Most people are probably sick of hearing about Iraq at this point, but I think that it is with good cause that it is such an important issue in American politics today. But I would also argue that it is one of the oddest and most schizophrenic issues out there.
In this piece, I will evaluate a bunch of the rhetoric floating around out there, but to begin, I will argue that there are only two positions on the United States in Iraq that are intellectually defensible.
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#1 – The Realist Position: Get Out Now
The realist position is morally nihilistic (should appeal to Skeptical Mind and Casham), and argues that the United States should basically look out for its own interest. In short, the United States is losing money and US lives by staying in Iraq, and should therefore withdraw immediately.
There is a realist argument that we should stay in Iraq as well, but in my opinion, it isn’t very defensible. It argues that if we leave now, Iraq will be come an Al Qaeda breeding ground, and the terrorists will follow us home.
I am skeptical that the terrorists will follow us home if we leave Iraq. A) that is not as easy as it sounds and B) they have a lot of other targets that are much more proximate and easy to hit like secular Arab rulers and Israel. Moreover, why make it easy for them to hit us by staying there? Much better to continue counter terrorist operations, but from a much more nimble and flexible position.
In short, if one takes a realist standpoint, I think it is clear that we should leave Iraq (or at least cease any policing and nation-building functions of our troops).
#2 – The Moralist Position: Finish What We Started
This stance is commonly known as the “pottery barn” rule: you break it, you buy it. This stance may (or may not) acknowledge that invading Iraq was a bad idea and that America is paying for it. However, the moralist side argues that that whether it was a good idea or not is irrelevant to what the US should do now; actually, the fact that it was wrong to begin with makes it even more imperative that we should stay because now America has a responsibility to the Iraqi people.
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As I said, I think both of these positions are at least intellectually coherent, and I think that the reality is that most people’s views fall somewhere in between realist considerations and moral ones. What I still can’t figure out, however, is the protests. My suspicion is that the thousands of demonstrators protesting in DC do not see themselves as old school realists looking out for American interests. Rather, they very much see themselves as making a moral argument.
Now, let’s take a look at some of their arguments to determine if any of them make sense.
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“Things can’t get any worse” / “The US presence is actually making things worse”
I listed this argument first because I think it is empirically questionable rather than inherently illogical. Some people are entirely convinced that the US presence is making the situation worse and that fewer Iraqis will die if we leave. If we were to assume that is indeed what would happen after a US pullout, then there would certainly be a viable moral argument for leaving.
However, I don’t think that is what most serious analysts envision following a US withdrawal. I think that very quickly we would not be using “civil war” as a dirty word to describe the situation in Iraq, but rather “genocide.” For instance, check out this Brookings analysis of how the US might deal with the humanitarian crisis of an “Iraq burning” following a pullout.
Proponents of this position point to the fact that international Al Qaeda volunteers are entering Iraq because of the US presence there. Hence, if we leave there will be less violence. The reason I think this logic is flawed is because it ignores the much more fundamental split between Shia and Sunni, about which much has been written. Not only is the US presence the only thing preventing ethnic cleansing between these two groups, the void left by a US withdrawal would allow a larger ideological conflict between states like Saudi Arabia and Iran to play out on Iraqi soil.
The second notion (“it can’t get any worse”) I think is less defensible. Sure it can. For Iraqis, it can get a lot worse. If you are an insurgent and suddenly no longer have to worry about any US troops, you can kill more people. Doesn’t really seem like that complicated an equation.
“I was against invading Iraq from the beginning”
This is probably the worst reason for being in favor of withdrawal, so I will spend little time on it. Whether or not someone was for or against the war has nothing to do with whether or not we should stay or leave now. In fact, messing up the Middle East increases our obligation to fix it.
“We should not waste any more American lives on this unjust war”
This is probably one of the most common out there on the left. Anti-war rallies rely upon testimonies from deceased soldiers’ families like Cindy Sheehan. Such testimony and arguments are valid, but only for a realist. The implication of this sort of argument is that Iraqi lives are worth less than American ones, generally not the position advocated by the left. Or, to be fair, this argument could also be made as a corollary to the questionable argument that the US presence is making the situation worse.
I wonder if those advocating this position would stick to it in other contexts. I.e., for someone holding this view, America has no business in Sudan, was right not to intervene in Rwanda, and should go right on ahead ignoring human rights issues to keep oil prices low for American consumers. However, my suspicion is that those demonstrating for an Iraq withdrawal would disagree vehemently with all of the above.
“Iraq needs a political solution, not a military one”
If this argument is made intelligently, then there is a grain of truth to it. (One could also make a fair argument that security is a prerequisite for a political solution). However, it is unfair to make this argument without getting into specifics. What kind of a political solution? Which brings me to the next point…
“We need to provide incentives and benchmarks to persuade the Iraqi government to solve its own problems”
I want to tear my hair out every time I hear this gem. Okay, so let me get this straight, the problem is that the Iraqi government doesn’t want to succeed? If they fail, there is a good chance that, if they don’t scram fast, leaders like Maliki will die should the shit really hit the fan. I don’t know how you make someone want success more whose country is on the brink of all out civil war.
Moreover, what kind of incentive is the ultimatum of withdrawal going to provide the government? Is Maliki really going to crack down on the Shia militias if he thinks the US might be gone tomorrow, because guess what, Iran isn’t going anywhere.
“We need to engage Iran and Syria, you know, be more multilateral”
Like the “political solution” argument, I think this could be a fair argument, but for lack of specificity ends up being a cop-out.
I agree we should engage Iran, but what should we offer them? They aren’t just going to give us something for nothing because our diplomats wore nice cologne. In order to be credible, advocates of this position need to a) specify what we should offer (i.e. are we willing to trade a nuclear-armed Iran for a stable Iraq?) and b) make a case that it actually has a chance of making a significant dent in the quagmire that is now Iraq.
“We did it for the oil / the US is an imperial power”
This is nothing more than trash talk in regard to this particular question. So what if we did it for the oil? That doesn’t change the issue at hand.
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There might well be a) some fair realist arguments for staying and b) some defensible moralist arguments for leaving that I missed here or treated unfairly. If so, I would be interested in hearing them.
