When the war began in 2003, I was optimistic about it.  After all, the Gulf War of 1991 went very well, and I saw no apparent reason why this one would not also succeed.  We already knew that Saddam Hussein, who ruled by terror, was not really loved or supported by all that many people in Iraq.  In the initial Gulf War, the entire Iraqi air force defected en masse to Iran (Iraq's bitterest enemy) and the army similarly surrendered en masse to the UN, leaving very little opposition to the UN forces, which accomplished their objective with remarkable speed and efficiency.  Then Saddam declared victory, and settled in for the long struggle based upon the pretense that Iraq had actually won, and therefore did not have to comply with the terms of the cease-fire signed with the UN, a struggle which in due course motivated the next conflict (also motivated, of course, by Bush's false claims about WMD).

And as we know, Saddam did indeed fall from power quite rapidly, as expected.  But this has been followed by an interminable fight against insurgents, who do not seem to be Saddam loyalists (although some are) as much as they are religious fanatics engaged in the struggle of Sunni vs. Shiite, while both factions hate the US which is, of course, a predominantly Christian power, whose President had the bad judgment to actually refer to this war as a crusade, not realizing that the historical Crusades remain a sore point for Muslims, after all these centuries.

It is now clear that the war was a huge mistake.  Even though I still believe that Saddam Hussein richly deserved to be removed from office, and was indeed guilty of severe, prolonged, and inexcusable violations of the Gulf War cease-fire agreement, his removal was mis-handled.  The US needed to get much better international consensus and UN support before acting.  Acting in effect unilaterally (with only Britain offering serious support) the US has gotten into very serious trouble with this war. It now appears that both the US and Iraq are going to come out of this in much worse shape than they were when the war started.

The question about where we will be in ten years is very speculative.  No one can really predict that far into the future - indeed, at this point I think that no one really knows even who the next American President will be (although my guess would be Obama) and that choice is going to have a very crucial impact on future events.  Obviously, John McCain would make very different choices than Obama, about the war and about many other things.

I have been saying for some time that the world must either get better or get worse, since the status quo is highly unstable and cannot last.  Realistically it seems that we are much more likely to get worse than we are to get better.  The problems that the world faces in the 21st century really do seem overwhelming.  We face dire environmental peril that we can't really begin to address because we are bogged down in seemingly insoluble political problems such as the war in Iraq and the war on terror in general.  As our entire planet gradually becomes unlivable, people will continue to devote most of their efforts to killing each other.  War takes precedence above everything.  Eventually this stupidity is likely to bring us to a point at which everything falls apart.  I think that the world is going to be in very deep shit, ten years from now.  But we shall see.

    Do I feel the same about the war? Well, considering the war lasted only a couple of weeks, sure-- I thought it would be quick, and fairly decisive. Now, how do I feel about the subsequent occupation? That's varied a little bit, but really, my expectations were so low starting out that it's hard to say it's been a disappointment.
    Why did I oppose the war to start with? Not because Saddam was a nice man, and that removing him was a bad thing to do, in general. But some things are too important to do badly, and war tends to be one of them. All early signs were that the political leadership was not up to the task, and so the prospects for a smooth transition- heck, even a rough but under control transition- were low, perhaps approaching zero. This has since shown to be true, but I gain zero happiness for being correct.
    Let's remember that photo of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam. I don't mock him for doing so, because when you're a diplomat, it's your job to act nice to very unsavory characters; Condoleeza Rice is doubtless doing something similar right now, and I don't hold it against her in the least. But that photo should have reminded us that the same crew that botched Iraq the first time around were going to be largely the same ones running the show the second time around. How many fuck ups do you get before your track record can be used against you?
    And then there was the then current version of Rumsfeld. Call me silly, but I don't want my Secretary of Defense trying to score political points at the outset of a war, which is exactly what he acknowledged with all that talk about "transformation." That's fine for budgetary battles, but can we leave it out of the real battles, please? With sugar on top?
    The bitter irony of all this is that, far from being exceptional, this current mess is drearily familiar. Promises of easy victory lead to war (how long was the US civil war promised to last at the outset?), which quickly turns out to be far more difficult than the planners anticipated. Early mistakes are made, and not corrected for far too long (formation bombing in WWII, frontal assaults in WWI), and calls for change are ignored or derided. History is repeated (see Christopher Catherwood's Churchill's Folly, for one less than stellar example), with little sense that things could have been otherwise. And so on.
    Sorry, this has gone on too long.

