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TechnoratiAny analysis of the current state of the ongoing U.S. occupation of Iraq that relied solely on the U.S. government, the major candidates for president or the major media outlets in the United States for information would be hard pressed to find any bad news. In a State of the Union address which had everything except a "Mission Accomplished" banner flying in the background, President Bush all but declared victory over the insurgency in Iraq. His recertification of the success of the so-called surge has prompted the Republican candidates to assume a cocky swagger when discussing Iraq. They embrace the occupation and speak, without shame or apparent fear of retribution, of an ongoing presence in that war-torn nation. Their Democratic counterparts have been less than enthusiastic in their criticism of the escalation. And the media, for the most part, continue their macabre role as cheerleaders of death, hiding the reality of Iraq deep inside stories that build upon approving headlines derived from nothing more than political rhetoric. The war in Iraq, we're told, is virtually over. We only need "stay the course" for 10 more years.
This situation is troublesome in the extreme. The collective refusal of any constituent in this complicated mix of political players to confront Bush on Iraq virtually guarantees that it will be the Bush administration, and not its successor, that will dictate the first year (or more) of policy in Iraq for the next president. It also ensures that the debacle that is the Bush administration's overarching Middle East policy of regional transformation and regime change in not only Iraq but Iran and Syria will continue to go unchallenged. If the president is free to pursue his policies, it could lead to direct military intervention in Iran by the United States prior to President Bush's departure from office or, failing that, place his successor on the path toward military confrontation. At a time when every data point available certifies (and recertifies) the administration's actions in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere (including Afghanistan) as an abject failure, America collectively has fallen into a hypnotic trance, distracted by domestic economic problems and incapable, due to our collective ignorance of the world we live in, of deciphering the reality on the ground in the Middle East.
Rather than offering a word-for-word renouncement of the president's rosy assertions concerning Iraq, I will instead initiate a process of debunking the myth of American success by doing that which no politician, current or aspiring, would dare do: predict the failure of American policy in Iraq. With the ink on the newspapers parroting the president's words barely dry, evidence of his misrepresentation of reality begins to build with the announcement by the Pentagon that troop levels in Iraq will not be dropping, as had been projected in view of the "success" of the "surge," but rather holding at current levels with the possibility of increasing in the future. This reversal of course concerning troop deployments into Iraq highlights the reality that the statistical justification of "surge success," namely the reduction in the level of violence, was illusory, a temporary lull brought about more by smoke and mirrors than any genuine change of fortune on the ground. Even the word surge is inappropriate for what is now undeniably an escalation. Iraq, far from being a nation on the rebound, remains a mortally wounded shell, the equivalent of a human suffering from a sucking chest wound, its lungs collapsed and its life blood spilling unchecked onto the ground. The "surge" never addressed the underlying reasons for Iraq's post-Saddam suffering, and as such never sought to heal that which was killing Iraq. Instead, the "surge" offered little more than a cosmetic gesture, covering the wounds of Iraq with a bandage which shielded the true extent of the damage from outside view while doing nothing to save the victim.
Iraq is dying; soon Iraq will be dead. True, there will be a plot of land in the Middle East which people will refer to as Iraq. But any hope of a resurrected homogeneous Iraqi nation populated by a diverse people capable of coexisting in peace and harmony is soon to be swept away forever. Any hope of a way out for the people of Iraq and their neighbors is about to become a victim of the "successes" of the "surge" and the denial of reality. The destruction of Iraq has already begun. The myth of Kurdish stability-born artificially out of the U.S.-enforced "no-fly zones" of the 1990s, sustained through the largess of the Oil-for-Food program (and U.S.-approved sanctions sidestepped by the various Kurdish groups in Iraq) and given a Frankenstein-like lease on life in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion and occupation-is rapidly unraveling. Like Dr. Frankenstein's monster, present-day Iraqi Kurdistan has been exposed as an amalgam of parts incompatible not only with each other but the region as a whole.