My explanation for the insane disconnect between action and ideology surrounding this issue is the following:
Liberals are rightly very upset about a conflict that is increasingly looking like a monumental mistake. To support a troop surge or, even just not withdrawing, to them would be supporting the devil incarnate: George W. Bush. The unpalatability of taking the same stance as the president even if for a very different reason explains the irrationality of so many of their arguments.
To be fair, I am not arguing that liberal ideas about the Iraq War are inherently or even on average more irrational than conservative ones; clearly, the neo-con arguments for invasion were questionable at best.
February 28, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Well you’ve dug into an intellectual and political quagmire, second only to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Nice work Capy, or should I say Bush…
Pretty much I agree that we never should have gone over there in the first place; not an opinion that I always held, but one that I now firmly believe. Saddam Hussein committed genocide against the Kurds before the US went in, among countless other atrocities to his citizens. I took the moralist path at the time, thinking that entering Iraq would be a good call, not only to safeguard US oil interests, but to save a people from a ruthless dictator. Two new perceptions have now changed my mind:
1. I don’t think that we, as a country, should be so dependent on another country for a resource as crucial to the underpinnings of our economy as oil is. Solution: Alternative energy. Another solution is oil shale in Canada and the interior of the US, but this presents its own large environmental problems, and no, I don’t mean global warming.
2. I realized that genocides happen a lot more than I had thought they did. People kill people all over the world, and atrocities are such an integrated part of the international environment, that weeding them all out would be nearly impossible. Plus, since when is it our business what happens in other lands, and to other people. It would be nice to go around saving everyone, but doing so only earns the US the wrath of the rest of the world as being too big for its own britches.
My own opinion now (you pigeonholed me well Capy) is that we should pull out with all speed, and I guess that puts me in the realist category. I don’t see how us being in Iraq serves any function in terms of our national self-interest. Maybe the interest of Dick Cheney’s pocketbook, but not our national good. We’ve borrowed SO much money, that if we hit a crisis, our government is going to have trouble borrowing too much more. What happens if we hit a major recession (yesterday was scary btw if you follow the stock market)? It is not the responsibility of American citizens to look out for the rest of the world, especially when the rest of the world doesn’t want us looking out for them!
A quick argument against the moralist stance:
I don’t think that if we pull out now Iraqis will be in any worse shape than they were under Saddam. So why should we feel badly about relieving them of a murderous dictator and giving them a chance for democracy, that they’re obviously not too serious about?
My vote for president is going to go to whoever I think is most likely to successfully launch a quick withdrawal of American troops and money from Iraq.
February 28, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Like Casham, my thinking on the Iraq War has changed since 2003. I remember being torn, but ultimately convinced by the long list of ignored UN resolutions and WMD claims that Saddam was a threat. At present, I would advocate a new direction, but not an immediate troop pullout from Iraq. I don’t feel any moral obligation to the Iraqis, but I also don’t think our best interests would be served by leaving immediately. That’s not because I’m worried about Iraq becoming “a breeding ground for terrorists,” either. Rather, I think we risk losing a lot of credibility by giving up so blatantly. Credibility means a lot if we want to continue to have our current degree of influence around the world, and especially in the Middle East.
So, I think we should alter the role of our troops. They should stop patrolling and policing functions, adopting only advisory roles in internal security. Most importantly, this would end the IED strikes killing most of our troops by eliminating their street presence. Besides the Army and Police advisors, our troops would serve two main functions: ensuring political stability, and border patrol. Political stability won’t require much… we just need to stick around and show insurgents that they can’t topple Maliki. I don’t foresee much combat required here. As for border patrol, we could beef up checkpoints and patrol areas that are currently unmonitored. This would help to stem the tide of Iranian personnel and arms, as well as the influx of insurgents from Syria.
In the meantime, we should let the Iraqis fight out their civil war, and realign their population according to ethnic and religious divisions. This seems inevitable anyways, and there is no reason for our soldiers to get in the crossfire. Once the neighborhoods are fully homogenized, I think the mutual genocide will slow down to the point that Iraqi security forces will be able to handle it. At that point, we will need to make a decision as to whether Iraq can remain a single viable nation. I’m not sure that it will be able to achieve this… but if not, at least the de facto borders will already be drawn. Either way, we will need a separate policy after this point, and I can’t predict what should be.
March 1, 2007 at 12:22 am
I think, like most others, I am torn on the whole Iraq issue, but I am of the mind that we need to stay until some sort of stability is achieved. I believe leaving will turn Iraq into a war zone between warlords, if not full on genocide.
However, I am also agaist a troop surge. We are fighting against guerrilla tactics in Iraq, and a surge of troops is not going to help us win. Simply applying more force against the insurgance will do nothing. We need to get other tactics are in order. That can be anything from winning over more of the public to stop new people from joining the insurgance to stopping the flow of weapons across the border into Iraq.
The Iraqi people can never have democracy wihtout first having peace. When you have to worry about being shot or blown up when leaving your house to get a loaf bread for your family, you tend not to think too much about the system of government you want to see in place. Once the Iraqi people no longer worry about dying on a dialy basis, they will start to be more serious about their government.
March 1, 2007 at 12:33 am
In my very first post ever I would like to say a few words about hubris.
First, like Casham was saying, what kind of hubris does the US have to think it needs to rush to the aid of every dictatorship in the world and rescue the people. There are genocides, dictatorships, and civil wars all over the world. But they are just that: CIVIL wars. They don’t and shouldn’t involve outside powers, unless that power is immediately affected by it. Certainly not if the country is the strongest power in the world (for now). We are only throwing off the balance of those countries and upsetting their progress towards development by interfering. I think. But that’s just the old, kind of tired Policeman of the World argument.
But second, and more to the point now that we ARE the policemen of the world, what makes us think that we alone with no help from anyone else in the world (especially now that Moldova has pulled out its troops), can “fix” Iraq, let alone the Middle East at large. We have turned ourselves into not just the policemen but the saviors of the world and I think we are, have been, and will continue to bite off more than we can chew until we realize that we need a unified, international force to accomplish lasting peace in the region that we as an individual power can not provide.
(Of course, now that I`ve said that, I don`t have any details about how to go about creating such a UN-with-teeth kind of organization.)