Ex ignorantia ad sapientiam; e luce ad tenebras

A little over five years ago I was sent to a conference out west. At the time I had begun my initial round of grad school applications, and one of the places on my short list then was a quick 90 minute plane ride away from the conference site. So, I traveled down there. The school was okay, the people were nice, but the guy who would be my mentor was a bit left of center. It came time for me to leave the next morning and a shuttle bus was supposed to pick me up and take me on the ~2 hour drive to the airport (in the next state). It didn't. It was ~4am so I couldn't call anybody because nothing was open. My potential boss shows up an hour behind schedule, says he wanted to save $40 so he canceled the shuttle, but he overslept. Sorry. But it's okay because he "Prayed to the Lord" to give us "Swift travel" to the airport. Ohhhhhhhkay. We got to the airport, and I was late for the plane and missed my connection so I was fined $200 by the airlines to move my reservation to the next day. The next day I finally get to my final connection, Chicago O'Hare. Regrettably a Level 5 mega death storm then enveloped the entire Northeast region and unless you were traveling to Portland Maine you were screwed. So no Scranton, PA (AVP) for me. I would be confined to the airport on one of the more historic nights of this decade.

I explored the entire airport. I finally settled upon a Fox News sports bar in one of the terminals. Suddenly it became apparent the war was about to break out. Somebody asked the barkeep to pump up the volume (the TV was on mute with closed captioning below). He said no. "Corporate says all TVs have to stay on mute due to copyright violations." WTF!? The four horsemen were ready to let loose and pour their chaos across the holy land and some wage slave from Fox News (Airport Bar Division) is quoting Corporate and IP regulations to us? Fuck that noise. So myself and some belligerently drunken businessman from Topeka decided to take our War Vigil to a competing establishment. A Chili's bar around the corner by the McDonald's. It was the only one open, and we were the only customers. We watched as the situation grew more and more desperate, as bombs fell on Baghdad. Our bartender, Fransisco Hernandez, realized the gravity of the situation and did everything he could to push as much liquor as possible. We watched the bombs fall, Ari Fleischer come out like the jackass he is and give his smug little one liner while his face tried to suppress the fact he was giddy like a little schoolgirl. I will never forget that. That moment made me realize how this administration was not just horribly incompetent but fucking evil. How the hell can anybody can just casually walk in like it was some kind of joke and glibbly announce they are bombing the shit out of some country while people are dying? WTF is that? What a fucking cock. How hard would it have been to preface those remarks with "Regrettably S. Hussein did not listen to our unilateral ultimatum but chose to stay. Therefore, we had no choice but to get the bombers in the air prior to the end of the deadline and bomb minutes after. This administration regrets the loss of life that is about to occur, even if it is caused by the choice of Mr. Hussein." Come on. Show some fucking humanity.

Anywho, the half a dozen or so denizens of O'Hare's Chilli's watched as the talking heads gave their analysis. I proceeded to drink local beers under the advisement of Mr. Hernandez. Eventually somebody from airport management came in and chided Mr. Hernandez for staying open past the designated closing time. He explained there was a war on and it was a moment of national crisis. The airport manager threatened to turn the TV off. Dick. Eventually we just kept drinking. Some of the Topeka Kansas salesmen gave me free food coupons since they decided to rent a van and drive there instead of waiting out the storm. They stayed long enough until everybody there had had at least one of every type of beer Mr. Hernandez served at his bar. We finally got the bill, and it was absurdly small (<$20). Apparently the National Crisis, coupled with the airport manager's cavalier attitude, and the fact that the bar computer was shut down remotely much earlier at the appointed closing time prompted Mr. Hernandez to just say fuck it and without telling us began serving everybody many rounds for free. When he finally said we had to leave (as it had been a long time after close) we staggered out. Fransisco (since by this time we were on a 1st name basis) asked if I wanted to go clubbing because he knew a great place down the road from O'Hare were we could party and get some easy chicks. I asked where I was supposed to put my luggage. He wasn't sure. I said I better stick around since my plane left at like 6am. He said cool.

