Interview: Michael Yon on the Surge
Michael Yon joins us by satellite phone with the latest developments from Baqubah,Iraq. He discusses how the surge is going so far, what progress, if any, is being made, and if he will join up with Middle Eastern blogger, Michael Totten, who just got to Baghdad. You can read more about his current work at MichaelYon-online.com.
You can listen directly -- no downloading needed -- by going here and clicking on the gray Flash player. You can download the whole file and listen at you leisure by clicking right here. And you can get a lo-fi version, suitable for dialup, by going here and selecting the lo-fi version. And, of course you can always get a free subscription via iTunes. You can visit our archives at the GlennandHelenShow here.
This podcast is sponsored by Volvo at Volvocars.us.
Labels: Podcasts
posted by Helen at 4:30 PM
28 Comments:
I like your work, Dr Helen. And you're easy on the eyes, too.
I will listen to the podcast tomorrow. But if that is a picture of your interviewee, it is enough evidence for me to convince me that the surge has failed. Just as my 6 years of effort and hundreds of thousands of dollars of my own money to aid Nicaraguan communities has essentially failed, Iraq war will ultimately fail to create democracy in that country.
The reason: At the end of the day they have no interest in living like us, as much as we arrogantly assume that they do. They have no more interest in living like us than we do in living like them.
Sure, they'll take our offerings while we are there, but as soon as we leave they'll just shrug, go back to business as usual, and wait for the next colonial power to come and throw a party.
We may create the appearance of democracy by simply applying heavy handed force, but as soon as we leave, it will noticably turn more chaotic within a month. Whether we stay for two more weeks or two more centuries, the result will be the same as soon as we leave. It's been proven over and over again by occupiers of the region for upwards of 900 years. The choices are to completely occupy the country (which may be necessary as long as we need their oil), or to simply leave.
Nobody ever includes Iraqi casualties in the body count. Nor do they include casualties among the PMC's - Blackwater and their competitors. I would love to see some honest numbers of how many have died and how many have been horribly maimed. Would there be more or less dead and wounded, on both sides, had we not gone in?
I'm on the fence about Blackwater, those guys are there because they love it. If I were younger, I might well sign on myself. $800 per day tax free and immunity from military rules of engagement would be pretty exciting; as evidenced by the more than 100,000 PMC's in the country right now.
I'm all for going after terrorists, but nation building in the mideast is a lost cause, at least on our model. Democracy is prohibited by the culture.
And there would be no shame in leaving, we did what we went to do, which was to allow inspections for WMD's. And as an added bonus, we threw out Saddam and hung him in a sectacular demonstration of the civility of the society.
My neck always hurts a little. I wonder if he experienced the ultimate chiropractic adjustment just before his spinal cord separated.
tomcal:
I completely agree with you and then some. But if I wrote my thoughts on the Iraq debacle here, Helen would send out a militia and have me beaten with sticks and pitchforks. ;)
tomcal said:
I'm all for going after terrorists, but nation building in the mideast is a lost cause...
Perhaps you don't realize the contradictions inherent in that statement. Maybe it would help you to drop the rhetoric like "nation building" and consider broader issues such as general economic/political development and stability.
And oh-by-the-way, the oil market is a global market; and we have to compete for international supply along with everyone else. Were you subjected to California schooling by any chance? There's more than a faint whiff of left coast in your position.
Tomcal's comments seem to have gone downhill lately. I'm not sure why.
Yeah, the war's hard. So is life. Does it get better by going for Vietnam II? Not for people who want America to do well.
In my opinion, it already is Vietnam II. And even though we went through the short-term shame of losing that battle, if we call the Vietnam War a smaller battle in the Cold War against the Soviet Union, it paved the way toward beating the Soviets.
As for America doing well, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. If a stable Iraq is necessary for
America to do well, the obvious answer is to completely occupy the place, as we did with defeated Japan and Germany after WWII.
Losing a battle - or a smaller war within a larger war - is not necessarily bad, as long as it's generally understood that your final goal is winning the larger conflict. I'm not sure our anti-war politicians have any such understanding.
tomcal,
Respectfully, you don't know any Kurds, do you ?
Admittedly, I can't speak much for the Iraqi's in the south -- never spent any time there -- but the Kurds are far more like the Americans I know than many of the Europeans I've met. (The only folks I've known that were really close to Americans were the Aussies. But I digress. . .)
As for the rest of southwest Asia, it all depends on where you go. I haven't been back to Iran in decades (go figure :), but the metropolitan Iranians were not that different than Americans, once upon a time.
