Was Iraq Worth It?
Six months before the invasion of Iraq, Taki Theodoracopulos, Scott McConnell and this writer launched a new magazine, The American Conservative. Goal: Convince our countrymen that invading Iraq would be imperial folly.
In the first column, in mid-September 2002, I wrote:
“If Providence does not intrude, we will soon launch an imperial war on Iraq with all the ‘On-to-Berlin!’ bravado with which French poilus and British Tommies marched in August 1914. But this invasion will not be the cakewalk neoconservatives predict. …
“(For) what comes after the celebratory gunfire when wicked Saddam is dead? …
“With our MacArthur Regency in Baghdad, Pax Americana will reach apogee. But then the tide recedes, for the one endeavor at which Islamic peoples excel is expelling imperial powers by terror and guerrilla war. They drove the Brits out of Palestine and Aden, the French out of Algeria, the Russians out of Afghanistan, the Americans out of Somalia and Beirut, the Israelis out of Lebanon. …
“The only lesson we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.”
And so it came to pass. And as 90 months of war in Iraq come to an end for America, what was won? And what was lost?
To stampede us into war, the neocons told us that Saddam was tied to al-Qaeda and had a role in 9/11, that he had VX gas, botulism, mustard gas, sarin and anthrax, and was acquiring nuclear weapons. What further proof must you have, demanded Condi Rice, “a mushroom cloud over an American city”?
The truth. Saddam had no tie to al Qaeda, no role in 9/11, no chemical weapons, no biological weapons, no nuclear program.
We attacked a nation that did not attack us, did not threaten us and did not want war with us — to strip it of weapons it did not have.
We were misled. We were deceived. We were lied to.
The cost: 4,400 dead, 35,000 wounded, $700 billion sunk.
“Much has changed since that night” we marched into Iraq, said President Obama. “A war to disarm a state became a fight against an insurgency. Terrorism and sectarian warfare threatened to tear Iraq apart. Thousands of Americans gave their lives. Tens of thousands have been wounded. Our relations abroad were strained. Our unity at home was tested.”
Estimates of Iraqi war dead run from 70,000 to 100,000, which means hundreds of thousands of Iraqi widows and orphans. Christians have seen priests murdered, churches burned and half their number driven into exile. Four million Iraqis have left or lost their homes. Two million are in exile, as Baghdad has been cleansed of Sunnis. Al Qaeda was not in Iraq under Saddam. It is there now.
“Time to turn the page,” said President Obama.
How does Iraq turn the page, as we retreat to secure bases and prepare to bring home the last 50,000 troops?
Terrorism has returned. Iraq’s casualties are back up to where they were before the U.S. surge. Electricity is off much of the time. Six months after elections, no government exists. The Iraqi dead, wounded, widowed, orphaned, homeless and exiled are surely not better off.
What about those we leave behind? What happens to Iraqis who worked with us when we leave? How did our Vietnamese friends fare? What kind of future will Iraqis have, if civil and sectarian war return?
That our soldiers, Marines, diplomats and aid workers did their jobs bravely and honorably is understood by their countrymen — and attested to by the fact the U.S. military is the most respected of our institutions.
But was the war worth it? Some 72 percent of Americans said in a recent CBS poll that it was not worth the price in U.S. war dead.
What does the secretary of defense think?
“It really requires a historian’s perspective in terms of what happens here in the long run,” says Robert Gates. “How it all weighs in the balance over time remains to be seen.” A seven-year war, and our minister of defense cannot declare that it was all worth it.
But if America is not a certain winner from this war, who is?
Iran saw its great enemy Saddam removed and its Shia allies come to power in Baghdad. Osama bin Laden saw America bled by wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and perhaps Iran, as al-Qaeda has spread to Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.
And as America was tied down in the Long War, China emerged as the world’s No. 1 auto producer, No. 1 manufacturer, No. 1 exporter and No. 2 economy.
Meanwhile, the Washington Times reports,
“The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state.”
What does it profit America if we save Anbar and lose Arizona?