And finally, on hubris of a more personal nature, when did we all become generals? It seems like everyone suddenly has an opinion about the most specific of details of military strategy. We need this many troops to secure the political structure, we can use this many troops to train the Iraqi army, and another number to guard the boarders. I don’t know the first thing about military strategy, and I hesitate to put in my two cents on how it should be run.
But really, the true hubris is with our politicians, who can do more than spout off with their friends about what should be done and actually have the power to get in the way of the real generals who DO know what they’re doing.
That is all. Also, hi everybody.
March 1, 2007 at 12:43 am
Ennui, I think it becomes dangerous if DON’T have the hubris to talk about troop surges and strategy, because if we stop having a opinion, stop thinking about it, we lose our power, and government becomes a body acting without the will of its people. Sure, we don’t know all the details, and we don’t know all the best strategies, and non of would want to try and lead the Iraqi’s to stability personally. But we must always keep expressing out opinions. If others shoot us down with facts, then more power to them, and we will have learned something. But I believe we must keep questioning the actions of our government.
March 1, 2007 at 1:18 am
March,
I feel pretty confident in saying that neither of these two strategies stand any kind of chance.
“Winning over more of the public to stop new people from joining the insurgance” – Dude, they all hate us, how the hell will we win them over as an outside Christian nation, when they can’t even decide which Muslim prophet to respect without blowing each other up? I think this is hopeless.
“Stopping the flow of weapons across the border into Iraq.” – The border between Iraq and its neighbors is thousands of miles of sand and dunes. If we can’t keep Mexicans from crossing a border which is in our back yard, how the hell are we gonna keep Arabs from crossing these gigantic borders. Look how much trouble Israel has, and it devotes its whole army to a much much smaller area.
March 1, 2007 at 2:52 am
Dear March,
Of course I don’t mean to suggest that we stop having an opinion and questioning our government. That would certainly lead to anarchy and eventually even communism.
And no one wants that.
It just seemed to me that people make bold and baseless statements about troop surges and strategy (officials and little folk alike mind you!), and talk with an authoritativeness that frustrates me. It makes me feel like I’m back in a college discussion class, actually.
I just want a little less hubris and a little more acquiesense that we don’t have any idea what we’re talking about. I think admission of ignorance can be accomplished while still questioning our government.
March 1, 2007 at 4:14 am
I like your thoughts on this Ennui. Not only do I have less hubris, I
actually have no pride left. Here are my thoughts on the matter.
There was this one time that I went backpacking with a friend of mine.
She is really into Leave No Trace and I am absent-minded; I was
supposed to pack a trowel and I didn’t. Anyhow, several hours into
the trip, I was hiking happily along when I suddenly realized that I
was about to shit my pants. I promptly informed my friend of the
situation and she told me to make sure my cathole was at least six
inches deep. I unlatched the top of my backpack and searched for the
trowel I had forgotten to pack. Then I realized the true and
desperate nature of my situation. Fuck.
I looked up at my friend and she could tell what had happened. I told
her I just had to go and she told me I needed to follow Leave No
Trace. I tried to tell her that there are sometimes in life that you
just can’t follow LNT principles; for example, when you had forgotten
the trowel… so, as is her tendancy, she got out her little LNT
notecard and pointed to the first step of LNT: Be Prepared. Fuck
again.
The pressure in my bowels was continuing to increase and I was trapped
in a painful decision making process between two uncomfortable
choices. I was either going to have to shit in my pants and save the
environment for others to enjoy or take a dump (why “take”, its really
about leaving a dump…) on the ground without a hole. If I chose
the former option, I would be miserable for the rest of the trip
because there would be shit all over the only pair of pants I owned.
If I chose the latter option, I would be miserable because my friend
would make certain that I never, ever forgot that I was an immoral
person. Fuck.
So I did what came naturally to me. I grabbed the first blunt object
I saw, desperately scraped out a six inch hole and then… I pooped in
it. Problem solved.
What I am trying to say by way of this pleasant little story is that
over the next ten years we should invite thousands of Iraqi college
graduates (any major is ok) to teach the children in our school
systems whatever language it is that they speak in Iraq.
I mean, currently we try to teach everyone French or Spanish and we
fail miserably as most empowered Americans only speak English and so
by switching to instruction in whatever language it is that they
speak in Iraq, we wouldn’t be giving up school time that is currently
being put to good use. If we pay them a decent salary, they’ll come;
it is either watch bombs and guns kill the people they love while they
sit around unemployed and powerless, or come to America, change things
at the source of the problem and make good money while they are at it,
money they can use to start a good life when they get home. It’ll
strengthen American ties with the Middle East, teach the American
public why the terrorists are trying to kill us, help Americans learn
a second language, preserve Iraqi culture, jump start the Iraqi
economy and empower Iraqi activists who are interested in creating
rather than destroying. As all this happens, the American military
will simply be needed less and less in Iraq and at the end of it we
will have accomplished everything President Bush hoped for at a
fraction of the terrible cost in human life he is telling us it is
necessary for the world to pay.
Its great; there are actually thousands of Americans with the
experience necessary to create this sort of program thanks to the
proactiveness of the Japanese government. Unfortunately, it will
never happen because who wants terrorists… I mean “Iraqis” teaching
our good Christian children Islam… I mean “whatever language they
speak in Iraq.”
We are caught in the woods without a trowel. We need to shit and soon
and our situation only gets worse with every moment we wait. We are
standing around doing the poop dance wishing we hadn’t forgotten the
damn trowel and soon we will no longer possess the ability to grab the
blunt object available to us nor the time needed to scrape out the
hole.
If I could speak to President Bush, I would say, “You should have
packed the fucking trowel, but since you didn’t, please grab a blunt
object and soon! Because otherwise we are either going to have to
collectively shit in our pants or let the proverbial moral shit hit
the fan and while we collectively relieve ourselves on Iraq.” Sadly,
he probably wouldn’t understand me.
March 2, 2007 at 1:41 am
First I’d like to thank you, TS, for helping me to come ever closer to true oneness with the Universe by sharing with me the inner workings of your bowels, and so eloquently, as well.
I have (at least one) problem with your metaphor, though. Why didn’t you just use your friend’s trowel?
