however. Instead of "Fuck You" the proper expression in a case like this is "Kiss My Ass".

Also note: Salam Pax is far to important to blog anymore.

EXACTLY right, Dan. Folks need to take a step back from their Lileks-worship and think for a second.

You know what's the most feeble part of Lileks' little snit? The way he uses dead American soldiers to make a lame point, even as his fellow-travellers tell us their deaths are no big deal ("hell, more Americans are dying in D.C.!")

I'd like to see a Lileks (or a Reynolds) screed on how awful it is that POTUS isn't attending American soldiers' funerals. But I suppose it's so much easier and fun to take issue with the war's Iraqi victims' not bowing and scraping enough.

PB:

There is no "right" and "left" to fascism.

The criticism I specifically quoted was not a substantive attack on Drezner's "hole filled" post.

It was an attack on him as a person, as a political being. It said that he was NOT A GOOD REPUBLICAN because he made a reasoned argument and thus showed disloyalty.

Loyalty to the party is the first tenet of fascism. Silencing dissent and excommunicating dissenters is the second.

Do I think that Bush is Mussolini? No. But there are strains of fascism in his current "War on Terror" and there are strains of jack-boot fascism on this message board, and on the attacks on Prof. Drezner.

"Hey trollx:"

I'll presume that's "johnx".

That wouldn't be one of those "cheap personal insults",
you are ever so offended by, would it Eric?

> It's amazing that you would use the
> fact that I'm polite enough to use my
> real name
> when I post to find information to
> fuel cheap personal insults

Been on the net a long time Eric?

I clicked the link you provided,
read it, commented, and now you don't like it. Correct me if I misquoted you.

You pushed up Zayed as "a better writer, better thinker, better Iraqi, and better human being"

Here is a quote from Zeyad's blog:

"Rape their women. Yeah" - Zeyad

That's your idea of a better human being, Eric.

> when you don't even have the courage
> to use your real name, e-mail etc.

Not a matter of courage, just don't think it matters all that much.

But, since you very lamely accused me of
being a coward, my name is John Kevin Fabiani. Okay, Eric?

Question now becomes, why did it matter to you?

And since you are so sensative to how your are treated and quoted:

Let's recall examples of the tone of civility you bring to this thread, Eric:

"Salam Pax" is flat out snide, superior, callow, supercillious, and a moral weakling"

"a better writer and human than you can ever hope to be"

"they have to hold Iraqis to a lower standard than normal humans"

"kowtow to every liberal you can find, possibly to suck-up to your left-wing patrons in academia"

"Salam" is snarky, superficial, ungrateful, and immature"

"the know-nothings, copperheads, and fascist sympathizers of the euro-left"

You know Eric, you sure make the insults, but you whine shrilly when
subject to like treatment.

johnx

So, lemme get this straight:

Salami makes a crack about Georgie,
So Jimmy makes a crack about Salami,
So Danny makes a crack about Jimmy.

Heh. Can't wait till Jimmy and Salami get a load of this.

The entertainment never ends.

Screw you Pax, you whiny bastard. Cry me a river you self-indulgent jerk.

You have no class; a simple "thank you" to the good people of America is enough. I show you the bottom of my shoe!

I am constrained to point out that the phrase "elided over" is redundant. It sounds as if Mr. Drezner started to use "glossed over" and halfway changed phrases in midstream, so to speak.

Nontheless, such poor usage should not be tolerated in the blogsphere. We have standards to maintain.

Thumper -

Well, the language used that I commented on is quite different than that you employed in your response to me. Perhaps there are strains; I happen to disagree, but I can see the argument.

However, for the sake of argument, let's say you're right and I'm wrong on this point... then what? Well, those strains will never, can never, be much more than strains in our system. The same cannot be said in the societies we are fighting.

I think its a discredit to many posts here to say they fall in line with Bush out of compulsion or brainwashing, or out of some proto-facist fervor.

Also, Lileks makes many valid points, and unfortunately, in the debate that many on the left side of the spectrum pine for but have failed to handle, Dan's post does not address some points, and others that he does are inadequate. Nothing more sinister than that.

PB

Mr. Drezner

- a thoroughly disappointing post from you today. I read Salam Pax' letter in Guardian and found him to be a despicable smart-ass, leaning back and telling Bush how bad he dealt with this, as some pure coctail-party aint-I-witty rant.

Mr. Pax should go back to Baghdad and at least TRY - as a journalist caring about his country's future - to support the Iraqi people's struggle to get through this difficult period. He could do a lot to support IP recruitment and translation services and so on.

But NO - he'll hang out with his Guardian friends and complain. If mr. Pax represents the average iraqi (as for involvement/realistic worldview) I can totally understand how dictators get to power there.

"We have standards to maintain."

On the upside there has been liberal use of the 'F' word, on the downside there has been an apalling lack of Hitler/Nazi comparisons. Miller's Paradox being invoked.

The problem is not what Salam was saying but how he was saying it. What's the deal with 'Georgie' and 'habibi'. I think it was in bad taste and condescending. And this is exactly the point Lileks makes: criticize all you want but show some respect to the people who's done and trying to do so mcuh for your country.

I'd call it whining if it weren't for the fact that we put Saddam in power in the first place in order to keep the theoretical commies from taking control of the place by overthrowing the legitimate government. Why is it that people think that he was Christlike until '91, and then things just went from bad to worse because we didn't show enough emotional support after the Stark incident. Saddam was evil incarnate before the Gulf war, and for some reason, the people who were pointing this out earlier were communist sympathizers. Frankly, most people here couldn't care less how many people he had tortured and killed. Odds are the political objectors were proposing things inimical to US interests, so they deserved to die. Now things are different, and we actually give a shit.

The fact is that the whole mess was started by the CIA to stop the communist bogeyman, and finishing it is our responsibility. The carpet's other stains trace back to us letting that maniac in power into the house in the first place, and we should clean it up.

I find the level of groupthink among the warbloggers to be absolutely astonishing. One apparently cannot criticze St. Lileks.

It *does* remind me of watching Marxists do their little dance back when anyone paid any attention to them. Deviance among the faithful (e.g. Dan) must apparently be suppressed through relentless and harsh criticism.

Intolerance of this type drove a lot of folks away from the left. Dan - if it drives you away from the right, there are folks on my side of the spectrum who'd be glad to welcome you :)

Marc

Lileks is a very curious nutjob. He has one of the funniest websites anywhere on the net, but when he tries to talk seriously about politics he's descends into a cartoonish parody of on armchair chickenhawk.

I stopped reading his bleats the day he seriously advocated a pre-emptive first-strike nuclear attack on North Korea. Seriously - he's that whack.

Of course, this is America so he has the right to tell Salim to go fuck himself. But there's no reason to take the guy seriously, even if he's trying to be serious. Like Dennis Miller, he should stick to comedy.

"There is no "right" and "left" to fascism."

Certainly. Just look at the "strains of fascism" currently being exhibited by the anti-war left... they don't brook any dissent from their hard-line position. Just look at Howard Dean's attacks on Dick Gephardt...

Oh MY this is all very rich.

So, to review: Iraq owes the US an all-encompassing debt of gratitude for replacing a corrupt dictatorship with an Afghanistan-lite managed anarchy, and any actual Iraqi who (even now, six months after the crowds of grateful wogs with flowers failed to materialize) does not show the proper respect to the New Boss is obviously an ungrateful wretch, if not ipso facto a stooge of the deposed regime.

Indeed. Remember how grateful the Lebanese were for their liberation in 1982? I suspect that the Iraqis will yet outstrip them in the demonstration of their gratitude. I'd ask if we've learned nothing since then, but that would have to be a rhetorical question at this point.

"J Mann writes: "Salam is complaining about the "service." "
It's not just the 'service', it's the future of his country. If Bush screws it up, it has dire consequences for Salam's countrymen." - JonH.

Wow. Good lord.

"If Bush screws it up".
"more efficient and speedy service"

Yanno... if the Iraqi's screw it up, it'll have dire consequences for them too. Shrub's not the only one capable of screwing it up.

"What's really amazing is that some feel that in order to show how liberal and open-minded they are they have to hold Iraqis to a lower standard than normal humans, i.e. "Sure "Salam" is snarky, superficial, ungrateful, and immature, but, oh, he's been through so much, so to point it out is just, I don't know, not nice"" - EricDeamer

Thank you, Eric. A voice of non-condescension.

Man... do some of the rest of you guys, including Pax ever read what you write? I'm sitting here as a half-breed Tsalagi and shaking my head at how so many of the "Bush need to fix" and the "Americans need to give a democracy" comments...

And it's hard to belive how much a lot of this sounds like "Oooh... Bush needs to fix everything now because the poor little brown people aren't capable of building a nation".

Bullshit.

I don't particularly have a problem with Dan, Pax or Lileks snarking on each other - their privelege - but everyone spouting that condescending horsehit: Fuck you. And your fucking arrogant horse, too.

Fucking up Iraq took a damned coalition: Hussein, every European nation who sold Hussein arms for 20+ year [Check Jane's for an accurate list], the Iraqi military, the US military and the UN.

AND the Iraqi people, including rich supercilious playboys like Pax.

Nation Building is going to take a coalition there also: the US and Britian and allies, AND the Iraqi citizens. The EU and UN seems to have kinda dealt themselves outta the game.

A lot of you guys are talking and defending Pax in the vein that it's all up to Bush, with the tone that "of course the Iraqi's and Pax can't do anything, the poor brown people can't build a republic".

Bullshit. Hope like hell I never get that damned condescending.

If a nation is built there, it's going to be because the Iraqi's want it, and they build it: with or without our assistance [assistance that we are giving them]. We can't do it for them. And I don't for a minute buy that they're not capable of doing it. Last I checked, a lot of them are working hard at it in spite of imported "militants" destroying their efforts.

Not Pax however. He's sitting his ass at a keyboard like we are, only difference is he's partying a lot more expensively.

Man. Glad some of you aren't "helping" the Cherokee nation build. I'd rather see us little red people fuck it up on our own.

"Explain what you do that gives you the right to criticize ANYBODY." - Thumper

Dunno 'bout Mishu, but I live in the US under the 1st Ammendment, Bunny. It offends you, too bad.

Thumper,

Let's see if I understand you correctly. To back up your claim that the Donald Rumsfield provided Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons is that a single US foreign subsidiary MAYBE sold something (no mention as to whether it was chemical, mechanical, or butyl rubber gloves) to Iraq.

You'll also note that in your source the State Department sought to stop CW aquisition by Iraq.

So far you haven't provided any evidence that a)Donald Rumsfield provided Iraq with chemical agent, or b)the US in any way provided Iraq with chemical agent.

Kal

Now that we're on to impugning "Zeyad" for not similarly following the same politically correct, Dowdian line as "Salam" let me say that uncomfortable, awful quote was in the context of a self-admitted "rant" directed towards the Ba'athists and Jihadis who are blowing up his country and who are the real culprits for the lack of speedy service that "Pax" supercilliously complains about. Thankfully I, and I'm assuming most people on this thread live a comfortable, bourgeois, first-word lifestyle and such sentiments are alien to us. However, this is a man who is seeing women, children, aid-workers, and policemen killed by these people on a daily basis, knowing full well that they're doing the killing only so they can turn his country into a place of opression and terror again. If you were in a such situation you might say such things in the heat of passion. I know that immediately after seeing 3,000 people vaporized by theocratic fascists from a few blocks away, I had similar thoughts. Lucky for me, I'm back to my comfortable life now, much like Professor Drezner, and much like "Salam". Unfortunately for Zeyad, he's not, or maybe he was never there.

Salam reminds me of the fucking Iraqi assholes complaining about the lack of GARBAGE PICKUP in APRIL. I mean, for fuck's sake! Go get a fucking truck and pick up the garbage yourselves. These assholes act like they can't do a goddamned thing for themselves!

Absolutely right on Dan,

Don't let the chickenhawk monday night quarterback bloggers like Lylek and his sycophants intimidate you either. Most of these piss-ants wouldn't last a minute in Bahdad without wetting their pants. Georgie is indeed in his own wetdream, and needs a serious smack over the head to wake up. Salam has the right to be pissed when there is no security at all and our flightsuit boy-in-chief is saying that we are drawing the terrorists to Irak, "bring them on", so they don't mess up our beautiful USA. We'll fight them in your home, but don't complain ? That deserves the F word for sure.

so, uh, I take it all you Lileks supporters have formally abandoned the "Saddam posed a long-term threat to the US" explanation and committed yourselves exclusively to the "humanitarian intervention" explanation?

because otherwise Lileks' complaint is just plain bile... if the US invaded Iraq for reasons of its own, how is Iraqi criticism of the reconstruction effort inappropriate? for Lileks to have any grounds at all, the US would have to have invaded for solely humanitarian reasons. that's still a little weak, since the people who invited us into Iraq (Chalabi & co.) weren't actually living there at the time, but at least it's a legitimate point.

if the invasion was humanitarian and democratic in nature but Lileks' complaint was really with the language (as IR asserts) and not the lack of gratitude, then I would like to gently remind you all that Minnesotans and many others gave their lives specifically to protect Salam Pax's right to denigrate the Miserable Failure the same way we can, and to suggest otherwise is to suggest that they died in vain.

