Iraqi War Perspectives & Understanding
By Denise Best | Related entries in In The News, WarIn the midst of the Iraqi War Blame Game, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that there are indeed different perspectives to the situation, as well as a resulting impact each respective view can bring to the future.
Adel Abdul Mahdi, Iraq’s vice president, may seem a bit unfeeling as he assesses the ongoing violence in his country. It is very hard, he says — but better than during Saddam Hussein’s day, when, Mahdi says, each year 30,000 Iraqis were executed or assassinated by the regime or killed in the dictator’s wars.
It may sound unfeeling, that is, until you remember that, just days before Mahdi’s visit to Washington last week, his older brother was killed in a drive-by shooting.
This he does not speak about quite so matter-of-factly. But Mahdi, who was imprisoned and then exiled by Hussein, puts even this fresh murder in historical context. “My brother always suffered,” Mahdi said. “Whenever they had a problem with me, they would detain him, they would torture him . . .
“They waged terrorism from within the government,” Mahdi added. “Now they are waging the same attacks, as an opposition, from the streets. . . . These are the same methods, practiced by the same people.”
A Shiite political leader with a good chance of becoming prime minister after next month’s elections, Mahdi brought to Washington a familiar complaint: that the U.S. media and their audience focus exclusively on the bad news, ignoring Iraq’s “tremendous achievements.”
Turnout was high in Iraq’s first election, higher for its constitutional referendum and will be higher still, he said, in the December vote — all despite death threats to anyone who votes. In the face of terror, Iraq’s progress toward democracy is unprecedented in the Middle East.
But, he says, Iraq and the United States are “victims of different agendas.”
“Iraq’s is a life-or-death agenda — how to build a democracy,” Mahdi said. “Others’ are political agendas.”
Yes, agenda can make a world of difference.
A true wartime president, Lieberman said, would reach out regularly to congressional leaders of both parties. He would explain strategy, admit mistakes, be open to suggestions.
That hasn’t happened — which goes a long way toward explaining why a war that should be understood as life-or-death for Americans too has become, as Mahdi said in more polite terms, a political football.
Good point – effective leadership in times of trouble, as well as prosperity, is a necessary expectation in achieving greater understanding and concensus.
Question is …
Is it possible in our society to take the politics out of war and empower our leaders to effectively lead?
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November 14th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Empower our leaders? You’re blaming “politics” for Mr. Bush’s incompetence?
He has both houses of Congress and the opposition’s leaders signed onto the war. What are you talking about? In what way has anyone impeded Mr. Bush?
There’s only one person ultimately responsible for this fiasco: George W. Bush.
November 14th, 2005 at 1:44 pm
Just posing the question – the man took a stand and has been challenged, derided, and ridiculed for it since the war began.
Are conditions such with the power of the media (speed, spin, and pervasiveness), and resulting need for delivering the right sound bytes, that delivering the type of communication that Lieberman describes is great in theory, but restricted in practice?
November 14th, 2005 at 2:39 pm
War should never be ‘fought’ by a politician…. Leave it to the Generals.
If you aren’t willing to do what it takes to win you should never commit troops.
I had never voted a straight ticket for any party, I have voted for quite a few Democrats over the years for various positions. After the disgusting display of smearing Bush at every turn, the constant lying from the Democrats and the outlandish claims that they make daily, this is the reason that I seriously doubt that I could ever vote for a Democrat again, not even for pooper scooper in the circus!! I have never been more disgusted than I have been in the last couple of years. They have done more to aid the enemy’s propaganda than to aid our own side! They even had a 2000 deaths party…. there isn’t a word in our language that is strong enough to describe this, disgusting to the nth power!!!
Ted Kennedy, Kerry, Gore, Reid, etc. are all out there lying and acting like we don’t remember the things that they all said too!!! Just a disgusting display of arrogance!!!!
Now he heard Rockafeller say that he went over to Syria, Jordan, etc. and told them that he believed that Bush had made up his mind to invade Iraq??? That son of a bitch should be arrested for treason!!!
