Oneupmanship in Lebanon

Look, the Iraqi invasion was a bad idea because Bush is a moron with good intentions surrounded by a pack of liars with bad intentions. This is why pretty mcuh the entire world distrusted his stated intentions, motives, and capability to handle it correctly, and they’ve been proved right by the ensuring debacle. I don’t think a policy of “democratization wave by invasions” is remotely workable in the Middle East, but even if it was, you wouldn’t want the current crowd of clusterfucks in charge of it.

With that in mind: I’m sure the Iraqi elections gave them some inspiration; of course, even as messy (and possibly doomed) as I think they are. But I’d imagine it’s way the hell down the list of reasons, and entirely superflous; the counterfactual that this wouldn’t have happened without the Iraqi inasion is silly.

Which is why it’s so galling to see people explictly or implicitly claim it somehow justifies the botched 100,000 death Iraqi invasion, and how we should do stuff like that more; you’re basically giving credence from spurious correlation to “lets invade the shit out of everyone.” Which is bad enough, but with Bush it’s just ridiculous; you might as well flush the Army down the toilet and hand out subsidies to terrorist recruitment stations.

We want the region to turn into happy western-friendly people like us; we just think your policy for doing that is unworkable, counterproductive, and immoral. We don’t think you’re evil, we just find it incomprehensible that you can support these crazy policies, based on the logic & results.

Hold on - you actually still think the Iraq War was a bad thing, even though the reform the neocons said, at the very least, appears to be on the verge of happening?

I don’t think a policy of “democratization wave by invasions” is remotely workable in the Middle East

Who does? Certainly not the neo-cons. But holding a vulnerable rogue state accountable, by force if necessary, and encouraging democratic movements where possible was a damn good idea, which certainly hasn’t been proven wrong, and seems to be working well.

the counterfactual that this wouldn’t have happened without the Iraqi inasion is silly.

Hardly. It’s silly to pretend that the invasion of a Baathist state and the overthrow of a dictator and express statements/actions of support for democratic opposition – had no meaningful effect on the country right next door to it, which is also a Baathist state dictatorship.

Which is why it’s so galling to see people explictly or implicitly claim it somehow justifies the botched 100,000 death Iraqi invasion

100,000 deaths? Nice exaggeration - $16-18k is the total for civilian deaths: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

I think that just as saying the Iraq was the primary influence on the events in Lebanon is a gross exaggeration, saying that there was no influence at all is itself an exaggeration.

  1. It made change seem possible. I mean, just imagine it, you’re living your life as always, and then suddenly something revolutionary happens next door, and all of a sudden, you’re alive to the possibilities of change. Revolutions are infectious and electrifying that way. Ukraine was certainly a factor, but Iraq certainly was one too.

  2. As The Economist recently pointed out, not only were the elections in Iraq the biggest ever election involving Arabs, it was also shown live on satellite tv on al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya. And remember, the leaders of these people have always dismissed things life freedom and democracy as Western tricks etc., but it’s something else when you see it happening with fellow Arabs in your region. Again, I can’t see how this can’t be seen as an inspiring event.

Desslock, “civilians reported killed by military intervention” is not the right number for multiple reasons:

  • Only includes people reported killed; they don’t exactly have a solid infrastructure for this.
  • Doesn’t include people killed by the crime/car bomb anarchy.
  • Doesn’t include deaths from malnutrition, lack of electricity, destroyed sewer systems, etc.

The Lanclet study (which has a median estimate of 100,000 excess mortality) accounts for these, by contrast, and a surprisngly small number of the deaths in it were directly due to the military.

Hold on - you actually still think the Iraq War was a bad thing, even though the reform the neocons said, at the very least, appears to be on the verge of happening?

Yes, because “Lebanon wouldn’t be overthrowing their government if we hadn’t invaded Iraq!” is just a fucking stupid opinion; I don’t know how else to express the lack of logic involved any other way. Oh no, it’s not that things were finally lined up for a unified opposition, and the entire west refused to support Syrian intervention there any more - it’s all the invasion. And I thought the “Who Lost China” debate was ridiculous.