Patrick Buchanan is the author, most recently, of Churchill, Hitler, and ‘The Unnecessary War,’ now available in paperback. COPYRIGHT 2010 Creators.com.
Thank you, Pat and Friends, for providing those of us who consider ourselves patriotic, conservative, AND recognize the folly of our hyper-interventionist foreign policy a place to call home.
Peace be with you.
“That our soldiers, Marines, diplomats and aid workers did their jobs bravely and honorably is understood by their countrymen — and attested to by the fact the U.S. military is the most respected of our institutions.”
This is part of the problem. People who sign up to serve these days know what they’re getting themselves into – expanding and maintaining the empire – or are fools. Neither one is worthy of respect or admiration.
One question, Pat (and CFountain): Who did you vote for in 2004 and 2008? The party that took us into this terrible, tragic war, or the party that had at least some constituents – and candidates – that opposed it?
I understand the “antiwar.com” mentality. And I recognize that I am a ‘guest” on this anti-war “conservative” site.
I disagree with many of your statements about “what happened”, but I highly approve of your goals and statements of what we should be doing, going forward.
We need to de-emphasize that party of “unintended consequences”, that party of “deafness” (to the people, and to the republican plans that are advanced), as well as those who personally profit (for themselves and their relatives), and those who would instill tension along class and race warfare lines.
Was WAR worth it? Is WAR ever worth it? But can our honesty extend to an frank discussion of the advantages that derived from drawing the enemy to a “civilized” country?
You said, “Estimates of Iraqi war dead run from 70,000 to 100,000…”
Some of the bloggers here have estimated MILLIONS. Then they can’t understand why we don’t have a bigger “antiwar” voice…
Winston:
I would have voted for Kerry or Obama – provided they had campaigned on a promise to shut down the wars. They didn’t. And Mr. Obama’s “mission accomplished” is a pathetic joke.
There is no point in voting for either of the major parties as both of them are in thrall to the imperialist mindset.
Winston,
Exactly, Winston. Buchanan, for all his anti-war pretensions, endorsed Bush for president in 2004. Taken together with his more recent apologetic for torture, this endorsement has to place Buchanan in the Hypocrit’s Hall of Fame. Sorry, Pat, only the qualified are entitled to lament the effects of war and war crimes. Go cry on Bill Kristol’s shoulder.
Bring our troops home and redeploy them to guard our borders and our coasts!
We have taken up the ugly mantle of British Empire. At least 20 nations now devote a holiday to celebrate getting the Brits out. The decline of the American republic and its embrace of by greed, vanity and corruption is breathtaking. Imperialism must be defeated.
Thank you Pat for your uncompromising independence from the venal political ruling elite.
The problem we have is in the unintended consequences that occurred from the previous government’s poor planning of its empire building adventures. Like a teenager with alcohol it only seemed to learn the hard way, and now we’re all stuck with the repair bill. And there is no end in sight in either Iraq or Afghanistan, we can only hope that the end will be a “lose small” instead of a “lose big” outcome.
Thanks again for a well written and to the point column. If casualties there are the same as pre-surge..what was the point? Are we going to forget about the wounded and those with various stress disorders. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have served in these conflicts. Theyve often gone a idealistic young men and women. Who are their families getting back?
Do we offer congrats to our enemies to whom we have played right into their hands?
I have to reiterate what CFountain72 said. I wouldn’t know where to turn if The American Conservative didn’t report the facts. Thanks, Pat,
I couldnt bring myself to vote for Obama, I thought he was fake and to liberal from the beginning but couldnt vote for McCain either. McCain was to much of a liberal on immigration and to much a neocon on foreign wars.
Going back I couldnt vote for GWBush either. I knew he was a warhawk. Atleast Gore would have taken us down a centrist hybrid car, internet, but other than that I wouldnt expect any bold big government or foreign war from him.
Pat Buchanan has been right on the money. Its a sign of a failed nation when it cant run is domestic issues and puts its entire focus on foreign issues. Our founding fathers never wanted empire. They wanted our nation isolationist and mercantile but today we gave away our mercantilsm and we completely focused on empire while our nation crumbles from within.