Or, less metaphorically (although more idealistically), why can’t the US try to enlist the aid of other countries, maybe the UN, to unstick us from this shitty situation. IF we managed to stop killing Iraqis, or if we had a definite and workable plan (this might have to wait until ‘08), I think it’s not unreasonable to think that other people would come back onboard. It’s in everyone’s interest to have a stable Iraq.
Like I said, too idealistic, I think. We’ve buried ourselves, trowel or not, up to our eyeballs, and our friends left us long ago to try to shit in the woods by ourselves. We have to get out of this shithole alone.
I think I’ve ground your metaphor far enough into the ground. About the other idea you mention, it sounds awfully like another system you and I are both intimately aquainted with.
It’s really appealing. I would love to see Iraqis educating my children, actually. It sounds strange to say it, but I think in practice, knowing what I do of a similar arrangement, it could be wonderful. Just Middle Eastern college graduates from any country, it would give our kids a kind of broadening of horizons that I think America is woefully short of. I would welcome it with open arms.
But.
I saw a Daily Show report last night about a group of Texans (naturally) who were so upset that a Muslim group was building a mosque in their town that they set up a weekly pig race around the site of the mosque/community center on Friday evenings, the Muslim holy day. One of the citizenry, he put down his pitchfork and burning torch to talk to Rob Riggle, said that he would get a rope and a tree and get ‘er done if any Muslim crossed him.
I don’t think that town would really welcome an Iraqi teacher in their children’s school.
Besides, Japan created this program in the 1980s, thirty years after they stopped being at war with the countries they were bringing teachers in from. There are too many open wounds (literally… sorry) to create a similar program in Iraq.
And if Iraqis despise us so much (although I don’t know how true that would be on an individual level, and the urge to get out of a war zone would probably over power it), why would they want to come? And why would they want to leave their homeland?
And why would they want to change us? Why would they think they could? Maybe they aren’t so brimming with hubris that they think they can.
Anyway, I got kind of stuck on your idea of setting up an exchange program with Iraq because it was so intriguing to me. I think it could happen! But far down the line, after the war, after we improvise some other kind of trowel and relief ourselves (really, thanks again for that metaphor, TS), maybe as a kind of prevention against American imperialism and ignorance of other cultures in the future.
March 2, 2007 at 2:17 am
I don’t think so Ennui. You know Japan did a good thing for the world by creating the JET program. You’re here, you know how far this program has come over the last twenty years and it is because Japanese government says “Ok, we are going to pay you to go mess things up in the school systems. Now, go make the teachers lives difficult and teach our children how to be properly Japanese in connection with the outside world. If anyone gives you any trouble about it, let us know and we will back you up.”
If the JET Program didn’t exist, and there weren’t so many Americans involved with it, I wouldn’t even entertain the idea of setting up a program between Iraq and America. Its funny, I just wrote the solution to our problems. This idea is actually it. Its the way out. I am feeling a little angry right now that you are right. Whereas the Japanese citizens take care of us or at worse give us dirty looks, Americans would probably try to kill the Iraqi ALTs.
America looks out at the world and thinks their all a bunch of sickos mutilating each others genitals when, in fact, it is America that is sick.
Now, on to more important matters… my friend didn’t have a trowel. I was supposed to have packed the trowel for the both of us.
March 2, 2007 at 3:01 am
Please understand from the outset, I am infinitely more jaded about the JET Program than you.
But how much are you just a clown that dances for your kids who they forget about after school lets out and how much are you making a real difference?
To your kids, to the people in your town, I would argue that they can identify with you as a person, and that you are extremely interesting on a superficial and comedic level, but I really doubt that you are going to make any real, substantial changes in their lives.
And even if you did, even if we all could influence just one of our students, I think the result would still be lesser than the sum of all its parts. I could, and have changed the lives (I think) of one or two students, there are Japanese people whose friendship I cherish, and on that personal level, there has been a cultural and personal exchange.
But I don’t think I’m going to change the future of Japan. I think my students are going to forget me (I can’t tell you how many high school grads I’ve met who can’t remember their ALT), and my students, the vast majority of students in Japan, aren’t going to make a difference. In fact, the kids who are going to make a difference are probably sitting in a private school right now, where the JET Program doesn’t go. I don’t think we are internationalizing Japan. I don’t think I even know what that entails.
The JET Program throws around the idea of internationalization like the holy grail, like the ultimate answer to intercultural conflict and the source of world peace. I bought into it whole-heartedly, and in a theoretical situation I still do. But when you actually set about to put it into action, like all good intentions, real life gets in the way, your students are more interested in your cup-size than your country, your teachers are stagnant and uncooperative and you never teach a class.
I hope that you are never this pessimistic about the program. “Every situation is different,” as they say, as they drill into us, and my situation at my particular school has taken all my idealism and hope for the good work I was doing here and ground it out of existence.
March 2, 2007 at 3:10 am
Man, cringing just re-reading that. I’m sorry. Please ignore it. Really. It’s the end of a long time here for me, and it’s getting to me. I’ll try to keep it a little more under control in the future.
Besides, I didn’t even answer the main thrust of your comment.
It would be a wonderful thing to have in America. But it wouldn’t work everywhere. Not yet. But then again, the way I understand it, the JET Program didn’t work everywhere at first either. But as it is more ingrained in the areas it DOES work, it seems less threatening in the areas where it wouldn’t initially work.
And eventually (optimistically, theoretically…sorry, there it is again), it might root out the people ready to lynch a Muslim and change their children.
But it definitely isn’t going to work in time for us to save ourselves from pooping in our pants.
If only somebody had a trowel.
What did your friend do without a trowel??
March 2, 2007 at 5:02 am
OK, I know you two are both teachers in this JET program in Japan, but…well, let me just pose you a couple questions:
1) TS, Ennui; are you guys fucking for real? Do you really think that setting up an exchange program for Iraqi teachers to come to America to teach little Bob and Jane Iraqi is the solution to America’s nightmare???? I’m really having trouble telling if this is one big joke that I’m somehow missing the point of.