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I do not think the second quote means what you think it means. :)

The magic word here is “heartened.” They may have been inspired by other revolutions, they may have been angered by their leader’s assassination, but these are not what I would called “heartening” events.

Interesting bits and pieces about the Hezbollah rally: http://www.nationalledger.com/scribe/archives/2005/03/was_the_hezboll.shtml

Ok, my apologies then. Ask Desslock; he just said it’s all Bush.

No he didn’t.

We agree - one of our opinions is a “fucking stupid opinion” and I’ll add…“and/or retarded by preposterous partisanship. Embarrassingly so.”

I’ll let people read what’s written above and decide whom.

I honestly don’t understand how you hold the opinions you do. If this is all policy success, what would a failure look like in Iraq? The sky turning to blood?

Why don’t you think the Orange Revolution or the overthrow of Milosevich is a heartening event?

If it really had been a revolution in Iraq, I would see your point. It wasn’t a revolution, however, it was a regime change enforced by a foreign power. This seems to me to send the signal: the only way to affect change is to wait for someone else to do it for you. In the Ukraine, however, we saw change affected by the people, in a way very similar to what is happening in Lebanon right now. Here I can see a direct link.

  1. As The Economist recently pointed out, not only were the elections in Iraq the biggest ever election involving Arabs, it was also shown live on satellite tv on al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya. And remember, the leaders of these people have always dismissed things life freedom and democracy as Western tricks etc., but it’s something else when you see it happening with fellow Arabs in your region. Again, I can’t see how this can’t be seen as an inspiring event.

I don’t think anyone in the Middle East sees democracy as a Western trick. They generally fall into two categories: those who want it but don’t believe that they can topple the regimes and get it, or those who think that it won’t work. I can’t see how the elections in Iraq would inspire either of those groups, because it doesn’t show that the regimes can be toppled by ordinary people only superpowers, and it hasn’t yet proven that it can work. Ukraine, however, has shown that you can make small progress towards a more democratic society and remove the overbearing influence of a neighbour by peaceful demonstrations.

In the Lebanon the people mostly lacked the will or belief to fight against Syrian influence. The will was given by the murder of Rafik al-Hariri, and the belief from the clearly similar demonstrations and successes in Ukraine. The connections between the events in Ukraine and Lebanon are as clear as day, but the similarities between the events in Iraq and Lebanon are practically non-existent. I don’t see, therefore, how Iraq can be even a minor influence on the events.

Shrug.

Difference of opinion I suppose. It’s just that personally, I remember being an idealistic university student in France and I remember how any sort of a change to the established order could feel emboldening. This isn’t a kind of rational calculation of how likely something is to succeed, or how close one situation is to another, it’s more sentiment than reason, it’s just a feeling of a “wind of change” in the air, an exciting opening of possibilities. And I remember that the young don’t really need much of an excuse to get excited about things, they’re itching to feel that they can make a difference.

Look, the Iraqi invasion was a bad idea because Bush is a moron with good intentions surrounded by a pack of liars with bad intentions. This is why pretty mcuh the entire world distrusted his stated intentions, motives, and capability to handle it correctly, and they’ve been proved right by the ensuring debacle.

Bush is a moron? I’ll take a moron over the drooling, gibbering degenerates the Democratic party is promoting to the American public. The Clintons? Howard “YRRRRWAHHHHH” Dean? Kerry? If it wasn’t for liberal judges, the Democratic party would be nearly impotent- and with good reason. Bush and the Republicans are far from perfect, but I’ll take the significantly lesser of the two evils any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

And in regards to the “debacle”, the simple fact is that changing the landscape of an entire region is neither antiseptic nor without significant sacrifice. Errors shall occur. Some of these errors will be large and costly. As the old adage goes, Rome was not built in a day. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party leaders, hampered by acute cases of ADHD, seem to think building or rebuilding a region is a short-term project to be completed as quickly as possible so that they can focus on priority pandering to MoveOn.org and placing roadblocks in front of conservative judge nominations. It will be many more years before anyone can accurately make a statement about the ramifications of the current dynamics in the Middle East.

http://www.newamericanempire.org/

You mean it’ll be many years before we can say what’s going to happen many years from now? Incredible.