To call Pat a hypocrite is assinine. Pat, I think, has always been a Republican and has chosen to work from within to get going in the right direction. To have supported Kerry or Obama would have been and is a mistake no matter what the promises would have been.
TomT, too bad you have no truth to back up your rediculus response. This country is awash with the unintended consequenses of empire building and still no change in policy? Future generations of Americans will want to come back in time to kick the butts of those responsible for saddling them with yet to be manifested unintended consequenses.
Pat is not independent “from the venal political ruling elite”, he is excluded from it.
Hi Winston,
Since you asked, I voted for Badnarik in 2004, and after campaigning for Ron Paul in 2007-08, I voted for Bob Barr.
However, I assume you are trying to separate out those who recognized this war for what it was at the outset vs. those who may have just changed their mind as the conflict degenerated. For what it’s worth, I long considered myself a Republican, having grown up with Reagan as my president, and listening El Rushbo during college in the early 1990′s. I remember being a somewhat skeptical of the First Gulf War (why were we rescuing Kuwait, which was obviously not a democracy?), but got caught up in the relative ease with which the conflict (it seemed at the time) was ended.
As far as the current Iraq War is concerned, I wasn’t sold on what they were publicly selling, but naively figured there MUST be additional intelligence that we just didn’t have access to to justify an invasion…that was obviously a mistake. Since then, the foreign policy writing of a long list of figures (Bacevich, Larison, Paul, Buchanan, Raimondo, etc.) have shown me a non-interventionist outlook which I was woefully ignorant of, but which I have come to fully embrace.
I say all this as a reminder to those who may turn their noses at those who have been late to the anti-war/non-interventionist party. The fact is that for us to succeed in turning this foreign policy disaster around, we’ll need to be welcoming to those who have come in out of the cold.
Peace be with you.
Kevin, I’m sure what you meant to say was “ridiculous”…
Paleocons warned Americans they were being misled, deceived and lied into Iraq by a hostile “elite”; just look at us now, and look at Iraq.
If only Americans had listened then, the world would be a different and better place today, and so would America. On the other hand, they didn’t have much to listen to, because the hostile elite control the mainstream media and most of the national politicians.
Didn’t the Soviet Union portray itself as a “democratic” as well? And some of the more idiotic actually beleived it, just as they do here.
cyn,
“Pat is not independent ‘from the venal political ruling elite’, he is excluded from it.”
Oh fiddlesticks, cyn. Buchanan may occasionally say things that stir up the ruling class but ever since his flirtation with the Reform Party in 2000 he’s been right there when he felt they needed him. I mean our mouthpiece media doesn’t give as prominent a voice as they give to Buchanan to anyone whose views they genuinely fear, say Ralph Nader, for example. They fully realize that in the end Buchanan will prove himself true to form and follow the script, e.g. the Bush endorsement in 2004 and the torture endorsement more recently. Pat’s every bit as Beltway as Diane Feinstein. Its just that you haven’t realized it as yet.
I’m glad you and Taki started American Conservative, Pat. It has been a source of hope and vital information, a necessary venue and community.
It has been very important for those of us outside the innards of government and the media, whose knowledge, conscience, experience and best judgment compelled us to say “NO” to the liars and incompetents responsible for these mounting catastrophes, to have this particular voice.
I agree with cfountain72 above that we should be welcoming to most of those whose second thoughts have finally brought them round. But not those who led the charge. There must be a price for having been repeatedly and in some cases willfully wrong. The destruction they have wrought is incalculable, and they must be made to pay the price.
Meantime, AMCON, thanks.
9 500 Americans have been killed and 44 000 wounded since 1980 because of the Middle East.
