"We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here."
We've all heard that argument, and most sane people dismiss it just another justification, presented by an Administration clutching for a believable story. The President himself has even continued to make this point recently.
I've decided to go out on a limb and cynically accept that the Administration believes this. Now that I've done that, the Administration's bluster makes a perverse sort of logical sense, and may even become predictable. It is only cognitive dissonance that kept me from seeing it.
In fact, this is the only logical and believable Administration argument, for while it means that the war must go on forever for us to "win", it also means we are now "winning" in Iraq.
I recall being shocked when first hearing this argument used by Secretary Rice (then National Security Advisor) shortly after the invasion. This is obviously a bizarre and cynical strategy, but it is one of the few justifications to be consistently repeated since the early days of the war, and the only argument that fits with the Administration's actions.
This argument is repeated often in the far-right media, including Fox News. I presume the mainstream, so-called "responsible" media avoids it because it sounds ludicrous. I know that is why I did. However, I believe that the White House is more likely to publicize their true opinion on the right-wing shows, and this fits that pattern. Accepting this statement requires accepting an overwhelming level of callousness and willingness to forgo all previous military lessons, on the part of the White House. Frankly, I just don't think many people are up to it, so we ignore it.
The idea of deliberately creating chaos to set up other, non-American, civilians as targets is morally bankrupt, not to mention in total contradiction with the more recent Administration claims of spreading democracy in the Middle East. However, those points are precisely what make me believe the Administration is sincere about "fighting them over there".
I think it's critical that we believe Bush is sincere on this, because that is how we can avoid the straw-man arguments that he keeps setting up for us, and how we can work to change the national conversation.
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Why believe "Fight Them There" is the real rationale?
To demonstrate how and why this is the only rationale in operation in the White House, a brief rundown of the most-repeated justifications for the war follows, along with the most-pointed out problems with it. These are based solely on the cynical logic that comes from believing the "fighting them over there" theory (I have no special knowledge of the workings of the Administration.) Each of these lead to the conclusion that the Bush Administration does believe in this argument:
---Weapons of Mass Destruction: The WMD argument was not only important for frightening the American people, it had another practical effect. Their potential presence led ground commanders to avoid destroying weapons stockpiles during the initial invasion; otherwise they could have inadvertently set off explosions of chemical weapons. Without sufficient troops to guard those stockpiles as they were found, the weapons would be, and were, used again in an ongoing war.
---Stay the course: There was no reason not to stay the current course, when our only goal is to foment violence in Iraq. In fact, the only way to "lose" the conflict was to change the strategy and end the war. The Administration dropped the "stay the course" slogan only after it became clear that there is little chance of ending the war.
---Troop sizes: It made no sense to withdraw or increase troop sizes until recently, as that change may have reduced the levels of violence. Now that Iraq is clearly in civil war, either option makes little difference to the Administration, as long as most of our troops do not leave; this freed them up to bring in a bipartisan panel to suggest new strategy. Also, as we now appear to have no ally in Iraq at all, the White House may be beginning to see that the strategy is not working--the strategy relied on having a legitimate government to support.
---Iraq/Al Qaeda connections: It was important for the Administration to argue that Al Qaeda was already present in Iraq, because the strategy depended on bringing them in. This allowed them to make the "fighting them there" argument even before the country was turned into a failed state.
---Spreading Democracy/Nation Building: The argument is obviously in contradiction with the more recent idea of spreading democracy. This should not be surprising, since the President repeatedly decried the idea of nation-building during his first presidential campaign. It is simply not believable that he would suddenly endorse it with no change in philosophy.
---Lack of Planning: Before the invasion, many organizations were expressing alarm that there appeared to be no plan for reconstruction. However, there is no need for reconstruction or postwar planning of any kind when a war is intended to have no end.
---Evil Saddam/Regime Change: Regime change was crucial to this goal, because the White House did not want to support Saddam after the first Gulf War. They may have wanted to reignite an Iran/Iraq conflict, but had no side available to support. Although logic suggested that the Administration's goal, at the beginning, was to turn Iraq into an Iranian ally and make Iran into a stronger regional power, the real goal now appears to be drawing Iran into a new regional conflict. This new war was to provide us with a fairly stable government to support, just as Saddam was supported by the US in the past. Ultimately, this could have satisfied the Administration's hunger for war with Iran, by pulling Iran into the violence that we created there, keeping several countries' resources occupied.
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What's wrong with "fighting them there" and why isn't it working?
First, the obvious reasons: it's morally wrong, in violation of international law and any code of human decency, and it doesn't work. What we have done is turned a sovereign nation into a war zone, killing hundreds of thousands of people, mostly innocent civilians. Under the argument of "fighting them there," this was entirely deliberate, and was somehow supposed to make us safer, by keeping our enemies occupied.
This strategy relied on the fact that a fairly strong popular government could actually form. It didn't account for the fact that it would create scores of new enemies, or that it would spiral out of control, and it has done both.
It's clear to all of us here (and to US intelligence agencies) that this has created more terrorists, has given terrorists a training ground, and has made us less safe. It relied on a vast underestimation of the damage of war, from men who had no experience with it, and were not afraid of starting it.
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Why would Bush change his strategy now if it is working to his plan?
Because it is not, and that's becoming clear. The situation is more out of control than intended, and US troops are stuck there keeping the peace.
The intention of the "fight them over there" strategy was apparently to keep a low-level war without all-out chaos, to establish institutions that we can support, but not to start an all-out civil war.
That hasn't happened. If it had, which is frankly inconceivable, we may have more options available to us now, to end the conflict.
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Why does it matter what the rationale was?
Because we need to stop talking in circles, and define what the White House means by "winning". It is clear that the President intends to keep our troops there with no change in plan. He may make adjustments to try to reduce the violence slightly, but if "fighting them there" was truly his rationale, he only intends to wait the violence out.
Congress has no direct means to pull our troops out, short of cutting funding.
As we argue for troop reductions, Bush clings to the argument that his political opponents "want to lose." Therefore, we must make clear what his idea of "winning" really is.
Bush, to his credit, has tried, over and over, but we just can't accept it: he has stated time and again that we will not leave as long as he is president, that he will not withdraw troops even if only Barney and Laura support him, that we are fighting them there so we don't have to fight them over here.
Talk of troop withdrawal has helped. If Bush has no plan to ever pull our troops out of the region, forcing the national debate in that direction (whether with timetables, gradual reduction, or massive new commitments followed by a reduction) has at least put him on the defensive and changed the national discussion. Because of that, we're now talking about how to end the war.
It is the horrible chaos and specter of a failed state that has really changed the debate toward ending the war, however. As the disaster becomes clearer and clearer, it is simply more difficult to accept all of the ridiculous arguments for staying.
But we must understand that Bush does not want to end the war. He wants to MANAGE it.