Cheney in '94: "Invading Baghdad would create a quagmire"

georgeob1 wrote:

You are missing the point. Did Cheney alter his views and assessment, or did he knowingly act in defiance of what he then believed was best for the country? My point is that we cannot know the answer to this question, but it is more likely that he altered his assessment.

Or it was someone else's assessment (Powell's maybe) that he didn't actually buy into and he was just paying lip service to it in support of the administration he worked under.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
You are missing the point. Did Cheney alter his views and assessment, or did he knowingly act in defiance of what he then believed was best for the country? My point is that we cannot know the answer to this question, but it is more likely that he altered his assessment.

I wonder what evidence he used in order to alter this? What new data came in that showed the result of attacking would not in fact be a quagmire such as the one he had earlier posited?

My guess is that there was in fact no new data; what altered his assessment was something else entirely.

Cycloptichorn

How do you know "there was no new data" - since 1994? On what factual basis can you make this assertion - one that, on the face of it, appears to be highly unlikely?

And what do you "guess" that something else was?

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georgeob1 wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
georgeob1 wrote:
You are missing the point. Did Cheney alter his views and assessment, or did he knowingly act in defiance of what he then believed was best for the country? My point is that we cannot know the answer to this question, but it is more likely that he altered his assessment.

I wonder what evidence he used in order to alter this? What new data came in that showed the result of attacking would not in fact be a quagmire such as the one he had earlier posited?

My guess is that there was in fact no new data; what altered his assessment was something else entirely.

Cycloptichorn

How do you know "there was no new data" - since 1994? On what factual basis can you make this assertion - one that, on the face of it, appears to be highly unlikely?

First, what changed about the region from 1994-2003? What political and military differences were there in Iraq? What factors would have caused the quagmire before, that by that period were shown to not be factors contributing to such a thing?

Because, for the life of me, I can't seem to figure it out. There was no new data from Iraq showing that the situation had substantially changed in that time period.

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And what do you "guess" that something else was?

Political motivation. They wanted to start a war in Iraq for political reasons. They never planned on actually staying to fix the place up... that would be my guess. That they saw Iraq as 'a comma,' in the overall war in the Middle East.

I submit that there is every likelihood that Cheney knew Iraq was likely to be a disaster - and either didn't care or figured that his political allies could make enough money off of the war to make it worth it for him. I have seen no persuasive evidence that any other events changed Cheney's mind significantly.

Cycloptichorn

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One might suppose that these folks were incompetent as regards the lack of planning for any other contingency than rapid and penis-engorging military success (more correctly, of course, this should be stated as lack of interest in the plans the Pentagon had worked up for other contingencies).

But why not suppose that they understood with some certainty that long-term occupation of Iraq would result? Why not suppose that this was the (or a) fundamental strategic goal? Certainly, Israel's perceived interests would be facilitated as would US interests as regards the oil resource. As we all understand now, the getting out of Iraq is not going to be easy and it seems a bit naive to imagine (given Cheney's earlier assessment, for example) that 'quagmire' couldn't have been projected to be a positive consequence overall.

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I suspect that when the details about the activities of the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), the so-called Cheney Energy Task Force, are finally open to the public--some twenty years or so from now judging by the rate at which other highly classified governmental activities are disclosed--there will be some enlightening information revealed linking this group's meetings with the US' invasion of Iraq.

But by the time it's finally revealed the information will be irrelevant, and people will simply say, "yeah, so what? Everyone knew there was a link."

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It is likely a mistake to attribute any single factor as the sole, or near sole, cause leading to a nation going to war. That said, we can make entirely credible arguments which point to some set or hierarchy of causes which have a liklihood of being close to accurate. The US involvement in the middle east follows upon the earlier involvement there by other political/military powers who needed/insisted on access to the region's resources. That is simply a key part of this story and omitting it foolish in the extreme.

But look at this Economist bit by Kagan, a prime author of the surge strategy and a prime force pushing toward US involvement in the middle east and the war on Iraq.

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Robert Kagan, a prominent commentator, is confident that the American-dominated "unipolar" world will endure. America has weathered worse disasters than Iraq, he says, not least soon after victory in the second world war, when the Soviet Union developed the hydrogen bomb and communists took power in China. Certainly America faces stronger regional antagonists, but none is yet competing for global supremacy, so long as the American public continues to support American predominance, and so long as potential challengers inspire more fear than sympathy among their neighbours."

