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TechnoratiThe Surge and American Military Triumphalism
Right-wing pundit Michael Barone has published a column on the surge in Iraq that may be the clearest expression so far of the American triumphalism over the U.S. military and Iraq that emerged in 2007. The current popularity of that idea reflects the degree to which the apologists for war, having been discredited earlier on Iraq, are now on the offensive.
Barone's theme is he "lessons to be learned" from what he calls the "dazzling success of the surge strategy in Iraq". The first lesson, he suggests, is that "just about no mission is impossible for the United States military". A year ago, he writes, everyone thought that "containing the violence in Iraq was impossible", but not, "we have seen it done".
Intoxicated by the hosannahs bestowed on Gen. David Petreaus's strategy, Barone pushes the military triumphalist creed to a new level. He goes so far as to assert the inevitability of American military triumph, regardless of the circumstances of any war. Barone says it's simply a matter of finding the right general with the right strategy. He points to the examples of George Washington at Yorktown, Lincoln and the civil war and Roosevelt and World War II.
And then there was Vietnam. Many Americans have been under the impression that the United States did not prevail in Vietnam, mainly because a powerful nationalist movement had mobilized Vietnamese against foreign domination since the end of the World War II. For Barone and true believers in the efficacy of American military power, however, the United States actually won the Vietnam War, and it was all because of the brilliant strategy of Gen. Creighton Abrams. The only reason they can't celebrate that victory fully, Barone insists, is that Congress refused to "allow the aid the United States had promised".
That now familiar explanation of why the American defeat in Vietnam was actually a victory may be the most astonishing feat of rewriting history ever accomplished by the apologists for a criminal war. Let's just recapitulate briefly what actually happened: Nixon and Kissinger had begun withdrawn U.S. troops from Vietnam beginning in 1969. The North Vietnamese were not stupid, and they withdraw most of their troops from South Vietnam during 1970 and 1971 while that U.S. withdrawal was proceeding to reduce their losses. That relative North Vietnamese stand-down in the war allowed the United States and the Saigon regime to gain control over large areas of South Vietnam for the first time since 1960. The U.S. military and apologists for the war claimed that it was all because Abrams had followed such a brilliant strategy.
Then North Vietnam struck across the demilitarized zone in spring 1972, undoing most of that control and forcing Nixon and Kissinger to negotiate the Paris Agreement of January 1973. Two years later, the Saigon regime simply crumbled in the face of a second North Vietnamese offensive across the DMZ, despite the fact that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam had more assistance from the United States than Hanoi had from its Communist allies. That's why the "stab in the back" myth had to be invented by those who political fortunes were tied to the fortunes of the U.S. war.
That brings us to the alleged "dazzling success" of the surge in Iraq. Just as the triumphalist narrative on Vietnam turns a real defeat into an imagined victory, the narrative now being constructed by Barone and others on Iraq tries to make a pointless military occupation that cannot prevail in the end into a glorious triumph of U.S. military power.
Again, let's recapitulate. In 2003 U.S. military forces destroyed the Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein and installed a Shiite regime in its stead. The Sunnis predictably launched a military resistance, and the U.S. military began its own war against Sunni insurgents. The presence of a U.S . military occupation force in an Islamic country with some of Islam's holiest sites predictably incited much greater popular support among Sunnis, both within Iraq and in neighboring Sunni countries, for jihadi extremists aligned with al Qaeda.
Thus al Qaeda, which had practically no support in Iraq in 2003, quickly became a major force in 2003 and 2004. By 2005, however, the tensions between al Qaeda and the predominantly Baathist nationalist Sunni insurgents had reached the point of open warfare. That warfare had become even more violent during 2006. The main non-al Qaeda Sunni resistance groups tried to negotiate a peace agreement with the United States in 2005-2006, but Bush refused.
By 2007, however, the Bush administration had changed sides in Iraq. It was more concerned with Shiite forces they associated with Iran than with the Sunni resistance. The United States finally began allowing them to police their own cities - something the Sunnis themselves had been proposing since 2005 but which Bush had refused to approve. The nationalist Sunnis have shown they were perfectly capable of taking care of al Qaeda themselves if the United States would only stop attacking them and get out of the way, which is what they had been saying all along.
However the problem for the U.S. military is now Shiite resistance to the occupation in the form of the Mahdi Army. It is part guerrilla army and part government security force, and it is far larger than the Sunni armed resistance was when the U.S. military admitted that it could gain control over it. For all the brave talk by the Bush administration about bottom-up reconciliation, which suggests that end of resistance is coming, the Shiite struggle against the occupation led by Moqtada al-Sadr is still in an early phase of its development.