Ongoing Kurdish disdain for the central authority in Baghdad has led to the Kurds declaring their independence from Iraqi law (especially any law pertaining to oil present on lands they control). The reality of the Kurds' quest for independence can be seen in their support of the Kurdish groups, in particular the PKK, that desire independence from Turkey. The sentiment has not been lost on their Turkish neighbors to the north, resulting in an escalation of cross-border military incursions which will only expand over time, further destabilizing Kurdish Iraq. Lying dormant, and unmentioned, is the age-old animosity between the two principle Kurdish factions in Iraq, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP). As recently as 1997, these two factions were engaged in a virtual civil war against one another. The strains brought on by the present unraveling have these two factions once again vying for position inside Iraq, making internecine conflict all but inevitable. The year 2008 will bring with it a major escalation of Turkish military operations against northern Iraq, a strategic break between the Kurdish factions there and with the central government of Baghdad, and the beginnings of an all-out civil war between the KDP and PUK.
The next unraveling of the "surge" myth will be in western Iraq, where the much applauded "awakening" was falling apart even as Bush spoke. I continue to maintain that there is a hidden hand behind the Sunni resistance that operates unseen and uncommented on by the United States and its erstwhile Iraqi allies operating out of the Green Zone in Baghdad. The government of Saddam Hussein never formally capitulated, and indeed had in place plans for ongoing active resistance against any occupation of Iraq. In October 2007 the Iraqi Baath Party held its 13th conference, in which it formally certified one of Saddam's vice presidents, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, as the supreme leader of the Sunni resistance.
The United States' embrace of the "awakening" will go down in the history of the Iraq conflict as one of the gravest strategic errors made in a field of grave errors. The U.S. military in Iraq has never fully understood the complex interplay between the Sunni resistance, al-Qaida in Iraq, and the former government of Saddam Hussein. Saddam may be dead, but not so his plans for resistance. The massive security organizations which held sway over Iraq during his rule were never defeated, and never formally disbanded. The organs of security which once operated as formal ministries now operate as covert cells, functioning along internal lines of communication which are virtually impenetrable by outside forces. These security organs gave birth to al-Qaida in Iraq, fostered its growth as a proxy, and used it as a means of sowing chaos and fear among the Iraqi population.
The violence perpetrated by al-Qaida in Iraq is largely responsible for the inability of the central government in Baghdad to gain any traction in the form of unified governance. The inability of the United States to defeat al-Qaida has destroyed any hope of generating confidence among the Iraqi population in the possibility of stability emerging from an ongoing American occupation. But al-Qaida in Iraq is not a physical entity which the United States can get its hands around, but rather a giant con game being run by Izzat al-Douri and the Sunni resistance. Because al-Qaida in Iraq is derived from the Sunni resistance, it can be defeated only when the Sunni resistance is defeated. And the greatest con game of them all occurred when the Sunni resistance manipulated the United States into arming it, training it and turning it against the forces of al-Qaida, which it controls. Far from subduing the Sunni resistance by Washington's political and military support of the "awakening," the United States has further empowered it. It is almost as if we were arming and training the Viet Cong on the eve of the Tet offensive during the Vietnam War.
Keeping in mind the fact that the Sunni resistance, led by al-Douri, operates from the shadows, and that its influence is exerted more indirectly than directly, there are actual al-Qaida elements in Iraq which operate independently of central Sunni control, just as there are Sunni tribal elements which freely joined the "awakening" in an effort to quash the forces of al-Qaida in Iraq. The diabolical beauty of the Sunni resistance isn't its ability to exert direct control over all aspects of the anti-American activity in Sunni Iraq, but rather to manipulate the overall direction of activity through indirect means in a manner which achieves its overall strategic aims. The Sunni resistance continues to use al-Qaida in Iraq as a useful tool for seizing the strategic focus of the American military occupiers (and their Iraqi proxies in the Green Zone), as well as controlling Sunni tribal elements which stray too far off the strategic course (witness the recent suicide bomb assassination of senior Sunni tribal leaders). 2008 will see the collapse of the Sunni "awakening" movement, and a return to large-scale anti-American insurgency in western Iraq. It will also see the continued viability of al-Qaida in Iraq in terms of being an organization capable of wreaking violence and dictating the pace of American military involvement in directions beneficial to the Sunni resistance and detrimental to the United States.