One thing I will state. Categorically. Having traveled a bit through the Middle East, I will say that the folks I met were largely nothing like I'd seen on CNN.
They were not all wonderful, to be sure, but, as long as I was respectful of their traditions and customs, they were open, friendly, and as interested in me as I was in them.
I found the fauna -- especially the %$&*^& flies -- must more of a problem than the people. And I sure ain't bragging about their hygiene -- but that's not intrinsic to them, only to their condition.
My grandfather was born on a farm in Poland in the late 19th century -- I wouldn't brag about his hygiene, either.
And I'm not bragging about the quality of our nation-building.
But I can't agree that the majority of people in the M.E. are that much different than us. A stronger tribal component than some Americans have, perhaps.
Although I've concluded that our political parties have become our tribes.
Witness the fate of Joe Lieberman, who disagreed with the Party line on (as far as I can determine) two things, and was pushed out. Then tell me that the Kurds are so much more tribal than we are, or that we're so tolerant of differing opinions and democracy in action.
Oh, and I wouldn't mind the US occupying Iraq for a decade. But, judging from the Democratic debate, I'm in the distinct minority among democrats in that opinion.
Tomcal,
I think we should stay to prevent extremist rule. Plus if we stay long enough perhaps more people will realize that Iran and Saudi Arabia are the real threats.
Whether we stay for two more weeks or two more centuries, the result will be the same as soon as we leave...The choices are to completely occupy the country (which may be necessary as long as we need their oil), or to simply leave.
I support staying for two more centuries because I think moderation will eventually prevail and the terrorists know our big weakness is attention span. If we run out of oil or find alternative sources then we won't have to stay so long because they will have to adjust their economy and extremism won't have as strong of an impact on the world economy.
Democracy is prohibited by the culture.
Religion is more accurate, but I am hopeful that there are enough who are tired of their life and want to improve.
anonymous @ 9:48, I can sympathize that he is doing his own philanthropy in Nicaragua and it feels like it isn't helping so
Iraq would feel similar.
1charlie2 said...
tomcal,
Respectfully, you don't know any Kurds, do you ?
No I don't, but I do know many of the mothers, brothers, sisters, and children of "Los Desapacidos" (The Disappeared Ones) who were kidnapped, tortured, killed, and ultimately disappeared under the junta controlled by Jorge Rafael Videla ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Rafael_Videla ) in Argentina, and quite a few families of those who disappeared in Chile at the same time as well.
Whose side was official U.S. policy on while those countries were operating under those regimes? If you don’t know the answer I will tell you: The side that created stability for U.S. interests, regardless of their human rights violations. A simple web search will show you pictures of James Baker cozying up to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war. If you think that Baker didn’t know of Saddam’s unpleasant methods at that time, you are simply naïve.
I was on a first name basis with Herty Lewites (former Sandinista mayor of Managua and one of Daniel Ortega's right hand men, who would be President of Nicaragua right now had he not died of "natural causes" last year), and I am also a friend of Enrique Bolaños, Nicaraguan President (PLC, what most in the U.S. would call the "Contras") for the six years before Daniel Ortega was elected President last November and took office in January of this year. Both men, Lewites before he died, and Bolaños to this day, felt and feel that the U.S. is pursuing a hopeless policy in Iraq. These are (were in the case of Lewites) men who were leaders on opposite sides of the civil war in Nicaragua, which most in the U.S. remember through the “Iran-Contra Affair”.
In addition to those, I know many, both men and women, who fought on both sides of that war (sadly they are all about my age or younger, which means they were pulled out of their homes and forced to fight in their early teens) and each and every one of them admits that atrocities were committed by both sides.
One of my good friends, while piloting a helecopter, ordered captured prisoners to be pushed out because he lost an engine while crossing a mountain range and couldn't maintain altitude. This same man was tortured for 8 months by his own forces after returning to his base from that flight, on the theory that he pushed the prisoners out to protect information they may have had. War is hell on both sides.
Occupying Iraq may be necessary for U.S. interests in the region; it probably is, so let’s go in there with sufficient power restore order throughout the country. But don’t veil it as a humanitarian mission, something which is seen by most of the world as a farce. If humanitarianism was really our motive, we would be inserting forces into every conflict in the world where atrocities are being committed; obviously we are not, nor do we have sufficient forces to do it even if we wanted to.
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tc - Wise words.
tomcal,
I wasn't really arguing with your premise that the effort was/is being mismanaged. I simply took exception with statements like:
". . . they have no interest in living like us . . ."
since I usually see that as inaccurate and bigoted.
