Asking the Right Questions at the Right Time
As part of a unit of fascism and totalitarianism, I’ve been teaching my students about propaganda this week and last. I started off with a PowerPoint presentation that I’d made shortly after the Iraq invasion was undertaken, in favor of the war in Iraq. I had the kids identify some of the techniques of propaganda I’d used: Assertions, name-calling, card-stacking, glittering generalities, and so on. Then, by way of review, I later presented another PowerPoint, this time ranting that the US get its troops out of Iraq.
And one of my students, a bright kid, and a conservative, who loves history and politics and is always asking questions (the best kind of students always ask the best questions) said after I was finished, “The people who want the US out never ask what happens after we leave.”
I wish that someone with that kind of foresight had been planning the occupation of Iraq.
My student is absolutely right. For all that I deplore the way Bush’s administration has handled the occupation (it’s hard to argue against the initial operation, which was carried out quite smartly by the military, given the manpower it had available, unless you’re a pacifist by principle), I don’t think the Left has much to offer about how to conduct the occupation of Iraq. All right already, so we were misled into the war; NOW WHAT?
Another propaganda technique I taught my students about is called Pinpointing the Enemy. Both sides are doing this relentlessly now, with little positive result. Thinking that we were misled into war makes me a Liberal, and so I get shit slung at me from the Right. Thinking that the occupation of Iraq is now necessary and that we need to do the best we can in the situation we’ve created makes me a Conservative, and I get shit from the Left for not wanting an immediate withdrawal of US troops on a fixed timetable.
If both sides are busy calling each other the enemy and calling each other names, how are we ever going to agree on a foreign policy that makes sense, now that we own Iraq? That’s right: OWN IT. Because we do. We’re now responsible for the whole mess, and if we leave without at least trying to do the right thing there, whatever moral basis we ever had for landing troops there in the first place is null and void.
So I ask my fellow citizens, conservative and liberal, what I think my student would ask them: Now that we’re in Iraq, what do we do so that when US forces finally withdraw, they (and we) can hold our heads up knowing that all that death and destruction had some positive result?
And I’ll follow up with a question of my own: Who is going to pay for what we are doing in the Mideast, and how is the bill to be paid? But I’ll leave the possible answers to that one for another time.
And one of my students, a bright kid, and a conservative, who loves history and politics and is always asking questions (the best kind of students always ask the best questions) said after I was finished, “The people who want the US out never ask what happens after we leave.”
I wish that someone with that kind of foresight had been planning the occupation of Iraq.
My student is absolutely right. For all that I deplore the way Bush’s administration has handled the occupation (it’s hard to argue against the initial operation, which was carried out quite smartly by the military, given the manpower it had available, unless you’re a pacifist by principle), I don’t think the Left has much to offer about how to conduct the occupation of Iraq. All right already, so we were misled into the war; NOW WHAT?
Another propaganda technique I taught my students about is called Pinpointing the Enemy. Both sides are doing this relentlessly now, with little positive result. Thinking that we were misled into war makes me a Liberal, and so I get shit slung at me from the Right. Thinking that the occupation of Iraq is now necessary and that we need to do the best we can in the situation we’ve created makes me a Conservative, and I get shit from the Left for not wanting an immediate withdrawal of US troops on a fixed timetable.
If both sides are busy calling each other the enemy and calling each other names, how are we ever going to agree on a foreign policy that makes sense, now that we own Iraq? That’s right: OWN IT. Because we do. We’re now responsible for the whole mess, and if we leave without at least trying to do the right thing there, whatever moral basis we ever had for landing troops there in the first place is null and void.
So I ask my fellow citizens, conservative and liberal, what I think my student would ask them: Now that we’re in Iraq, what do we do so that when US forces finally withdraw, they (and we) can hold our heads up knowing that all that death and destruction had some positive result?
And I’ll follow up with a question of my own: Who is going to pay for what we are doing in the Mideast, and how is the bill to be paid? But I’ll leave the possible answers to that one for another time.
posted by urbansocrates at 3:45 PM
11 Comments:
You and I will pay, as will our children, as GW grants tax enormous cuts to those making over 300K and writes hot checks backed up by foreign lenders.
But you knew that already.
Conservative? What the hell is conservative about a fiscal policy like that?
Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government have released a paper which argues that the total cost of the Iraq war to the United States will be $2 trillion or even higher.
ParaPundit goes into the details.
Also, I really liked the way you structured your lesson on propoganda techniques. Kudos. It sounds like you enjoy having that intelligent study as a foil in the class. Kind of elevates the discussion, doesn't it? Do you think that the other students benefit from the interchange or do they tune it out?
I think my other students benefit when they are attending to the discussions in class. Some can't be bothered, but enough do attend that I think discussion of provocative issues like this is worthwhile. One student commented that some of my best classes are "You and X" (the student in that post) talking." It's interesting that some classes, in spite of a number of well-informed students don't succeed in having discussions that are useful; adolescents can be either too unruly or too shy. But when I have a class that CAN have a discussion, I leap at the opportunity to lead one whenever it will help bring to the forefront the real issues we're dealing with in class. The most important things we can learn from the fascists is not to get sucked in by fascists; that's the lesson I like to focus on.