Mr. Drezner:

James Lileks called Salam Pax a spoiled brat.

You responded with a history of Bush the Elder's encouragement of Iraq to revolt, and the failure of that revolt.

If that event was so important to Salam Pax, one would expect that he would have said so himself.

Can you provide a quote of him doing so?

Hey Radish, why do you juvenile peacemongers cring to the childish delusion that you can only do things for a single, overriding rational, instead of a host of equally important reasons? I dont go to the supermarket because I need shampoo, I may need a lot of shit. That doesnt make me a hypocrite. Besides: mindless consistancy is the least of virtues.

Bless you, Dan.

For the history buffs among you, there's a nation whose natives joined us in the fight against the (original) Axis, and got hosed: http://tinyurl.com/w1eu

psetzer,

I'm afraid that your quite astonishingly wrong about the history of Saddam Hussein's rise to power in Iraq.

You state: "...we put Saddam in power in the first place in order to keep the theoretical commies from taking control of the place by overthrowing the legitimate government."

I might point you to this site, which notes that Saddam came to power after an internal coup in 1979.

I think you might be confusing Iran and Iraq. In 1958 the CIA supported the overthrow of the then-Iranian Prime Minister Mosagdeh. This was due to a bit more than simply 'fighting communism' or about oil interests, rather it was the intersection of both when Mosagdeh order the forcible nationalization of all foreign oil companies and assets - in other words, he stole a lot of stuff and lost his job.

In terms of US support for Iraq, you might be referring to the policy in which we prevented Iran from substantially defeating Iraq during their eight-year long war. As far as regarding him as "Christlike", I would sugest if that had been the case, we might of given him sufficient support to defeat Iran, rather than simply encouraging a stalemate. If you want to look at some consistency, however, the arms transfers to Iraq are quite illuminating.

I am quite unclear on what you mean with the Stark incident. I am familiar with the incident - I just am not quite certain I understand the point you are making.

You then go on to note: "Frankly, most people here couldn't care less how many people he had tortured and killed. Odds are the political objectors were proposing things inimical to US interests, so they deserved to die. Now things are different, and we actually give a shit."

Have you, at any point, ever tried to square that particular brand of condemnation with FDR's Lend-Lease program and subsequent support of the Genocide, Stalin? Or for that matter, have you taken a look at that in the context of the Cold War?

It would be intellectually dishonest to get this exercised about the historical context at work in Iraq (i.e. US support for Hussein), without paying attention to the larger context of the defining struggle of the latter half of the twentieth century - the Cold War.

And getting upset about the choices made in that conflict without applying the same metric to the Second World War would be similiarly dishonest.

Mr. uh_clem, can you please post or send me the link where Lileks advocates a pre-emptive nuclear strike against North Korea?

Methinks you are FOS.

Thanks.

You have to admit, "Georgie" is a lot more flattering than "Pootie Poot".

PB:

Why do you think that fascism could never happen in the United States? We are dangerously close to having a one-party system--look at how the right wraps itself tightly in the American Flag and look at the new campaign by the Bush Re-elect Committee--branding all dissent of Bush's war on terror as Unpatriotic.

Look at Fox News and the right-wing blogosphere attack anyone who raises a question, including Prof. Drezner, as unpatriotic.

No, I didn't think before today that fascism was possible in America. And then I read this comments section and I see that there are more than strains, there is a full blown epidemic of fascism.

And to whoever it was about Dean vs. Gephardt. I see no "anti-war" fascism in Dean's attacks on Gephardt. Both are competing political candidates, and neither is branding each other a traitor. They are having a difference of agreement at a policy level.

That's called democracy. Neither is trying to silence the other. Neither is in any real position of power right now (Gephardt's status as minority leader notwithstanding).

Please, show me the fascism in the left. Dean and Gephardt and any of the opposing candidates, Republican or Democrat, stand for democracy even though they oppose each other on the war.

Eric: "If you were in a such situation you might say such things in the heat of passion."

Zayed condones rape and refers to women
in the possesive. "Rape their women. Yeah"

And Eric apologizes for him.

Sorry Eric, Zayed gets no slack from me
until he apologizes for his comment and
retracts it.

Rape is very personal issue for some.

What if it was your mother, sister, daughter, or wife Eric? Would you condone the sentiment?

You tear Salam a new one for being mildly critical of Bush declaring success and basking
in the limelight while bodies still rot in the
streets.

Then you apologize for Zayed condoning rape.

Thanks for clearing all that up for me, Eric.

If the US went into Iraq with entirely selfless intentions Lileks would be right. But if you believe that you also believe in the tooth fairy. Lileks is basically saying "we went into your country because we know what's best for you and if you don't like the way we did it and if you don't agree with the plans we have for you, fuck you". That's the height of self-indulgence and arrogance and Salam Pax is right to call the U.S. on this. Iraq does not exist so that a wounded Lileks can feel good about his country again. I read him from time to time, he's a snotty, sanctimonious prick that hates anything that is not American.

Thumper -

For starters, could you show me somewhere where Prof. Drezner has been branded as "unpatriotic"?

As far as "fascism in the left" - it would seem that someone who, um, disagrees with someone else's disagreement is being called "fascist" might not be quite as pure as the driven snow vis a vis the hypocricy front.

Kal:

Nice try, you're grasping at straws. If you were any more in denial about reality, I would have you drug tested.

I never said Donald Rumsfeld personally delivered the chemical agent. He was in a position to stop it, after he knew about it, and did nothing.

Turn on poor Jessica when she doesn't tow the company line and turn on an actual Iraqi who was under fire for asking for more of an organizational approach than he sees. And all while sitting in the study eating Doritos and typing on the computer. Proud Americans all.

Jeez Thumper, enough with the self-agrandizing victimhood number. Just because your side doesnt control EVERY major media outlet anymore we are suddenly in a police state? You realize there is a different between being silenced and being ignored dont you? I havent seen the brown shirts kicking in the doors of the NYT and LaT lately, nor NPR or PBS starting to broadcast the O'Reilly Factor. Get over yourselves, this whole post-Vietnam victimhood, oooh look at me im a martyr act is stale as pachuli on a 60 year old hippy. Maybe if you tried convincing moderates to vote your way instead of screaming FASCIST and NAZI every five minutes you could win some elections and set the agenda yourselves. I wont hold my breath.

AR:

Okay, can we not play this game where I have to show that someone called someone an exact word? There's something called "subtext." The subtext of the criticisms of Drezner is that he is unpatriotic (or a bad republican) for slamming Lileks, who was patriotic (remember his invocation of the Dead American Soldiers) for slamming Salam Pax.

If you've ever graduated from high school, you'd understand what I'm talking about.

I'm not just disagreeing with your disagreement. When the subtext of the Right is "Shut the Fuck Up" that is a fascist statement because it shuts down all debate. It is the way of the Taliban and Mullahs and Soviet Apparatchiks.

I'm disagreeing with your discursive ethics, which is also something you should look up if you don't understand.

I point to Mark Buehner's post as Exhibit A as proof that the Right (at least on this blog comment section) is ideologically bankrupt, has no ideas, and only knows how to scream "Shut the Fuck Up" really, really loud.

I point to Thumper accusing me of being unpatriotic. And hence Fascist. I mean, he didnt say it, but you gotta look at the subtext...

Eric, I think Jimmy cracked Salami, and Georgie don't care.

I was gonna get all into this, but I'm too tired now. Lots of good points, some bad, stirred up ire, etc.

Dan, it was 18 provinces in revolt, if you count Number 19.

Thumper,
"I never said Donald Rumsfeld personally delivered the chemical agent. He was in a position to stop it, after he knew about it, and did nothing."

But then that's not what you said is it.

You wrote, "Those Chemical Weapons Saddam used to gas the Kurds? Courtesy of one Mr. Donald Rumsfeld."

So it's hardly grasping for straws.

By the way, what makes you think I'd turn up positive in a drug test (incidentally, I wouldn't)? After all, you seem to be the one with a short-term memory problem.

Also you'll note that your links show that the State Department was engaged in attempting to stop those shipments. Nowhere do you provide proof that Rumsfeld knew about it and was responsible for stopping it. So far as I can tell the State Department considered stopping the sale of items that could be used to make chemical agent their responsibility.

Kal

Gee, Mark, I think I was trying to call you Fascist directly, and not through subtext, but you're right, I shouldn't bury the lede like that.

Mark, congratulations, you're not only a fascist, you're a jackass.

Look, I have work to do. Read it yourself Kal.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

What still puzzles me is there's so little reference to the apparently justified conclusions many in the blogosphere drew about Salam even before the liberation of Bagdad -- the internal evidence of his posts suggests he had some connections with the Baathists and lived pretty well under the regime. Under such circumstances, he may have had a fairly good idea of what risks he did or didn't run in making his posts. It suited Saddam to have public "liberals" like Tariq Aziz, for instance.

So my estimate of Salam is not that he's some brave Iraqi on the street, but instead a corrupt, well-connected upper-class guy who has a good set of cousins, bribe-takers, etc., to keep him comfortable. In that regard, I find his whining -- like the equivalent whining of upper-class Iraqi doctors, etc., that the media periodically interview to learn they just can't get an appointment at the hairdresser the way they used to -- pretty ugly.

Many posters here don't seem to recognize this side of human nature.

I am a bit surprised that there are people who actually believe that we went to war and deposed Saddam for the benefit of the Iraqis.

We did it for our (perceived) benefit. If we had faced the same (perceived) threat but, for whatever reasons, going to war were actually detrimental for the Iraqis we would have still attacked.

The fact that it was good for the Iraqis was simply an extra.

hey Mark, why do you delusional (and apparently illiterate) warmongers insist on misreading peoples' posts and replying with ad hominems instead of reasoned arguments?

not only did I not suggest that Iraq was invaded for a single reason, but my point was that defending Lileks' critique of Pax places you in the awkward position of having only one plausible rationale for the invasion. accepting even one additional rationale - geopolitics, military bases, force projection, oil, whatever - pretty much sinks your argument.

"Mark, congratulations, you're not only a fascist, you're a jackass."

Sweet. Now if I can just figure out if I'm a patriot or not. DAMN YOU SUB-CONTEXT! DAMN YOU TO HELL!

Salam Pax and "Professor" Drezner should get off their high horses and start lining up behind the President. Lilek was completely justified in blasting that ungracious raghead faggot for daring to "bite the hand that feeds him."

If we didn't free him and his worthless brethren, he wouldn't have the freedom to spout his whining complaints today. So, he should be thankful that we only tell him to "fuck off" instead of lining him up against the wall to be shot like he really deserves.

Spare me these "conservative" apologists like "Professor" Drezner. Salam Pax is aiding and abetting the anti-war left in committing treason against President Bush, and Drezner is covering for Salam Pax? Drezner should either get with the program or admit that he is giving "aid and comfort" to the terrorists who must be high-fiving the fact that fools like Drezner are attacking the moral clarity of our War on Terror.

This is beautiful post from RC Dean of Samizdata on another thread:

("He" of course refers to the still pseudonymous "Salam Pax")

Who in Baghdad does he have to fear with his denunciations of both Saddam and Bush?

Nobody. He doesn't live in Baghdad anymore. He lives, apparently, in England.

So why is he still anonymous? Why doesn't he sign his name so people can discover whether his self-serving stories are true or false? It is hard to conclude anything other than that he grew up as the scion of a pretty influential Baathist family. Is that what he is hiding?

Without getting into visiting the sins of the fathers, etc., you would think that having lived a life of privilege rooted in the slaughter and oppression of others would have created a certain sense of humility and a certain desire to atone. Apparently, in Salam Pax it creates an intense desire to go clubbing in London.

Fuck him.

Another funny thing is how many ultra-left commenters show up, being that this is supposed to not really be a lefty blog. Kinda makes you wonder. Hmmmm . . .

"places you in the awkward position of having only one plausible rationale for the invasion. "

Why would anything place me in that position? Who ever sold the war on a single rational? Not G.W. Bush I can assure you. If you like I'd be happy to point you to links to his speach to the UN last year, his State of the Union, and about 50 other sources listing all the reasonS for going into Iraq. Literacy involves comprehension my friend, try not to force Bush to have said what you think he said. Go to the souce material.

Mr. uh_clem, can you please post or send me the link where Lileks advocates a pre-emptive nuclear strike against North Korea?

geez, Kieran, you could at least have made a token effort.

If any of you guys attacking Salam have ever complained about crime, I hope you folks are currently attending your local police academy. Or are on the force already.

Jim Henley is correct in that Salam and his family & friends are the ones who have to live in the new Iraq. He is eminently more qualified to comment on it (as are Zayed, etc.) than people like Lileks or myself or most of you people. Salam and G are the ones who have to deal with the skyrocketing crime rate, scared American soldiers, terrorist attacks, Islamist resurgence etc. that are the result of a bungled and unplanned reconstruction. To bash him for complaining about it and calling Bush what his mother probably does is just silly.

