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| 18 Years Ago Today: NY Times Calls for US to Overthrow Saddam Hussien |
| 2009-04-23 |
| H/T Weasel Zipper On My Mind; The Way Out By A. M. ROSENTHAL Published: Tuesday, April 23, 1991 The way exists yet for President Bush to escape from the political and moral trap into which he has thrust himself. But he cannot find it in meetings of the National Security Council or in phone calls to foreign leaders. It is right there in the Oval Office, within him, a few words waiting to be uttered first to himself, then to his countrymen. "I made a serious error. It is my duty to rectify it. I will do so." He would be saying exactly what everybody knows. The mistake lives, stares at him and must disturb his soul, as it would any decent person's. Two months after a brilliant military campaign ended in victory, Mr. Bush has achieved the worst of worlds for millions of Iraqi rebels and for American policy in the Mideast. In numbers and pain the mind can barely encompass, Iraqi rebels he encouraged to rise up have taken their wives and children and fled to starvation and death rather than face death at the hands of the killer whom the coalition conquered. Now they are being coaxed, herded off the mountains, to be placed in refugee pens. For how long? Years, possibly; decades conceivably. I speak to their representatives, Kurdish leaders, in New York and Washington, London, other cities. They are people of dignity. They can no longer bear the thought and sight of their relatives rooting and fighting for bread, a cup of water. So they are being forced to dicker with the killer, who speaks softly to them. He beckons, because now he sees them as useful in their defeat. If he can wheedle them back, maybe the embargo will be lifted, maybe he will soon be acceptable again, maybe even to the U.S. Didn't Washington embrace him before, as he killed? The Kurds say maybe he will agree to a new government, with the U.N. sharing power, maybe. Free elections some day maybe. Would Saddam Hussein honor such an agreement when the world turned its attention away? Over the phone, their voices shrug -- they have been betrayed by America; what is left but another betrayal by the butcher? For the U.S., Mr. Bush has achieved the herder's role. American troops are going back to Iraq, as Mr. Bush swore they would not. They are back for no gain to the rebels but some food and shelter. For the U.S. the only gain will be conscience salve that need not have been necessary. For peace in the Mideast -- disaster; there will be no peace as long as Saddam Hussein rules, and threatens to rise again. Where have we heard that before? Oh yea, Bush 43 -- maybe 43 read Mr. Rosenthal editorial and remembered his words, and made it happen. For peace in the Mid-East. Mr. Bush made two mistakes. One was to end the war a few days too early, leaving the killer with tanks, planes and artillery to destroy the rebels. That is hindsight; perhaps Mr. Bush could not know what would happen. But the second mistake was made looking straight at it -- the failure to order Saddam Hussein to cease his new war, against his own people. When the U.S. gave him that order after the slaughter, he obeyed. He would have had no choice but to obey much earlier -- the day he started killing. But what to do now? Exactly what the U.S. could have done before: recognize the cease-fire as a false peace, present the Iraqi Army with an ultimatum -- to get rid of Saddam Hussein or the U.S. will resume the air attack on military targets and every high officer will be tried for war crimes. With the killer gone, Iraqis can be left to their own political settlements. The only duty of the U.S. is to allow those who trusted us to return to their homes, free of terror. "Free of terror" good words, good words, Mr. Rosenthal But to do that, Mr. Bush must show true strength -- the ability to concede error, not only for the soul's sake, which is sufficient itself, but to act effectively. Unless he does, he will find himself more and more tightly entwined in his own rationalizations, unable to cut free of his bonds because he will not admit they exist. Every adult knows that we waste our energies and talent when we try to justify the unjustifiable instead of setting ourselves and the record straight and getting on with life. In this, Presidents are no different than the rest of us. The country would embrace Mr. Bush for his courage. Yea, they have embraced Bush 43, so you are correct! He would save its name and the chances of real peace. He would be able to give lasting succor to those who believed in him. The sweetest reward is that they would again. |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #7 You brought me back down to earth with that post, Verlaine. Nicely done :) |
| Posted by: newc 2009-04-23 23:28 |
| #6 Ah, procopius, I'd almost forgotten perhaps the most universally swallowed myth of modern times. The Kurdish and Shi'a rebellions were spontaneous, multi-faceted, and had absolutely nothing to do with any stated US policy or viewpoint. The Kurdish rebellion had been ongoing for decades, in one form or another and at different levels of intensity. When the US hit mukkhabarrat centers up north during the war, and the Iraqi Army and regime types started breaking ranks in panic for various reasons as we smashed through Kuwait and into southwest Iraq, the Kurds in the army (jash, or donkeys) deserted and things went crazy. No evidence, or reason to believe, that any US statement, public or private, played any role. Ditto in the south (with different details, obviously). Even more disorganized. Bush 41 made a speech to a vets' outfit in late February '91. This was during the extended air campaign, prior to the ground operation. The