As for nyc's comment: Yes, I agree that GW is not a fiscal conservative at all, which is why some members of his party are beginning to view him as a liability. Who wants to stay in power and have to pay off a debt like that?
As for owning Iraq and being responsible for it: Seems to me that you've built an assumption into your question. You are assuming we can do better for Iraq by staying than by leaving.
Retired US Army Lt. Gen. and former NSA head William Odom disagrees. He thinks that staying makes Iraq worse off than leaving.
I've linked to Odom's arguments several times because I do not think his arguments get amount of attention they deserve. See, for example, my post "Iraq Battlefield Officers Say More Troops Needed" and you will see two excerpts and links to articles Odom has written on why pull out of Iraq.
Odom is not arguing based on leftist assumptions.
Also, no we do not own Iraq. They definitely do not want to be owned by us. Does invasion make us more responsible for the place? Perhaps. But, again, that does not mean that we can do much (if anything) by staying to discharge our moral responsibilities toward Iraq.
You are correct about my assumption; it was one I felt I had to make, because of a number of factors. First, the Iraqis show almost no aptitude for the compromises needed for self-government in a state riven by ethnic and religious differences. Much of the violence is simply score-settling in a region that tends to view revenge as the equivalent of justice. Second, the government is corrupt (see the recent articles on the fate of the presidential palace once it was turned over to Iraqi officialdom. Third, and most significant, is that while we know what is happening while US forces are in Iraq, we can't possible know what will happen upon their withdrawal unless we withdraw them. It will create a power vacuum into which Iran might insert itself (Iran's government would like nothing better), there could be bloodshed between the Arabs and the Kurds, the Sunnis might reassert themselves: We just don't know.
I think the status quo, as bad as it is for our forces and for the minority of Iraqis living in the crossfire, is most probably better than any of a number of unknowns that are most likely going to be worse. An occupied Iraq is bad; an unoccupied Iraq is less stable and therefore worse.
urbansocrates,
Iraq post-withdrawal might be far more stable. Remove the US troops and the Iraqis will tend to favor expulsion of foreign fighters. Fewer foreign Muslims would be motivated to go to Iraq in the first place. Also, many Sunnis who are mainly motivated to fight against Americans would become less motivated to fight.
Also, pull out Americans and the Shias would have to do their own fighting rather than expect Americans to fight for them against the Sunnis. Shias taking up arms would fight for their majority faction. The US withdrawal would increase the legitimacy of the central government in the eyes of the Shias.
But the question of stability is besides another important point: Are US troops fighting for a better government than some alternative? The Islamic parties had their slates sweep the elections. How is it that we are fighting for modernity and rights? Women had more rights under Saddam than they have now. Women are half of Iraq's population.
Again, read Odom. He's basically arguing that your assumptions are wrong. If Odom's right then you are now supporting a position that is creating greater harm than US withdrawal would create.
I found your arguments more compelling than Odom's. Let's suspend any interest in Iraqis for a moment. Let's say that it really IS all about the oil. In which case, I'm led to support ANOTHER liberal position: cutting enery use in the US. Oh, and let's add another: slowing global warming. If we're going to leave Iraq, why, we'll just have to do without the oil we use. That will leave the market to China, whose government is starting to wise up about energy consumption.
If I were unconcerned for the lives of Iraqis, I'd say, pull out, revamp our energy policy (wind, solar, etc.), and support US automakers designing better hybrids than Toyota and Honda.
But then I'd be a flaming liberal, and open to all kinds of criticism for favoring federal power over local power. Wouldn't I?
urbansocrates,
Is the war in Iraq about oil? Yes, but again the liberal view is a Western view where US is the major player. This is a very parochial attitude that fails to put oneself in the shoes of Iraqis.
The war in Iraq really is about oil but just not in the way liberals think it is. Control of the government of Iraq means control of the oil. That motivates the Sunni insurgency. The Sunnis know that most of the oil is in the Shia and Kurdish areas. If the Sunnis do not control the central government then they will be poor and the other two groups will have much more money.
We are in the middle of a battle by Iraqis for the control of the oil. By putting ourselves in the middle of that battle are we liberalizing the Iraqis? No. Are we making them more likely to respect minority rights? No. Are we making them more peaceful? No. Instead, we are adding an additional reason to fight (attack the infidel foreigners) and are reducing the legitimacy of the Iraqi government by making it look like a puppet government.
BTW, you ought to edit your template so that each comment post includes date as well as time.
Future Pundit: How do I do the date/time tagging? Can you direct me to the appropriate help page?
urbansocrates,
What you need to do to get the dates is a function of blogger.com's template language. I do not use blogger and so do not know their tagging syntax. So, sorry, can't help. But I bet blogger has support forums where you can ask appropriate questions.
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