Meanwhile, in Umm Qasr...

(obv. this is all on purpose and a big conspiracy)

(the peace corps would have handled everything much better)

The line you keep taking basically says: "We're making an effort, calm down, Jesus, not everything works according to magic." But we didn't have to invade this nation to begin with. And a lot of people argued the we shouldn't, specifically because it would spark problems like these. Part of the counter-argument offered by the administration was that wouldn't spark these problems, and that when it did we would take care of them -- that we'd be able to provide assistance and minimize the number of Iraqis killed or displaced by this whole thing. Which means it is pretty fucking noteworthy -- and a fair target for criticism -- when it turns out that our efforts to do these things are falling apart.

Perhaps I am wrong, however.

It's just a problem with the project as a whole.

Perhaps, but as the article notes, part of this situation is the military there saying to aid providers, "It's safe, come in." So people come in and things are fucked up, in which case the people invited in to help have every right to complain and ask what the hell is up, not merely from the standpoint of "I thought you said this place was secure" but from one of, "You haven't made our job any freaking easier, thanks." There are political ramifications here that it would be very wise not to ignore -- the US might have taken some time to get the Marshall Plan going, say, but that kind of time is not here in this situation and won't be. This should have been considered a lot more thoroughly going in -- is this something else they didn't wargame for, I wonder?

Everywhere I went, the local people asked me for water. I went into the two rooms occupied by a family of 14, they were drinking from an oil drum half full of stagnant, dirty water. It was water I certainly would not have drunk.

And this is the assistance the Iraqi citizenry should be grateful to get? I recall seeing conditions like these on those late-night informercials from Save the Children (or something), and thinking, "What wretched conditions these poor folk are surrounded by." Now, tis occurring again....and tis clearly our fault.

Part of the counter-argument offered by the administration was that wouldn't spark these problems, and that when it did we would take care of them -- that we'd be able to provide assistance and minimize the number of Iraqis killed or displaced by this whole thing.

And that was bullshit, to begin with. Concidering our war track record (Vietnam, Gulf War, etc.), those promises haven't been worth the paper it was written on. As our own economy is, at present, struggling to remain above water, just how are we supposed to provide what may be millions of dollars in assistance to those we are displacing?

What do you think "minimize the invasion's negative effects on innocent civilians" means?

Probably gov't chat for "We'll cover our own arses with propaganda when people begin dropping like flies."

Probably true, but as it stands, I can only wonder who will end paying the larger cost: the thousands of Iraqi folk that will end up dying....or the US with its credibility?

Minimizing those effect would mean doing your best to ensure that they don't take place, and correcting them when they do: in this instance, providing things like clean water and medical treatment to those whom you've put in a position to desperately need them.

It's also worth noting that providing these things isn't just a humanitarian obligation that we "owe" to all the people we're harming with this invasion. It's also a self-interested tool: it's supposedly our way of demonstrating to the Iraqi population that we have their interests at heart, and thus discouraging them from hating us and making our lives difficult once we've destroyed their nation and installed a new unelected leader to rule over them. This supposed interest in the welfare of Iraqis is the only prop distinguishing this invasion from flat-out colonization of the nation of Iraq, and we're not, so far, doing a very good job of it.

What's that? She's a communist hypocrite who hasn't been to Iraq since 1976?! She hates the West so much she'd rather see it destroyed by terrorism than see it succeed in freeing the middle east from corrupt and brutal oppressors?! You must be kidding!

As for whether or not we've destroyed anything in Iraq: I see a lot of smoke and a lot of shit exploding or on fine. Is that all sand? Abandoned tires? Is this one of those pristine invasions where we stop and leave notes with our insurance information on everything we drop a bomb near? If you've figured out a way to invade a nation without destroying anything, please send email to the White House, stat.

...and Saddam did most of that. His refusal to abide by his own ceasefire agreements as well has his intentional malicious misappropriation of Oil-for-Food revenue has accelerated the degradation of the nation and the suffering of it's people. The closest the West comes to bearing responsibility for that is that this invasion should've come sooner.