- Operation Eagle Claw (US military operation in Iran)
8 killed and 4 wounded
- Beirut barracks bombing
241 killed and 60 wounded
- US embassy bombing in Beirut
17 killed
- Lockerbie bombing
190 killed
- USS Stark bombing
37 killed and 21 wounded
- Operation Desert Storm
293 killed and 458 wounded
- U.S. Military Complex bombing in Riyadh
5 killed
- Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia
19 killed and 240 wounded
- US embassy bombings in Tanzania and in Kenya
12 killed
- USS Cole bombing
17 killed and 39 wounded
- September 11 attacks
2 740 killed ans 6 000 wounded
- Riyadh compound bombings in Saudi Arabia
9 killed
- Fort Hood shooting
13 killed and 30 wounded
- Operation Iraqi Freedom
4 416 killed and 31 902 wounded
- War in Afghanistan
1 273 killed and 7 266 wounded
- US contractors in Irak
248 killed
- US contractors in Afghanistan
37 killed
Well said, Pat, but far, far too late. The candidates you supported for POTUS all endorsed the war. The ONE republican candidate who called the war for what it was from the beginning was Ron Paul. You rarely do anything to support and promote the most wise, honest man in congress. I think it’s about time you started using your bully pulpit in the press and on tv to get Ron Paul nominated as the republican candidate for POTUS in 2012. If he is not, then thousands of us will once again vote third party, because we have brains and ethics, and Obamao will once again win. It’s time for the press to support candidates of substance, like Ron Paul, and not candidates of failure like: Palin, Romney, McCain, etc.
Oh, Kevin….
So when Pat said the GOP had left him and joined the Reform Party and ran on its ticket, he was lying?
Non-Neoconned Ron Paul’s statement: “Iraq – An End or an Escalation?”
http://www.tinyurl.com/RonPaulonIraqescalation
The A Clean Break/War for Israel agenda:
http://tinyurl.com/cleanbreak
Fragmentation of Iraq Was Israel’s Strategy (by Dr. Stephen Sniegoski)
http://america-hijacked.com/2010/02/18/fragmentation-of-iraq-was-israels-strategy/
http://tinyurl.com/fragmentationofIraqforIsrael
Laurent your collection of American deaths has the arbitrary start date of 1980.
Which omits the action of June 8, 1967:
When 34 American sailors and marines were murdered, 204 total casualties. When the USS LIBERTY suffered a sneak attack on the high seas, in the eastern Meditteranean by a nation with whom the US was supposedly allied.
When the fine combat pilots of the US Navy attempted to save the ship , the degenerate US government cancelled the defense, supporting the murders of its very own servicemen.
by the enemy.
But no one in authority dares speak publicly of this worst disgrace in US history.
Wonder why.
Will you add it to your list Laurent?
It never ceases to amaze me how Pat and his team can be so logical and so articulate on some matters, and so narrow minded and biased on others. This is one example of you being completely correct.
As for other matters, where you criticize Israel for creating a Gaza “concentration camp”, but fail to acknowledge that Israel left Gaza providing the Gazan’s the perfect opportunity to demonstrate to Israel and the world they would and could live in peace; rather, once the Israeli’s left, Hamas, hiding amongst their civilian population unleashed continuous missile assaults. I don’t recall this magazine ever singling out Hamas as the being blamed for the current situation in Gaza or their other terror actions. Instead, your magazine, when it comes to attacks on Israel by muslims or nazi’s qualifies their actions by defending/reducing/mitigating (pick your choice) their evil and motives. Pat’s latest book, “The Unnecessary War”, is yet another example of this. Yet somehow, anytime Israel or a Jewish neocon does something that is wrong, you don’t hesitate to implicate the entire Jewish people out of context.
On the topic of the neocons, your magazines comments about American Jews and highlighting that many of the neocons are Jewish, you conveniently avoid emphasizing that Wolfy, Pearle, and rest do not speak for the Jewish population who by a large majority opposed this war thinking it was not only bad for America, but also Israel who now has to deal with an empowered Iran (who was formerly preoccupied with Saddam).
Visiting Pat’s web page, and looking at the contributors (despite the supposed disclaimer), it is clear that deep down Pat is no less extreme than David Duke himself.
All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Socrates is mortal
Woody Allan Logic (Love and Death 1975)
All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
All men are socrates
Amconmag: (multiple articles summarized)
Many neocons are Jewish
Neocons started war with Iraq
Jews are to Blame *
* An honest objective journalist would highlight that the number of jews who are in fact neocons, or republicans for that matter, are less than any other ethnic group in the country.