For those who think that simply being "privileged" in Baathist Iraq means that one had to be a Saddam lover, one should check out Zeyad's "Clarifications" post here:

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/archives/2003_11_01_healingiraq_archive.html#106935647191995752

Salam Pax's posts from before the war make it quite clear what his opinion was of Saddam and the Ba'ath Party. Any Iraqi in a country with a 40% literacy rate who with the capability to both read and write English well enough to blog in it (and care enough about an English-speaking audience to actually do it) is probably going to have been "privileged" under the old regime. Bashing him for that when he's made his political opinions clear is ridiculous. By that measure, the only truly courageous Iraqis are the peshmerga, al-Da'wa, and Iraqi Hizbullah.

Why do so many people feel the need to kiss Salam Pax's hiney? The guy's an Iraqi Atrios. Who cares what he says? Lileks is right. Fuck Salam Pax.

Congratulations CaliforniaPatriot, you are Exhibit B in the case for fascism in America today.

Dan,

Right on.

"Another funny thing is how many ultra-left commenters show up, being that this is supposed to not really be a lefty blog. Kinda makes you wonder. Hmmmm . . ."

Ultra-left ? What do you mean ? Like people with eyes open to the lying and deceit this administration has engaged in ?

Unfortunately, it's NOT YOUR blog, sorry to bust your comfort zone with the truth.

If you don't line up behind the president then you're not deserving of being called an American.

Yep, sounds like what the founding fathers were hoping America would become.

There's not one American in a hundred that gives a shit about Iraqis or democracy. This war was sold as a mission to pre-empt a WMD attack within the US of A. It was to keep chemical fogs and clouds of bacteria out of America's mail and malls, not to mention preventing a mushroom cloud forming over a major American city. All the detached-from-reality talk of creating democracy in a bomb crater is rationalization by idealists and propagandists who don't even understand the nature of our enemy. Hint: it wasn't Saddam Hussein. Pace General Boykin, they aren't killing us because we're Christian. They're killing us for the same reason they kill Turks. They hate secularism. And what do we do having found ourselves in a war with religious fundamentalists, we destroy a secular (albeit hideous) potential ally. Bush's already done the work of al Qaeda by destroying one of the major secular pillars in the Islamic world and weakening the other: Turkey. It's no wonder al Qaeda is attacking there. A real realpolik solution would have included enlisting Hussein's aid in destroying al Qaeda. Because they were his enemies too. Correctly incentivized, I doubt Saddam would have much trouble bringing the US bin Laden's head on a pike. Immoral? I'd say pragmatic. Though, considering the chaotic power vacuum that now is Iraq and the 20,000+ killed in this war, it's less immoral than Bush's so far disastrous alternative.

Thumper, California Patriot was clearly a caricature to smear the righties, I don't buy it, and neither should you.

Lileks was right.

I hope, ch2, that you're right.

Good argument Lee! Way to use that democratic voice of yours.

As for Josh Chamberlin,
your dismissal of Atrios just shows your closed mindedness.

http://maroon.uchicago.edu/news/articles/2003/11/21/panel_calls_for_neut.php

Above is an interesting link from The Maroon about students agitating to make all U of C bath rooms "gender neutral" (note, not "unisex" because that implies that people are all "sexed" to begin with and it's not this infinitely fluid continuum and such) to accomodate the small minority of students who are uncomfortable choosing a bathroom, because it forces them to buy into the white male patriarchy and such. One person even says that they've gotten bladder infections because they refused to sumbit to the impression of choosing a socially consturcted gender.

I think Professor Drezner's surroudings may be getting to him. (I went to U of C, by the way, looks like I left just in time).

Eric, it's a panel of four students, for crying out loud. Shall we now look for 4 equivalent rightwing nuts in U of C ? Wouldn't be too hard...

I think the problem is more your surrounding not getting to you. Open your eyes to the fact that this fraud has made the world less safe, and our country weaker (both in military readiness, economically, diplomatically, trade-wise, environmentally, etc).

Just to clarify, California "Patriot," are you suggesting that Salam deserves to be lined up and shot because he is:

A) an Arab

B) an Iraqi

C) gay

D) not a Republican

E) all of the above

F) any of the above?

To be honest I think "California Patriot" was "taking the piss" if you will. If not, please stop, you're making the other non-Lefties look bad.

" Writing snarkily and insigthfully of life in Baghadad during the days of Saddam took far more courage than getting shot to pieces while charging the barricades. And it had far more impact. "

"Writing took more courage than charging barricades", quipped Appalled Moderate, from Bizarro Earth.

I'm with James on this one. I can only fault him for allowing things to build up to the point that his response was less than articulate.

I enjoy reading Prof. Drezner's blog, but have noticed at times a tendency on his part to jump to conclusions. I'm sure that as he matures, his writing will show greater thoughtfulness along with the insight he normally displays.

I have never cared for Salam's writing, something is less than genuine, or didn't ring true, I'm not sure how to say it. His recent piece is reminiscent of the lightweight snottiness I've come to expect from the Mastercard revolutionary class.

Who opposed removing Saddam this year?

Which countries were in the original coalition but not in the second?

Who opposed removing Saddam in 1991?

And please spare me the preaching about Bush abandoning Iraqis. Clinton abandoned the Iraqis, the UN abandoned the Iraqis, the French/Germans/Russians sold weapons to Saddam and opposed removing him from power how many times?

Double standard does not even begin to describe the situation. Removing Saddam would have unleashed the same level of hatred in 1991 that it did this year.

C'mon Mark. get with the program: You forgot the intro: "ah, YOU MANIACS!"

I expect better from you.

Ooops, Mr. Buehner, did you catch it? the "AH" I posted you about (check your email). Mr Radish is your culprit this time.

Did I not just tell you? Amazing.

"Mastercard revolutionary"

That is funny. Hehe.

Anyway, nothing new with rich hypocracy.

"I knew I'd become my own enemy in the instant that I preached" - Bob Dylan.

The real hissy fit that Lileks (and others here) is having, is that Iraqis are displaying the unforgivable sin of being "ungrateful." This ungratefulness strikes at the heart of the fantasy that the warbloggers have: the fantasy that Iraqis will somehow be grateful for all the pain and misery that the USA has inflicted over the years. The ungratefullness of saying "who the hell invited you?" The hissy fit that the Iraqis don't immediately drop their pants and say "yes massah, please give me another." When the USA is busy pissing on their leg and calling it rain, calling them ungrateful for pointing out that it is not rain.

When the fantasy goes POOF, and the emperor is shown to be naked, all the warbloggers go "Fuck you."

kieran wrote:
Mr. uh_clem, can you please post or send me the link where Lileks advocates a pre-emptive nuclear strike against North Korea?
Methinks you are FOS.

Here ya go. Like I said, Mr. Lileks is a very curious nutjob.

">http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/03/0803/082903.html

"Why not nuke North Korea’s nuke test? They’ve said they’re going to have a test; I presume we know where that will be. So we nuke it the day before. There’s a big explosion, a mushroom cloud; they blame us. We say what are you talking about? You said you were going to light one off. And you did. No! You did it! Right. We nuked your nuke test. And that makes sense . . . how, exactly? It would certainly keep them off their game. And just after we nuke the test - and every subsequent test, of course - we put a call to Li’l Kim’s cellphone, and someone with a Texas accent says oh, I’m sorry, wrong number. I was tryin’ to reach a live man."

LOL. It sure didn't take y'all long to go from the "Liberate the oppressed Iraqis" line of bullshit to the "Fuck the fuckin' Iraqi ingrates!" stage.

Why would anything place me in that position?

hmm... looks like you're not thinking it through before posting. or maybe you're just not very bright. lemme spell it out for you.

1) all the defenses of Lileks presented here (except IR's - which I dealt with separately) have been variations on an argument from moral grounds, namely that Salam Pax in particular and the Iraqi people in general should be grateful for the US invasion and occupation because the I&O benefitted them.

2) arguing from moral grounds forces you to accept moral precepts as premises. this can be good or bad, but in this case we can probably all agree in the abstract that the moral imperative for Alice to be grateful when Bob does her a favor is weakened when applied to an action which Bob undertook for reasons of his own but which also happened to benefit Alice.

3) I think we can also all agree that the weakness of the above moral imperative is compounded dramatically in circumstances where Bob is shown not to have assisted Alice at a previous time when it would not have benefitted him.

4) so if the underlying condition upon which these arguments rest - that the primary purpose of Bob's action was to benefit Alice - gets sucked out from under you, then you've got very little "moral imperative" left.

hint: you can fight back by providing specific counterexamples to my assumption that the moral imperative to be grateful for favors is actually weakened in items 2 and 3 above...

Funny. I never new I was a 'lefty' until everyone started calling me one.

What is a "lefty" anyway? Is there a reasonable paragraph description?

What's a "righty" for that matter.

It takes a pretty good education to miss how all these labels just cloud up arguements.

At least we are all rich enough to have computers...

"We need to nation build in Iraq -- and that's a commitment the president hasn't made publically."

What dream world might you be living in? Where have you been?

Well, Tom, I've been writing a paper on the Israeli/Palestininan conflict for five months, working a 60 hr week job, praying my cousin in the Rangers is ok, and trying to figure out if we can afford kids and sending me to grad school.

But I digress.

I said we had to commit to nation building and I also said that the president hadn't made a commtitement to nation building. Y'know what - I was wrong:

"In Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi Governing Council are also working together to build a democracy -- and after three decades of tyranny, this work is not easy...And we're working closely with Iraqi citizens as they prepare a constitution, as they move toward free elections and take increasing responsibility for their own affairs...
Securing democracy in Iraq is the work of many hands. American and coalition forces are sacrificing for the peace of Iraq and for the security of free nations. Aid workers from many countries are facing danger to help the Iraqi people. The National Endowment for Democracy is promoting women's rights, and training Iraqi journalists, and teaching the skills of political participation. Iraqis, themselves -- police and borders guards and local officials -- are joining in the work and they are sharing in the sacrifice..." (http://www.ned.org/events/anniversary/oct1603-Bush.html)

So what do you call that mission?

you may say that I'm a dreamer, but apparently, I'm not the only one.
t.

Let me get this right.

Salam writes a cheeky "what have you done for us lately" letter to W.

Lileks chides him for the cheeky letter.

Drezner chides Lileks for taking offense, citing GHWB's failure to support the Iraqi revolts 12 years ago.

I agree with everybody but Salam. He should be venting his frustration at America's media and the Ratpack running for the Democrat nomination here, also Tom Daschle and Ted Kennedy, instead of the President. I think it's perfectly reasonable that there aren't any Iraqis willing to put up campaign posters for the presidency of the new Iraq, but we're draining the swamp as fast as we can, even while Al Qaeda and Iran and Syria are trying to refill it.

Everybody should tell the media to go watch Michael Jackson if they don't want to report the truth from Iraq, and turn the job over to the Weekly Standard and the Pentagon's website. This reminds me of Abraham Lincoln's second campaign for president. How could anybody in their right minds vote against him? But he was saved only in a nick of time by some military victories.

This has to be the last best hope of mankind, because the first, second, third, etc. best hopes wouldn't be cutting things this close!

> Clinton abandoned the Iraqis,
> the UN abandoned the Iraqis,
> the French/Germans/Russians sold
> weapons to Saddam and opposed
> removing him from power how many times?

I think that's all true.

My question remains was our pre-emptice violence is productive or counter productive for Americans?

We killed thousands and ruined thousands of our soldiers lives,
did damage to our volunteer army,
allowed enemies a chance to study our military in action, etc. etc.

This may turn out to be less than a zero sum gain.

Oh well, back to building lots and lots of weapons,
arming the rich world to the teeth, and hoping it all works out nicely!

"we're draining the swamp as fast as we can, even while Al Qaeda and Iran and Syria are trying to refill it."

Iraq people have no easier time convincing their militants to stand down,
than do americans convincing our militants to stand down.

THIRD MINNESOTAN KILLED IN IRAQ.

Those are some serious credentials Lileks has there.

Radish, your Bob and Alice example is flawed. You neglect to factor in that "Bob's" reasons for helping Alice are not solely selfish. I am assuming that you were meaning to make a valid analogy between the US and Iraq, and Bob and Alice, rather than simply setting up a strawman argument.

Kal

"And to whoever it was about Dean vs. Gephardt. I see no 'anti-war' fascism in Dean's attacks on Gephardt. Both are competing political candidates, and neither is branding each other a traitor. They are having a difference of agreement at a policy level. ... Please, show me the fascism in the left..." and "There's something called 'subtext.' The subtext of the criticisms of Drezner is that he is unpatriotic (or a bad republican) for slamming Lileks..." -- Thumper

Howard Dean: "I come from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

There's something called subtext... The subtext of Dean's criticism of Gephardt is that he was a bad Democrat for supporting the war. Fascism of the Left, courtesy Howard Dean.

You're up, Thumper.

It sure didn't take y'all long to go from the "Liberate the oppressed Iraqis" line of bullshit to the "Fuck the fuckin' Iraqi ingrates!" stage.
posted by: RoguePlanet

We fired missiles, dropped bombs, and shocked-n-awed so that nearly every kid under the age of seven
in Bagdhad grinds their baby teeth off in their "sleep".