The point is that if the towns any of us lived in suffered the kind of damage that Baghdad is suffering right now, we'd surely be saying "holy Christ they're fucking wrecking this city."

Stop being a dupe, nabisco. Go look at Baghdad and tell me how "destroyed" it looks to you: http://www.instapundit.com/archives/008654.php#008654

I have no doubt -- unlike many -- that there are people in the coalition's effort who, regardless of what they might have thought of Iraq before BushCo got everything going, are motivated by honest desire to do good in a broadly human sense. They will try and minimize the destruction. They will seek to try and put something in place after Hussein that is an improvement. These are people in the military, in the government, in the charities, beyond that. Anyone who claims they are all destructive drones can go take a flying leap, because that's just as blind an approach as your own stance, you who seem to think that the military is a happy shiny little toy that could never break or never cause any harm above and beyond what it's designed to do.

I also have no doubt that many of these people are seeing the potential problems right now and are prioritizing them as they can or seeking to actually address them as they can in a crunch situation. You are not, because you're pretending they're not happening, that they can't happen and that they won't happen. And that is the difference between them and yourself, and you could do a lot more for the forces you claim to be supporting in this whole ridiculous endeavour if you could stop acting like the real world ends outside of your doorstep. Your preciously evasive pieties mean shit right now over there -- you're the type of person who celebrates an invasion but who I strongly doubt would never, EVER, go over there himself. To me, there is no worse sort of coward.

This is an excellent outline of my own position.

And I think you'll find that in pretty much any nation where a full-scale war has taken place, there are plenty of people ready to shake their heads sadly and point out every single thing that was devastated and destroyed by it.

Nabisco, I very much Stuart even KNOWS somebody in the military beyond Millar and James Blount. Asking him to consider an experience that hits close to home for more people in the world than he'll ever realize is a wasted effort. You might as well try and debunk David Irving's Holocaust hoax arguments to Irving's face, you won't get anywhere.

You can support this war, Stuart, and still admit that living in a warzone fucking sucks, and can make the lives of millions of people worse, horrible, in danger, and in many cases actually over. In fact, what we need is for the people who are carrying out this war to deal with exactly that fact as best they can. The idea that war is a destructive force in the lives of civilians should not be a controversial one.

Someone on ILX who Stuart can turn to for an idea of what it's like to live in a war zone: H in Addis Abeba wrote on the "revolution" thread about what it's like to be in the midst of things like this.

I can't look at this "war". It's beaten me down. I have nothing to say about. I feel like such a fraud, such a fake, I feel pathetic.

http://lynskey.scumperson.eu.org/mp3/valentine/12_Home.mp3

I know it's not.

Nabisco said we're destroying their nation. Destroying it, as if Baghdad were in smouldering ruins. When I said "no we aren't" I was trying to point out that, in fact, we're attacking specific targets and doing our best not to hit anything else. Do we miss? Yes. Do civilians die? Yes. Is that terrible? Yes. But I don't understand how I can be the naive one when those who condemn every single instance of destruction in this war seem to expect that the liberation of Iraq could be done any other way. Despite what some would mutter about containment and sanctions and diplomatic pressure, if it could be done less bloodily, don't you think it would? Don't you think we'd try? We tried for 12 years.

How anyone with knowledge of the strategic bombing campaigns of WW2 can look at Bagdhad and say we're destroying it is beyond me. But that doesn't mean I see satellite photos of Baghdad and watch live feeds of nightly bombing runs and think "Oh, those civilians have nothing to worry about. Those bombs ask who's who before they vaporize anybody." Of course not. They're as precise and accurate as any in history but in the end they still explode and destroy and kill. What do you want? Our people are doing the best they can. How can you look at what's going on and act like they obviously don't care, or that they should be trying harder to protect the innocent and just aren't, that they're destroying the nation - without even a word of what's being done by the other side. I see no sense of perspective in such condemnations. The lowest of estimates suggest that Saddam has murdered an average of 154 Iraqis each and every day since he came to power over 23 years ago. To sit back and say *we* are making the lives of everyday Iraqis unbearably and unforgivably worse by prosecuting this campaign, as if they would be better off if we just sat back and talked it over with Saddam and everything would be ok and everyone would go home safe and free and happy is completely ridiculous. It's not being done flawlessly because it can't be. There's no way. But it's going well, much better than many expected. What more do you want?