One of the spinoffs of the continued success of the Sunni resistance is the focus it places on the inability of the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad to actually govern. The U.S. decision to arm, train and facilitate the various Sunni militias in Iraq is a de facto acknowledgement that the American occupiers have lost confidence in the high-profile byproduct of the "purple finger revolution" of January 2005. The sham that was that election has produced a government trusted by no one, even the Shiites. The ongoing unilateral cease-fire imposed by the Muqtada al-Sadr on his Mahdi Army prevented the outbreak of civil war between his movement and that of the Iranian-backed Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and its militia, the Badr Brigade.
When Saddam's security forces dissolved on the eve of the fall of Baghdad in March 2003, the security organs which had been tasked with infiltrating the Shiite community for the purpose of spying on Shiites were instead instructed to embed themselves deep within the structures of that community. Both the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade are heavily infiltrated with such sleeper elements, which conspire to create and exploit fractures between these two organizations under the age-old adage of divide and conquer. A strategic pause in the conflict between the Mahdi Army and the U.S. military on the one hand and the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade on the other has served to strengthen the hand of the Mahdi Army by allowing time for it to rearm and reorganize, increasing its efficiency as a military organization all the while its political opposite, the SCIRI-dominated central Iraqi government, continues to falter.
Further exacerbating the situation for the American occupiers of Iraq is the ongoing tension created by the war of wills between the United States and Iran. The Sunni resistance has no love for the Shiite theocracy in Tehran, or its proxies in Iraq, and views creating a rift between the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade as a strategic imperative on the road to a Sunni resurgence. Any U.S. military strike against Iran will bring with it the inevitable Shiite backlash in Iraq. The Shiite forces that emerge as the most independent of the American occupier will be, in the minds of the Sunni resistance, the most capable of winning the support of the Shiites of Iraq. Given the past record of cooperation between the Mahdi Army and the Sunni resistance, and the ongoing antipathy between Sunnis and SCIRI, there can be little doubt which Shiite entity the Sunnis will side with when it comes time for a decisive conflict between the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade, and 2008 will be the year which witnesses such a conflict.
The big loser in all of this, besides the people of Iraq, is of course the men and women of the armed forces of the United States. Betrayed by the Bush administration, abandoned by Congress and all but forgotten by a complacent American population and those who are positioning themselves for national leadership in the next administration, the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who so proudly wear the uniform of the United States continue to fight and die, kill and be maimed in a war which was never justified and long ago lost its luster. Played as pawns in a giant game of three-dimensional chess, these brave Americans find themselves being needlessly sacrificed in a game where there can be no winner, only losers.
The continued ambivalence of the American population as a whole toward the war in Iraq, perhaps best manifested by the superficiality of the slogan "Support the Troops," all the while remaining ignorant of what the troops are actually doing, has led to a similar amnesia among politicians all too willing to allow themselves to seek political advantage at the expense of American life and treasure. January 2008 cost the United States nearly 40 lives in Iraq. The current military budget is unprecedented in its size, and doesn't even come close to paying for ongoing military operations in Iraq. The war in Iraq has bankrupted Americans morally and fiscally, and yet the American public continues to shake the hands of aspiring politicians who ignore Iraq, pretending that the blood which soaks the hands of these political aspirants hasn't stained their own. In the sick kabuki dance that is American politics, this refusal to call a spade a spade is deserving of little more than disdain and sorrow.
While the American people, politicians and media may remain mute on the reality of Iraq, I won't. There is no such thing as a crystal ball which enables one to see clearly into the future, and I am normally averse to making sweeping long-term predictions involving a topic as fluid as the ongoing situation in Iraq. At the risk of being wrong (and, indeed, I hope very much that I am), I will contradict the rosy statements of the president in his State of the Union address and will throw down a gauntlet in the face of ongoing public and media ambivalence by predicting that 2008 will be the year the "surge" in Iraq is exposed as a grand debacle. The cosmetic bandage placed over the gravely wounded Iraq will fall off, and the damaged body that is Iraq will continue its painful decline toward death.