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9401945

The bits in red point up the same foreign policy ideas found in the PNAC documents and those ideas commonly voiced in places like the AEI or Brookings... America must continue to create the circumstances wherein it can continue to rule, solely and arbitrarily (uni-polar, in their terminology) over the rest of the world. And it must act to disempower/suppress any other state or entity which might arise to challenge US hegemony. This is explicit. And, as Kagan notes, a necessary condition for the above is the electorate's continued support of this authoritarian or totalitarian system of world governance. One world government is the evil beast unless, of course, America does it.

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Blatham.

What if America were to retreat from its active role in world affairs and return to the isolationism that somewhat dominated our actions in the years from 1918 to 1941? Do you suppose no other powers would come forward to seek dominance, exibiting the same or worse conflicting goals and the accompanying disorder with the developing world?

Or do you suppose instead the world would settle into a happy tranquility with benevolent China trading on a basis of equality with its Asian neighbors; Europe settling into comfortable senescence with happy Pakistanis, Algerians and Morroccans working their industries and picking their grapes, dutifully sending their remittances home to relatives in benevolent progressive democracies, bent on promoting the social and religious tolerance necessary in the modern world; and of course a happy Russis, growing in prosperity and happy to provide energy resources to Europe on a basis of free trade with no political leverage demanded and equally happy to see the former states of the Soviet Empire (the "near abroad" propsering in their new found independence.

I could go on, but I am sure you get the point here.

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hi george, nice to see you (my mother instructed me to say this to people)

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What if America were to retreat from its active role in world affairs and return to the isolationism that somewhat dominated our actions in the years from 1918 to 1941?

Strawman argument via the false dilemma. An "active role in world affairs" isn't limited to the pursuit of sole and supreme power established through the suppression of any and all nations or political bodies which might pose a challenge to this sole and supreme power.

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Do you suppose no other powers would come forward to seek dominance, exibiting the same or worse conflicting goals and the accompanying disorder with the developing world?

Indeed. There seems no good reason to assume that the US is quite alone in its zest for bullying and selfish dictatorial control of the world, along with some underpinning of exceptionalist mythology to justify that status or role. The soviets, the Muslim Caliphate boys, your home-grown Dominionist lovelies, Japanese imperialists and the fun boys in 1930/1940 Berlin would all sign on to this peachy little doctrine that the US blesses the rest of us with. Of course, we are appropriately thankful.

And there is certainly no good reason to allow any other model of governance to enter our thoughts or discussion. You got your Ceasar and you got your everyone else. It's god's arrangement, incontroverable, insurmountable, and much better than, say, being eaten by slavering spider creatures from Alpha Centauri.

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I could go on, but I am sure you get the point here.

Got it. To wit:

- the principles of freedom, democracy, sovereignty and self-determinism which underpin America are appllicable outside of America if and when America deems it so

- this, even if we acknowledge the counter-intuitiveness and ironies involved, really is ok after all and the evidence that it is ok are judgements from Americans as regards their benevolence and their proper (god-chosen) function as acting-Caesar to the world.

But aside from all that idiotic rubbish, george, the question remains as to how and why the US got into such a stupid, crippling and immoral disaster. The influence of pro-Israel forces is part of the answer. Ensuring access to/control of petroleum resources/prices is another central element. The drive towards militaristic means to protect/expand American interests (particularly, business interests) is another. The ahappy economic consequences for the huge and connected military/industrial complex entities and persons is another. And the influence of the neoconservative contingent in foreign policy matters is another.

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thomas

On page two you wrote...

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no, I never bought the "control of petroleum" conspiracy theory.

I'm not quite sure why you added the adjective "conspiracy" here. We don't see it again in your next sentence which posits that Cheney's "mistake", if it was that, was as sop or facilitator to his 'financial base'.

Here's a morning op ed from Anthony H. Cordesman of the CSIS... (some more on him at wikipedia...also, he accompanied O'Hanlon and Pollack on their recent guided tour in Iraq but came away with a quite contrary viewpoint which has, surprise, received far less attention from the media)

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IN an ideal world, arms sales are hardly the tool the United States would use to win stability and influence. America does not, however, exist in an ideal world, nor in one that it can suddenly reform with good intentions and soft power. Those pressuring Congress to kill the Bush administration's proposed $20 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states need to step back into the real world.

America has vital long-term strategic interests in the Middle East. The gulf has well over 60 percent of the world's proven conventional oil reserves and nearly 40 percent of its natural gas. The global economy, and part of every job in America, is dependent on trying to preserve the stability of the region and the flow of energy exports.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/opinion/16cordesman.html

The notion of 'conspiracy' here is inappropriate and unnecessary. Worse, it doesn't clarify, but works in the opposite direction. We aren't likely to use it when discussing 16th century Spanish zest for gold or European harvesting of Atlantic fish stocks or California's policies regarding fresh water.