2) Assuming you’re for real, which I still somewhat doubt, do you think anyone in America gives a shit if their kids speak Iraqi? Does anyone in America give a shit if anyone speaks Iraqi here besides maybe a few CIA operatives? Does anyone in Iraq give a shit if Americans speak their language? Far and away the most difficult question for you to answer is: How in hell’s name do you think anything will change AT ALL in Iraq by sending over some young kids to get an education in America?
3) Well this is more just a commentary….I think the random flow of conversation is hilarious sometimes. It’s pretty crazy following the train of thought from the Iraq war to the JET program in just a few zany posts…
That is all.
March 2, 2007 at 5:04 am
And btw, I used Iraqi as the language spoken, when they actually speak Mesopotamian Arabic. It is obviously easier to type five letters than two long-ass words
March 2, 2007 at 5:12 am
I thought a bit more about what you said and what I said, Ennui, and I realized that I was a bit off.
First off, as per metaphor, a JET style program between the US and Iraq is just a blunt object. It isn’t THE solution to the Iraq, its just A solution. In fact, there are solutions all around, its just that noone is thinking about them as blunt objects that might do the job, they are thinking about them as this or that.
Also, I was being too hard on America. It is sick, but not terminally so. They set up a pig race around the construction site to protest the construction of mosque. That is fucking funny and probably no one is laughing publicly about it, except John Stewart. The rest of America is sitting in their homes laughing quietly where no one will see them. If I were an Iraqi ALT, I would thrive in that town in Texas.
Third, here’s a new idea. What if we borrowed the infrastructure from the JET program, but created a senpei position instead of the JTE position. You would hire former JET participants to go through training with the Iraqi ALTs and they could develop that wierd cross-cultural friendship we JET ALTs know so well. You know, the friendship with the nice old woman who can’t understand you, but gives you fruit and laughs a lot? Well, every situation is different, but I bet you have at least one friend like that.
So the former JET participant and the Iraqi ALT would develop this friendship, um… maybe they would go on a road trip together or something before they went to their town…
…then they would contract out to the local BOE and the former JET would help the Iraqi ALT be successful using all the tricks of the trade…
…its just crazy enough that it might work…
plus, President Bush, whatever else you want to say about him, is the president who can make anything happen, no matter how crazy it seems.
Ok, I’d better quit with those thoughts while I am ahead.
Now, as for what my friend did without the trowel, I am not quite sure. None of that stuff ever really happened. I just made that story up to illustrate my point. But, if I had to guess, she probably got really angry with me and made a big deal about using blunt objects to dig her catholes and then later after the trip was over, we laughed about it.
As for your situation, I have a few suggestions. Students used to repeatedly ask me if I have a girlfriend. They don’t now and this is how I made them stop. Whenever they asked me that, I would sit down in the middle of the hallway and do my best to look really sad. Then when they were uncertain what to do with me, I would tell them to sit down in my most assertive voice. Then I would giggle for a while, and then get up and leave them sitting on the ground, then when I got to the end of the hallway I would tell them to come and then go around the corner. Then I would wait until I heard them coming, and as soon as they rounded the corner, I would yell “Bikurii Donkey!” (which means the Surprised Donkey and is the name of a restaurant chain around here) I did this often and it never failed to amuse me. One girl even told me she peed her pants a little bit. From then on, whenever anyone looked uncertain, I would say “Bikurii Donkey” and giggle and they would giggle too and from that we slowly became friends.
Those questions about cup size or penis size or girlfriend or food, etc. are all actually a great thing in disquise. Its curiosity mixed with fear. They are curious about you, its just that you are so foreign to them that they can’t relate to anything you are doing so they go with what they think they have in common with you. He has a penis, so do Japanese people. She has breasts, so do Japanese people. Maybe he is dating a girl. Maybe she is dating a boy. These are hidden things and their questions reflect an honest desire to know things about you.
JTEs can be difficult. I am very poorly used at one of my school’s so I go to cooking class, or for example, right now I am in computer class, or wander around the hallways, basically, I do anything to get out of my desk. In class, I get bored so I do things like steal kids chairs when they aren’t looking. They’ll be off doing an activity and I will just sneak up, steal their chair and then when everyone comes back to sit down, there is one student just freaking out (nande! are! Honto! Wakarinai! nande!) and then I usually yell Yata! and point to the chair. Then everyone laughs and I quickly apologize to the JTE and he laughs, too.
Laughing with people as opposed to at them is important in cross-cultural situations with a big language barrier.
March 2, 2007 at 6:06 am
Casham,
As for whether or not I am for real. I am. This is my very best idea as to how to get out of a seemingly insoluble situation. It is even a practicable idea. Whether or not it will happen is an entirely different story. It really depends on how many people read what I am writing here and believe in me and I have no illusions that anyone besides my friends will read this.
If this idea does take off, it should be on the merits of the idea itself rather than as a reflection of my personality. I am a bit of a nut and I have difficulty paying my phone bills on time. I also believe the problem is not in Iraq. I believe the problem is in America. We are fighting a war on terror and we are losing. I say this based on one simple fact; the American public is so terrified that we are giving up the very essence of what makes America America. You don’t fight terror with guns, you fight it with laughter. The real war on terrorism is in the mind, but people in general think that saying it like that sounds silly so we have created a physical manifestation of all this stuff in Iraq. The war in Iraq could turn out well for all the Iraqis who are still alive. It could also turn out well for America. If it doesn’t turn out well, I would say that America will no longer be America and I probably wouldn’t come back stateside in that scenario.
As for why our children should learn Mesopotamian Arabic, that reason is simple. We had the hubris to interfere in the affairs of another country and now our two countries are intimately linked with each other. It isn’t exactly the ideal situation considering all the other problems America has put off dealing with, but its the one we are now in so we may as well turn it to our advantage. Our advantage and the Iraqi people’s advantage happens to be the same cause we are all human beings.
New Zealand decided to honor the Whitianga treaty and now its a big debate about whether or not to teach the Maori language or a so called more useful language in their schools. The interesting part of all that is that Moari culture has a voice in New Zealand. When was the last time you heard something specific from a Cherokee person?
To be honest, English is the world language. Most cultures have a voice in English and a voice in their native language. That is part of what makes their cultures so vibrant and attractive to English speakers. Non-English speaking countries think about themselves in two logics. Unfortunately, we in the English speaking world don’t need to go through the torture of truly learning a second language.
