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Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

"2Blowhards interviews Gregory Cochran on Iraq"

8 Comments -

1 – 8 of 8
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How can one take anything seriously when the world is this ridiculous? People run the world without reading a f***ing book. How do you not just despair?

9/10/07, 2:28 AM

Anonymous TGGP said...

You're a lucky guy to have been friends with Greg Cochran before all of us. The Kristols of the world need to be fired so a big heaping dose of Cochran can be served to the chattering classes.

I don't know why Greg doesn't have a blog of his own yet, but as long as you're filling up your blogroll, I've just started one of my own at http://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.com/

9/10/07, 2:44 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Steve --

Cochran is both right and wrong. Right about Saddam's lack of ability after being caught several times (including the infamous sons-in-laws incident) AFTER the 1991 Truce to do much in nuclear weapons development. But dead wrong on WHY everyone in the CIA, Clinton-Bush White Houses, Congress, and every Western intelligence agency got Saddam's nukes wrong.

1. They'd been fooled by Saddam repeatedly. They missed the invasion of Kuwait (which shocked everyone), they missed his ballistic missile and chemical and nuke progams which shocked everyone during inspections in 1991. And they missed his continued development during the period 1992-94 including calutrons hidden in various warehouses, which were only exposed when his sons-in-law defected briefly after run ins with Uday, and dropped the dime on what he had hidden there (in blatant violation of his truce agreement). [His sons-in-law were later induced by false promises by Saddam of amnesty to go back to Iraq, where they were tortured and executed. That was Saddam.]

EVERYONE: Bush 1, Clinton's people, the CIA, all Western intelligence agencies had gotten it wrong so many times before on Saddam. The IAEA and UN had limited ability to inspect Iraq, had gotten kicked out several times, and had ZILCH human intel in Iraq. Spy satellites had missed the warehouses filled with primitive calutrons (cause they just looked like warehouses) and Saddam used couriers not electronic communications. Technical intel could not fill the gaps. NO ONE wanted to get fooled AGAIN and look like an idiot.

2. The CIA is filled with people like Valerie Plame -- Washington social climbers interested in hobnobbing with "important people" in places like Paris and London (ditto State Dept.) NOT scrounging around in places like Amman Jordan talking to exiles (in their native language) and developing sources. Their goal is to go to really important Washington parties and get appointed Undersecretary of Nothing instead of actually finding out what people are doing. NO ONE was willing to do the scut-work of scrounging around exiles who actually knew something to figure out what was going on.

[Cochran of course misses the revenue stream of Saddam's Iraq considerably -- Oil-for-Food had tens of billions coming in to him THAT WE KNOW OF NOW from kickbacks, mostly from the UN (like Annan's son), and sanctions were being busted left and right. Relying on inaccurate news reports by lazy, stringer-dependent reporters for information is like using chicken entrails for divination. One thing was clear: support for sanctions was falling apart through Saddam's widespread bribery of the UN and France, Russia, and China. Chirac is mired in a bribery scandal related to that episode.]

Cochran is dead wrong about Saddam's on-the-record of cozening terror. Clarke and others (no friends of Bush) worried about Osama taking Saddam up on his offer of sanctuary in 1998. Osama was INDICTED by Clinton's Justice Dept. for collaborating with Saddam to kill Americans (through WMD manufacture in Sudan) that same year. Saddam gave refuge to Abdul Rahman Yassin, complete with paid apartment and salary in Baghdad. Yassin remains to this day the last at-large 1993 WTC bomber. Khalid Sheik Mohammed (9/11 Architect) AND nephew Ramzi Yusef were connected to Saddam's intelligence Agency. Saddam's head of intelligence in Kuala Lumpur escorted a 9/11 plotter-pilot through Malaysian customs to a planning meeting where he took part (according to sworn CIA testimony to the 9/11 Commission). Saddam gave another paid apartment and salary to the Achille Lauro mastermind (who he had shot days before the war).