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blatham wrote:

I'm not quite sure why you added the adjective "conspiracy" here.

Because the conspiracy theorists, significantly, overlook that you needn't control the oil in Iraq when you can just mess up Iraq and raise crude oil prices. Including the price of Texas crude oil, which Cheney's financial base already does control. Now, I don't know if rising crude oil prices were the explicit goal of a cynical administration strategy, or a fringe benefit of playing imperialist, or just a mistake with convenient consequences. But even on the most charitable interpretation -- convenient mistake -- the Bush/Cheney administration looks bad enough.

PS: I'm glad to see you develop a taste for the Economist. It's my favorite political magazine, even though they, too, got it wrong on Iraq.

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I take it, then, that your use of 'conspiracy' here refers to the specific thesis that the war was driven by a cabal of Texas oil boys?

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Yes.

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That, of course, is outrageous.

It was the Masons.

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Thomas wrote:

blatham wrote:
I'm not quite sure why you added the adjective "conspiracy" here.

Because the conspiracy theorists, significantly, overlook that you needn't control the oil in Iraq when you can just mess up Iraq and raise crude oil prices. Including the price of Texas crude oil, which Cheney's financial base already does control. Now, I don't know if rising crude oil prices were the explicit goal of a cynical administration strategy, or a fringe benefit of playing imperialist, or just a mistake with convenient consequences. But even on the most charitable interpretation -- convenient mistake -- the Bush/Cheney administration looks bad enough.

I find that the least plausible of several candidate theories for what motivated Cheney or other figures in the Bush Administration.

Has it been demonstrated that it was the invasion of Iraq that caused the rise in oil prices? I don't think so. Except for a small UN ration and some clandestine exports, Saddam's Iraq was not a major supplier of petroleum before the invasion. The real driver of rising oil prices was increasing demand in China, India, and throughout Asia. This was entirely predictable in 2000, and it required no action whatever on the part of the U.S. government. Additional factors such as the declines in Alaska North Slope and in North Sea production were also predicted. Others, such as the political troubles that still hamper new field development in Nigeria were perhaps less predictable, but the net of this still leaves significant increases in the price of crude petroleum (over their cyclic low levels of the 1990s) a predictable and predicted phenomenon.

Even on a purely subjective level I find it implausible to suppose that one who fully understood the outcome we have seen in Iraq would knowingly subject himself and his political cohorts to the equally predictable reaction for any level of contribution from any source.

I believe the scenario I put forward earlier is far more likely both on a subjective, human basis, and the information we have concerning the centra tendency of the strategic goals for which members of the administration argued at such length.

In short, your theory doesn't fit the other pieces of the puzzle particularly well.

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georgeob1 wrote:

The real driver of rising oil prices was increasing demand in China, India, and throughout Asia. This was entirely predictable in 2000, and it required no action whatever on the part of the U.S. government.

If it was entirely predictable for you, I'm confident you made a killing in the 2000 market for oil futures, where you could buy 2005 oil for $25 a gallon. Congratulations!

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I don't trade oil futures, but I did very well with Mobil, Exxon and BP shares. (Not as well as I did with Microsoft though - through luck & instinct I sold it in 2000, to buy energy stocks).

Even in the mid 1990s the beginnings of the economic explosions in China and India were evident for all to see.

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Pretty good decision -- more power to you! (if one can say this to a nuclear power plant guy)

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I won't burden you with a recitation of the other unwise choices I made.

In this case, however, I do believe that, in 2000, a rise in petroleum prices from their then cyclic rather extreme lows was widely anticipated, particularly by those with direct experience in the business.

I do agree that the Cheney matter is both interesting and worthy of inquiry. However, my experience of life and humans suggests (to me at least) a different and more complex explanation of this rather tragic turn of events.

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Well, I'll grant you the first two-and-a-half of your three paragraphs, which is almost an agreement. I do see Cheney as sinister rather than tragic figure. But you say he's a friend of this former senator from Wyoming I found so convincing in judicial confirmation hearings of the 80s and 90s. (I forgot his name.) This suggests Cheney isn't all bad, and I might be unfair to him.

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I think you are referring to Alan Simpson, the tall, lanky, and devastatingly wry and witty former senatior from Wyoming. He is an habitue of the summer redwoods excursion, and a reputed friend of Cheney, who has been there as well. Cheney is a more opaque figure than Simpson - not nearly as open and lighthearted, or posessed with such a wonderful and evident sense of irony. Therefore I can't entirely dismiss your speculations. I've never seen the two together - that would be interesting.

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Cheney in '94: "Invading Baghdad would create a quagmire"

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