If a few car bombs blow up in your home town today,
I wonder how many of you parents would condone following that
up by dropping a 2,000 lbs bomb on a nearby neighborhood?

Once upon a time you could be upset enough to have a revolution just because someone was taxing your tea without asking you. Now you are expected to be grateful to anyone who murders fewer people than Saddam did.

How many americans are here because they didn't stay and fight?

At best it's like this: Your house is run down and untidy. Somebody drives past, decides your house needs a makeover comes in, paints everything eau de nil, starts work putting shingles on the roof gets tired half way through and goes home. How do you react when they expect free use of the spare room and unquestioning gratitude? If you just dressed them by a diminnutive, you are a better man than I.

BTW in law there is no debt implied for prior considerations. If you do something for someone off your own bat, they owe you nothing unless THEY feel like it.

In any case being upbraided by Mr. Lileks for snarkiness ought to be an honour of some sort.

BTW the point about the uprising is spot on. The people in those mass graves weren't chosen by lottery and it takes a great deal more stones for an Iraqi to take on the government than it does for an American sodier as the casualty figures amply demonstrate.

This is pretty simple. The United States liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein, perhaps the 3rd worst dictator in modern history behind Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Now, some Iraqis who begged us to save them from their monstrous war criminal are complaining about the way in which we have liberated them.

And, of course, aforementioned Iraqi is cozying up to the lefty commies at the Guardian. I don't see why Drezner is covering up for an obviously ungrateful SOB like Salam Pax. Lileks has his First Amendment right to righteously blast Salam Pax for being ungrateful for our granting him his own First Amendment right of being an ungrateful, snarky, tea-sipping, wannabe British lefty.

Bush gives this man freedom from tyranny, and this guy just shoves it right back into Bush's face. I don't see why Drezner and the "PC Police" want to criticize Lileks for pointing out that fact. Maybe Drezner didn't like Lileks' using the word "Fuck" on his own blog, but that's his own literary freedom.

Anyhow, if Salam Pax were really an Iraqi patriot, he would stop wasting time writing snarky letters to the Guardian, and he would be spending his time quietly giving constructive criticism to the CPA guys back in Iraq. Right now, he is just being used as a tool of the Guardian lefties to espouse the anti-war agenda of defeating President Bush in 2004.

You neglect to factor in that "Bob's" reasons for helping Alice are not solely selfish.

no, Kal, if you actually read the post you'll see that I deliberately phrased my argument so as to accomodate that very counterargument. no offense, but you guys are like fish in a barrel.

...the moral imperative for Alice to be grateful when Bob does her a favor is weakened when applied to an action which Bob undertook for reasons of his own but which also happened to benefit Alice...

...[that weakness is] compounded dramatically in circumstances where Bob is shown not to have assisted Alice at a previous time when it would not have benefitted him.

I understand that uncertainty is scary Kal, and that Lileks' position is appealing because it provides certainty, but that doesn't make it a morally viable position.

the position you are arguing is that no matter how many times I let the little old lady struggle across the street by herself, helping her on the one occasion that it helps me to make time with a fly chick on the other side entitles me to the LOL's gratitude. you are free to take that position if you want, but I find it ugly and selfish.

Hey, CP,

I think the Iraqis (well most) are loving the fact that Saddam al-Huseyn is gone. They're just not happy with the fact that liberation isn't over.

As for giving constructive criticism to the CPA...I think one P. Bremner keeps trying and they keep ignoring him

t.
am I the only one who doesn't see a international communist conspiracy every time someone criticizes the Bush Administration?

Oooooh, California Patriot is for real and not a leftie hoax to smear the right, let me dig in.
Yummy, fun ,fun, fun. Whack-a-nut time !
:)

First paragraph. Wrong.
The Irakis did not beg us to go liberate them.

Second paragraph. lefty commie ? Real original. Tea-sipping is an insult now ? As opposed to CalPat's crackpipe smoking ?

Third paragraph is a howler. Bush gives the man freedom ? Really, his little flyboy stunt sure did give that Iraqi freedom. Woo-Hoo. Tears of laughter come to my eyes. An we're the PC police now ? We just said right on Dan. You are the guys complaining about Dan's right to say what he wants on HIS blog.

Fourth paragraph: enter the twilight zone ! CalPat knows just how an Iraqi patriot ought to behave. Yes Mastah. Just stroll over the CPA, their door is wide open, put the paper in the suggestion box. "We'll get right back to you, we promise. Don't call us, we'll call you." LOL.

CalPat, u pathetic tool. It's not just the anti-Irak-war agenda to free Chimpy from the White prison, it's the agenda of all sensible people. Let him roam back free in the Texan wilds.

This thread illustrates exactly why "liberation" -- the last remaining justification/excuse for Dubya's Iraq adventure -- is just as bunk as the rest of them.

1. For those who weren't determined to read Salam Pax ideologically, his "letter to Bush" should have come as no surprise. No, he didn't like Saddam (and was contemptuous of many of the flakier elements of the antiwar movement, like the "human shields"), and no, he wasn't crazy about the invasion either -- nor was he willing to buy every word that came out of the mouths of American 'mongers. If you're really serious about "liberation," the reasons for those positions shouldn't be too complicated for you to grasp.

That so many of you rush immediately to the "ungrateful little shit" side of the spectrum, or are clueless enough to think you're in a position to lecture Pax about how to help clean up his country or how he should have lived under Saddam's regime, indicates frankly just how [i]little[/i] any of the support for the Iraq war has to do with "liberation." But no surprises there.

2. [i]"Sure, none of us have lived in Iraq under Saddam or after, but does that mean we have nothing to say about the matter?"[/i]

Yes, that's exactly what it means. Not a single damned one of you, and not Lileks -- who, as a political columnist, makes a pretty good comedian -- has anything to say about the matter. To put it another way, if you're really serious about "liberation," your role in "the matter" is to [i]listen[/i] to Iraqis (yes, even if they're Salam Pax and at least theoretically get more money and pussy than you do now that they're published) instead of trying to dictate to them whatever version of reality you imagine you know from watching Fox News. If your intellectual inferiority complexes and fever-dreams about "lefties" and "European elites" are more important to you than learning about what actual Iraqis think, no-one is obligated to take you seriously.

[Side note: Fer Chrissakes, Lileks doesn't even have the stones to criticize civil rights abuse in his [i]own[/i] country -- his standard response to criticism of the PATRIOT Act is fingers-in-ears "shutupshutupshutUPeverything'sFINE" -- which makes his snark at Salam Pax doubly moronic. And three dead Minnesotans means Pax should shut up? Well, to me, 15,000+ dead Iraqis and a radically unstable occupation means something else. It also tells me something pretty interesting about the relative worth Lileks puts on American and Iraqi lives. Fuck you, James; you have [i]no[/i] claim to a moral high horse.]

3. [i]"He should be venting his frustration at America's media and the Ratpack running for the Democrat nomination here, also Tom Daschle and Ted Kennedy, instead of the President."[/i]

Riight. He should be venting his frustration at everyone [i]except[/i] the man whose policies are directly responsible for the current chaotic state of his country. This is a modified version of "shut up and line up behind the President." I don't buy it and I don't see why Pax should.

Here's an anology: A house is burning down, the firefighters are in there fighting the blaze, and the usual rubberneckers are sitting on their asses outside, flicking boogers and yapping about weather the residents had it coming, or weather the firefighters are doing unnecessary damage with their hoses.

Yes, those useless fools would be you, dear commenters.

The problem is, as you children cannot seem to grasp, is that analogies can illustrate, but they seldom prove. Thus Iraq is not 'Bob and Alice', it isn't a house on fire, and it isn't Alice in frigging wonderland. Got it?

And Drezner? Screw off, you capering fool. You may whine and bitch about our liberating Kuwait but not Iraq all you like, and you will be ignored accordingly.

But let me ask you this: What other nation's attitude would you have preferred? France's? Iran's? Russia's?

As I recall, the U.S. did not depose Saddam because they had agreed not to, becuase that was the price for getting a broad coalition that included arab armies.

So why aren't you on THEIR asses? WE were acting according to agreements we had made. THEY are the ones who demanded such an understanding. What kind of warped concept of blame do you have, anyway?

We owe nobody, not even Iraq, one damn thing for encouraging a revolution that would have been, had it succeeded, in their own interest. Unfortuately it failed, but it was the closest shot they had at freedom they had had for a damn long time.

And you find something to condemn in this, you animal?

Had we intervened then, then whatever government had formed would be labelled an American puppet, no matter weather it was or not. Anotherwords, they'd have similar problems to what we are having now, with the surrounding countries funding attacks. Clearly, a revolution WITHOUT a Shah(as in Iran) to be readily deposed was the best outcome.

America will willingly help Iraq regain its own feet, because it is in both our interests. But the moment such help becomes a 'service', with the 'customer' checking his wristwatch and grumbling about slow delivery, then you and Salam can go fuck yourselves. Lileks was right on the money.

You want speedy, efficient service with a smile and a 'would you like fries with that?' You could start by paying for it. Don't like Brown&Root construction fees? Buy from France. They sold you missiles, I'm certain they'd love to sell you a couple of bridges.

And Trismegistus? For someone who 'has anything to say about the matter', because if it applies to us it CERTAINLY applies to you, your lips sure do flap a great deal.

Its our goddamn money and lives being spent, so we get a say. Do you understand, or do I need to get you a picture book and a teddy bear to hold your attention?

Riight. He should be venting his frustration at everyone [i]except[/i] the man whose policies are directly responsible for the current chaotic state of his country.

You are absolutely right Troglodyte, but Saddam's in hiding, so Salam can't chew him out properly right now. Mmmmkay?

Hey, you gingoist America-firster? Fuck you. I know you’re one of thousands of arrogant blowhards who gave us all the bad advice before the war, and thus know more about knowing less than I do. Granted. But there’s a name I came across today: Vernier, Pierre-François (1737-1780), mortally wounded in Savannah, Georgia, in 1779, a French officer killed in the colonial revolt. He died doing what most of you have never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face an imperialist. You owe him.

Let me explain this in simple terms, cowboy. Without the French, you would have spent your life under British rule. You might have done reasonably well; maybe you would have moved to London and opened a restaraunt selling authentic American food. You might have moved away to a non-imperialist state. What’s certain is that many of your pals would now be living as subjects of that “scary lady with the creepy wave” (as if her greatest sin was somehow a fashion faux pas and not her embarassment of a family) and the monarchy would have prospered into the next generation precisely because of people like you. So show some fucking gratitude. The next time a French leader tells the so-called President to do something, you should listen. Again, you fucking owe them.

"Its our goddamn money and lives being spent, so we get a say."

Because, of course, no Iraqi money or life has been spent. Or if it has, they should be damned well grateful and you're going to tell them so. Right?

If you're concerned about how American lives and dollars are being spent, then you have MORE obligation to listen to the criticisms of Iraqis, not less. Painting yourself a rosy picture and then shitting on anyone who dares disturb it dishonors your troops every bit as much as it dishonors and disresepects the people of Iraq.

And to conclude in Wingut-Readable Argumentation Format: "Do you understand, or do I need to spell it out for you on an Etch-a-Sketch in single-syllable babytalk to hold your attention?"

Nice little sophistry Waxx-o-matic,

"And Trismegistus? For someone who 'has anything to say about the matter', because if it applies to us it CERTAINLY applies to you, your lips sure do flap a great deal."

Tris' comment were that none of us should presume to know Iraqi's will better than they. So that when Lilek goes off, full-of-shit, in his little "you should be grateful rant", he is way off base. Tris pointing this out CLEARLY DOES NOT fall under the "have any say in the matter" rule.

Ah, um_clem, I see the problem now. You are unfamiliar with something known as 'sarcasm'.

I understand now.

"You are absolutely right Troglodyte,"

Thanks, EarWaxx. (SIDENOTE: Man, this Wingnut Argumentation thing is fun! Can we tell "yo' mama" jokes next?)

"but Saddam's in hiding, so Salam can't chew him out properly right now. Mmmmkay?"

Riiight. Because of course [i]Saddam[/i] started the war. Deep thinking there, EarWaxx.

Al:

What's your point? I don't get it. Dean wasn't attacking Gephardt when he said that. So it can't be "Dean's criticism of Gephardt."

Rogueplanet has the line of the comment night:

"LOL. It sure didn't take y'all long to go from the "Liberate the oppressed Iraqis" line of bullshit to the "Fuck the fuckin' Iraqi ingrates!" stage."

Anyone on the Right who can come up with anything funnier (as if there is such a thing as a funny right-winger), please... I beg you.

Wrong radish. helping her on the one occasion that it helps me to make time with a fly chick on the other side entitles me to the LOL's gratitude.

It means that if she bitches because you didn't carry her across then she's an ingrate. The little old lady is entitled to her opinion but she's still an ingrate.

Kal

Thumper I read your link. It doesn't support your charge that Rumsfeld gave chemical weapons to Iraq, as you asserted earlier.

All it points out is that the US once again chose to ally itself with the enemy of its enemy. It's unfortunate, but what was the alternative?