If you look at the sentence in which I used this oh-so-controversial word, you'll see that the point wasn't anything to do with what you're arguing about. The point was that having your nation bombed and invaded sort of sucks and tends to leave a bit of a mess behind -- and that part of the purpose of doing a good job delivering humanitarian aid is to ensure that the Iraqi population doesn't hate us for that mess.

No one on this thread has decried every single decimated building or civilian death as untenable. All anyone has said is that it's either our responsibility or in our interests to minimize those things and correct for them when possible -- which you've more or less agreed with. The article that started this thread suggested that maybe we've not been doing the best job living up to that. What's your beef, beyond a problem with my phrasing?

And some of them will. Others won't. They don't have to justify it to you: the simple fact is that they don't, and you don't make anyone's life any easier by claiming that you think they should. If someone in Baghdad sits up at night listening to the explosions and watching the smoke plumes and thinks "the U.S. is wrecking this city," no handy pictures from Instapundit are going to convince them that it's not so bad and that really, they'll be better off afterward. That's for them to decide, not you. And that was the point of the original "after we've destroyed the country" sentence: that if we want them to decide they're better off for what we've done, we've got to see to it that they really are better off.

What the hell else is it then, for crying out loud? It sure as heck isn't a series of cheers and praise.

That said: Stuart, the point of criticizing something like this is -- quite simply -- to create pressure to do a better job. I think the reason I've been so argumentative here is that there are two giant assumptions in your thinking that just, I'm sorry, bother me:

(a) You assume this war is a big burden that's been placed on us, one we can only struggle to deal with. This isn't the case. Pretty much no one asked for this war: the US and the UK created it of their own volition, and thus they have very little room to throw their hands up when things don't work right. As I said in my first post on this thread, a lot of people opposed this war specifically because it would create problems like this: whether you like it or not, it's perfectly valid for them to point to those problems and say "this is what we were talking about."

(b) You assume that the average Iraqi should understand that the death, destruction, and general disruption of war is a worthwhile price to pay for getting rid of the current regime. Now there are a number of valid reasons for you to believe that, but it doesn't necessary follow that they should have to agree, especially given that they -- and not you -- are the ones who have to suffer through those things. As you just said, they're not checking in on western news sources; for many of them, state-run television has been their primary, if not only, source of information on what the US is like and what our objectives might be in Iraq. It bothers me a great deal to see someone do what you've sort of done here, which is to indirectly announce to Iraqis that they should shrug off fear, death, and uncertainty just because you think it's worth it in the end: whether or not they want to trust us or appreciate our actions here are their decisions, not yours, and that's precisely why it's so essential for us to do a good job of helping them right now.

This is why I'm in favor of every ounce of attention and criticism that can be directed at our humanitarian efforts there. They're essential; we should all care about them, we should all make noises when they don't seem to be working. We should not let the coalition off the hook and accept it when they say "well shucks, we're trying but this is really hard." We started a war, and starting a war means creating a mess: we need to clean the mess up, not go out of our way to find excuses for why it's not so bad after all.

B) There's a difference between being trustworthy and being trusted. I believe we are the former, and if we keep it up and do the right thing we will eventually be the latter. Not overnight, of course, and it's important that we do everything we can to earn the trust of a people who've seen the concepts of truth in government manipulated beyond recognition. I'm not frustrated with the Iraqis who claim they've been lied because they're not yet taken care of - they're struggling to survive. But this Cofod joker hasn't been living in Iraq and knows what's going on in the world and isn't helping the process by sowing uncertainty. What's he telling the Iraqis he talks to about the coalitions efforts? If it's "They will bungle the process and let you down" like he's telling us, then he's threatening the whole process.

