Obama, the Surge, a Witch!, and the Media’s Superstitious Relationship to Causality

July 29th, 2008 Posted in Politics

Here’s a new meme: Bush-Like, Obama can’t admit he’s wrong. He’s stubborn. 

But far from being Bush-Like, what that stubbornness means in this case is a refusal to give in to lack of nuance, especially when it comes to the troop surge in Iraq. Obama has said, for instance, that the surge may have led to a decrease in violence, which is all we can really know. But in order to satisfy, he must also admit that we can derive the following conclusions from this premise:

1. The surge demonstrably led to a reduction in violence; other factors, such as the Anbar Awakening and the natural course of the Iraq Disaster, would not have reduced the violence regardless of whether or not there was a surge
2. Obama was wrong to oppose the surge, and should admit that he was wrong

Unfortunately, (1) and (2) simply do not follow.

Is it likely that the surge was the only factor or the most important factor in reducing violence? No. In fact there’s no way to tell whether it was a factor at all, or whether the surge actually exacerbated violence while other factors reduced it. The experiment has no control, and there are other factors that mitigate against this interpretation. The Anbar Awakening is one of them. But then there’s the fact that the surge was an afterthought to a badly planned disaster — a Band-Aid for a gunshot wound. And it was a long-lived disaster that may naturally have run its course. Consider whether 120,000 troops succeed where 100,000 were not enough. That’s very unlikely. If we had seen an increase to 250,000, the interpretation would be far more compelling.

Even allowing the unlikely premise that the surge was the primary reason for a reduction of violence in Iraq, was Obama wrong to oppose it? Not if you think that other strategic objectives are more important. Whether the surge was a good move or bad has nothing to do with whether their was a reduction in violence. It’s a matter of what strategic uses of resources is more important — shoring up Afghanistan and getting bin Laden, or making a 20 percent troop increase as an afterthought to years of war. The question is the rightness of the strategic objective, not the rightness of the tactical means to the wrong objective.

There is a hidden premise to all of this that dare not be questioned: FORCE WORKS. If it at first you do not shock and awe, try, try a tad more shock and a tad more awe. Worse, to question the efficacy of force is to dishonor the troops. Finally, signs of political reconciliation as a causal factor are to be ignored.

But because these nuances are supposedly too much for the general public, the media must pretend — in its own version of populist solidarity — that they’re too much for the talking heads as well.

And so we are meant to interpret superstitious free-association as “hard-hitting” journalism. Interestingly, this is an extension of tabloid-esque guilt-by-association and innuendo into the realm of policy. Instead of causal analysis, we get the modern day version of the mob that yells “Witch!” at a convenient old hag and determines guilt by imposing punishment: will it float?

Put those hard-hitting bad ideas out there, pundits, and see which of them float.