November 14th, 2005 at 2:49 pm
From my perspective, the Bush administration made it a point to insert politics into this by questioning people’s patriotism who disagreed with the march up to the Iraq war. Does anybody remember the Afghanistan conflict? The reasons were clear and nearly everybody signed on. What caused divisions is when the evidence wasn’t really that clear cut and Bush and company wouldn’t own up to that fact.
And in order to effectively lead, you have to be bluntly honest with your electorate, not try to scare them into agreeing with you. More and more, people are seeing it was the latter instead of the former. That pisses them off. It certainly pisses me off. And I think that’s why Bush is seeing the backlash of ill will targeted at him and his top brass.
November 14th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
Uhh…Debsay, I have no idea how you could possibly think that the Democrats hold the monopoly on smear campaigns and lying. Bush, Rove and co has used that almost exclusively as their sole public interface methodology since his days as Texas governor.
Certainly (almost?) all politicians lie, but in this case the Democrats are merely exposing numerous egregious lies already spun by Bush & co. Please stop worrying about being thought gullible for having bought Bush’s propaganda and start looking at the facts.
November 14th, 2005 at 3:08 pm
What Justin said.
And let me add that my rage at the conduct of this war comes from my perspective as a supporter. Not only has Bush been essentially unopposed in the planning and execution of this war — he has never been denied a dollar, or a soldier — a large number of us have been screaming for him to take more, to do it right, to win.
Instead, because he is an arrogant and vacuous man he has mishandled every step of this Iraq mess from the initial sales job, through the undermanned invasion, the non-existent post-war planning, and every aspect of his communication with the American people.
The thing that really sets this president’s failure apart is that we had the example of Vietnam. We have fought an insurgency in living memory and yet we’ve ignored that knowledge and pursued a strategy and tactics that professional soldiers knew full damned well would be ineffective.
Patriotism in this case does not consist of offering support to a willfully ignorant, lazy, aimless and incompetent president. Our obligation is to our soldiers, to our treasury, to our strategic posture in the world, and to the Iraqis who we have acquired as dependants. The president is not the nation. The president is an employee of the American people. If he were simply hired, rather than elected, we’d long since have fired him. And if incompetence were a crime this sad failure would be impeached.
November 14th, 2005 at 3:12 pm
I’ve always regarded Bush as a mediocre leader at best. This shows in his lack of vision. Or if he does have a vision, he is unable to articulate it in such a way to appeal to skeptics. Afghanistan was easy and clear cut. The Taliban were hosting bin Laden and would not give him up.
However, I don’t think you can put the blame for the nation’s dividedness entirely on Bush’s shoulders. The actions of the Left bear at least as much blame as the Bush Administration. My concern is that we have gone around the bend, beyond all hope of reconciliation. The extremes get all the press and gain ground, and cooler heads are drowned out in shouting matches as people talk past one another. Nobody will admit to any facts that could possibly damage their position.
We need another leader like Ronald Reagan. The man wasn’t perfect, but he did win broad consensus. What we have now are politicians. What we need are true statesmen.
I hope that little rant makes some sense.
November 14th, 2005 at 4:15 pm
Just something to ponder….
The Democrats have been screaming ‘Bush Lied’ for a long time now…. They haven’t put forth any EVIDENCE of this at all, but just continue to scream it over and over and over. So, we have had 3 different, yes count them…. three different investigations that have shown that Bush did not lie or misrepresent any of the evidence, they did not intimidate anybody in the intelligence groups to change their views or reports… all they did was come to the EXACT same conclusion as the rest of the world’s intelligence and the EXACT same conclusion as the Democrats did…. For Democrats to continue this idiotic ranting that Bush Lied and mislead us into war is dispicable!!!
“Instead, because he is an arrogant and vacuous man he has mishandled every step of this Iraq mess from the initial sales job, through the undermanned invasion, the non-existent post-war planning, and every aspect of his communication with the American people. ”
You mean that he chose to follow the advice of different Generals than you would have? If you can do so much better, then run for office!!! It is pretty easy to sit here after the fact and pick out what you would have done differently…. after everything has been played out. It is a little harder to do it before it has happened….
