Iraq

Abu Ghraib and the Plucky-Reporter Narrative

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We’ve all seen the same plot line time and time again. Evil institution does something sinister, but the conscience of one person inside the institution drives the person to leak damning information to a plucky reporter, who bravely  publicizes  the information, which creates public pressure to investigate the evil institution. Hurray!

This narrative is ingrained into our  intuitive  understanding of scandals. We assume that any particular scandal unfolded just as the narrative said it should. Given this, it’s easy to see how  Matt Welch  defaulted to the narrative when reporting on the recent developments in Obama’s hypocrisy on national security.  

Did the Abu Ghraib photos, which illustrated what had already been described in various reports, add to your understanding of the gravity/extent to what we were doing in the world? Yes, I believe it did. Images add value that words cannot convey.  The “chilling effect,” too, is nonsensical. If anything, images increase public pressure on the government/military to conduct investigations in the first place (as in fact happened at Abu Ghraib).[emp added]

Except even a casually perusal of the time line of the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the publication of the staged pictures came months after the military: had launched an investigation, reported the results to the media, pressed charges against both the principals and those in their chain of command, conducted  preliminary  courts  martial against most of the  defendants and initiated reforms in the entire detainment system, based on the investigation.  

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Delayed Vindication

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Shannon Love was taken to task by the anti-war left way back in 2004. The reason why he drew their ire was because he dared to question the wisdom of a suspicious study that appeared in the Lancet. The study claimed that about 100,000 civilians died in Iraq during the first year after US forces invaded.

Why was this suspicious? Mainly because the authors of the study laid the blame for the deaths at the feet of the Coalition, the number of deaths were ten times higher than any other credible estimate, and because it was released just in time to effect the 2004 US elections.

(If you are interested in the back and forth, this post is a roundup of all essays discussing the study.)

Strategypage reports that the Iraq government has just released the findings of a study of their own.

“The government has released data showing that 110,000 Iraqis have died, mostly from sectarian and terrorist violence, since 2003.”

So the 100K figure is finally correct, only five years after it was first reported. And the Coalition forces didn’t cause the majority of the deaths but terrorists, criminals, and blood feuds are to blame.

Does this matter now, five years after the fact?

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Superb Talk by Peter Mansoor

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This video is excellent. It is a talk by Col. Peter Mansoor about the Iraq war. Even the Q&A is good. Col. Mansoor was a brigade commander in Iraq, and he is now a military historian at Ohio State. He wrote a book about his experiences, Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq. After listening to this talk, I am going to read his book as soon as I am finished re-reading Clausewitz. The lecture is over 90 minutes, including Q&A. The video portion is just Mansoor standing at a lectern. So, it is easy to just have the audio going while you do other stuff. You lose nothing without the video.

Highly recommended.

UPDATE: The talk is extremely critical of the Bush administration, Rumsfeld and particularly Bremer. If you don’t want to hear that criticism, don’t listen.

Important Reading

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Ralph Peters on some of the foreign policy and national security issues at stake in this election.

Those planning to cast their votes based primarily on economic issues should consider: there is a strong link between national security and the economy. If we have multiple terror attacks of the 9/11 scale (or higher), the economy will be in shreds. If the Iranians close the Straits of Hormuz, gasoline prices will soar. If the Russians bully Western Europe with sustained natural gas shortages, the result could be an actual global depression.

(via Maggie’s Farm)

Our Poker Game vs. Saddam Hussein

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From a comment by Aaron C. at Vodkapundit:

The Iraq war was a no brainer. Saddam had been a threat to the region which prevented growth and development throughout, he used the implied threat to bully neighboring countries, al qaeda types and other small minded anti-americans saw allowing Saddam’s apparent (real or not) transgressions as taking face from America, and Saddam’s large army and the uncertainty of WMD made taking on Iran impractical.
 
We had pocket Aces, the flop was two Aces and a King. Saddam was bidding up the pot and bullying his neighbors suggesting he had a full house. What are we supposed to do, fold? We have 4 aces, it doesn’t matter whether or not Saddam has the boat. If he wants to go all in, you take him all in.

Worth reading in full.