Notwithstanding your intent in those words, you must understand that they have been used to justify some fairly awful events in history, including trying to deny suffrage to Blacks and women in America.
No, I don't think you meant it that way, but my assertion is that we're more like many of the folks I met in the M.E. than we are different.
I will never assert, nor would I agree that nations the M.E. cannot achieve democratic rule. I do agree that a particular effort might be devishly difficult, and in some cases might fail. But then we're arguing a particular nation or a people, not overgeneralizing. Hence my admission that I do not know the southern Iraqis well.
And we do agree that simply packing up and going home en masse is extraordinarily unlikely to result in permanent culture change.
As for humanitarian efforts, these, too, are subject to triage. I absolutely disagree with the premise that, since we can't help everyone in the world, we must help no one. That's tantamount to saying that since I can't afford to support every charity that asks for money, I'm not supposed to donate to any of them. I reject this as defeatism.
If, as the president has asserted, humanitarian efforts and strategic efforts align in the case of Iraq, then by all means let's do well while doing good.
While it was certainly in our national interest, eliminating a dictator whose regime was, by any sane definition, hideous, is still a humanitarian action. As, as an activity with national interest, it's even easier to justify than simply using the US Navy to provide tsunami relief.
As for "which country do we save ?" In a democratic society, men of good will might disagree with a particular action or expenditure, but that disagreement is no excuse for inaction.
But we have drifted pretty far from the original subject, Michael Yon. As the first person I heard use the term "civil war" in Iraq -- months before others said the same -- Yon certainly is not a starry-eyed optimist. So when he reports positive developments, it's good news worth repeating.
We can't afford this war. Nation building almost never works--West Germany & Japan were exceptions & they were extreme exceptions.
We had brilliant people in all the right places calling the shots, two bombed-out nations which culturally, had gotten in the habit of doing what the strongest kid in town told them to do (meaning us).
Both Japan and Germany had very large and very angry neighbors right next door who wanted a reckoning with them after WWII (on so many levels).
So military occupation by the US didn't look like such a bad deal post-1945 on that front, either.
We offered West Germany & Japan pretty darn good deals.
Oh, and we stopped bombing them ourselves after the treaties were signed. Always a good idea if you want to win hearts & minds.
We helped West Germany & Japan re-build their economies instead of exploiting them.
None of these conditions really exist in Iraq, except the hostile neighbors bit, but Semitic cultures have been at each other's throats so long I think they might panic if they found peace.
"WHAT DO WE DO NEXT? NO SWORN ENEMIES? NO WAR OF EXTINCTION? WHAT'S NEXT?"
"Oh, well, there's always Israel. But they have nukes. And they're into aggressive defense in a favor enthusiastic way. Damn."
"Allah, we could use some help here. Allah? Allah? Hello?"
"He hung up on me. Huh."
People spend two or three thousand years killing their neighbors, it's hard to break the habit.
A humanitarian partition--separating the Kurds & giving them their own state, MIGHT WORK.
But we'd need to establish a substantial military presence, probably with Israeli assistance & they'd want something in return.
And given this scenario, we ought to DEMAND a little more help from Europe & Japan--we only get 23% of our oil from the Gulf. Europe gets 67% & Japan 90%.
But that's all we can do. Wall of the Kurds and place a lot of guns, missiles, tanks & bombers around the perimeter.
That's about the best we can do.
Shoot, even Kurdish Turkey doesn't care much for Kurdish Iraq.
The best idea is probably just to get out and establish some sort of humanitarian refugee organization for all of the DPs we created.
I'm still anti-immigration but when you spend 16 years alternately bombing and starving people for Halliburton building contracts & oil, you ought to do something to alleviate the suffering you caused.
...you spend 16 years alternately bombing and starving people for Halliburton building contracts & oil
You mean that's what this war is really about? My God, how could I have been so BLIND???
Ok: I finally listened to the Podcast.
Two things:
1) 1Charlie2, I realize that my comment, although it was addressed to you, turned into a rant that was way outside the realm of your original comments. Had I taken the time to read your comment more thoughtfully, my post would have been different. I apologize.
2) Regarding Yon’s comments, two things really stand out to me. First is that he mentioned that there was a big problem wherein after an area was stabilized, as soon as the U.S. soldiers left, it would fall very quickly back into anarchy. This is the exact same problem I have encountered in Nicaragua. As soon as I leave a community, no matter how much progress has been made, and no matter how stable it appears, everything the community seems to have accomplished falls apart within a month after I’m gone.