predictable and despicable and idiotic whining and triple-guessing was going on, from the Beltway to foreign capitals, by "press," academics, Dems, and assorted foreign adversaries and dictators and fascist sympathizers, about the need for a "pause". Moscow's slimy MidEast errand boy, Primakov, visted B'dad and then went before the cameras to declare, absurdly and slanderously, that the air campaign was "destroying an entire civilization." In response to precisely this idiocy, Bush 41 included remarks in his vets speech to the effect that there was an alternative - that is, an alternative to the air campaign. An ALTERNATIVE, that is, to continued Coalition military action. That was for the "Iraqi people" - clearly the military was the target here - to remove Saddam's regime. Thus, not only did Bush not encourage rebellion with a promise of Coalition military support, he explicitly made such a rebellion an ALTERNATIVE to continued Coalition action. And there's no reason to believe that these remarks were heard, correctly or incorrectly, by any significant number of Iraqis (power was out, thanks to the USAF). My own informal survey of Iraqis during two years there resulted in a uniform reaction from both Kurds and Shi'a - "huh??". They of course regretted that the Coalition did not rush in to finish off Saddam, but scoffed that some US presidential address was the reason hundreds of different Iraqi factions and individuals acted spontaneously in the rather obvious way when the war had knocked the regime off balance. Oh - and Schwarzkopf adds to the frustrating idiocy with his focus on helicopters. Rotary air was not material to the outcome or cost of suppressing either the northern or southern uprisings. It probably was a complete non-factor. The damage was done the old-fashioned way - foot soldiers, small arms, and artillery (esp. in the south). Armor played a role. Helicopters? Ridiculous. I know it all seems like a small point, but it illustrates a huge, and catastrophic phenomenon - the gigantic coral reef of misinformation and misunderstanding upon which so many people make their judgements on foreign policy. Obviously folks around here have good instincts and usually avoid grave error - but these myths add up and partly explain how otherwise intelligent people who are usually grouped in other political categories can entertain such preposterous ideas about national security. It's not nit-picking. And I just scraped the tip of that reef .... there's also the insane nonsense about Amb. Glaspie giving a "green light" to Saddam, and so on. |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2009-04-23 23:11 |
| #5 IIRC our U.N. mandate in 1991 was to regain kuwaiti sovereignty NOT remove saddam hussein from power. So Bush Sr is ridiculed for following a U.N. mandate and W gets ridiculed for uni-lateralism - the left is truly retarded. IMHO we could have removed hussein during his first breaking of UN SCR 687 in 1992. WMDs didn't need to be the issue, 17 violations of a u.n. mandate over a 12 yr period written in the blood of 299 Americans was sufficient causus belli. |
| Posted by: Broadhead6 2009-04-23 22:15 |
| #4 End him. He fired rockets at Israel when I stood on his soil. End him. |
| Posted by: newc 2009-04-23 20:57 |
| #3 Mock airplanes, the second infitada, 147 shooting with US Troops, Kurd Gassing, Iranian gassing, 3 million dead in autocratic systems of sunni vs shia in the naval of the mythyle east, the weapons rummy gave him, destruction of dissidence and fleeing of Iraqis to the US begging us to do this, UN sanction, and an entire world that all agreed he was a brutal menace. Ohh, and GOD. |
| Posted by: newc 2009-04-23 20:54 |
| #2 However, Bush Sr. Administration act of giving lip service to the up rising in the south and thus encouraging it, then doing nothing to end the butchery and playing into technicalities of allowing Iraq attack helios to fly [which was meant just for unarmed transports to permit government officials to travel in light of the destruction of the transport infrastructure] was not reasonable. Getting rid of dictators was heady in the afterglow of the fall of the wall, but the record pretty much shows that such people are only removed by outside action, direct or indirect, but backed by something more substantive than 'hope'. Hope is not a strategy. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-04-23 20:20 |
| #1 Oh horseshit, Abe. The 1991 decision was quite reasonable. The only thing that tipped the balance in favor of regime removal was 9/11. How obvious can something be, and still elude even 50% of otherwise thoughtful war supporters? Did Iraq's barbarous internal behavior suddenly require regime removal in 2003? Uh, no. Did Iraq actually do anything specific WRT WMD or global jihadi terror in 2002/2003 that required regime removal? Uh, no. It was the inherent, uncontainable, intolerable menace posed by Iraqi resources, recklessness, long record of both WMD virtuosity and deep involvement with global jihadi terror including with the majority parnter in AQ (Egyptian Islamic Jihad) - this package of factors required a judgement call as to whether the Iraqi regime could be left in place. Both Bush 41 and 43 made exactly the right judgement call in each case. Bush 43's refusal to sufficiently educate, refute, and communicate on the war rationale (apart from bare minimum prior to the war) is no excuse for informed people not to realize the logic and facts that drove the decision. (and all this leaves aside the stupid or intellectually dishonest premise of Abe's op-ed - that Bush 41's team expected the Ba'ath regime to survive Desert Storm - they certainly, and reasonably, did not). |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2009-04-23 18:21 |