He has mishandled every step of this Iraq ‘mess’ even though we have trained numerous Iraqi soldiers and police officers, they have voted for a constitution, and will be having another vote in December. This invasion has led to Libya giving up their nuke program, it has led to the withdrawl of Syria from Lebanon, most of Iraq is a stable and functioning government. We have had less casualties in 2 1/2 years than we did in 3 weeks on one little island in the Pacific during WWII.
His ‘non-existant’ post war planning was to train the Iraqi’s to handle their own security and it is being done, it was also part of the plan to have the three groups to come together to elect a government and write and vote on a constitution…. these are also being done. Just because you don’t have the intellectual honesty to admit that you are buying into the ‘idiot sloganism’ of Democrats doesn’t change facts on the ground.
There wouldn’t have been any communication problem with the American people had the Democrats not continously lied and mislead the people with their ‘Bush Lied’ meme even though they ‘knew’ that it wasn’t true!!! They knew it wasn’t true when they made the claim which makes them the ‘true liars’!!!
“Patriotism in this case does not consist of offering support to a willfully ignorant, lazy, aimless and incompetent president.”
Just because you want to believe it does not make it true…. I personally don’t care what you want to believe, its a free country and you are certainly free to be ignorant… so have at it.
sleipner,
Show me the ‘egregious lies’ of this administration…. I’ve been waiting for over 2 years for SOME type of evidence of the ‘LIES’…. The only evidence that we have come up with are the ‘LIES’ of Democrats trying to paint this out as a failure (which they have been constantly harping on for over 2 years….) and just in case it turns out ok they are claiming that Bush Lied…. PUT UP THE EVIDENCE OR SHUT THE PIE HOLE. Not one person has ever shown that Bush ever made up anything, that he ever intimidated anybody to say something, that he hid any evidence to the contrary…. if you had an ounce of intelligence you would see that. 3 different investigations and they all show the same thing!!!!
“From my perspective, the Bush administration made it a point to insert politics into this by questioning people’s patriotism who disagreed with the march up to the Iraq war. Does anybody remember the Afghanistan conflict? The reasons were clear and nearly everybody signed on. What caused divisions is when the evidence wasn’t really that clear cut and Bush and company wouldn’t own up to that fact. ”
If you weren’t such a partisan hack you would see the error of your statement just by looking at what actually happened during the buildup to the war. Who was it that demanded a stronger Senate resolution against Saddam and authorized the use of force??? Why, it was the Senate Democrats that wanted to do this…. why? Would it be to ’score political points by appearing to be tough on National Security’ or was it because they really believed that there was a sincere threat?
Because I’m really curious, were the Democrats lying then or are they lying now?
The entire world had the same intelligence, they all came to the same conclusion – they all believed that Saddam had WMD’s and that he was trying to reconstitute his nuke program.
November 14th, 2005 at 4:34 pm
Well, Mr. Hysterical, I never said Bush lied. I think he misled, but that is a different standard. In fact I’ve been advising Democrats since before the last election to drop the “he lied” slogan.
As to the notion that accusations of incompetence come solely or even primarily from Democrats, I think you need to check the party registration of people like John McCain and Chuck Hagel among others. You might also find the reporting of James Fallows in this month’s Atlantic very interesting. Also the book Assassin’s Gate — written by a pro-war author. Read those, then come back and tell me how wonderfully competent the Bush administration is in its handling of this war.
November 14th, 2005 at 6:41 pm
debsay, please quit calling people partisan hacks when they clearly are not. It makes you look foolish, and a bit like what you’re accusing others of.
You’ve been a valuable commenter in the past and I hope you continue to be one in the future. But you REALLY need to calm down.
November 15th, 2005 at 12:02 pm
So exactly how much spin do you have to apply to an issue before it becomes a lie?
What about paying news media sources to report your propaganda points as if they were actual news?
What about slandering both McCain’s and Kerry’s war records so that these certified war heroes end up looking like traitors?
What about editing the “questionable” and “not sure” parts out of the intelligence information provided to the Congress and the American people so that we think the information is far more certain than it really is?
What about calling yourself a “Compassionate Conservative” and a “Uniter” and then proceeding to derail as many programs protecting the poor and the environment as you can, while giving huge tax breaks to the rich and corporations, while generating the greatest partisan split in the Congress in history by pigheadedly refusing any compromise whatsoever?
To me, all of those are lies.