This should not surprise anyone: the ME terror networks like everything else there works on kinship and long-time friends. The same people (the KSM-clan, various Palestinian clans, Yemenis, Saudis, Pakistani clans) end up working for the same people: Osama, Egyptian Islamic Jihad (since merged with AQ), the GIA and successors, Saddam, and Assad. There's only so many people who will fund and supply that sort of thing. They all want to push the US out of the ME so their interests are allied. [What to do about it is another thing, but this is reality.]

Cochran seems in denial about the basic reality of our post-Cold War world. Lots of people can come to the US and kill thousands of Americans. Non-state actors and deniable cutouts means the old MAD model of deterrence is not functioning now. Governments that "allow" terrorists to kill thousands of their citizens don't stick around. Being weak and non-responsive to aggression only gets more aggression. People don't like to go to work and get blown up. Or run that risk. Or see the WTC collapse. Regardless of how much the looney left thinks it's "morally good for us."

Cochran is also dead wrong about the military: Petraeus for example has a Phd from Princeton, the Marine Corps in particular has spent a lot of time studying guerilla conflicts. The military in general is more highly educated than the general population, with higher IQs. What's notable is that ALL the functions of the State Dept. have had to be done by the military. Civil reconstruction, setting up elections, city administration, etc. Partly because the AQI-JAM-Mahdi Army etc. know they can simply KILL civilians like the UN or State Dept people and they'll all leave. Partly because State was not interested in being in dusty, dangerous places.

Cochran is frankly an idiot when it comes to National Security -- it would be like me advising him on genetics. An expert in one field is not an expert in another. We don't have (absent China) conflicts with strong states, rather weak ones that act as shields for hostile non-state actors like AQI to act/organize with impunity. And are driven to aggressive acts by internal instability and weakness.

Preemptive wars of course work: that's the history of US western expansion. Or the Reconquista. Or driving Muslims out of Sicily. Or the Russo-Japanese War. You simply have to pick your opponent and plan carefully.

Cochran is wrong about "letting" Osama escape. We didn't have the men or political will to risk war with Nuclear and WEAK Pakistan to get him. Hence unreliable proxies.

Cochran is right about it being very difficult to impossible to change Iraqi or Afghani society.

He's factually wrong -- the Iraqi Army simply deserted. It didn't exist. No one laid it off. It was foolish not to recall them and pay them off simply so they didn't blow stuff up, but it's important to assign the blame properly not stupidly. Iraqis themselves disbanded the Army.

The biggest indictment of the Bush Admin is it's adherence to PC and (like Cochran) desire to be "loved" by the world. I could care less if a Frenchman or Pakistani "loves me" because I know "love" won't make them stop a terror plot. But fear of the consequences will. The Bush Admin has failed to explain the conflict: Muslims don't like the modern world (being polygamists and tribalists) and want to kill us/it into submission. Bush has failed to respond by making Muslims around the world (because that's our enemy) understand that attacking America will have serious and undesirable (to them) consequences. Bush has failed to understand the danger (not states with Aircraft carriers but men using civilian tech to kill in mass quantities) much less address it.

9/10/07, 2:49 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wish Cochran spelled out his sources, assumption and model so we could examine the rigor of the method behind his conclusions. I have many of the same observations and came to the similar conclusions independently in a less formal way I suspect.

One problem is that Cochran speaks about meta-trends in history, politics, etc. that require readers to be well versed in the background material in addition to being dispassionately clear thinkers which he not most Americas are not. Something of a Catch-22 for bright people, their most interesting thoughts are necessarily complex enough to fly well above the heads of John Q. Public.

- JAN

9/10/07, 9:56 PM

Anonymous Bill said...

I don't know about this innumeracy theory. Sure, most people can't count too well, but there's got to be more to it than that.

Cochran picks apart the details and analyzes them -- something he is very good at. His factual analysis of the situation in Iraq is indisputable. Although I also knew prior to the invasion that the WMD scare was a lie, I couldn't have explained it nearly so well on the material basis Cochran does. I knew it because of previous research into who the people spreading the lie were. Because of this I was familiar with their history of brazen deception as well as the methods they use.