Second, his final remarks were that if we pull out abruptly, there will be mass genocide. This left me wondering if it would be a greater scale of genocide than what was occurring under Saddam. I don’t know the answer, but I would be interested in Yon’s opinion. My gut feeling is that it would be greater.
IF the answer is greater, then the population as a whole is certainly worse of than had we not gone in. Not only have hundreds of thousands more died than would have died under the status quo ante; but if we leave, millions more will die. So we are stuck. And the only way out (assuming mass genocide is unacceptable – personally I would vote for mass genocide – it’s going to happen eventually no matter what we do, all we are really doing is delaying it) is a massive insertion of force, enough to stabilize the country and enforce law and order, and be prepared to maintain it for at least 20 or 30 years.
The one thing I have learned in my experience in the third world is that whatever commitment you think you are taking on, it will turn into something 10 times as big as you expected. And unless you are willing to abandon a lot of people who have come to depend upon you, it will last for the rest of your life.
A few more comments:
Cham: I visited your web sites and am now in love with you.
P. Rich: And obviously you are ex-military who received his orders and carried them out. You did not have the privilige of being able to question the commander
-in-chief, so to do so now must be very difficult, I understand.
I WAS schooled on the left cost any time my family lived in the United States. During the 17 years from Kindergarten through college 7 of those years were spent in schools in third world countries.
For the last 6 years, I have spent about a third of my time living in Granada, Nicaragua, which is the consative (read "Contra") capitol of the country. While I am there, I take classes in Spanish for three hours each night from a young lawyer. So if you count that, its basically 3 hours a day for two years of formal postgrad study in Nicaraguan law and culture, plus all of my field experience working in impoverished communities, which is what I do there.
Graham Strouse: First of all I am a Halliburton shareholder. And I have know Halliburton people my whole life because my dad was in the oil business and now because Halliburton generously contributes supplies to our water-well drilling program in Nicaragua.
That being said, Halliburton's security division, KBR, was one of the first Private Military Contractors (PMC's) on the ground in Iraq. Now there are many more, Blackwater being the most prominent. The guys you saw hanging from the Bridge in Fallujah were Blackwater.
There are now over 100,000 PMC personnel in Iraq. Virtually all are ex Navy Seals, special forces, etc. They like it there because they have no rules like regular army when they are off duty, they make upwards of $800 per day, tax free, and by order of Paul Bremmer, they are immune from all Iraqui law and all U.S. Military rules of engagement. I worry what will happen when 100,000 highly trained killers, for which there is very small demand if there is no war, who are used to making $800 per day cash, are ultimately out of a job. But for now, they have certainly helped enhance the value of my Halliburton shares.
Bugs: Yes, as Steve Martin said in "The Jerk" - "I get it, it's a profit deal". Don't be too hard on yourself though. Unless you go see for yourself, for a couple of years, it's just impossible to conceive of the corruption in third world countries. I still get burned all the time. the worst is when you know you are getting burned but you can't figure out how they are doing it.
Felicidades a todos,
Tom
When younger, I heard the statement "Every country has the government they deserve."
Tomcal's points remind me of this. I am not sure if I agree, but both the phrase and Tomcal's posts are sure making me think.
Thanks.
Trey
To pick some nits, just cuz' I love HKB&R :)
KBR is the Construction, Engineering and Services division of Halliburton. I know -- when I worked for RE&C, they (like Bechtel) were a competitor.
Security solutions is only one division of KBR, and the PSO&M (the ops arm) is only one component of that one division.
For an example of the vast majority of KBR's work, See, for example, http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2005/03/07/daily46.html
For example, they build camps and dining facilities, as well as handling their day-to-day operations.
I'd really recommend that anyone interested in KBR do some research. Without going too far off on a tangent, most of what is repeated about them is mildly to moderately inaccurate.
Not surprising given strong opinions on both sides, and human tendencies (on the part of Congress) to underestimate the difficulty and expense of delivering logistics in a war zone, and on the part of certain contractors to go "hog wild" with expenses in a war zone. Plenty of excess all around.
And truthfully, the elimination of the logies by Clinton and Congress in the aftermath of the Cold War made something like KBR vital.
Flatly, the US no longer has the logistical capacity to feed its own expeditionary soldiers for any length of time without LOGCAP with KBR or something similar.
That's why, notwithstanding the Cheney-bashers, it was the Clinton administration who gave KBR no-bids in Kosovo and elsewhere.