Rousseau set it all out for us in Emile, and we listened to all the sexy bits of what he said, but somehow we missed his point when he talked about the importance and difficulties of learning a second language.
Why Mesopotamian Arabic? Because that is the future we chose for ourselves when we invaded Iraq.
March 2, 2007 at 6:39 am
Thanks so much for all of the great comments everybody; this is really interesting! This is really a great group because we have views from all over the board.
Also, big welcome to Ennui, very glad you joined us.
I find it very interesting – especially in this crowd – that no one even tried to come up with a moral argument for withdrawal. Given that the vast majority of Americans (and especially liberal ones) are for leaving, I find that quite surprising.
Casham, no real response to your first comment; it is the realist approach, which as I state in the post, is IMO a fair one.
Here are my thoughts on some of what has been said (if you have the stamina for it):
@ MarchHare:
I don’t really see how people can be for staying in Iraq and not for the troop surge. (Personally, I don’t think it is big enough to make too much of a difference, but that is beside the point.) If we, as you say MH, need a different solution, than what is the point of leaving any troops there to get shot up? If, on the other hand, our troops are making a difference for Iraqis, then how can scaling up not make things even better?
@ Skeptical Mind
Good point; I forgot about this argument. However, I think what you are outlining is basically the realist stance slightly modified, and also (just IMO), slightly wrong.
I think it is basically the same, because taking troops out of harm’s way and eliminating the policing security function to a moralist is the same as just leaving all together. Check out that Brookings thing I link to; they talk about withdrawing to the desert and basically waiting it out.
I think it is slightly erroneous because it fails to consider how much international legitimacy we lose by staying in Iraq. I think it about cancels out the street cred we would lose by leaving, not to mention the astronomical cost in lives and dollars.
@Ennui
First, lol, blogging is like the most hubristic thing out there then; a bunch of people who really know jack talking shit about everything.
But on a more serious note: I hate to disagree with you right as you join the fun, but I tend to side with March Hare on this one. Who is to say what the critical mass of information is to have an opinion? At what point is it okay to take a side? Our politicians don’t know what it’s like to be a soldier or an Iraqi. Our soldiers don’t know as much about the broader political context. I think everyone needs to decide for themselves what their minimum threshold of information is to have an opinion.
To this extent I think you are correct: I agree that we should constantly be cognizant of how little we know about something, and be willing to change our opinions and admit our mistakes in light of new arguments and information. For what it’s worth, I think this blog has already to some extent done its participants credit in that regard; the first two comments in this thread admit a change of opinion in light of new information on Iraq.
Conclusion: opinion is good, but having an open mind and humility is also essential.
@ Tequila
Hmm, for such a cultural relativist, you seem pretty quick to judge Americans. Though now in vogue on the left, I think we should be somewhat careful in judging all the American rednecks out there. Are there some crazy mofos in Texas who are bigots out there? Yes. Are they threatening to burn down mosques? I don’t doubt your story Ennui.
But on the other hand, when comparing ignorant Americans unfavorably to Iraqis, let’s not forget that the entire Muslim world was out burning down buildings over a couple of cartoons printed a thousand miles away not so long ago. Ignorance does not adhere to national boundaries, so far as I know.
@ Casham
Actually, I think Iraqi is fine; I’ve seen it that way a lot on course listings, but never seen Mesopotamian Arabic…
@ Tequila
Let me predicate this by stating that I actually think such an exchange program would be a really good thing. Why not? We waste money on much less worthy things.
However, as a solution to the current problem in Iraq, I tend to agree with Casham (yes, I think they are serious). The predicted benefits above are so wildly out of line with reality that they make Bush’s claims of “welcoming us with open arms” seem like wisdom from Confucius.
@Ennui
My criticism for this argument is basically the same as I wrote in the main post for “We need to engage Iran and Syria, you know, be more multilateral.”
So I would ask a few questions:
Let’s assume that everyone does want a stable Iraq (a point that is debatable). That doesn’t mean that everyone is willing to bleed for it. And to send Blue Helmets in, we need a vote from China, Russia, and France. What do you propose to offer them for such a bargain?
How do we stop killing Iraqis without leaving and letting the country descend into civil war? What kind of stable, workable plan?
I really don’t think multilateralism is a bad idea at all. Quite the contrary. Like Marchy’s centrally controlled government systems and universal equality though, it is something very easy to say but very hard to implement.
March 2, 2007 at 6:50 am
@ Tequila
In this point, I 100% agree with Tequila. For evidence to back him up, I would check out the study “Overblown.”
Links: book mp3 event lecture
Basically, just a pretty eye-opening study about just how low your chances are at actually getting killed by a terrorist. Like Tequila, I don’t think fighting terrorists is worth compromising a single American value.
On the other hand, I am not quite sure I follow how the hubris of invading Iraq means that our children should learn “Mesopotamian Arabic.” If you are saying that your plan will fix the current quagmire, and that is our responsibility, then I guess from a moral standpoint the logic holds… though, as I said, if there were any tangible benefits to said program, they would not be visible for at least a decade, which does nothing to solve the current issue.
March 2, 2007 at 7:08 am
Three very, very important points.
First, everything I am saying about Americans I am saying about you, Capy, and you, Banana, and you Casham, and you Skeptical Mind, and I am even saying it about Marchy, Ennui and me. I am not talking about rednecks, I am talking about educated, empowered people. I may be wrong, but that is what I am saying.
Second, there is no quick solution to the situation in Iraq. When we invaded Iraq, we fundamentally altered the character of America, forever. We became a part of Iraq.
Third, there will never be tangible benefits to the program I am talking about. It will be judged by what it makes not happen rather than what it makes happen. Ennui raises questions about whether or not we are changing anything by being here in Japan. Maybe not, but then Japan is NOT at war and that is something to be said for the JET Program.
March 2, 2007 at 7:31 am
Tequila,
To the first point, none of us have burned down any mosques, to my knowledge.
To the second: agree, but that doesn’t change the fact that we have to decide what is the best course of action in the short term even as we plan for the long term.