The triumphalist vision embraced by Barone and large segments of the American political elite and news media thus depends on an understanding of the conflict that omits all the facts that are inconvenient. Unfortunately for the triumphalists, those happen to be the facts that are most central to the problem.
The truth that the triumphalists can never accept is that, once a large part of the population is mobilized to oppose U.S. domination, U.S. military power becomes the main problem rather than part of the solution. Ironically, there is reason to believe that, after nearly five years of war in Iraq, the U.S. military leadership - including Petraeus himself - now understand that reality. It is the armchair triumphalists like Michael Barone who believe that it is really American military power that is winning in Iraq.
Unfortunately Barone has plenty of company in what Ari Berman once called "the strategic class".
© 2007 Huffington Post
27 Comments so far
Show AllThe Republicans are right. The surge worked. The war is essentially over. Oh, umm, except for the killing and looting part.
"The first lesson, he suggests, is that "just about no mission is impossible for the United States military".
Doesn't that just want to make you run out and sign up. It should because that was the sole intent . Like one poster said " War is like a football game . We've never been and who would want to be or,what is worse,admit to being a loser?"
Americans will read this , " The first lesson... and add it to the long list of mantras,"applepie,motherhood,God Bless... that being red-blooded , you just don't question.
Yea Michael Barone
Gareth Porter is wasting his breath, if he assumes neocons can learn anything from the historical lesson he provides. Rule number one in the neocon manifesto: Ignore reality.
Winning in Vietnam? That's like the kid who got beat up at school going home and telling everyone how bad the other guy looked!
Barone's theme is he "lessons to be learned" from what he calls the "dazzling success of the surge strategy in Iraq". The first lesson, he suggests, is that "just about no mission is impossible for the United States military".
Of coarse there are! The right wing pundits have learned to spin a disaster into a victory! These pundits are not about to let their hero (Bush) leave office with a unmitigated disaster like Iraq on his record. The history books will barbecue him alive. So they are doing like they always do 'fixing' the evidence to suit themselves. Making it say what they want to hear. Spinning it to save George W Bush's sorry incompetent ass. What I see reported in the news every morning does not support there assumption. The killing might have slowed down some but the civil war is far from being over. When someone who has a gram of credibility tells me it's been 'a dazzling success' I will believe it but not until. As yet the only ones who say it is are virulent Bush supporters. They aren't bright enough to see what Bush is. Which I don't believe anymore than what comes out of Bush's mouth. There isn't anyway this mess is going to be over by the time Bush leaves office in a year. So his cronies are only salvaging his image. The above piece fits in the category of blatant propaganda. Which I learned 7 to 8 years ago to take with a grain of salt. Because that's about all it's worth.
pistonbroke got it right.
It is like reading 'Mein Kampf' after WWII and being surprised how it all happened.
What the hell do You expect from those fascists? Wishful thinking doesn't cut it anymore.
This is NAZI propaganda of the worst kind. The problem with this is, that Adolf did not have
his sick fingers on the red launch button for WWIII. When he was telling the Germans that there
was an all out offensive against the Allies in the making, his Generals asked themselves "Where?"
http://www.trance-formation.com/
read this and You will find a plausible explanation as of why Americans can't get their obese asses
from their couches to kick the same in the dark house and wherever there is somebody squandering
our lives and our money.
America - It was great but it didn't last long.
Well, how much did we respect the Indian's viewpoint that they
lived on this land freely before white man came and started pushing them around? What's different now? Iraqis are Indians, aren't they?
He may be ignored and maligned in his run for president, but Kucinich is at least one honest Congressperson speaking truth in dark times. From Linda McQuaig, "Mission Not Accomplished"
( http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=14652 )
--EXCERPT--
A poll conducted last June and July for the non-profit Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies found that nearly two-thirds of Iraqis – 66 percent of Shiites, 62 percent of Sunnis and 52 percent of Kurds -- opposed plans to open their country's oil sector to foreign investment. This Iraqi opposition is well understood in Washington circles. A senior researcher on the staff of the Iraq Study Group, who spoke on condition of anonymity, noted that the Democrats and Republicans on the panel agreed about the need for a major role for multinational oil companies in Iraq. But he also acknowledged that this approach was not popular inside Iraq, among politicians or the larger public. "The point of view [over there] is: 'God gave us this oil. It's for the benefit of the people of Iraq … We don't want the foreigner to come in and take it away,'" he said. "The Iraqis are highly, highly nationalistic. They haven't reconciled themselves to the importance of foreign investment to bring their industry up to date... The Iraqi political system doesn't get that yet."