If there is any winner in all of this it will be the Sunni resistance, or at least its leadership hiding in the shadow of the American occupation, as it continues to exploit the chaotic death spiral of post-Saddam Iraq for its own long-term plan of a Sunni resurgence in Iraq. That the Sunni resistance will continue to fight an American occupation is a guarantee. That it will continue to persevere is highly probable. That the United States will be able to stop it is unlikely. And so, the reality that the only policy direction worthy of consideration here in the United States concerning Iraq is the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of American forces continues to hold true. And the fact that this option is given short shrift by all capable of making or influencing such a decision guarantees that this bloody war will go on, inconclusively and incomprehensibly, for many more years. That is the one image in my crystal ball that emerges in full focus, and which will serve as the basis of defining a national nightmare for generations to come.
Scott Ritter was a Marine Corps intelligence officer from 1984 to 1991 and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He is the author of numerous books, including "Iraq Confidential" (Nation Books, 2005) , "Target Iran" (Nation Books, 2006) and his latest, "Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement" (Nation Books, April 2007).
© 2008 TruthDig.com
52 Comments so far
Show AllSCOTT! How can I contact you? I know you have spoken with friends of mine from CAWI and Bienville Center for Peace and Justice, and the organization I am heading sways to support many principles you suggested in Waging Peace, such as the fact that we are not an ati-war group but a pro-constitution and Humanitiarian rights group focusing on the U.S. Constitution and Geneva Conventions. Please, we would love to speak with you. CitizensStand@Peacemail.com
-Elaina Jeansonne
A Community for Peaceful Educated Action
People ending a war is not the esiest thing to do, and with people who first suport our government and then dont when things get bad what do u expect. I love our country. It reminds me how smart I actuialy am compared to the rest of it.
We will eventually crawl out of Iraq with our collective tail between our legs just like the British did 80 years ago.
"Iraq is dying; soon Iraq will be dead. True, there will be a plot of land in the Middle East which people will refer to as Iraq." This is not figurative; this is literal. The amount of depleted uranium that the United States used in Iraq is a death sentence for the population. The results of this criminal act are only now beginning to surface and you can expect that the conquerors will suffer as much as their victims.
When I owned a service station, I was charged almost one cent a gallon for delivery of a load of 9,300 gallons of gasoline, that cost included the pipelne delivery from Texas to the terminal's holding tanks and the final trucking to my station. It wasn't Halliburton doing my deliveries, a crooked and corrupt corporation, which is taking most of the money we've borrowed from China and spent on the Bush/Cheney war in Iraq.
No, Scott Ritter, Iran is NOT the true Target, London is:
----------------------------------------------------------
Target: London
-------------------------
London, United Kingdom, is the very centre of All EVIL on Earth today.
Dragon symbology and statues are spread all throughout 'the City'; an area embedded within the greater city of London per se', and often reffered to as the richest square mile of land on earth.
On 'the City' of London's coat of arms, again, we find dragons and dragon symbology, signifying and reaffirming that it is Satan, Lucifer, the Devil (referred to repeatedly in Holy Scripture as the Dragon or the Serpent) who really controls the temporal affairs of Men.
Today, 'the City' of London is the global financial capital of 21st century human civilization. New York City, its rival, is in steep decline as witnessed by the continuing fall of the American Dollar in the global economy. One need not look further than the international monetary exchange rates to see that the British Pound is the strongest currency in the world, followed by the European Euro- both superceeding the rapid devaluation of the American Dollar in world affairs. (in 2007: 1 US Dollar= .75 European Euros and .50 British Pounds)
It is the JEWISH House of Rothschild who owns, runs and operates 'the City' of London, rendering it, by far, the richest, wealthiest, most powerful transnational enterprise/empire on Earth. International jewry, therefore, sits at the very head of the emerging European BEAST government, or Revived Roman Empire, commonly referred to today as the European Union. In addition, the British Commonwealth controls roughly 1/4 of the world's nations, peoples and landmasses, making it an additional extension of transnational european jewish power existing beyond the territorial domain of the European Continent.
The true 'source' of international corporate fascism, military warmongering and the global exploitation of land, people and resources today, is NOT the USA per se', but 'the City' of London, which pulls America's strings from on high and channels trillions in profits into the coffers of the International Jewish Corporate Rothschild Empire.