Kal

He died doing what most of you have never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face an imperialist. You owe him.

And the US paid its debt thousands of times over during this really big war, long after the French killed those responsible for helping the US. Perhaps you've heard of it, today it's called World War One?

Kal

Kal:

One more time: I never said Rumsfeld personally delivered weapons to Iraq or that he personally, in his basement, cooked up the chemical precursors.

Do any of you Right-Wingers have any sense of the difference between "literal" and "figurative" language?

When I say "courtesy of" that means with the "tacit approval of" Donald Rumsfeld, not that he was carrying it in his fucking briefcase.

It's not relevant WHO actually delivered the chemical precursors. What is relevant is what the Donald knew and when he knew it. The link I forwarded clearly shows that he had every indication that Iraq was buying chemical precursors from Western Firms, including possibly US companies, and he did nothing.

In fact, he lobbied against condemning the Iraqis.

What was the alternative for Mr. Rumsfeld?

How about not allowing a violation of the GENEVA FUCKING CONVENTION to happen?

How about NOT COMMITTING WAR CRIMES OR ALLOWING THEM TO OCCUR WHEN YOU HAVE THE POWER TO EASILY PREVENT THEM (even if it means pissing off your buddies)?

Or how about NOT ACCEPTING A POSITION OF INFLUENCE EVER AGAIN AND FADING OFF INTO HISTORY (and not repeating your psychotic errors)?

What could the US have done?

How about what it ended up doing--NOTHING.

The Mesopotamian's take on Salam Pax's attitude nails it:

-----
These London demonstrations, I know too well, Oh! Youth, and the Pint of Bitter later in the nearest Pub. All you peace lovers and humanitarians of trendy London town, spare a thought or two for the coalition soldier out there in the dark and wilderness guarding our hospitals, primary schools and orphanages from the bombers and assassins, and the Iraqi Police reporting everyday for duty under constant danger of death and mutilation with their poor equipment and meager $50 or so a month pay package. They number almost 100 000 by now and if enlistment is really opened up they would quadruple in number immediately. Why do you think they come? Saddamists pay anybody ten thousand dollars per explosion, and they are going around trying to recruit, and this is a fact that all people in Baghdad know. So why do they come, you think? But only those who have eyes can see, and ears can hear. Why do you think the crackle of celebratory gunfire ululated till dawn, on that sultry Baghdad summer night when the death of Uday and Qusay the monster brats of the tyrant was announced? This, the media did not dwell upon, although quite newsworthy and dramatic. That was the real Opinion Poll of the vast majority of the inhabitants of Baghdad.
-----

G and Lileks are dead right.

Oh, BTW Thumper, educate yourself:

http://www.la-articles.org.uk/fascism.htm

Whiggish? I don't recall France rebuilding America after the war. What did I tell you children about analogies, especially ones that break down under the most cursory of examinations?

And Trimester? Where did I say that 'no Iraqi money or life has been spent'? Oh, did you pull that out of your ass? Why am I not suprised?

No one - no Lileks, not Bush, not anyone you can point to outside of the straw men that exist only in your head - has a problem with following GOOD advice.

Is it your learned opinion, good sir, that "(you) promised a much more efficient and speedy service" consitutes constructive criticism, or random bitching? You might want to consult the dictionary before answering.

Maybe content-free bitching and 'the criticisms of Iraqis' (which must be listened to) are one and the same same thing in your mind, but that says more about your grasp on reality than anything else.

So, tell me exactly where in the phrase 'one of the countries you have recently bombed to freedom', we are to find the pearl of wisdom that only Iraqis possess?

Or maybe the vital knowledge we must have, or fail utterly, lies somewhere in Salam's description of the president as living in a dream where he's a superhero.

I keep looking, Tristan, but I can't find the key to peace in the middle east in Salam's 'Rambo-in-Bagdad' rhetoric.

Or maybe.... its not there, and lies only in your fantasies. Ya think?

Moron.

Thanks Ernest. A vivid description of the current GOP.
----------
Fascism as an intellectual doctrine is empty of serious content, or alternatively, its content is an incoherent hodge-podge. Fascism's appeal is a matter of emotions rather than ideas. It relies on hymn-singing, flag-waving, and other mummery, which are nothing more than irrational devices employed by the Fascist leaders who have been paid by Big Business to manipulate the masses.

As Marxists used to say, fascism "appeals to the basest instincts," implying that leftists were at a disadvantage because they could appeal only to noble instincts like envy of the rich. Since it is irrational, fascism is sadistic, nationalist, and racist by nature.

LOL,

Oh the offended pride and ignorance. Look, anyone looking for gratitude in this is just plain silly and not an adult. Gratitude is a gift, and a person comes to know this when they realize how little damn of it there is in this dog-eat-dog world. To people bashing Salam or saying he's an ingrate, or that foreigners are ingrates, just grow up and get over it.

What we did, we didn't do for the gratitude of the Iraqis. Anyone who believes that is being juvenile. What the Iraqis are doing, they ain't doing out of gratitude. There ain't no love in this. And expecting gratitude smacks of stupidity that ain't got no place in positions of authority.

Good God, there is so much crap in this comments section it is just making me sick.

TG: "The whole campaign has not gone as certain people in charge of it publicly boasted it would." Give us a quote, please, from someone -- anyone -- in charge of the project boasting that everything would be shipshape in seven months.

dinkydau: "[Lileks] admits he would not have the guts to use a gun if he was in Salam's shoes too, so that weakens a bunch of his rant." No it doesn't -- not one bit. He even says he DOESN'T blame Pax for not picking up a gun, because he wouldn't have either.

Tobias: "Lileks shouldn't be talking about stones to a guy who lived and blogged under Saddam." Did you even read Lileks' piece? He explicitly said he *didn't* have stones.

Scott Harris: "Salam Pax wrote a long time ago, and at length, why his feelings would never be better than mixed." He might feel differently if he was one of the ones arbitrarily tortured in Saddam's dungeons.

Andrew: "none of these people have a dog in this fight EXCEPT for Salam." WHAT.THE.*&#!.!.!.! More than one hundred #@!ing thousand troops on the ground, and we don't have a dog in the fight? We invade a sovereign nation, halfway around the world, to the strident opposition of half the world, because we feel it's necessary for our own security, and WE DON'T HAVE A DOG IN THIS FIGHT?!?!?

Tobias again: "The U.S. did not invade Iraq for the benefit of the Iraqi people." True. "The word was always "wmds." False: The word was always the *threat* of WMDs. "and the end of the Iraqi people's suffering was but a mere byproduct." True. "Now they haven't found any WMDs and suddenly the welfare of the Iraqi people was always the top priority." False. Ensuring our own security was always the top priority.

Practike: "At what point do Iraqis such as Salam Pax get to criticize the United States?" At any point. "Should they be grateful forever?" Yes. "If they see problems with the CPA, should they keep quiet?" No.

Thumper: "I thought that the reason we invaded Iraq was for humanitarian reasons." No. The reason we invaded Iraq is because of the threat of Saddam's regime giving WMDs to terrorists. At this point, the only possible way one could not know this is to *choose* not to know it.

TG: The main reason it's perceived as "not going fast enough" is because it was sold as a "cakewalk." Either a) come up with a single quote -- just one damn quote -- to back this up, or b) admit on this site that you're an idiot.

Dan: "So... Lileks thinks he has stones because 3 Minnesotans died in Bush's war?" Lileks specifically said he didn't have stones. Either a) read the article in question before posting, or b) Preface your posts with "I'm too lazy to actually read the article, but here's what I think."

Ikram: "Salam is just echoing Thomas Freidman, 'you break it, you buy it.'" We didn't break it. Saddam and his many accomplices did. The Iraqi people couldn't or wouldn't fix it, so we did.

TG again: "There are numerous reports of ineptitude by the CPA and overspending, and not giving the jobs to Iraqi companies." Ahh, constructive criticism. Pax should have had you write his letter.

Jon H.: Nice analogy. Just remember that the U.S. is the doctor who removed the diseased organs, and is trying his best to give you healthy ones.

Both you and Lileks are wrong.

Bush I incited revolt against Saddam and then, when it started getting sticking, turned tail and left a mess.

Bush II went in and overthrew Saddam and now, as it's starting to get sticky is in the process of turning tail and leaving a mess.

Two wrongs. No rights.

the only one who doesn't see a international communist conspiracy every time someone criticizes the Bush Administration?

Nope, I am with you.

Do any of you Right-Wingers have any sense of the difference between "literal" and "figurative" language?

Then say what you mean, rather than bashing the man using "figurative" language. You meant to attack him and said he supplied chemical weapons to Iraq. Your words not mine.

How about not allowing a violation of the GENEVA FUCKING CONVENTION to happen?
I don't think you're familliar with the conventions or you'd realize that Iraq was not protected by them. Iraq was not a high signatory (not that important reall), but more importantly did not adhere to them; as such, according to the conventions themselves, they are not afforded protection under them.

How about NOT COMMITTING WAR CRIMES OR ALLOWING THEM TO OCCUR WHEN YOU HAVE THE POWER TO EASILY PREVENT THEM (even if it means pissing off your buddies)?
In a perfect world, sure. Thumper, we live in an imperfect world and there are times when "making deals with the devil" is in America's best interest. It sometimes has to be done. The only alternative to dealing with Iraq in the 80's was to increase the chance that Iran (whom was seen as a much greater threat at the time) might win and become a more powerful force. We treated with the Soviet Union for that very reason during and before America's entry into WWII. When the threat of German National Socialism was gone THEN we began to deal with the threat the Soviet Union posed.

How about what it ended up doing--NOTHING.
It helped to keep Iran, then considered a greater enemy, down. You're solution seems to be based on incredible hindsight (a nice luxury), and ignores that it was more in America's interest to see its enemies go down then it was to see them succeed.

Kal

Thumper again: "Mishu--why don't you quit your snarking and go LIVE in Iraq for a month? Join the Red Cross or Peace Corps." Mishu is suggesting that Pax quit with the snarky criticism, and instead work to improve the situation. That in itself is not "snarking."

Dave: "Wonder how many people Salam actually knew have died this year?" Well, according to him, Saddam arbitrarily killed or beat several of his acquaintances. That doesn't seem to have made a very big impression on him.

Andrew J. Lazarus: "Russians bled like crazy to liberate Poland." !?!? Whatever, comrade.

Appalled moderate: "Pax had the stones to write honestly about Iraq from Iraq, even though being caught would have meant death." WE DON'T KNOW THAT. It's possible, but all indications are that Pax comes from a comfortable family on the "ins" with the regime. There may very well have been some risk involved, but let's not overdo it on the basis of guesswork.

Thumper: "Those Chemical Weapons Saddam used to gas the Kurds? Courtesy of one Mr. Donald Rumsfeld." Just plain wrong. Any state can easily manufacture chemical weapons from a variety of non-embargoed pesticides, etc.

Michael: Restated, you say "[Glenn] Reynolds ignores articles about injured soldiers triumphantly struggling through rehabilitation out of fear that they'll discredit his anti-war stance." To which one can only say "Huh?"

t.: You go on and on at length about how Pax has the "right to speak." Interesting, in that not ONE SINGLE PERSON has said he doesn't. Why is this so hard for lefties to understand? What they're saying is that what Pax said was STUPID.

RC: [Bush] "left all the planning to small gang of civilian ideologues who had no experience in nation building." No one has any experience in nation building, RC. It's not something we do every day. "We made the disastrous decision to fire the entire Iraqi Army." Sure, and if we hadn't, you'd be writing about what a disastrous decision *that* was.

Cynical Joe: "The facts are that life in Iraq right now is shitty." Really? The impression I get is that things are shitty in the Sunni triangle, dramatically improving in the south, and already pretty good in the north. Perhaps you should change your name to "Selective Joe."

Ryan B: "Lileks' fellow travelers tell us [the deaths of American soldiers] are no big deal." Ryan, there is no way you could actually believe that Lileks' "fellow travelers" (whoever those are) think dead American soldiers are no big deal. And if not, why write it? You only make yourself sound like an idiot. Also, "I'd like to see a Lileks (or a Reynolds) screed on how awful it is that POTUS isn't attending American soldiers' funerals." I'm curious: Name one historical national leader you admire. Now: Did that person attend the funerals of all their soldiers? Please elaborate.

Radish: Your reasoning is faulty. You have overlooked the fact that, if we invaded for our own purposes, as we did, then we owe the Iraqis nothing. In fact, if we followed historical precedent, we would simply crush them down, loot their country, and say "Hey, tough luck. To the victor goes the spoils -- it's your punishment for not getting rid of Saddam yourselves." But we're not: We're staying only long enough to help the Iraqis get back on their feet, then we're leaving. It's not unreasonable to ask them to assume some (or even primary) responsibility for themselves as well.

Thumper: Please give an example of "the Bush Re-elect Committee branding all dissent of Bush's war on terror as Unpatriotic." Oh, forget it, you're hopeless.

Libertas: Bush is in the process of turning tail and leaving a mess." Bizarre. Didn't I just see Bush on TV two days ago, saying we'd tough it out as long as it took?