What's striking in this comment is the acknowledgement that Iraqis oppose U.S. plans for their oil – but that somehow this Iraqi opposition doesn't matter. The notion that Iraqi resistance is simply something to be overcome – rather than something to be respected – seems to underlie much of the thinking in Washington when it comes to Iraq.
Dennis Kucinich sees a deep problem in this way of thinking. "There's a mentality in this country that says because we have the power, we can just steal someone else's oil." Yet when he tried to raise objections to this approach – to suggest that the US has no business telling Iraq what to do with its oil – he ran into stiff resistance within his own party. Kucinich says that he raised the issue within the Democratic caucus a number of times last spring, when Democrats were drafting legislation that would cut off funding for the war unless certain benchmarks of progress were met. One of those benchmarks – originally proposed by the White House – was passage of the proposed oil law. Kucinich said that when he objected, arguing that the oil law amounted to an attempt to gain control of Iraqi oil, "I was shouted down several times, literally, by leading Democrats… There was broad denial that such a thing could be happening….I was attacked by some of the leaders for even raising the issue."
Ignoring Kucinich's objections, the Democratic-controlled Congress ended up passing the bill, with the oil law as a benchmark. . . .
At the root of Kucinich's critique, then, is an idea that has been all but banned from political discourse in Washington – that oil has been a motivating factor in the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. The possibility of an oil motive is almost never raised by the Democrats, nor voiced in the mainstream North American media, observes Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, an advocacy group for cleaner energy that operates out of a tiny house in north Washington, far from the slick lobbying scene downtown. Notes Kretzmann: "We are under a rigid doctrine in the West, a religious fanaticism, that says we must believe that the United States would have invaded Iraq even if its main product was lettuce and pickles." Kretzmann marvels at how the Bush administration has somehow managed to make anyone pointing to a possible oil motive look so extreme or delusional that virtually no one in the mainstream has been willing to risk it . . .
---END EXCERPT---
When I read Barone he reminded me of the Nazis in late 1944 and how they were going to push the Allies into the sea. It's just wishful thinking, it gives them hope, it stiffens their backbone but reality will soon cure that. The US military hasn't the ability to wage a war of the kind they now face just like they couldn't win in Vietnam. Trying to control millions of people with 150,000 military is like grabbing hold of a handful of water, it can't be done, history teaches that.
The last 7 years under Bush has been tragic for America. When I first came here 14 years ago the USA prospered, the people were happy and confident. In 1997-9 employees could name their price because there was a shortage of labour, 7 years later the same people are being evicted from their homes and up to their neck in debt.
If the American people don't come out of their torpor and kick these corporate hacks out of office then war will be on the menu permanently.
Excellent article, and Washington was definitely defeated in Vietnam. If you have any doubts, simply visit the website of Vietnam's governing political party: http://www.cpv.org.vn/english/
Well - what's the view of the author on what happens next?
What happens in Iraq in 2008? A lot may hinge on that.
Yes, our strategy is working brilliantly. Four thousand Americans and perhaps a million Iraqis, mostly civilians, killed; several times that number maimed or rendered destitute and homeless; neighborhoods ethnically cleansed; infrastructure necessary for civilized life destroyed; various ethnic and religious groups set upon each other, corrupted by our bribes, and likely to become the new Taliban; vast amounts of guns and explosives delivered to the insurgents; al Qaeda reinvigorated; more than a trillion dollars of borrowed money squandered; Iran left as the unchallenged power in the region; our reputation in tatters with the resulting radicalization of previously moderate Muslims and the disdain of our allies; the rule of law and the constitution trashed; oil prices more than trebled; and an open-ended draining sore on our military. This is a pyrrhic victory if ever there was one. At least Bush's friends in the military-industrial complex and oil companies are smiling.
Ask Barone if he's willing to die for Iraq. Your answer will be the beat of retreating boots as the U.S. pulls out within the next 10 minutes. None of these closet throat sticking punks would sacrifice their shit stained underpants for Iraq.
The war is never over until the troops have all left. In this case, it may be it is never over till the oil is all gone.
Aside from all this fascist nonsense about the success of the "surge" (more Iraqis were killed last year than the year before), the candidates are given a free pass by the press about declaring the Iraq war "won". I've just been watching the Three Stooges - McCain, Romney, and Giuliani - declare the war over! And no one from the MSM disputes this absurd claim.
