The Already Forgotten War
Happy Sunday T&T Readers,
I don’t talk much about my military service because I was a reservist. I never really did anything special, and when the war came, I decided not to re-enlist. But today’s newsletter talks about that period in my life and the Iraq War. Also, we had a huge surge in new subscribers this week. Clearly there’s a lot of Cormac McCarthy fans out there. So welcome aboard to you all and I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.
I am not the first member of my family to spend time in the Gulf.
In 1991, when I was in seventh grade, my mom’s Army Reserve Unit, the 50th General Hospital, was activated for the first time since the Normandy landing. She was deployed to Saudi Arabia as a part of Operation Desert Shield to provide medical care in support of what would become the first of two US military invasions of Iraq.
Military service is a tradition in my family. My father was a Warrant Officer in the Army and this was his route to the PNW. My brother was in the Army. My uncle was an Airmen, my step-father was drafted into the Army and wounded in the Vietnam War. I split the difference between my uncle and my mother and I enlisted in the US Air Force Reserves after high school. It felt like what I was supposed to do and I figured it would help pay for college. I enjoyed my time in the military. It gave me my first taste of travel—much of it in Texas.
But by mid-2002 the terrain changed. I publicly opposed the impending war in Iraq and my commentary about the war made for awkward situations during the waning days of my enlistment. I remember reading Norman Soloman’s Target Iraq and trying to explain the ways public opinion was being shaped in support of the war. I remember reading a PDF copy of Chomsky’s What Uncle Sam Really Wants and giving people highlighted copies of excerpts of the text. In 2003, I decided not to reenlist. I had become more a “college kid” than an “Airman”—those two aspects of my life having been at tension for years.
As the war went on, I remember being enraged listening to pols & pundits say “no one knew…” or “who could have foreseen…” as body counts soared and the nation soured on the war. It’s odd how clear those memories from twenty years ago are in my head because it seems like we’ve collectively forgotten about the Iraq War.
The Iraq invasion was based on false premises from the jump. The war was catastrophic, costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, wasting an estimated 2.4 trillion USD ($2,400,000,000,000) dollars of taxpayer money, and destabilizing much of the region. The war undermined American legitimacy in the region. It created a power vacuum that allowed extremist groups like ISIS to rise and allowed Iran to make the new government in Iraq another of its client states. The war inspired the largest protests in human history, damaging America's reputation and credibility with its allies.
The Iraq invasion was a disastrous decision, a bipartisan blunder that passed 77-23 in the US Senate. All but the Ron Paul brand of Republicans were champions of the war and nearly 60% of Congressional Democrats supported it. My own Senator Maria Cantwell voted for it; 2016 Democratic Nominee, Hillary Clinton voted for it; Joe Biden voted for it, calling it “not a rush to war but a march to peace and stability.” But no one in the US political establishment ever faced any consequences for this failure. The cost was paid by the people of Iraq and the 7,000 US servicemembers and military contractors who died in the conflict.
For my older students, the invasion is like Watergate is for people my age: a formative event with lasting repercussions that happened before I was born, like a memory belonging to someone else.
The Iraq War was the moment I learned America is allergic to holding people in power accountable. We saw this again during the 2008 crisis, poor Covid pandemic management, and are seeing it again with the current bank liquidity crisis. This allergy is arguably the defining characteristic of America’s political culture.
Bits and Recommendations for the Week
I spent more than my fair share of my childhood watching old movies. One of my favorites was The Dirty Dozen. It’s a war movie from 1967 that follows a group of twelve convicts, each with a unique set of skills, who are recruited for a dangerous mission behind enemy lines during World War II. This week I learned about Unit 684. It was a real life attempt at the Dirty Dozen, a South Korean decapitation force (read: kill team) designed to assassinate North Korean Leader, Kim Il Sung in 1968. The training they were put through was so arduous that they mutinied against their leaders, escaped their base, and hijacked a bus to Seoul. En route they got into a shootout with security forces. The military blew up the bus, killing several hijackers, and put the remainder on trial in secret tribunals. No, I am not making any of this up. Yes, it is absolutely insane. Yes, they made a movie about it. Yes, I intend to watch it. Here’s the trailer.
A few newsletters back, I wrote about my trip to Azerbaijan. This week on the podcast (it’s coming out tomorrow, but I am giving you early access below) I interviewed Sevinj Osmanqizi, an Azeri journalist based in the US. She helped school me up on the history of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh and in particular Russia’s role as antagonist in the conflict. This is one of my favorite conversations we've had on the pod and she shared angles I had never considered. If you enjoyed that travelogue or are curious about the Caucuses, it’s worth your time.
Lastly, I have been intrigued watching the local/regional bank crisis working its way through the US economy. Calculated Risk is my econ blog of choice and their coverage is worth following. Depositors are moving money from smaller regional banks they fear might collapse to larger “too big to fail” national banks like Chase, BoA, Wells-Fargo, etc, presuming these banks will be bailed out, no matter what. This market consolidation is an unintended consequence of the FDIC’s decision to make whole SVB and Signature depositors with balances over $250,000. Basically the feds moved the goalposts and people are trying to find a new equilibrium.
See you next Sunday!
As always, if you have any thoughts or feedback about the newsletter, I welcome it, and I really appreciate it when folks share the newsletter with their friends.