@ Hugh McGuinness
You’re right.
This attack has to be added to my list
We can also speak about the Gulf War Syndrome
Of the 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are now dead and 325,000 are seriously ill.
Now, there are reports about a new Gulf war syndrome with soldiers coming home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Laurent,
What about:
Rachel Corrie (killed by Israel)
Furkan Dogan (American on Gaza flotilla who was killed by Israel)
First World Trade Center bombing (1991?)
Bali bombing
Jordan: Rachel Corrie was standing in front of a bulldozer. Dogan was on a boat delibrately breaking a blockade and then attacked soldiers boarding the ship. Both acts of idiocy with predictable results. Why don’t you mention the thousands of acts of deliberate mass murder by terrorists of civilians who are not tring to provoke action but are simply minding their own business. Guess they don’t count as long as they are Israeli. Nothing like the hypocrisy of the far left and far right who are comfortable partners in this magazine.
Thank you Laurent
John G:
If we were to include non-Americans among the victims of federal government/Israeli actions in the Middle East, you wouldn’t be able to find the Israelis among the hundreds of thousands of Muslim corpses. You want to talk mass murder–that is mass murder. Your hypocrisy is jaw dropping.
By the way, Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli bulldozer operator. Dogan was murdered by Israeli pirates. Nice attempted whitewash.
Jordan: There are hundreds of thousands of muslims corpses – from the murder by other muslims! Saddam killed millions; Hamas firing missiles at civilians and hiding behind civilians; Al Qaeda deliberately murdering their own countrymen; Sudan’s genocide; Algeria, Egypt. Ayatolla’s keys to paradise.
You continue to whine about a young foolish girl dumb enough to step in front of a bulldozer. Apparently, you don’t think that such a result could be accidental. Why don’t you go to a major construction site yourself and give it try?
You are the hypocrite pal. Go back to reading your Chomsky books, pack your bags and move to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, or any of these other muslim countries where human rights are so respected.
See John G, one key difference between Hamas and Israel is that we’re politically tied to the wait of the latter. Their actions reflect a lot more on America than Hamas actions because we don’t fund Hamas. We fund Israel (and look the other way when they treat us less like allies and more like dupes).
It’s obvious Hamas is bad (though to dismiss them without looking at *why* they do what they do is foolish). Why should I have to match every criticism of Israeli policy and actions with denunciations of Hamas?
John G, why were Americans in Beirut? Desert Storm? OIF?
And several eyewitnesses have stated that the Israeli bulldozer driver clearly saw Rachel Corrie before using his machine to murder her.
I also noticed your failure to address the USS Liberty incident…..
Sigmund Freud and General George Marshall were right about the Middle East
Sigmund Freud wrote in 1930
“I do not think that Palestine could ever become a Jewish state, nor that the Christian and Islamic worlds would ever be prepared to have their holy places under Jewish care. It would have seemed more sensible to me to establish a Jewish homeland on a less historically-burdened land.”
In 1948, General George Marshall opposed recognizing the State of Israel
“In 1948, several members of Harry Truman’s Cabinet predicted that the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East would spur Arab violence against Jews and Americans, advising the president to shun Israel.
These included Secretary of State George Marshall, Defense Secretary James Forrestal, and George Kennan, then the leading policy strategist in the State Department. They argued that if the United States helped to set up an independent Jewish nation it would provoke terrorist attacks on Americans and inaugurate an endless war between Arabs and Jews”.
Does Israel Make Us Safer? by Thaddeus Russell
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-04/thaddeus-russell-does-us-support-for-israel-threatens-american-safety/
John G: you point of view is pretty one sided, you’re talking as an American that looks at everything that comes from Muslim states in the middle east as bad.
Mad Doc MacRae makes a good point, why should i criticize why hamas does what it does without wondering why they hate israelis and the U.S. government so much?
is it not true that muslims and jews lived side by the side in the middle east until the israeli state was founded 62 years ago over the corpse of the millions of muslims?
to get answers and facts simply search for the number of casualities that the israel state has done so far, search for the villages that were destroyed even though they existed there before 1948. search for the cemetaries that were desecrated.
maybe then you’d understand why someone would fight back.