Let the world's REAL superpower (the world's people) therefore, target 'the City' of London for future annihilation and extermination, for herein lies Mankind's #1 enemy. Let the entire spectrum of future protest and confrontation, from non-violent civil resistance and disobedience to deadly Force of Arms (including the use of thermonuclear weapons), be directed against this single diabolical entity in world affairs. Together, let ALL the people of the planet take aim and work together to bring down this Leviathan by ANY AND ALL MEANS NECESSARY until this BEAST is completely overthrown and destroyed- for only then will the human race have a fighting chance to survive as a global civilization on into the 21st century.
Its Official, our Prime Target: London, UK.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonas the Prophet
Planet Earth
Website: http://geocities.com/jedicommandone
AndyUK: France and Germany signed big contracts with Saddam before the war and three years ago Unocal announced that it would be a shame to not honor those contracts before sending the oil somewhere where it would much more expensive to transport... like the United States.
Hence, the bulk of the crude is going to Europe. Meanwhile, the U.S. gets about 80% of it's imports from Canada and the rest mostly from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Mexico.
Of course a substantial amount of the oil is being sent to Kuwait for refining, and then is being trucked BACK to Iraq by Halliburton at approximately $1.50 per gallon trucking charge... then sold to the Iraqis for 15 cents a gallon... or about THREE TIMES what they paid under Saddam.
The U.S. taxpayer is paying for the shipping and refining.
The US invasion wasn't to provide cheap oil for the citizens of the Empire. That is a naive belief!
The US invasion, as pointed out above, was to get bases in Iraq and to get CONTROL of the oil for US and other corporations. Why would they want to sell it cheaply when it's so much more profitable to sell it dear?
Any American citizen who believes that the Empire is out to protect them or their "lifestyle" is sadly mistaken. Too bad so many others have to die because Americans are confused.
~Kivals~ I'm certain my post, whiich was full of satire, doesn't give the neo-cons any ideas. I do believe we already had one war with Mexico and forced them to sell us about half of their land for pennies on the acre. I also do believe many who read and post here at Common Dreams, don't believe that the DU we have used in Iraq, is slowly killing everyone over there and any of our ground troops who have served there. The only possible bright spot is, it is slowly killing the Blackwater troops also.
Any who may have doubts, open this link and scroll down to the paragraph, health effects of uranium contamnation.
Http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/background.htm
Don't ignore the fact that the death of Iraq, and the death of all the U.S. servicemen necessary to that end, IS the purpose of this war. Bush IS winning! The Empire wants Iraq to disappear as a nation. The Empire wants that oil source, NOW! As far as Bush is concerned the sooner the Iraqis become extinct the better. As for our service men? I'm sure he can't find any other reason for them to litter his world, than to be used as pawns ready to die for the Empire's greed.
Support the Truth.
Provoice: why do you think that most of the Iraqi oil is going to Europe? I was under the impression that the US had taken most of it, under the pretence of oil for aid, in other words to rebuild Iraq. You in the US (I assume that is where you are from)still have very cheap petrol prices compared to Europe (where petrol - gas - is over $10 a gallon.
You are correct in saying that the oil companies are making record profits, they use any drama in the Middle East to inflate the barrel price, and when have you known them to reduce the price, once a crisis has passed?
The money from Iraq is going straight into the very deep pockets, of scum like Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush.
Well, forty folks who seem to have avoided the brainwashing and endless propaganda concerning our reasons for occupying Iraq and see plainly the causes and effects of that occupation.
Just think, thirty or forty million more of us and something might actually get done. With the Oval Offcice set to be occupied by a corporatist (Clinton,Obama, Romney) or an outright warmionger (McCain) we are going to need every one of those forty million......
Please take a moment
NoMoreVictims.org
Iraq future starts the day we leave. The question is how much more of a basket case do we make of BOTH the US and Iraq before we abandon them to their own devices.
One of the great ironies of the occupation of Iraq is that it has done little or nothing to improve the lack of crude oil at reasonable prices coming into our country!
Everyone believed it was a war for oil, but what most people don't realize is that the vast majority of the Iraqi oil is going to EUROPE, not to the U.S.
The PROFITS are going to the oil companies, as demonstrated by the record profits being announced every quarter by the major oil companies.
So what we are paying for with our military lives and budget, is an occupation to protect the Iraqi oil being sold for huge profits to Europe!