Third: fair point; as I said, I agree that it would be a good idea, I guess I was more saying that it isn’t a response to the “should we stay or should we go” question. Nor is it the only long term policy that could have potential benefits.
Minor gripes though, fair clarifications in short (except for the first one, which still seems either banal or wrong to me).
March 3, 2007 at 1:16 am
I was thinking about Capy’s comment that my proposal was essentially the same as pulling out, and I agree to an extent. Basically I was trying to craft a solution that gets our troops out of the line of fire, but that doesn’t look like running away. I realize that I’m no military strategist, but I don’t think that should stop me from thinking along these lines…
I disagree with Capy on the point about credibility. I certainly recognize that we burned a lot of bridges by invading, but I don’t think we risk much political capital by staying longer. We can’t undo the harm to America’s image that’s already done, but we CAN try to salvage something from the ashes. This is why I support a new strategy that keeps our soldiers out of the civil war, but not out of Iraq.
March 4, 2007 at 1:24 am
So I agree with Capy on a lot of his commentary, but you have yet to say your stance on the issue, unless I’ve missed it amidst the novel being written above
Stay or Go, Capy?
Ennui, TS, I think your idea is good, and could potentially be a good thing for the two countries to get engaged in, but as mentioned, I think it will not have any impact on the current situation. Instead, whatever benefits there may be will be a long time coming. And I personally don’t even think it will have a high chance of success.
1) I don’t see how an Iraqi living in a small town in the middle of America will thrive. I think he will have a hard time adapting, and I think there are a lot of places where people will be suspicious of him and he will struggle to fit in.
2) A Stronger point is that I don’t think anyone cares about learning Iraqi, and if you tried to tell people that their kids had to learn Iraqi instead of French or German or Spanish, they’d flip. Parents want their children to learn their own cultural languages in school, or a language much more pertinent to living in America: Spanish. No one will take learning Iraqi seriously, and I think the idea will flounder.
That being said, I do think if it happened, it would be a nice thing, and have benefits, so who knows…
And Capy, btw, I found that reference to Mesopotamian Arabic on some fancy language website, so I just assumed that was some official name. I’m sticking to ‘Iraqi’
March 4, 2007 at 8:34 am
Capy, you are right to tell me that my first point was either banal or wrong. Consider for a moment what you are saying about rednecks, though. That also is either banal or wrong.
My point is not so much that we all secretly want to burn down a mosque, but rather that we all create this idea of “an other.” For the rednecks mentioned on this site, it is currently Arabic people. For you, it is currently rednecks. For Banana, it is currently liberals, for skeptic, it is currently these vaguely defined people who mutilate each others genitals, for Marchy, Ennui and me it shifts around a lot depending on our mood because we are currently foreigners. For a critical mass of Iraqis, it is currently the US. When we return home it will threaten to settle into a particular group again and it will be something we will need to struggle with.
People are connected to each other in a billion ways, even in America where individualism is a virtue. If you bring 10,000 Iraqis to America and give them the support they need to adapt to American culture and then send them home, you will touch an amazing number of lives.
Right now, we are fighting an insurgency that fears that the US is creating a puppet government to aid its own interests at the expense of the Iraqi people. If you alter that fear, the insurgency will lose support.
Right now, we have no idea what Iraqi culture is all about. Most Americans don’t even understand the very concept of culture. At an unconscious level, they think it is basically synonomous with politics. If you change that, the American government will have the knowledge it needs to establish the correct form of government for Iraq.
Finally, its just flat out irresponsible to decide that Iraq is important enough to America’s future to invade it and change the regime if at the same time we don’t value learning about their language on a massive scale.
What European culture has been to us in the past, Iraqi and more generally Islamic culture will become to us in the future.
I am not saying that this is the only option. We can repeat Vietnam if we want to and honestly, I think America will come through that part intact. It will be a downright rotten deal for all the people who actually believed in America and tried to help. I mean, look at the raw deal Hmong culture got.
If we want, we can put off the problem of Iraq for thirty years like we did with Vietnam, but the thing is, we started down a very dangerous road in Vietnam and if we make the same mistake again in Iraq… America is in trouble right now.
March 4, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Since my genital mutilation comment seems to be shaping TS and Ennui’s impressions of me, I want to defend myself for a moment.
In the original context of my statement, my intent was to suggest that only “culture” could justify something as unreasonable as genital mutilation. I did not say “Iraqi culture,” or “African culture,” and that was very intentional. I meant “American culture” every bit as much as Iraqi culture. So don’t think that I have this view of foreigners as barbaric and stupid…
Additionally, since none of us is Iraqi, as far as I know, I think it is very presumptuous to claim to know what the people in Iraq want, or what the insurgents fear. At most, we can generalize that reasonable Iraqis will want peace and stability in a broad sense.
Even if we did know what the Iraqis wanted, wouldn’t our interests be more important anyways?
March 4, 2007 at 11:44 pm
First off, I want to say I’m sorry to skepticalmind, I am really getting on his case and I am being kind of rude. In real life, I am much more polite than I am here on this blog, except sometimes when I am drunk among my friends. I will give you a true apology later, but for now let me just admit that I think that Tequila Socrates is a terrible thing.
Still, I do feel that it is important to have this sort of conversation, so I hope we can continue it.
Here is my question for you skepticalmind, are you sure you are talking about culture?
Politics can justify a lot of things (for example, the war in Iraq), but can culture really justify anything?
Additionally, what in what culture is genital mutilation justified (justified by its accompanying political regime, in my opinion)? What’s more important, why do they mutilate people’s genitals? What are their reasons?
“In the original context of my statement, my intent was to suggest that only “culture” could justify something as unreasonable as genital mutilation. I did not say “Iraqi culture,” or “African culture,” and that was very intentional. I meant “American culture” every bit as much as Iraqi culture.”
My intent is to suggest that only politics could justify something like genital mutilation.
“Additionally, since none of us is Iraqi, as far as I know, I think it is very presumptuous to claim to know what the people in Iraq want, or what the insurgents fear. At most, we can generalize that reasonable Iraqis will want peace and stability in a broad sense.”
If reason is the same everywhere, why can’t we know exactly what reasonable Iraqis want on all levels? According to your argument over on Marchy and Culture, if I am a reasonable person and you are a reasonable person, we both should know exactly what reasonable Iraqis want.