John G,
You don’t mention the 1’500 civilians, about half of them women and children, murdered by the courageous IDF heroes in the 2009 Gaza Genocide. Thank god they had white phosphorus and microwave weapons to subdue these fierce terrorist babies.
Saddam had no connection to Al Qaida before the invasion, because Al Qaida is a CIA/Mossad creation the same as Hamas. After creating artificial adversaries for thousands and thousands of years of their parasitic existence, don’t you think there might be some who see through the elaborate plans of the “special interests” paying you?
Good article as it lays it out. the war was wrong. But again, no sensitivity or remorse to the ordeal the Iraqi’s are in thanks to the USA. Its as usual, selfish Americans worried about America with no reference to any moral bankruptcy. You are used to it. 18 million Indians killed in the USA to establish America. So what is a few hundred thousand Iraqi’s mean in history’s big picture worth. Shame on America. Shame on Americans.
Jamal
Jamal,
Just curious. Where did you come up with that 18 million figure?
John G:
It is a myth–U.S. government and Israeli war propaganda–that Saddam Hussein killed millions. All the “mass graves” touted by the Zionist media to prime the pump ahead of the 2003 invasion never were found. Desert Storm, and American action, killed hundreds of thousands. Afterward, severe U.S. sanctions cost the lives of 500,000-1 million Iraqi newborns. Madeleine Albright is on record saying that “price” is was worth it. You have blood on your hands, John G.
And in many of the other alleged examples you mention, the U.S. federal government and Israel were “but for” causes of those deaths. Al Qaeda, for example, rose to defend Muslims against Israeli invasion and oppression in Palestine, the killing sanctions on Iraq that I noted above, and the U.S. federal government’s meddling in Saudi Arabia.
Jamal:
I agree with you about the American blindness to Muslim suffering. However, your view on that might soften if you understand the control that a few people have over American minds via media control. Americans can only form opinions based on the information available to them. It takes a lot of work to break through the official narrative that issues from the mainstream media.
You really undermine your credibility by claiming that 18 million Indians “were killed” in America in order to establish the United States. That is a myth.
It’s curious that the same people who think Hamas is justified in their actions since the land was “stolen” from them, are generally the ones who want to shoot Mexicans crossing the border to Texas and California (notwithstanding Mexicans are crossing to pick crops and bus tables as opposed to strapping on suicide belts).
As for the other comments, it is certainly fair to question the feasibility of the US being involved in foreign aid and nation building. It is also valid to point out abuses whether done in Gaza, Vietnam or elsewhere. However, it is not fair when the focus is placed solely on one cpuntry; whatever the truth is about Tachel Corrie, there is no question that Hamas deliberately murders woman and children who are not soldiers. When the commanders here start to view such events regardless of their race, religion, or national origin, then one can view such comments as something beyond anti Semitic rationalizations supported by selective examples without context.
I could not agree with Buchanan’s endorsement of Bush in 2004. That said, he did explain that the point was Bush was semi-right on a few matters of domestic policy while Kerry was wrong on those PLUS clearly something of a hawk, if not quite a neocon (though the Brzezinski left-neocons backed him). I don’t recall him endorsing McCain in 2008, but correct me if I am wrong.
AmConMag ran plenty of pieces promoting Nader and the small right-wing candidates in 04 and 08. I am sure Pat at least consented to that. The whole AmConMag project is quite interesting. It has had at least modest success (I was scared it would close by 2007) and is one place you can find advertisements for books or seminars promoting distributivist economics or High Church Christianity, while the gist of most articles is to take the truly conservative elements from the official “Left” and “Right” and break out of the partisan box.
Unfortunately, Pat doesn’t do that himself. He writes articles on about 5-7 themes over and over again that are 90% correct, but his fully independent days are over. Maybe he feels like he needs to play the partisan or shouting-match game to some degree to stay on TV. I don’t know. I think his heart is not in that world, but he enjoys a good fight.
Don’t all Irish?
It’s stories like this which made me move to Tanzania!