Responding to charges of cronyism in Irag and Afghanistan, Steven Kelman wrote
"One would be hard-pressed to discover anyone with a working knowledge of how federal contracts are awarded -- whether a career civil servant working on procurement or an independent academic expert -- who doesn't regard these allegations as being somewhere between highly improbable and utterly absurd."
. . .
"Having served as a senior procurement policymaker in the Clinton administration, I found these charges (for which no direct evidence has been provided) implausible."
. . .
". . .a few days ago the company disclosed, as part of its third-quarter earnings report, operating income from its Iraq contracts of $34 million on revenue of $900 million -- a return on sales of 3.7 percent, hardly the stuff of plunder."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A6691-2003Nov5¬Found=true
I strongly recommend the article -- Kelman is hardly partisan; he served from 1993 to 1997 in the Clinton administration as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy
Understand, I am not asserting KBR are any more or less moral because of any of this, only striving for accuracy. Something that few of the popular media articles about KBR (outside business journals) achieve.
I do somewhat share tomcal's concern about the number of private security contractors and what do they do after ? But while I might say nearly all are "ex-military," I'll add that you can find 100,000 former special operations folks to put all into one place, I salute your recruiting efforts, since the US military can't seem to :)
Tmink:
The version I heard was "It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for" :)
1Charlie2:
I couldn't get the Post story to come up. BTW: I am good friends with the President of the Washington Post, we went to 4 years of school together. About 2 months ago, I asked him why they don't do any stories on the Private Security Contractors in Iraq.
He directed me to several but admitted that none of them had "gotten legs" as they say in the business. He, as well as a lot of other people over there is confused about this. But all he could say is "Some stories get legs, some don't; and no matter how hard you try, you can never figure out why".
In my own experience,most people who haven't been to Iraq themselves, or who have a family member there, are completely unaware of PMC involvement there at all and have never heard of any of them.
They are aware of Halliburton, but assume that they are just over there pumping cement down wells, which was their original business.
1Charlie2: As to Halliburton's "no-bid" contracts under the Bush, Clinton, or any other administration, I agree.
There are quite a few things you just (most of my experince with them is in the drilling business) can't reliably do without Halliburton's help.
It's a great company, and their customer service has no equal.
Helen:
I see you have "Little Maria" as an advertiser in your sidebar. I don't know that one in particular, but I know hundreds like her.
I hope she gets a lot of support from the ad, but I would recommend to anyone who begins supporting a child like this that they be prepared to do so at least until she turns 21, even to the point of modifying their estate plan to ensure it. It's just like Iraq, once you're in, it's very hard to exit gracefully
If you really want to make a difference, it is also very important to establish personal contact with the child. If at all possible you should personally visit them at least once a year and make it very clear to them that you have high expectations of them in exchange for the support you are giving them.
The most dangerous age for 3rd world impoverished girls is about 16 through 21. This is when they get pregnant, have no money, and turn to prostitution, which they are usually able to give up after about 4 to 5 years. If you can keep them from getting pregnant before they turn 22 or 23, there is a good chance they won't ever turn to prostitution.
Our own "Little Maria", who's name is actually Carolina, just turned 17 on the 13th. We found her on the street (actually our daughter found her) where she was being force to sell in order to support her parents' alcoholism. (By the way, I am alcoholic, but I quit drinking last night at about 9pm.)
Anyway, when we found her, Carolina couldn't even say the alphabet; although she did have extraordinary math and accounting skills. She has now caught up in school to the point that she is now in her junior year in high school, essentially right on schedule, and getting really good grades. But either my wife or I go down there to check on her at least every six weeks, and she has tutoring every weekday. The tutor reports to me any time she seems to be getting off track.
To accomplish this was not easy. First we had to make a deal with the parents (who lived in a cardboard box) to replace the income Carolina was bringing in. Then we inevitably got dragged in to pay medical bills whenever Carolina or her 3 younger brothers got sick. Then we ended up paying the school bills for her younger siblings(although I used this as an opportunity to force her to get a tubal ligation, for which I had to pay). The one real miricle is that the parents quit drinking and are actually bringing in a little income of their own.
Anyway, as I said above: "The one thing I have learned in my experience in the third world is that whatever commitment you think you are taking on, it will turn into something 10 times as big as you expected. And unless you are willing to abandon a lot of people who have come to depend upon you, it will last for the rest of your life."
Point of clarification: I didn't sterilize Carolina, I sterilized her mother. I figured that 7 childred, 5 of which survived through infancy, was enough by the time a woman reaches 32.
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