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Impeachment is on the table.
By Paul Olson, NFP President
By Professor Bruce E. Johansen
Omaha NFP Newsletter
An Injury to One is an Injury to All…
As of May 2008, the Iraq War had cost Nebraskans:
StratCom Conference
Takes Issue GlobalHansen: Cut CO2 10 Percent in 10 Years
It’s the War, Stupid
Ten Organizations from
Five States Address Proposed Uranium MiningInitiative Petition to
‘Use Public Power’ Will Open Up the Information Super Highway for NebraskansDon't Be Deceived
The Folly Of Attacking Iran
NFP Position on Rolling Back Affirmative Action
How U.S. Policy Is Undermining the Prospects for World Peace
Crossing the Color Line In Nebraska
‘Swiftboating’ Geophysical Reality
ARCHIVE
Why Are We Waiting for Petraeus?
Hendrik van den Berg
UNL Professor of Economics
This spring, the U.S. Congress agreed to fund the surge in Iraq temporarily, but as part of that authorization, the Congress set certain benchmarks that would, allegedly, facilitate the objective judgment of progress. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have led the public to believe that the report by the U.S. Commander in Iraq, General Petraeus, will be decisive in deciding whether to continue the U.S. occupation.
Apparently both Democrats and Republicans are willing to overlook the fact that General David Petraeus is a blatantly political personality who used his military status to openly support the Bush Administration just before the 2004 elections, that he is an incompetent administrator who let nearly 200,000 AK-47s disappear, and that his complete failure in pacifying Mosul belies his alleged counter-insurgency expertise. Recent speeches and statements by the military and the White House provide us with a sample of what we will hear from General Petraeus.
He will, no doubt, admit that there are still many problems, and he will humbly admit that we do not know for sure that the surge is working. However, he will also emphasize what seem to be signs of progress. This mere mention of some hopeful events, whether significant or not, will probably be enough to stop any concerted efforts by opponents of the war to force a substantial change in policy.
Psychology Again
Just as fundamental human psychology facilitates the building of support for a war against Iran (as I suggested in the July-August Nebraska Report, “Why Aren’t More Nebraskans for Peace?”), the administration’s fight to continue the surge is aided by people’s inherent bias to “stay the course.” Psychologists and experimental economists have repeatedly found that humans are strongly biased towards favoring the status quo over alternative courses of action. More fundamentally, neuroscientists have found that the human brain reacts much more strongly to changes in circumstances than it does to the absolute circumstances. That is, large changes in our situation trigger anxiety, fear, and stress, which in turn strengthen our emotional processes to the detriment of our cognitive processes.
On the other hand, once we get used to the new situation, we humans tend to eventually accommodate ourselves and accept it as the normal pattern of life. Also relevant to my argument here is the discovery that when we are faced with difficult or unfamiliar situations, we often find that our cognitive abilities fail us. Neuroscience has documented that, unlike the automatic and emotional processes of the brain (which are able to handle huge amounts of information and make many simultaneous decisions), the brain’s cognitive processes quickly slow down as the amount and complexity of information it must process increases. We become unable to weigh the alternatives and we default to “stay the course.”
Therefore, when Americans are faced with General Petraeus’ likely description of recent progress in Iraq as a confusing mixture of successes and failures, the lack of knowledge that people have about the current state of events in Iraq and the even greater lack of understanding of the alternatives, a majority will be receptive to continuing with the occupation, the status quo for fear of even worse outcomes from a change in policy. By throwing in a few references to our ‘brave troops’ and claims that withdrawal will hand victory to al- Qaida and Iran, General Petraeus and the administration will most likely be able to gain a few more months of life for the surge by simply painting a mixed picture of the situation in Iraq.
Emphasize the Real Changes Our Invasion Brought About
The human bias toward continuing with the status quo over poorly understood changes in policy suggests that it is best to avoid arguments over whether things have gotten better or worse since this spring. Even if there are some major disasters before September, the events over just a couple of months will probably be too few and small to definitively prove success or failure of the surge strategy. Rather, we must keep the emphasis where it belongs: on the long-term consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. For example:
• Most of the world truly grieved with us on September 11, 2001, and we enjoyed widespread support and respect. Since our unilateral, illegal and disastrous invasion of Iraq four years ago, we enjoy little support or respect for our actions in Iraq or elsewhere.
• Before invading Iraq, our military was highly regarded. Now, with a fatigued army, depleted equipment and a stretched budget, our military can no longer serve as a positive diplomatic tool even if our administration decided to actually engage in diplomacy. In short, we now negotiate from a position of weakness and military failure.
• Before dismantling the government and civil society in Iraq, the U.S. was widely respected for its democracy. Now, our desperate political leaders have undermined our democracy to further their failed policies. Worse, in response to the unanticipated chaos that the Iraq invasion triggered in the Middle East, the administration is actively working to undermine democracy in Palestine, Iran and Lebanon while supporting the most notoriously undemocratic allies in the region. We are now seen as hypocrites, not democrats.
• Before invading Iraq, we were admired as a country where life was highly valued. Now we are ridiculed for handing out small amounts of cash, sometimes as little as $1,000, for killing civilians in what we callously refer to as ‘collateral damage.’
• Before defying the U.N. and attacking Iraq, we were viewed as good global citizens who helped to build international institutions like the United Nations and the World Bank and negotiated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Now we are seen as the country that invaded Iraq without U.N. sanction, sent the architect of the Iraq war, Paul Wolfowitz, to mismanage the World Bank, rewarded India, Pakistan and North Korea for not signing — and actually violating — the terms of the Non- Proliferation Treaty, and is currently threatening Iran, a country that has signed and, so far, respected the Treaty, with a preemptive nuclear attack.
• The invasion, occupation, replacement of destroyed equipment, medical care for disabled soldiers, compensation of Iraqi deaths and destruction, lost production and investment, etc. will likely reach $2.3 trillion, according to Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, and then only if we withdraw completely before 2012 and the hostilities cease. That is nearly $25,000 per U.S. household.
Unlike the creative mixture of April-to-September changes that General Petraeus will most likely talk about, the monumental changes since the invasion are certainly large enough to overcome any basic psychological tendency to stay the course.
The Surge Cannot Correct These Fundamental Changes
We should note that he focus on the huge decline of U.S. prestige and status in the world leads us clearly toward policies such as those Nebraskans for Peace have repeatedly proposed (See the April issue of this Nebraska Report). For example:
1. U.S. Out, U.N. In.
2. Seek Arab League assistance in pacifying Iraq
3. U.N. guarding of Kurdish region borders
4. Negotiate with Iran and acknowledge our past interference in Iran
5. Support the inevitable federalist solution for Iraq
6. Renounce any intention to acquire Iraq oil assets
7. Stop any support of private U.S. firms in Iraq
8. Withdraw all funding for war
9. Apologize, and commit to paying the full damages, for our destructive and deadly actions after September 11.
It is obvious that a temporary unilateral surge in U.S. military activity in Iraq is not compatible with these long-term fundamental policies suggested here — policies necessary to deal with the really important changes we have observed over the past four years.
So why are we waiting for General Petraeus?
