Emoting about vs. Thinking about Iraq

Bill O'Reilly has a new comment posted on Fox News that I believe captures the feelings of most Americans concerning the situation in Iraq:

All the polls show most Americans do not believe the war is going well and want to wind it down, feeling the effort is not worth much more American blood and treasure.

The president's argument for sustaining the war is largely theoretical and he is correct: A defeat in Iraq would harm the United States and could lead to a greater conflict down the road.

But there comes a time when enough's enough. The U.S. military did not lose the Vietnam War, the country just became exhausted by it and a deal was made to get out of there. Same thing is happening in Iraq. After four years many Americans are just sick of it.

Doesn't help the Iraqi government is incompetent and the people themselves largely ungrateful. A poll taken by D3 Systems asked Iraqis if they supported the coalition. Just six percent "strongly support" it. Sixteen percent "somewhat support" our efforts, 32 percent "somewhat oppose" us and a whopping 46 percent of Iraqis "strongly oppose" the coalition.

Numbers like that many Americans say, "See ya."

As an emotional reaction to events in Iraq, this is perfectly understandable. As an intellectual stance, however, it's insane, one that could be aptly summed up like this: "Iraq is a mess, the Iraqis want us out, therefore, America should immediately surrender to al Qaeda."

Of course, like all proponents of withdrawal, Bill O'Reilly neglects to mention al Qaeda. That's because his position would not make any sense if he did. Like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, Bill O'Reilly solves this problem by simply adopting an eerie code of silence about al Qaeda in Iraq. I wonder if history will record this inexplicable phenomenon or if it will remain forever unnoticed?

As the U.S. military and President Bush both become increasingly clear that al Qaeda is the primary enemy in Iraq, others are graduating from the "eerie code of silence" stage of development to the "eerie code of denial" stage of development. The New York Times is the prime example. A few days ago, their public editor announced that the paper would henceforth attempt to engineer doubt in the minds of their readers about the role of al Qaeda in Iraq -- just because they can (not because they have any evidence to justify their skepticism). Yesterday, they published a news article to do precisely that:

July 13, 2007
Bush Distorts Qaeda Links, Critics Assert
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and JIM RUTENBERG

BAGHDAD, July 12 — In rebuffing calls to bring troops home from Iraq, President Bush on Thursday employed a stark and ominous defense. “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq,” he said, “were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that’s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.”

It is an argument Mr. Bush has been making with frequency in the past few months, as the challenges to the continuation of the war have grown. On Thursday alone, he referred at least 30 times to Al Qaeda or its presence in Iraq.

But his references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership.

You should read this article from start to finish and then, if you have the time, you should contrast it with one of my prior posts on the same subject (such as this one). If you do, you should notice a glaring difference. The difference is that the New York Times article is utterly devoid of evidence that bears on their central thesis, which is that Bush is hyping the al Qaeda threat. Instead, the article amounts to nothing more than the reporters saying "I'm skeptical." By contrast, I (and others) point to mountains of evidence bearing on this issue.

Let's consider some of what the reporters say:

“The president wants to play on Al Qaeda because he thinks Americans understand the threat Al Qaeda poses,” said Bruce Riedel, an expert at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and a former C.I.A. official. “But I don’t think he demonstrates that fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq precludes Al Qaeda from attacking America here tomorrow. Al Qaeda, both in Iraq and globally, thrives on the American occupation.”

Note the complete absence of any evidence about (or even reasoning behind) the notion that fighting al Qaeda in Iraq will have no consequences for their later ability to attack America and our allies. There is no discussion whatsoever about the obvious considerations, such as the perceived (and actual) victory over America that al Qaeda will have achieved when we withdraw our troops in ignominious defeat. What, for example, will that do to al Qaeda's reputation in the Muslim world? How would their victory in Iraq fit in with al Qaeda's stated plans for Iraq? Who is going to stop al Qaeda when we leave and how are they going to do it? Not one peep about any of this. Instead, the reporters just went out and found someone to quote who shares their skepticism. The mere expression of skepticism is not newsworthy.