We don't live in a world where the only two choices are between gratidute + mindless fawning, and on the other hand backbiting, bitching for the sake of bitching, and name-calling.

So don't pretend because we don't particularly like the latter, means we demand the former. We aren't quite as intellectually lazy as you are.

So, after bringing Hussein to his most vulnerable point, it's clearly OUR fault that the attempted rebellion failed.

No, I don't think so.

Lileks was absolutely right. Salam's got no justification for being all pissy and sarcastic that we've done imperfectly what he could never have done himself, and never even tried to do.

Libertas: Just thought you should know, that a accurate paraphrase of your post would be: "The US is damned if it does, and damned if it doesn't"

Accordingly, screw off.

Salam has the right to question Bush's commitment to make Iraq better. What will he do (notice I use the word DO, not say, 'cuz Lord knows that guy tries to talk the talk without walking the walk) ?

a) commit the full might of the US to make Iraq succeed
b) get out, train Irakis for a few weeks and get troops out real quick before election season.

Don't bother answering, write it on a note, seal it in an envelope and come back 8 months from now. We'll see who was right. The blind optimist or the realistically skeptic.

Libertas: Bush is in the process of turning tail and leaving a mess."

Bizarre. Didn't I just see Bush on TV two days ago, saying we'd tough it out as long as it took?

Hmm, well maybe the explanation is that Bush's words don't always match his actions.

I'm finding Wingnut-Readable Argumentation Format hugely entertaining, so I'm going to stick with it.

"And Trimester?"

Yes, Ryan Whack? (SIDENOTE: I was serious about the "yo'mama" jokes. Here, I'll even give you a starter line: "Yo' mama is so fat...")

"Is it your learned opinion, good sir, that "(you) promised a much more efficient and speedy service" consitutes constructive criticism, or random bitching? "

It does indeed constitute random bitching (in support of a fairly simple and non-controversial point), from a person who has every right to it and every right to dismiss the childish kvetching of people like Lileks and like yourself, WaxxLad. And your whininess about this fact says more about your grasp on reality than anything else.

"No one - no Lileks, not Bush, not anyone you can point to outside of the straw men that exist only in your head - has a problem with following GOOD advice."

The Bush Administration followed the "GOOD advice" that it wanted to hear into Iraq, publicly staking its reputation on tales about WMDs and weapons programs that turned out to be bogus. (Hence the switch to the equally shaky "liberation" excu... err, justification.) I therefore do not trust their definition of "GOOD advice," nor the judgment of kneejerk apologists like yourself on the matter, good and learned sir and colleague.

As for Lileks -- I like his humour writing, but politically speaking he's a silly prat whose idea of serious political commentary is fisking a George Michael video. You can have him.

"So, tell me exactly where in the phrase 'one of the countries you have recently bombed to freedom', we are to find the pearl of wisdom that only Iraqis possess?"

Sounds to me like the viewpoint of someone who was ACTUALLY IN BAGHDAD WHEN IT WAS BOMBED and might -- shocker -- not have found it a totally fun and life-affirming experience. That fact should have your ears pricking up right there.

"Or maybe the vital knowledge we must have, or fail utterly, lies somewhere in Salam's description of the president as living in a dream where he's a superhero."

The president isn't the only one. And disconnectedness from reality -- a reality in which America has perilously little intelligence, either literally or figuratively, on a country it's supposed to be rebuidlign -- is indeed seriously hampering American effort. At least, so many of those connected to and affected by the enterprise on the ground seem to think, outside the White House PR machine and blowhards on the Web.

"I keep looking, Tristan, but I can't find the key to peace in the middle east in Salam's 'Rambo-in-Bagdad' rhetoric."

Here's one possibility: try less brute force and more genuine interaction with the populace. (Hint: "Rambo" is for many people in the world a signifier of the American mindset that imagines more firepower as the solution to any problem. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you, HotWaxx?)

"Or maybe.... its not there, and lies only in your fantasies. Ya think?"

It's clear you don't. Think, that is.

"Moron."

Asswipe.

Wow, this is a really constructive debate we've got going!

"a French officer killed in the colonial revolt. He died doing what most of you have never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face an imperialist. You owe him."

Paid in full.

“Lafayette, we are here” General John Pershing, 1917, France.

Ikram: "Salam is just echoing Thomas Freidman, 'you break it, you buy it.'" We didn't break it. Saddam and his many accomplices did. The Iraqi people couldn't or wouldn't fix it, so we did.

Yeah, its "fixed" but good man.

I expect tourism to be blooming soon...

George Hugues wins that one for now.

Boy this is fun. Even when our side loses.

Why are you looking at me like that ? You guys never admitted before when you lost an argument ? It figures.

Sounds to me like the viewpoint of someone who was ACTUALLY IN BAGHDAD WHEN IT WAS BOMBED and might -- shocker -- not have found it a totally fun and life-affirming experience. That fact should have your ears pricking up right there.

Unfortuately for you, you've just thrown your entire argument in the gutter. Any person with a modicum of common sense can figure out that getting bombed is not "a totally fun and life-affirming experience".

Ergo, nothing in Salam's screed... and you can check for yourself... requires a Iraqi to be saying it or to understand it.

Unless of course, you are arguing that anything an Iraqi says is automatically valid regardless of content. And THAT is why I brought up the 'good advice' distinction.

Small wonder you were in an awful hurry to try and dismiss it. I ask you AGAIN, where is the good advice, good advice only an Iraqi can give us, good advice that will make our mission succeed?

Where is it, Tweedledee?

Radish - You're philosophizing sounds impressive -- at first. I'm reminded of the kids in my freshman philosophy class, who maintained that:

A) Alice helps Bob, without the expectation of receiving anything in return.
B) Ah, but helping Bob makes Alice feel good, and
C) Alice likes feeling good! Therefore,
C) The sinister secret emerges: Alice helped Bob is because "it was in her own best interest!"

It all makes sense. The obvious problem is that it is circular reasoning, suggesting that there is simply no such thing as altruism, which clearly is not true. The lesson? When Alice does Bob a good deed, her motives aren't particularly important. A good deed is a good deed.

Alaska Jack, you purposefully twisted the meaning of what was meant by "in our own interest". Good try. But not good enough. The USA is a state, it has no feeling. Anything in it's interest is connected to its stability, commerce, security, etc...
Now if the people who make the decision for the nation do it for their interest, then you could argue sentiment, but it would also argue that our so-called leaders are not doing for the good of the nation but their own good... treason.

Continuing in WingNut Readable Argumentation Format, but probably for the last time:

"Unfortuately for you, you've just thrown your entire argument in the gutter. Any person with a modicum of common sense can figure out that getting bombed is not "a totally fun and life-affirming experience"."

Unfortunately for you, this now means you have to demonstrate you are a person with a modicum of common sense and back off your "they should be grateful to us" high horse. Or at least, have the wit to question it a little, hmmm?

Don't worry. I'm sure you'll stay in your cocoon. The warm, loving voice of Faux News will be right in there with you, like a beautiful surrogate mother clad all in white and telling you bedtime stories of an Iraq reborn into glittering prosperity under the steely-eyed leadership of George Dubya, who is like, SO not an incompetent dweeb. The rest of us will just have to deal with the bad old real world without you. It'll be okay.

"Ergo, nothing in Salam's screed... and you can check for yourself... requires a Iraqi to be saying it or to understand it."

Why? Because it's written in English? The attitude of a good half the people on this thread gives the lie to your contention.

"Unless of course, you are arguing that anything an Iraqi says is automatically valid regardless of content."

Ahhh, I see it's time for the Parade of Strawmen as dictated in the Wingnut Argumentation Manual. I'll help you out, kiddo: try throwing in an insinuation that I'm pro-Saddam, or love al-Qaeda and want to see Americans dead, or am part of a "transnational progressivist" conspiracy. Stick with the classics, babe.

"And THAT is why I brought up the 'good advice' distinction."

And why you have no coherent response to my response to that distinction.

"Small wonder you were in an awful hurry to try and dismiss it. I ask you AGAIN, where is the good advice, good advice only an Iraqi can give us, good advice that will make our mission succeed?"

Ahhh, Wingnut Sophistry #81: when your opponent makes an argument, just pretend he didn't and repeat your original point! No-one will notice! Honest!

"Where is it, Tweedledee?"

What, your pitiful excuse for a remaining braincell, WaxxyDum?

>Those Chemical Weapons Saddam used to gas the Kurds? Courtesy of one Mr. Donald Rumsfeld.
>Posted by Thumper at November 21, 2003 02:08 PM

>http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq24.pdf
>http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/iraq59.pdf
>Am I making stuff up now? Or are you?
>Posted by Thumper at November 21, 2003 03:56 PM

Neither source indicates that Mr. Donald Rumsfeld had anything to do with Iraqi CW.

>I never said Donald Rumsfeld personally delivered the chemical agent. He was in a position to stop it, >after he knew about it, and did nothing.
>Posted by Thumper at November 21, 2003 04:58 PM

I don’t know what you think “Courtesy of” means, it usually indicates something other than failing to act. Though, again, Rumsfeld is not mentioned in either of the sources you cite. However the two of them do discuss the US Government attempts to get the Iraqi’s to stop using CW.

>Look, I have work to do. Read it yourself Kal.
>http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
>Posted by Thumper at November 21, 2003 05:11 PM

By this point I’m wondering if you are trying to discredit opponents of Rumsfeld. Nothing in this article indicates that DR, or the American Government, provided CW to Iraq. Nothing in this article indicates that DR, or the American Government, were in a position to stop it. Nothing in this article indicated that DR, or the American Government, did nothing after they knew about it.

All this last source indicated is that the Reagan Administration did less than it could have to discourage Iraqi CW’s use.

I’m mystified as to how this transforms into CW used on Kurds courtesy of Donald Rumsfeld. I suppose, using your logic Stalin made slave labor out of his political enemies during WWII courtesy of Harry Hopkins. After all, HH was a Special Assistant to the President and he visited Stalin as FDR’s envoy in 1940. He knew Stalin was a murderous psychotic, yet he refused to do anything about it, even though the US could have cut off lend-lease.

Jack

It's hard to see how anyone could use that analogy unless they were TRYING to use a faulty one. It only works if you include such factors as: The master of "your house" frequently tortures and/or kills members of his own family -- sometimes for expressing ideas he doesn't like, sometimes for no discernable reason whatsoever. In fact, it's not actually "your house" at all: More like a prison. Also, the master of the house has a long, rich history of sponsoring local, violent gang members. Similar gang members just killed several members of a neighboring family. That family comes in and not only kills the vicious bastard running the place, but actually offers to help rebuild.

And so on.

Also, you said "The people in those mass graves weren't chosen by lottery." Actually, considering the arbitrary and often seemingly senseless ways in which they were chosen, a lot of them might as well have been chosen by the lottery. Remember, being a child was no protection against the regime, if your daddy said something the local thug in charge didn't like.

"All this last source indicated is that the Reagan Administration did less than it could have to discourage Iraqi CW’s use."

Less than it could ?
No.
Nothing ?
Not even.

Continued to support the regime despite CW's use ?
BINGO !

Ch2, did you read the citations?

The State Department alerted the governments whose firms were supplying the chemicals in order to get them to end the practice.

The US Government publicly condemned the Iraqi use of CW.

Either one of those consitutes more than nothing. And less than they could have done.

I am shocked, SHOCKED, that Iraq has not yet developed into the most prosperous country in the world, much less the middle east. It produces such fine thinkers, like Salam.

Instead, it has an imperialist occupying force literally killing its citizens each day. Just so that occupying force can suck the lifeblood of oil right out of the country's heart. Or is it to divert attention from something darker?

Sadam killed a few folks, maybe, but not as many as the West wants to kill with its greasy food and horrible whiskey, not to mention unprotected sex. Allow those Iraqis freedom and they will probably make the wrong choice. They are like Southerners. I guess they are rednecks.

So why is Bush sitting around doing nothing, with a pretzel in his hand, while really caring people like Salam are producing magnificiant pieces of prose which will REALLY help the Iraqis?

Bush is so wrong - he is making the terrorists very, very angry. And don't we want them to be very shiny happy terrorists? If Bush would stop his Wild West Show the world would becom Utopia. Surely those ornery terrorist would be satisfied. And we should give back all the oil we bought from Middle East.

Duh.

Dan and Salam can go fuck each other, but I bet their bedroom will be defended by the US army(free of charge no less)....and they'll still complain about the linen.

You can interpret it two ways - supporting Saddam or resisting the in-many-ways-worse mad mullahs in Iran.

As for Salam, his toadying to the Euro left, which is what this really was, was pretty pathetic. My vote: fuck him.

ch2 - You wrote:

"Alaska Jack, you purposefully twisted the meaning of what was meant by "in our own interest". Good try. But not good enough. The USA is a state, it has no feeling. Anything in it's interest is connected to its stability, commerce, security, etc...
Now if the people who make the decision for the nation do it for their interest, then you could argue sentiment, but it would also argue that our so-called leaders are not doing for the good of the nation but their own good... treason."

ch2, I've never "purposefully twisted the meaning" of anything in my life (not that I can recall, anyway). The US kicked out Saddam's regime because it was in their best interest to do so, period. But all pontificating aside, so what? It's irrelevant. The question is: Are the Iraqis better off with a vicious, bloodthirsty dictator in charge, or with an a conquering country that is going to try to rebuild, give you democracy and get out, like it did in Germany and Japan? What would your preference have been if you were a non-Nazi German in Germany in 1946? Would you blame the U.S. for the mess in your country? Would you be bitching because, under the allies, the train schedule had become less timely? Because you were sure the U.S. was only acting in its own interest?