If reason is the same everywhere, wouldn’t our interests be the same?
March 4, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Casham,
You raise a good point
“1) I don’t see how an Iraqi living in a small town in the middle of America will thrive. I think he will have a hard time adapting, and I think there are a lot of places where people will be suspicious of him and he will struggle to fit in.”
This is exactly the reason why I believe it is so important for the Iraqi to go. She might have a lot of trouble, but with the proper support system, she might succeed in adapting her values to an accord with American culture and she might also succeed in changing that suspiscion.
March 5, 2007 at 1:00 am
Well, I missed the end of this fascinating novel, and it looks like the discussion is pretty much over. But in case anyone reads this, I’m going to add my two cents.
Skeptical Mind, I actually didn’t form any impression of you, I’m not even sure who you are. All I know is you’re the only person who backed up my hubris claim (“since none of us is Iraqi, as far as I know, I think it is very presumptuous to claim to know what the people in Iraq want”). I like this anonymous thing, even though I’ve pretty much forfeited any pretense of it myself…
Tequila, alright, where do I start? Japan isn’t not at war because of the JET Programme. Talk about hubris. If anything the JET Programme exists because Japan is not at war. Do you think all of us wouldn’t be pulled out of
It looks like everyone was coming down on our Iraqi-American Exchange and Teaching Programme because of the language thing. You have to admit they have a point. Do you think we wouldn’t be pulled out of here so fast we’d have whiplash if Japan started terrorist activity? The program you mentioned just doesn’t apply to countries at war.
And also, let’s make sure in our proposal to President Obama that we specify that the goal is NOT actually the Iraqi language, but the other end, the cultural exchange. I haven’t worked it out exactly yet, but they could be history teachers, culture teachers, they could just make school visits. The point would be, the important thing is, to have face time between the next generation of Americans and an Iraqi person, in the hopes that that next generation will hesitate before they drop another bomb on the Middle East.
Capy, about no one making a case for withdraw, I’d like to think that we’re all the kind of thinking (I’d say realistic, but then there’s TS) liberals who don’t blindly follow the rest of the herd, the ones who are almost as bad as the diehard conservatives.
And I liked what you said about Ignorance not having national borders. It’s a good point. Our vantage point is strictly American. Japanese people, I DO know, are just as racist and ignorant and backwards as the worst I know of Americans. And their impression of us is that we are all a lot like the Americans they see in movies.
But that’s the whole point of the culture exchange program Tequila was talking about. The next generation won’t be so quick to blindly judge because they have known an actual middle easterner, and at an impressionable age to boot…
Anyway, enough about the culture exchange. It was just a pretty idea. Maybe someday.
About your last comment to me, I have absolutely no answer to those questions about how to solve the problems with the UN, or with any future body that attempts to be multilateral.
I don’t have that much hubris.
March 5, 2007 at 1:53 am
You’re right, Ennui. I momentarily forgot that I am not a practical person. The idea of something other than a lose-lose situation concerning Iraq got to me and even though I think you are right that my idea in its current form couldn’t work, I wasn’t willing to just let it die because it is out there. I will try to refrain from attempting practicality in the future and stick to playing with words.
March 5, 2007 at 2:01 am
Damn skippy. Tow the line, Socrates.
March 5, 2007 at 2:03 am
Toe the line.
March 5, 2007 at 2:46 am
Egg on my face.
“A lot of people who don’t know the origin of the phrase picture someone pulling a rope, cord, or some other “line”–”tow the line”–as a way of working for whomever the “line” belongs to. Thus, if the administration has a “line”–i.e., a “party line”–then those who side with the administration help to pull it (“tow” it) along.
Wrong.
The phrase “toe the line” is equivalent to “toe the mark,” both of which mean to conform to a rule or a standard. The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002; ed. by Glynnis Chantrell) says, “The idiom toe the line from an athletics analogy originated in the early 19th century” (514).
The specific sport referred to is foot-racing, where the competitors must keep their feet behind a “line” or on a “mark” at the start of the race–as in “On your mark, get set,
go!”
So one who “toes the line” is one who does not allow his foot to stray over the line. In other words, one who does not stray beyond a rigidly defined boundary.”
This conversation is officially over, I think.
March 5, 2007 at 2:49 am
But wait!
“Tow the line may well be one of the reshapings that will soon be considered acceptable in standard English. It is so common that it is easier to find salient examples in journalistic writing than on the general-purpose web.
Michael Quinion at Word Wide Words explains the original form, toe the line:
Toe the line is the survivor of a set of phrases that were common in the nineteenth century; others were toe the mark, toe the scratch, toe the crack, or toe the trig. In every case, the image was that of men lining up with the tips of their toes touching some line. They might be on parade, or preparing to undertake some task, or in readiness for a race or fight.
The “lining up for a race or fight” metaphor has been obscured, and a new, nautical imagery has been grafted on the expression, thus changing the spelling. In particular when a blend with compounds like party line occurs, the original metaphor slips farther into the background: a party line is not the kind of line that can be toed. And then it is but a step towards towing the line in a particular direction.”
- http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/72/tow/
(First one from http://www.grammartips.homestead.com/toetheline.html)
March 5, 2007 at 3:37 am
Ok, ours is, but skepticalmind still has unanswered questions from me to deal with on this thread.
March 5, 2007 at 5:39 am
[...] 5 Mar 2007 Iraq and Isolationism Posted by CapyBoppy under Politics Iraq Casham fairly pointed out that after all that I hadn’t actually presented my own position on the “should we stay [...]
March 5, 2007 at 6:07 am
Maybe though, it would be clearer (blogwise) for Skeptical Mind to answer over on Marchy and Culture. I’ll post a link.
March 5, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Okay, as an inexperienced blogger, I’m not sure if it is appropriate to post an answer here that says I answered TS over on Marchy and Culture… but I just did, so sorry if that’s improper web etiquette.
March 16, 2007 at 12:22 am
[...] Posted by Tequila Socrates under Uncategorized I was getting a little bit serious over on Should We Stay or Should We Go, and seriousness is a terrible thing in a man who believes giggling will solve the worlds [...]
August 3, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Thanks for the post