Steven Den Beste posts about appearance and reality with respect to the war on terror in Iraq. Steven points out that appearances is one of the main battlegrounds of the war on terror.
Sometimes appearances do ultimately matter more [than reality – DB]. If your enemies can control the perception of your success so that it is widely viewed as a failure, that can have severe consequences. Hence the incessant drumbeat of quagmire! quagmire! quagmire! played by those who want us to lose this war, or who have other reasons for wanting it to look as if we are losing this war.
Caroline Glick, in the Jerusalem Post, agrees:
In a fight in Najaf, US forces fought terrorists in a pitched battle that lasted six hours in order to prevent the enemy from taking hold of a burning Humvee. As one of the officers put it, "We weren't going to let them dance on it for the news. Even with all the guys they lost that day, that still would have given them a victory."
Well, at least they know what they’re fighting for!
Steven also claims that the main goal of the war in Iraq had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction, but building democracy in the Arab Middle East.
WMDs were never the real purpose of the invasion. WMDs were the focus of the spotlight, however, because of serious diplomatic efforts to gain UNSC approval for an invasion. Within the context of the UNSC, the only way to justify an invasion was to claim that Iraq had not fully cooperated with UN inspectors. Which, despite what Kevin would like to pretend, Saddam's government had not, even as late as March 2003.But the public justification made in the UN had nothing to do with the real purpose, the real strategic goal which required the invasion. Kevin makes casual reference to that, when he says, Facts on the ground have never been allowed to interfere with George Bush's worldview, and he wasn't about to take the chance that they might interfere with his war.
Except that "facts on the ground" did not interfere or contradict the real purpose, which was to depose a corrupt dictator and to "nation build" so as to make one core Arab nation a better place for the people living there. By so doing, the goal was to infect the imaginations and aspirations of the citizens in other nations in the region, to "destabilize" the corrupt dictatorships in charge and to try to bring about long term change to the whole region. And that could not be publicly proclaimed at the time without deeply imperiling the strategy for the overall war.
I mildly disagree with this analysis. Rather, I think this was a secondary consideration. The primary consideration was the strategy that Rudolph Giuliani used to combat crime in New York City, with remarkable success, often called the Broken Windows theory.
I remember New York in the 70s and early 80s. It was a frightening place. I visited again recently, and was amazed at the difference. You used to see signs of crime, and crime itself, everywhere. When asked about it, the police would say that they don’t have time or resources for the minor crimes – they have to focus on the big ones.
My summation of the Broken Windows theory is: When you see a criminal, get him. No matter if he has done nothing more serious than breaking a window. And if you can’t get the criminal, at least fix the window!
And it worked. There are several related reasons for this. Crime is caused not just by individuals acting alone, but by an environment that encourages it. Also, criminals are interconnected. The window-breaker is also likely to be a purse-snatcher. The purse-snatcher is also likely to be a murderer. In other words, the best way to fight crime is to grab any opportunity that happens to come up.
That’s why Bush attacked Iraq, rather than Iran or North Korea, which admittedly are even more dangerous. By getting Iraq we didn’t get the worst terrorist regime, but we got the third worst, not bad. A huge step forward in the war on terror.
To sum up the Broken Windows theory of terror: When you can get a terrorist, get him. The best way to fight terror is to grab any opportunity that happens to come up.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at July 16, 2004 02:23 PM