Unfortunately for you, this now means you have to demonstrate you are a person with a modicum of common sense and back off your "they should be grateful to us" high horse.

Remember this, troglodyte?

We don't live in a world where the only two choices are between gratidute + mindless fawning, and on the other hand backbiting, bitching for the sake of bitching, and name-calling.

And READ it this time. I don't appreciate having to repeat myself for the lazy.

Me: Nothing in Salam's screed... and you can check for yourself... requires a Iraqi to be saying it or to understand it.

Troll: The attitude of a good half the people on this thread gives the lie to your contention.

What does the 'attitude' have to do with weather or not we understand what he is saying? What link are you postulating? Surely you aren't claiming that understanding what Salam is saying requires the listener to agree. Oh, but you ARE. Papa Saddam is so proud of you.

And since this question seems to be kryptonite to your stupidity, I will ask you again: Where is the good advice, good advice only an Iraqi can give us, good advice that will make our mission succeed?

Here is a HINT: When I ask you weather Salam's "Rambo-in-Bagdad" rhetoric qualifies as good advice, explaining what the movie is doesn't count as a response. Hell, it doesn't even qualify as an evasion.

Wow, Thumper, how incredibly dishonest of you. The whole thrust of the article "The Mystery of Fascism" is a refutation of that over-simplified and mendacious take on the realities of Fascism's origin and rise to power, which the author cites only to dispose of in the rest of the text.

You really are a pathetic little twit, aren't you?

re: Salam Pax's background, he has posted that his uncle was the head of the largest bank in Iraq under Hussein. The mention of his father's role in the bank was fleeting so I can't comment on that for sure.

Think about that for a minute, while also contemplating his complaints in early March that his normal shopping and long cafe talks with friends would be interrupted if the US invaded. I once wrote to him asking politely how he thought he could use his education, health, youth and communications skills to build a stronger, vibrant Iraq emerge. I never got an answer.

Pax has NEVER supported the US presence in Iraq. He made that clear on his blog in the runup to the war. And so far as I can tell, he is doing nothing to help his country now, either.

On the other hand, an acquaintance of mine came out of retirement in his 70s, after being hospitalized not too long ago, in order to go TO Iraq to help create a truly functioning private banking system. This elderly man is risking his health and his life there.

Exercise for the reader: compare and contrast.

George Hughes,
No I did not read the citations. Do I think we should have stopped engaging Saddam ? Yes.
Sanctions and all.

The weak verbal reprimand is not enough. We embargoed Cuba for less !

So, while I concede that we made the requisite verbal huffing and puffing, we simply did not walk the walk.

As good as nothing IMHO.

Reid, did you ever pause and think why the Mullahs hated us.

I'm always surprised of how most of us wonder, "Why do they hate us ?", when we wholly ignore what our government did.

Iraq attacked Iran, with our blessing. WTF ? This after we supported a dictator in Iran. Maybe Muslims would not think we hated them if we didn't continously pull this crap in the past 50 years.

To CP at 7:06pm above: The United States liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein, perhaps the 3rd worst dictator in modern history behind Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

Oh please. Mao Zhedong and Pol Pot have Saddam beaten by a mile. You could probably other find contenders as well (Suharto, for instance), though it depends on your metric of evil.

Alaska Jack,
U and I agree then. We did for ourselves first, as it should be.

So why expect gratitude ? The job is not done. As a matter of fact, Salam is saying the building part of the job is poorly done. Did he say our strategy for ousting Saddam was bad ? No. Can we rock at military conquest but suck at rebuilding ?
With this administration, the answer is unfortunately yes.

We didn't go in to get fawning gratitude, and any blogger (Lilek) who takes offense at some Iraqi's gripe about how we are botching the reconstruction can go get bent. Dan was right to tell him.

I'm sorry if I can't answer more, gotta go home.

peace.

Some of these comments are so stupid...

How many Iraqis have died since the 1991 Gulf War?

How many Iraqis now have power, clean water and a sense of optimism in their country while terrorists/insurgents attack the invaders left and right?

You want to tell Salam fuck you? Fuck you, all Neocons who won't even comprehend how much the Iraqis world has turned to shit even if the dictator has been toppled. Another gracious Fuck You to the neocons posting in this blog who think that Terrorism has been repressed with Saddam being toppled - he wasn't running terrorist cells unless you are a dip shit that believes everything "Fucking" Dick Chenney says.

It's interesting to see just how many of the comments on this now extraordinarily long thread have to do with issues like who has the right to say what, who should feel grateful for one thing or guilty for another, and who should just shut up generally.

These are not issues that can be resolved, nor would their resolution really accomplish anything if it were possible. Raising them is mostly about expressing emotion, deeply felt emotion I am sure, inspired by one aspect of the stressful times we live in. It is about the posters -- and I will concede that Dan Drezner set the tone here -- more than it is about Lileks, Salam Pax, or Iraq.

This is not a criticism, only an observation. As I said, I find the phenomenon interesting.

The issue is less what Salam said than the disrespectful way he said it. Demanding the "Georgie" clean up the entire mess from the his perch in London certainly angered me. Lileks was angered and over-reacted. Dan, well Dan just had most of his facts wrong. Only he can explain his carelessness with history. He certainly should knoe better.

My guess is that Salam wrote his letter as part of his attempt to impress the Guardian in hopes of getting a permanent job there. Pity, because he lost much of the respect that he earned earlier. G needs to kick his ass when Salam returns from London.

ch2 -Ahh, the advantage of posting from Alaska: The time zone always gives you the last word! : ^ ]

"The job is not done."

Yes, but this a rebuke to SALAM, not his critics. It's a work in progress.

"Can we rock at military conquest but suck at rebuilding?" For God's sake, it's only been SEVEN MONTHS. This job is HUGE, and DIFFICULT. To respond to those critics who say we didn't have all our ducks lined up, I paraphrase someone (Derbyshire, maybe?) who noted that the ducks NEVER line up; oh, and also, some of the ducks are trying to kill you. Life just isn't all easy pieces, and no one ever said it was. (You notice the response to my earlier challenge to identify who exactly said this would be a "cakewalk?" Silence.)

"We didn't go in to get fawning gratitude..."

This is so frustrating. It's been pointed out time and time again that no one is asking for "fawning gratitude" or "boot-licking" or oral sex, all of which some posters here have claimed is the case. But it keeps coming up again, and again, and again ...

Tony -

"Fuck you, all Neocons who won't even comprehend how much the Iraqis world has turned to shit even if the dictator has been toppled."

I assume you're referring to the Iraqis who are still alive, and conveniently excluding those who were executed and dumped in mass graves. Too bad you can't ask them how they feel. Also, this is ANOTHER argument that keeps getting debunked. Over and over people point out that many Iraqis are indeed much better off (not the least those political prisoners released from Saddam's torture chambers) and multiple polls indicate the great majority of Iraqis believe things will continue to get better. Schools are being fixed and reopened, there is more electricity and clean water available than there was pre-war, etc. etc. etc. But people like you continue to insist that "The Iraqis world has turned to shit." Yeah, before, it was such a nice, Stalinist paradise!

"Another gracious Fuck You to the neocons posting in this blog who think that Terrorism has been repressed with Saddam being toppled - he wasn't running terrorist cells unless you are a dip shit that believes everything "Fucking" Dick Chenney says."

Do you mean Saddam didn't personally "run" any terrorist cells? Fine. Or do you mean Saddam didn't have a long, rich history of financing and supporting a wide variety of terrorist outfits? Because if it's the later, it contradicts the opinions not just of Dick Cheney, but of the intelligence services of every country on earth. Pop quiz, hotshot: In what city did Abu Nidal live when he died? And in what city was Abu Abbas captured? I'l give you a hint: It was the same city, and it wasn't Peoria.

Things are going slower than anticipated because the task at hand is greater than anticipated. The task is enormously complex and dangerous and retroactive analysis will always reveal errors. In other words, FUCK YOU Salam.

ch2 says:

"Iraq attacked Iran, with our blessing. WTF ? This after we supported a dictator in Iran. Maybe Muslims would not think we hated them if we didn't continously pull this crap in the past 50 years."

ch2 is absolutely right. GWB echoed this thought in his Whitehall speech, and his speech a couple of weeks ago to that Democracy group.

Essentially, US policy toward the Mid-East has been wrong for the last 50 years. He is proposing a new policy - to promote long term democracy and freedom instead of promoting short term stability.

A fine idea by me. I think it is excellent policy. Thanks for the reminder ch2. It will be extremely hard work but I think that we are up to it. There will be obstacles but it is worth doing.

This has been amazing. A veritable flood of free speech. Thanks to GWB, the Iraqis will be able to have debates like this in a few years (a point the Prez made in his excellent Whitehall speech).

At this late hour, let's try to summarize what we have learned:

1. America is not perfect, but to paraphrase Churchill, it's the worst country in the world except for all others that have ever existed. The fact that ch2, Triwhatever, Thumper and California Patriot can spout off here is a testament to that fact.

2. Leaning towards Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War was the lesser of evils at the time. It took Gulf War I to change the calculus against Saddam. Right or wrong, Iraq was prefereable to Iran in the late '80s.

3. (a) We should have taken out Saddam in 1991, coalition objections be damned. We honored our multilateral commitments over our nation's (longstanding but not always acted upon) desire for other nations to be free.

3. (b) Having encouraged the Shiites and Kurds to rise up against Saddam, we should have provided at least some air cover for their revolt. With the benefit of hindsight, this will go down as one of the US's biggest foreign policy failings.

4. The war was (i) entirely lawful as a continuation of the 1991 War, (ii) authorized by the UN and the US Congress, (iii) remarkably well fought by the US, (iv) resulted in amazingly low levels of US military and Iraqi civilian casualties, and (v) justified by (a) the threat of WMDs, (b) the likelihood that Saddam had ties to terrorists, (c) the threat to our allies in the region (Israel, Kuwait, etc.), (d) the fact that Hussein and Sons were monsters (though not quite up to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, et al. levels), (e) the fact that France was against it, (f) the prospect of establishing democracy in Iraq could help create nascient democratic movements in the rest of the Arab Middle East, (g) a steady, secure supply of Iraqi oil could be used to pressure Saudi Arabia into actually cracking down on terrorists (in this sense, it was about the oiilll!) and (h) it was the right thing to do and the right time to do it.

5. Salam is a whiny bitch. He misses the privileged life he lived as the son of a Baathist, and has sought refuge in the perfumed salons of the unhinged British left.

6. This was not Lileks best effort. He was cranky, and it showed. That said, he was right to criticize Salam's snarky letter.

7. Dan Drezner is to be thanked for hosting this debate. That said, he was way off base in his criticism of the US (in the failings of Bush I) and his defense of Salam.

8. Salam is a whiny bitch.

Alaska Jack - please become a regular poster, this place sorely needs a "reader's digest" version of all the nut-job's threads. Your services are invaluable.

Tibor,
Let ME recap it, since you clearly have not been paying attention, late hour and all.

1. The fact that you try to insult me is a testament that you are an ass, nothing else. Nothing about America, just you, being an ass. Your uninformed opinion is a testament to the poor quality of the news nowadays. As far as the perfection of America, nothing in this thread says anything about this, or about the origin of the comments (half of us could be Portuguese for all you know) or whether the US's position on any issue is the best, the worst or in-between.

2. Trying to excuse our turning a blind eye to the chemical weapons of Iraq ? The lesser of evils. In your wingnut world sure.

3 (a). Bush the Greater was right not to. Read his comments about it.

3(b). We actually agree. We should either not have encouraged them to rise up, or helped them out.

4. The war was ILLEGAL. Even Richard Perle recently admitted it. Your little French bashing bit is an argument ? You are indeed pathetic. Talk about running out of ideas. It was not a war we should have engaged in: wrong time-wrong place. We should have finished the job in Afghanistan FIRST. The democracy in the mideast pipedream would require Bush the lesser to walk the walk (not a chance in hell).

5. You are a little ostrich who is far away from the real world and wants to complain about someone who's actually been in Iraq and has something to say about the situation there. You, are the bitch.

6. Lilek is a cunt.

7. We half agree. Thanks Dan. That said he was right on !

8. You either believe repetition is truth or your short-term memory is gone.

I think most Iraqis, no the world, realizes we never went there for Iraqi freedom and liberation. That reason is just as true as WMDs, Al-Quada, nuclear programs, and all of the other creative "truths" we used to get there. In the end the only reason we went there was to control oil. Saddam had not been on the American payroll for a decade and we need a new stooge running that country that obeys us. The only people who do not realize this are Americans.

Did you know that the Constitution does not give people rights?