I was intoxicated. I wandered around the airport for a while, eventually talking to some friendly cops. One of them was doing bike tricks (not much to do as an airport bike cop at 3am) for the others because they were on extra staffing due to the start of the war. Eventually I passed out by where my plane would take off the next morning. I woke up at 5am and saw Fransisco waltz past, leather jacket slung over his shoulder to start the next day's shift. I ended up being stuck in O'Hare for 28 hours. The next four successive flights were canceled but I eventually found my way back to the lovely mountains of Pennsylvania.

At the time I recall being adamantly against the pending war in Iraq, wishing our attentions would be only directed towards Afghanistan until we secured it from the Taliban and found OBL. I thought the whole thing was a bad idea, especially since evidence didn't make sense. I guess I was willing to trust that the military knew what the hell it was doing and could really secure Iraq and have us out. I didn't think everybody would be so incompetent. Looking back, if you would have told me this would be how everything would turn out I would laugh and say the whole thing is a plot from some dystopia sci-fi novel or a Tom Clancy alternate version of history. How could our leaders have led us to such disaster?

I can only hope things over there get patched up as best they can and we get the hell out. If only we could have stayed in Afghanistan and not subcontracted the finding of OBL and nation building to civilians and warlords. The whole plan just sounded so stupid and obviously prone to failure. Regrettably it looks like any of the big 3 candidates running for president will probably just continue to toss good money after bad and throw more soldiers into the (pointless) fight in Iraq. Sad.

Frankly, I don't know how I am supposed to explain this past decade to my grand-children.

There's one thing that I have always thought about the war in Iraq, and it is that this was part of the plan since day 1 of the Bush administration.  Had September 11 never happened, I think we would just be in year 6 of the war, as it would most likely have begun in 2002 instead of 2003.  

I believe that it is just as Cheney said the other day: in his opinion, this whole thing has worked out quite well, and was totally worth the effort and expense.  I don't think he is spinning platitudes here.  I think he genuinely believes that.  

I'll probably end up on the no-fly list for this, but if I ever run in to Cheney, or Rumsfeld or any of those architects of the war, I will take a big swing and cable-jaw them.  I will happily serve my sentence for assault and battery.  If I ever get a chance to see Condi Rice speak or participate in a public event, I would love to hold up a big sign for that Russian history scholar that reads: "ЁБ ТВОЮ МАТЬ, КОНДЫ!"

This whole thing is disgusting.  35,000 wounded, nearly 4000 dead, and god only knows how many Iraqis have been killed, maimed or tortured.  The whole thing makes me sick.

sierra tango foxtrot uniform

... many more to go.  Think the surge solved everything?  Time to think again as we prepare for the end of the surge and the return to pre-surge manpower.  Throw in the potential mess that is the Kurdish region with the likelihood that Turkey will seek to expand their reach inside of Iraq to get at the PPK (that's the problem when you're dealing with an insurrectionary force which doesn't respect national boundaries).  Then throw in the fact that once the US reaches pre-surge levels, the guy who seemed to be able to juggle all those balls in midair, General Petraeus, is headed to take over NATO.  Has there been any military type being mentored to take Petraeus' place?  If there is, I haven't heard about them (and you can be sure the Bush administration would be pumping him up if he existed).  My money is on this adventure lasting every bit as long as Hillary Clinton said it would (2013 at the least).

Illegitimi non carborundum.

    For those with a strong stomach and perhaps a touch of schadenfraude, Slate is compiling a list of pundits second-guessing who they were in 2003-- with the notable exception of Christopher Hitchens, who denies being wrong about anything, by attaching Iraq in 2003 to WWI. (Yeah, I still don't get it either; if we're operating under that model, why should the current borders of Iraq have never come up for discussion?) I would like to say this lowered my perception of pundits, but actually, this is pretty typical bullshit, IMO. The average member here or at Plastic probably had better arguments for (or against) the invasion, mostly because they expected to be challenged. In all likelihood, none of these men lost a dime for being wrong.
   

Ex ignorantia ad sapientiam; e luce ad tenebras

Where were you on March 19, 2003? What were you doing?

I have no idea.  I can tell you exactly what I was doing when JFK was assassinated (on the school bus) and  on 9/11, work came to  a virtual halt -- we were all glued to the nearest TV.

There are a few events that stick in your mind, and those are two of mine.

there's only one way to find out...