I strongly believe that most reporters do not appreciate what evidence-based reasoning looks like. Evidence-based reasoning involves citing evidence, not quoting someone who shares your opinion. I don't quote what Bush says as evidence that al Qaeda is in Iraq (although I do quote him to show that he understands the problem). Instead, I track casualties caused by suicide bombers, I refer to U.S. military reports about who the suicide bombers are, I cross-validate those reports by citing mainstream media articles that have investigated that very issue, I cite letters written by al Qaeda's leaders, I visit al-Qaeda-affiliated web sites to see what they are saying, and on and on. No single piece of evidence amounts to proof that al Qaeda is a major force in Iraq, but each piece of evidence is relevant to the debate. By contrast, the New York Times article does not cite one shred of evidence to support their case. In fact, ironically, the only evidence they cite supports Bush's position (but the reporters announce their skepticism about that evidence without explaining why).

Here's more:

The heated debate over Iraq has spilled over to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as well. Mr. Bush has played up the group, talking about it as if it is on a par with the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks. War critics have often played down the significance of the group despite its gruesome record of suicide attacks and its widely suspected role in destroying a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006 that set Iraq on the road to civil war.

War critics have "...played down the significance of the group despite its gruesome record of suicide attacks and its widely suspected role in destroying a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006 that set Iraq on the road to civil war"? Well, why have they played it down given that it is so obviously true? No reason is given. Not one. As such, "war critics" are merely expressing an attitude toward the compelling evidence that supports the position advanced by the Bush and the U.S. military. More still:

Just last week, Mr. Zawahri called on Muslims to travel to Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia to carry out their fight against the Americans and appealed for Muslims to support the Islamic State in Iraq, an umbrella group that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has established to attract broader Sunni support.

Well, that's right. And, again, Zawahiri's statement is evidence in support of George Bush's theory. The fact that a "war critic" can express skepticism about the relevance of the evidence (while presenting no evidence of their own) is not really newsworthy. It only says something about the psychology of the war critic. Here is more evidence-free skepticism:

The broader issue is whether Iraq is a central front in the war against Al Qaeda, as Mr. Bush maintains, or a distraction that has diverted the United States from focusing on the Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan while providing Qaeda leaders with a cause for rallying support.

Can you imagine radical Muslim critics complaining that Osama bin Laden's adventure in Iraq is a "distraction" that has diverted that terrorist organization from focusing on America's leadership in Washington D.C.? Well, if radical Muslims have a liberal wing, maybe they are doing just that.

Our presence in Iraq is certainly drawing jihadists there, but you need to ask yourself a simple question: why are the foreign suicide bombers flocking to Iraq and then attacking -- Iraqis? What's that all about? Why aren't they just attacking the soldiers of the Great Satan? This is an important question to answer if you want to think clearly about Iraq. In fact, it is the single most important question to answer. But if you just want to express a skeptical attitude about evidence that points to a critical role played by al Qaeda in Iraq, then you need not bother your delicate mind with the issue. The New York Times doesn't bother.

Everyone knows that al Qaeda's leadership is likely to be in Pakistan. Everyone also knows that America's leadership is in Washington D.C. Both of their army's are fighting in Iraq, and only one will emerge as the victor. That's the point. It would be nice to kill al Qaeda's leaders in Pakistan, but I don't see how the 160,000 troops in Iraq are going help us to do that unless we are prepared to invade Pakistan. Is that what the New York Times reporters are suggesting we do? No, they are just expressing skepticism, one that is devoid of both evidence and logic. In that sense, their position is a lot like the one taken by Bill O'Reilly.

Fortunately, Bush still seems clear about this issue:

He marveled at one of the media’s lines of questioning at his Thursday press conference, “They asked me yesterday ‘Are you sure it’s al Qaeda [in Iraq]?’ ‘Yeah, how do you know?’ ‘Because they swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden is how I know. Yeah, it’s al Qaeda.’ My point though to people is that it is the same crowd that killed 3,000 that is trying to drive us out of Iraq.”

To back his position, Bush cites one piece of evidence (and he has cited many other pieces of evidence in the past). That sets him apart from his critics at the New York Times, and you should think about what it means that one side of this debate relentlessly cites evidence (and then reasons from it) while the other side merely expresses an attitude.