People’s rights preexist both the Constitution and the federal government. The Constitution sets barriers to the power of the government in order to prevent it from taking away people’s preexisting rights.

It seems to be the case that some would rather nag and bitch about other citizens in other countries not being grateful about being handed something they themselves did not give nor do they even seem to understand.

We seem to lecture Salam about something that is inherently his. Or are inalienable rights contingent on lonely bLoggers getting their nationalistic egos stroked?

I don't think the Iraqis are impressed with American blowhards, whether they are soldiers or bLoggers. The Iraqi's are going to turn on us like Vietnamese farmers.

So thumper is now claiming that the US supplied Hussein with the chemical weapons he apparently did not have. Which is it thumper?

Truth or Consequences for Saddam
James Hirsen, NewsMax.com
Monday, Nov. 18, 2002
It comes down to this: Somebody's lying. Is it Bush and Blair, or is it Saddam Hussein?

Q. I have a friend trying to convince me that the United States was at least partially responsible for giving Saddam Hussein the weapons of mass destruction that we now have been fighting to destroy. Can he be right?

U.S. Diplomatic and Commercial Relationships with Iraq, 1980 - 2 August 1990

HOW SADDAM HAPPENED
Congressional Record: September 20, 2002 (Senate)
Page S8987-S8998

US and British Support for Hussein Regime
US intelligence helped Saddam’s Ba`ath Party seize power for the first time in 1963. Evidence suggests that Saddam was on the CIA payroll as early as 1959, when he participated in a failed assassination attempt against Iraqi strongman Abd al-Karim Qassem. In the 1980s, the US and Britain backed Saddam in the war against Iran, giving Iraq arms, money, satellite intelligence, and even chemical & bio-weapon precursors. As many as 90 US military advisors supported Iraqi forces and helped pick targets for Iraqi air and missile attacks.

How he US armed Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons
BY NORM DIXON
On August 18, the New York Times carried a front-page story headlined, “Officers say U.S. aided Iraq despite the use of gas”. Quoting anonymous US “senior military officers”, the NYT “revealed” that in the 1980s, the administration of US President Ronald Reagan covertly provided “critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war”. The story made a brief splash in the international media, and then died.

U.S. DOCUMENTS SHOW EMBRACE OF SADDAM HUSSEIN IN EARLY 1980s
DESPITE CHEMICAL WEAPONS, EXTERNAL AGGRESSION, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
Fear of Iraq Collapse in Iran-Iraq War Motivated Reagan Administration Support;
U.S. Goals Were Access to Oil, Projection of Power, and Protection of Allies;
Rumsfeld Failed to Raise Chemical Weapons Issue in Personal Meeting with Saddam.

Did the United States Supply Saddam with Biological Weapons in the 1980s?
In a "debate" over U.S. policy towards Iraq that depends largely on facile slogans and self-dramatization, the Rumsfeld photograph is a discordant reminder that the official version of events is a partial account at best. The photo is among the neglected resources of the not too distant past that were unearthed and published by the National Security Archive.

The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984
The Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) was one of a series of crises during an era of upheaval in the Middle East: revolution in Iran, occupation of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by militant students, invasion of the Great Mosque in Mecca by anti-royalist Islamicists, the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan, and internecine fighting among Syrians, Israelis, and Palestinians in Lebanon. The war followed months of rising tension between the Iranian Islamic republic and secular nationalist Iraq. In mid-September 1980 Iraq attacked, in the mistaken belief that Iranian political disarray would guarantee a quick victory.

Rumsfeld 'offered help to Saddam'

US helped as Saddam plotted chemical attacks, report says
The only occasion that Iraq's use of banned weapons seems to have worried the Reagan administration came in 1988, after Lt Col Francona toured the battlefield on the al-Faw peninsula in southern Iraq and reported signs of sarin gas. "When I was walking around I saw atropine injectors lying around. We saw decontamination fluid on vehicles, there were no insects," said Mr Francona, who has written a book on shifting US policy to Iraq titled Ally to Adversary. "There was a very quick response from Washington saying, 'Let's stop our cooperation' but it didn't last long - just weeks."

U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup
Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds

The Saddam in Rumsfeld’s Closet
“Man and the turtle are very much alike. Neither makes any progress without sticking his neck out.”
—Donald Rumsfeld

How did Iraq get its weapons? We sold them!
Reports by the US Senate's committee on banking, housing and urban affairs Ð which oversees American exports policy Ð reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene

US">http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/88244_sean24.shtml">US was a Key Supplier to Saddam
But whether or not we stopped sending Saddam this stuff just before or just after the Gulf War is really beside the point. The fact remains that even after Saddam gassed the Kurds in 1988, the Bush administration thought it proper to keep sending these materials until at least a year after what is now Saddam's most infamous atrocity (though not his most heinous act).

Where, oh where, are the WMDs?
The sour joke is: "Of course we know the Iraqis have weapons of mass destruction. We have the receipts."

TommyG:

Thanks for the props! It just gets so tiring to hear the same bunk over and over.

"Bush said this would be easy!"
"Really? Show me where."
Silence.

"Cheney said Saddam had nuclear weapons!"
"Yes, but if you read the full transcript, you see that he misspoke in a context where he clearly *meant* nuclear weapons *program*."
Silence.

"Bush said the Iraqi threat was imminent!"
"No he didn't. In fact, he specifically said the U.S. needed to act *before* the threat became imminent."
Silence.

"Bush said Saddam had WMDs!"
"He thought so. I can also show you a list of quotes as long as your arm from Democrats (including Gore and both Clintons) and foreign leaders who also thought so. That's because Saddam spent so much time and effort stymieing UN inspectors."
Silence.

"The administration is trying to silence dissent!"
"Really? Then why haven't you been arrested? Why can I turn on the television or open a newspaper and see open dissent every day?"
Silence.

Then it starts again: "Bush said this would be easy!"

: ^ [

Hey, since you've been so nice to me, I'll pass along something I just came across.

Curious to know how the anti-war "Saddam had nothing to do with terrorists" folks explained away Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal both turning up in Baghdad, I did a Google search for "Abu Abbas Nidal." I came across a page on a site called "Sierrafoot" that basically said "It's all a pack of lies! Sure, they were both in Baghdad, but they weren't terrorists (not anymore, anyway) and we can prove it!"

The "proof" turned out to be taking the word of Tariq Aziz and Saddam Hussein. That's right: IF A BRUTAL, DESPOTIC REGIME THAT TORTURES AND GASSES ITS OWN PEOPLE AND TOSSES THEIR BODIES INTO MASS GRAVES SAYS IT'S NOT TRUE, IT MUST NOT BE. BUSH AND CHENEY AND THEIR ILK ARE ALL A BUNCH OF LIARS.

The page is really quite fascinating. There's simply no way one could believe any of it unless one was *absolutely determined* to do so in the face of all facts, reason and common sense.

(And this is only about the Abus; a relatively minor issue. It doesn't say anything about payments to Palestinian suicide bombers, etc.)

Some people thing it was right for the US to go into Iraq. Some people don't. I lean towards the later opinion, but I can't fault those holding the former. But expecting gratitude??? That's silly. I'm going to pick on Kilroy in particular who described Salam Pax as a "whiny ingrate" - a phrase normally used in domestic arguments by Dead-Beat Dads. Son, I don't understand why you are taking it personally, but please grow a thicker skin.

Let’s get down to brass tacks. When I occasionally someone a good turn, I never expect gratitude. I do it because it is the right thing to do. Gratitude is sweet - but I’d rather settle for appreciation, or even acknowledgement. (You might even get a reciprocal good turn out of it.)

Many people seem to feel so betrayed; they feel entitled to the gratitude, and are let down when they don't recieve it. But expecting undying gratitude? - that’s just downright juvenile.

To see where I am coming from: I’m an Australian - the nation that sent in peacekeepers into East Timor when the Indonesian militias were going around killing people. Yes, we helped liberate that benighted nation! And when a little bit later the new East Timor government started grumbling about the inflated salaries of expat NGO workers and problems with the East Timor/Australian pipeline treaty… were there any whines about the “ungrateful East Timorese”? Not that I noticed in the Australian press. Liberating East Timor was a Good Thing, per se.

So for most of you - get over it. Life is not a playground. Salam Pax is an adult. He has his opinion. Deal with it, but don't get morally outraged if you don't agree with him. As for Lileks: he needs to grow up as well. Telling bloggers to fuck off: well, that’s not setting a good parental example to his daughter, y’know.

Alaska Jack, now u are straight bullshitting.

I thought you were straight up, but now I see you are just playing wingnut semantics.

I'll debunk your crap tomorrow. It's bedtime. Damn you and your time difference...

aaargh.

No, we shouldn't expect gratitude from the Iraqis. That's not human nature.

It brings to mind the Mark Twain quote, "If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man."

Lileks was spot on, however, about Salam Pax. And you, Dan, are wrong.

Ted&Bill -

Wow! Quite an avalanche. I don't have the time to go through it all, but in good faith I have gone through *some* of it, so let me respond by noting three things.

1. You're cherrypicking your data, and it's not even a very good cherrypicking job.

To choose one example, you include an HNN article titled "Did the United States Supply Saddam with Biological Weapons in the 1980s?" A reader of this comments section who did not take the time to read it might reasonably surmise that the answer was yes. But they'd be wrong.

First, the HNN article is highly slanted. Just to pick one example out of many, the authors say "[Saddam] abused the human rights of his citizens, and possessed and used chemical weapons on Iranians and his own people. The U.S. response was to renew ties, to provide intelligence and aid ..."

Now, I'm an editor, and I'm very sensitive to the way words are used. The U.S. may have renewed ties, etc., but it did not do so in "response" to Saddam's human rights abuse, etc. So why did the authors make the specific choice to word it this way? And this is just one of many examples of the tone of the article.

Second, the article isn't a primary source, or even a secondary source. It's a tertiary source; all it really does is point the reader to a reading of a Newsweek article into the Congressional Record by Robert Byrd.

Third, Robert Byrd is perhaps the most despicable member of Congress, a former Klan member (no, this is not a joke) and perennial winner of the non-partisan "Golden Fleece" award for sticking it to taxpayers with pork projects (my Senator, Republican Ted Stevens, always comes in second). You know everything you hate about corrupt, good ol' boy politicians entrenched in their positions? Byrd is the human embodiment of all that stuff.

Fourth, the Newsweek article at the heart of this never claims the U.S. gave Saddam chemical weapons, as the HNN article "asked." (I know this is getting confusing, but try to bear along with me here.)

In fact, I did some cherrypicking of my own from the article:

* "at the time, America's big worry was Iran, not Iraq."
* "before the cold war, the Soviet Union was America's partner against Hitler in World War II. In the real world, as the saying goes, nations have no permanent friends, just permanent interests."
* "No single policymaker or administration deserves blame for creating, or at least tolerating, a monster; many of their decisions seemed reasonable at the time."
* "America's past stumbles, while embarrassing, are not an argument for inaction in the future."
* "Saddam probably is the 'grave and gathering danger' described by President Bush in his speech to the United Nations last week."
* "America did not put Saddam in power."
* "Successive administrations always worried that if Saddam fell, chaos would follow, rippling through the region and possibly igniting another Middle East war ... The Bush administration wants to finally break the spell."
* "At their meeting in 1983, Rumsfeld warned that Saddam's use of chemical weapons might inhibit American assistance."

2. The bottom line is this: As for chemical weapons, any state with moderate resources can mix up chemical weapons using ingredients commonly available on the world market (Hell -- I can brew up lethal chlorine gas using the ingredients available under my sink.) The U.S. is only accused of supplying Iraq with those precursors, which had other uses as well.

As for biological weapons, we're not talking about secret superviruses here. A small amount of live anthrax and a few other cultures (salmonella, bubonic plague, that kind of stuff) were given to Iraq as part of a medical and veterinary program. That stuff wasn't under embargo then: Any state who asked for it could have some.

3. NONE OF THIS MATTERS. You say "We created Saddam, gave him WMDs, and propped him up." I say "Fine. As a country, we've made a lot of mistakes. We can't undo them, but it is our moral obligation to do the best we can to rectify them."

alaska jack sez, "'Cheney said Saddam had nuclear weapons!' 'Yes, but if you read the full transcript, you see that he misspoke in a context where he clearly *meant* nuclear weapons *program*.'
Silence."

yeah, and when the bushies talked about not wanting to wait for the "mushroom cloud" over the US, if you read the full transcripts, you see that they misspoke in a context where they clearly *meant* a "mushroom [*program*] cloud" (bush, 10/7/02 speech) that was not an "imminent" threat -- was just an "urgent threat" (bush radio address 2/28/02) and an "immediate threat" (rumsfeld 9/18/02). (tpm has the goods at http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2003_11_02.html#002175) silly silly liberals, facts are powerless against republican talking points!

Well, at over 300 comments in less than 24 hours, I think this discussion has played itself out. Clearly, however, this topic touched a big nerve. Thanks to everyone for participating.

Oh, and for those regular readers who are shocked at the level of profanity; I did not delete any comments on this post because of language -- mostly because Lileks and I set the tone in our original posts.