Cochran gives them a pass by saying they just can't count. Isn't that a bit too exculpatory given the fact that they had already outlined their plans to invade the Middle East even prior to 9/11?

Scientists are genuinely bright people. I've got several physicists in the family, including one who works at Hanford and another who runs a reactor on a nuclear sub, so I am familiar with their impressive mental ability. However, I can't say I have been overly impressed by their political insight. They seem to have a naïveté concerning the motives of others, at times attributing acts of malice to mere incompetence or inability to find a clear solution to the problem, something scientists by nature always seek.

Cochran comes off as an exception to this general tendency; it is hard to imagine anyone who is so interested in history and politics being unaware of the primal, irrational motives that underlie the human hunger for power. But I'm not sure he can set his scientific perspective aside, and due to this his innumeracy explanation for the invasion, despite his factual accuracy, falls short of convincing.

Let's take another look at a classic case of a government acting in what seems to be a stupid, innumerate manner. China during the Cultural Revolution had gone crazy by all indications on the ground. Almost every policy was wrong-headed on the face of it. And this insanity followed the Great Leap Forward, another period of generally stupid policies and bad ideas.

After the dust had settled and the Cultural Revolution began to wind down, Mao's power was more secure than it had been before it began. He died on the throne, so to speak. Could one therefore say that the old man's actions were stupid?

The people who brought America into this war are not concerned about trifling details such as calutrons or fissile material. What matters to them is maintaining their power and influence, no matter what the cost is to us or others. The result of such hubris is simply incalculable -- the variables are too numerous.

All that said, Cochran is totally right about every fact he put out there. His theories are also really, really cool. Especially the one about Neanderthals. I have long suspected Europeans were part Neanderthal, but I think the mixing occurred in Central Asia rather than Europe. The Neanderthals in Central Asia were not as distinct morphologically as "classic" European ones.

9/11/07, 1:47 AM

Anonymous gcochran said...

The invasion of Kuwait didn't shock _me_ - I predicted it. I
talked about it for two weeks before it happened, annoying everyone at work.
I guess that just shows what a national security idiot I am.

And of course both the Duelfer report and the GAO agree with me on the money Saddam had available for weapons programs.

9/11/07, 7:47 AM

Anonymous David said...

Mr. Cochran, thanks for your work and analysis.

But it's no good to answer back to lunatic anonymous critics, like Anonymous above. They're moonbats. Just as some people like to play Dungeons & Dragons, so some people like to play "I'm Jack Bauer, Who Should We Kill Next?"

They sit in their underwear in a dark basement, tap tap tapping on the keyboard, projecting phantom threats from rag-heads infiltrating the Kremlin, etc. With the smell of stale farts and cigar smoke floating around...Cheese doodles spilling into their laps...the latest Ann Coulter or Victor David Hanson bestseller and issue of "Forward" Magazine beside them...occasionally a pop-up message flashes into their red eyes: "Your subscription to DEBKA is nearing an end! Pay now to continue getting top analysis!"...

A voice from above breaks the spell: "Honey - MOW THE LAWN."

9/13/07, 1:01 PM

Blogger Geoffrey Styles said...

Mr. Cochrane's estimate of the amount available to Saddam's weapons programs looks incomplete, because it only counts the hard currency earnings from subverting Oil-for-Food. The Volcker report (http://www.iic-offp.org/documents/Sept05/Mgmt_V1.pdf) tallies those at $12.8 billion over the 7 years involved, out of gross transactions of $100 billion. But Saddam didn't have to pay soldiers, scientists, etc. out of these funds: he could do all that in local, non-convertible currency, which he could print at will (with corresponding inflation of the Dinar.) You can hire a pretty big army when you're paying them the equivalent of $40/month of scrip.

So the question becomes one of how much imported hardware would Saddam have needed to buy for WMD purposes, and whether $13 billion would have covered it, less what he spent on palace fixtures, etc.?

The argument by anonymous above that we got WMD wrong because no one wanted to be caught napping again rings truer, on balance, than that everyone looking at it was a stupid, innumerate political flack.

9/13/07, 3:04 PM

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