That was patently obvious, Stuart. The subtext of the article is clear -- "Listen, my potential (worldwide) audience. I've been here on the ground, I've seen the results. At present, there is a clear sense in Umm Qasr, a city which the coalition has proclaimed secure, that in fact things aren't secure. In fact, the coalition is right this second risking a failure in trust and confidence among the people it is supposed to be protecting because of this. If this is not handled here and elsewhere in a better manner, the coalition could face compounding problems -- in the meantime, people will die, and with Saddam Hussein's power gone from this area, the blame will not fall on him, it will fall on the coalition. More has to be done -- this is not merely good humanitarian advice but solid political and military strategy. There is a reason to put pressure on the coalition as a result -- they are your governments, if you live in the US and UK. They have made claims they are here to help the people -- that is a huge responsibility and currently in an area they have claimed to be secure, that is not the case."

That's how I read it. You ask why he's not soliciting for spare change -- he's not asking for help from charitable sources, he's asking for the coalition to fulfill its responsibility, he's implicitly asking them for help. THEY are supposed to be the law now in Umm Qasr and other areas deemed 'secure.' THEY are supposed to be the police. THEY are supposed to be calming things down so the aid agencies can function. They are apparently not doing this; they could be doing more.

It'd be nice if every ounce of criticism they received was constructive.

MY POINT, as noted above. That whole article is constructive criticism by default. It is a red flag saying to the coalition, "Look, what you are doing is a risk! This is the result and I've seen it! Given that you have stated you want to win hearts and minds, the abuses I've noted need correcting so that can be done. Even if you can't do everything immediately, you need to do more right this second. I have noted that your water tankers are selling the water you are sending off without supervision -- ergo, the obvious thing to do is supervise it, for instance." Are you so literal as to miss that or must everything be spelled out for you to understand it?

if we keep it up and do the right thing

That's a big if, Stuart. An extremely large one.

The coalition (the 'we' you refer to should rightly be called the US and UK governments) has the capacity and has the capability. Do they have the will and desire to do so? I am not so sanguine as you -- indeed, I am anything but, which may sound defeatist but to my mind sounds realistic.

Nabisco has already argued these points and others into the ground, and your last response as it stands is pretty petulant, getting all riled about up a 'Cofod joker' whose view of a situation that he has directly experienced doesn't match with your cozy vision. You've said it yourself -- "it's important that we do everything we can to earn the trust of a people." All right, someone has called the coalition on that very point. Therefore they must act -- they MUST do everything they can. And they cannot delay. You said yourself that the country depends on imported food, therefore they MUST secure all that food delivery, they MUST make sure people get it. They cannot do otherwise, they MUST not do otherwise, and they cannot wait. End of story.

What's he telling the Iraqis he talks to about the coalitions efforts? If it's "They will bungle the process and let you down" like he's telling us, then he's threatening the whole process.

I find this to be the most cynical thing said on this thread. You are an extremely bitter person if you think that somebody goes to warzones as part of a charitable effort solely in order to cause dissension.

From all that I have seen, you see anything and everything coming from the coalition as implicitly good and anything and everything that criticizes and suggests another way (and quite possibly a better way) as destructive and problematic. You are not interesting in solving problems, I think -- you want to sweep them under the rug and hope they don't come back.

They're trying. They're not waiting. They're not sitting around picking their noses. It seems to be your position that they're not doing everything they can. Why would they do that?

It's my position that they're trying to do as much as possible but the task is so large that it will take more time to get things working smoothly, and I think they're working on that.

You think questioning the motives and actions of one press officer is more cynical than doubting the coalitions entire humanitarian effort?