Does anyone think that it would have happened if the intervention in Iraq had never occurred? I certainly don’t.

Yes, obviously I think it could have happened without the Iraq invasion. Unless the Iraq invasion is somehow tied in to the murder of Hariri, which is what sparked the latent Lebanese movement into life, then I can’t see the connection.

I could have seen the murder of Hariri sending Lebanon into another cycle of violence and bloodshed. That seemed to be the norm for a while. That it didn’t means that a change has occurred somewhere.
You don’t think that the sight of Iraqis queuing up and voting created a paradigm change in other arab nations about possible ways to achieve things?
I think that pointing to the Ukraine over Iraq seems a bit silly. The fall of communism in Russia and the changes in say, Czechoslovakia didn’t seem to be a good model for the Lebanese at the time.

No, I don’t, because it’s just a mostly unfalsifible theory thought up to justify the Iraq war, not developed from data. I’d be more credulous of the theory if there was, you know, some actual evidence beyond this PM guy with his amusing history.

Well, actually, it could also mean that you were wrong to believe that the killing of Hariri would send Lebanon into a cycle of violence and bloodshed. If a change has occurred, could it possibly be because the people are tired of fighting? Or that the relative stability and freedom of the past couple of decades has led to a country that is relatively free and prosperous (compared to its neighbours) and that the people don’t want to give that up by starting a fight over nothing at all?

You don’t think that the sight of Iraqis queuing up and voting created a paradigm change in other arab nations about possible ways to achieve things?
I think that pointing to the Ukraine over Iraq seems a bit silly. The fall of communism in Russia and the changes in say, Czechoslovakia didn’t seem to be a good model for the Lebanese at the time.

Considering the paradigm in Ukraine was mass protest throwing out a corrupt government and removing the influence of a powerful neighbour, and the paradigm in Iraq was having a superpower invade you and impose regime change, which paradigm do you think most closely matches what is going on in Lebanon?

The Lebanese don’t need to see pictures of Iraqis voting to be inspired to want that themselves, because they already have a democracy. Their problem, like in the Ukraine, is that the democracy wasn’t free and fair and their government was under the unwelcome influence of a more powerful neighbour.

Let’s look at the comparison in details:

  1. Ukraine was a democratic country. Lebanon was a democratic country. Iraq was a dictatorship.

  2. Ukraine was a corrupt democracy. Lebanon was a corrupt democracy. Iraq was a dictatorship.

  3. Ukraine’s government was heavily influenced by its more powerful neighbour. The Lebanese government was heavily influenced by its more powerful neighbour. Iraq wasn’t influenced by its neighbours.

  4. Ukraine’s Russian influence was encouraged by a large section who still hold allegiance to that country. Lebanon’s Syrian influence was encouraged by a large section who still hold allegience to that country. Iraq wasn’t influenced by its neighbours.

  5. The Ukranian people forced change by staging mass demonstrations against the corruption. The Lebanese people forced change by staging mass demonstrations against the corruption. Iraq had change forced upon it by a foreign superpower.

The only real similarity between Iraq and Lebanon is that they are both Arabic nations, but Arabs are as different from each other as Europeans. It would sound just as plausible to me that the invasion of Iraq inspired the British to protest against its own government’s actions of sending British soldiers to that war against the will of the people.

Why do Americans not understand the piercing insight of Bush’s “inspiration by invasion” policy?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_atrios_archive.html#111133176050353708

From a Time press release:

MORE THAN HALF (54%) OF AMERICANS DISAPPROVE OF BUSH’S HANDLING OF SOCIAL SECURITY, ACCORDING TO TIME POLL
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45% TRUST DEMOCRATS TO PROTECT SOCIAL SECURITY,
35% TRUST REPUBLICANS
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Less Than Half (46%) Think Recent Steps Toward Democracy in
Middle East are Result of Bush’s Efforts