BANE RICHTER: Right on!
So long as the population is trained by sports to think in overly simplistic terms like "win" and "lose," and is unable to WITNESS the "killing fields," these lies may hold for a time. I'd like to see the evaluation of so-called "victory" taken as documentary through the eyes and experience of those who suffered, LOST limbs, loved ones, livelihoods on elected theaters of war. THAT is where the measure of what is won or lost would own some basis in Truth.
Barone is just another cowardly fascist.
The triumphalists succeed brilliantly in starting highly profitable wars for their MIC. Now they're getting ready for the next ones.
In the shadow monarchy (in which we all suffer) "triumph" means Lockheed gets 1 Billion and the disenfranchised hand-wring over Britney, barely unable to save from paycheck to paycheck. The DoD is generically a pack of savage, indoctrinated luddites, an organizational cancer within the lie of democractic process. They've seen a rich, beligerant 8 years, and any so called candidate (employee) will continue do as they're told.
All the candidates are "fake change' artists. They are not about to rock their base which is corporate America. Politicians all talk to Americans, but they listen to the corporate sponsors. We've got laws to keep religion out of the government and now we need laws to keep corporations out of government.
Hoa binh
The article is very good.
Nathaniel Heidenheimer's comment (12:47 pm) is also very good -- people should read it. Edwards may very well not be the real thing, in terms of opposing corporate power & the US war machine. (In fact, I'm quite sure he isn't the real thing.)
But the point is that ONLY Edwards is making roughly the right noises, & that those noises have value in & of themselves. If Obama becomes the nominee, the entire campaign year will go up in a fog of fatuous happy talk about "hope and unity." This can only deaden the public's consciousness of what the real problems are, and of who the real enemy is.
The enemy is not lack of optimism, or excessive "partisanship", as the empty-headed Obama types would like to believe. The enemy is the corporate oligarchy, & their war machine. A force like that can only be defeated by confronting it, & arousing conscious opposition to it. It's true that talking tough is not the same as confronting it (that's a very real danger with Edwards), but the Obama-ists want to believe that the monster will go away if we just pretend it's not there. That's what all his bullsh*t about "hope and unity" amounts to.
Obama is a 100% status quo candidate. He has more backing from Wall St than any other candidate, loudly embraces the concept of the "War on Terror," and backs Israel to the hilt. He say nothing against corporate power or the war machine. (Doing so would be "too negative.") It doesn't matter that he's black any more than it matters that Condi, Colin Powell, & Clarence Thomas are black. In fact, despite Hillary's presence in the race, Obama is more like the 1992 Bill Clinton than any of the others -- he's the fake "change" candidate.
We'd be more honest to drop the "surge" word, and debate whether our "switch" (to enabling Sunnis) is or is not "working", and whether Iraq can "succeed" that way in the long term, with Sunni AND Shia sharing power.
If we have any sense at all about maintaining any progress in Iraq, we need to move from "we did it" with a surge, to bragging on Iraq because "they did it."
The Betrayus cabal of thugs must hang in the US for there to ever be justice abroad.
Isn't it funny that these military triumphalists never mention majority opposition to invading U.S. forces? If the majority loses, what kind of victory is that? The majority (95%) of Vietnamese despised America. The same numbers exist today in Iraq.
The article is about Iraq and the "surge". At 1:45 pm above you can find a diatribe against the Democrat who just won Iowa. Was that somehow useful?
THANKS for that Gareth. By the way I greatly enjoyed your book Perils of Domination and recommend it to all.
FOR ALL SO CALLED PRGRESSIVES THE CHOICE IS NOW EDWARDS OR Corporations.
Obama strongly resembles Ross Perot in his appeal to the know-nothings who are either 17 or dont pay attention and just want to watch Football.
Yes I know of Edwards background.
But for eight years opposition to the Bipartisan Corporate Agenda has been like a french horn without a mouthpiece.
Edwards offers– to some degree– the mouthpiece that has been so strategically withheld, the mouthpiece to the NATIONAL STAGE. READERS of Federalist 10 will remember just how important this is, and they know that it is the single biggest reason– the lack of a national mouthpiece– why the bipartisan coporate agenda has gone unchallenged for so long. I even sent Edwards 100$ yesterday,even though I am not naive about his hhistory.
He had his biggest fundraising day ever yesterday.
Commmondreams seems to have missed this one:
http://www.thestar.com/article/289353