It never ceases to amaze me how stupid and gullible some of my fellow citizens can be.
...and many of them are STILL LISTENING to the Limbaughs, O'Reillys and Coulters that have sold them down the river!
cmdrmsLvr February 5th, 2008 12:12 pm said "Good article… very depressing. What a disaster Bush has wrought on all of us."
Wrong!
We have wrought this upon the Iraqis by our complicity. We pay taxes and do not follow closely how those taxes are being utilised. Therin lies our complicity, through laziness, actually.
There is still time to pull back from the brink, and to address the problems we have caused.
Unless we very quickly accept our responsibility that time window will indeed fade, and fast, and then who knows what horror awaits?
Do we not deserve what has been meted out to others in our name?
Divide and Conquer
A strategy used by empires since the Pharohs.
The current chaos in Iraq isn't a failure of U.S. policy - it's a resounding success. So long as the Iraqis fight among themselves, Washington can continue to justify keeping U.S. troops based on top of the world's second largest oil reserves.
The Imperialist game is to keep the violence somewhere between a simmer and a slow boil.
Their aim is to keep the nominal government dependent on U.S. military aid... too weak to resist predatory contracts with western oil companies, but just strong enough to enforce those contracts.
I'm not sure I agree with Ritter that the Baathists are still functioning as an underground movement. A lot of them got killed off by Shiite death squads. In a catastrophe like this, many partisans will give up their ideology and choose simple survival for themselves and their families. When political allegiance fail, others (religious, tribal) step in to take their place.
The question is whether Baathism became self-serving and corrupt under Saddam Hussein, or if it still represented Arab nationalism - an ideology with a long track record.
Either way, we have to convince the American people that the game of Empire is a bad deal for the folks back home, too. The Empire bleeds the homeland to expand it's frontiers.
From Wikipedia:
/start quote/
In March 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directed the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was headed by his younger brother Allen Dulles, to draft plans to overthrow Mossadegh.
On April 4, 1953, CIA director Dulles approved US$1 million to be used "in any way that would bring about the fall of Mossadegh." Soon the CIA's Tehran station started to launch a propaganda campaign against Mossadegh.
/end quote/
And from that day until now the Anglo-American Global Corporatists have been strangling the life out of Iraq.
Slow certain grinding genocide.
Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush .. blood on all their hands.
It's not a "mistake" .. it's not "incompetence" ..
It's CRIMINAL.
norgotoad,
If you haven't already, you GOTTA contribute to the satire site
http://www.liberalsmustdie.com/
Sometimes the only relief is comic.....
What a crock. You could have said the same thing many times in history. The proble in Iraq is not insurrmountable any more than the 250 year old war between Catholics and Pretestants in Ireland was unsolvable.
___________
Iraq is dying; soon Iraq will be dead. True, there will be a plot of land in the Middle East which people will refer to as Iraq. But any hope of a resurrected homogeneous Iraqi nation populated by a diverse people capable of coexisting in peace and harmony is soon to be swept away forever
_______________________
Nonsense. Of course it could be a failure just as the new United States could have been a failure back in the late 1700's. Remember we lost every battle in the Revolutionary War until the last one. We won that one.
Iraq is a rather simple, though complicated, problem. A country with more than 70% Shiis was controlled brutally by 22% of the population for 30 years. Hence there is a lot of hatred and animosity there. Does that mean it will always be there? Don't let your politics can in the way of your reasoning. Who couldl have been worse enemies that Germany and England or Germany and the United States after WWII. And what about Japan. Yet today they are friendly to the US and we to them. Peple can overcome hatred and distrust given the time and the opportunity,
Will that happen in Iraq? Who knows but it could? Only time will tell. in the mean time have you noticed Mr. Clod that there have been no attacks on our intersts since 2002? unlike the Clinton years we have been pretty safe. Could that be because al Queda is being beaten and decimated in Iraq? I think so.
By the way didn't you go to Iraq to look for the WMD? said they were there, then said they weren't there? And did you have some other problem?????
Lets give peace a chance. Hell, we are on decent terms with Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Dubai (if I spelled it right) and lots of coutries over there. Iraq right now and even Afghanistan are not our enemies. So who is? Syria and Iran?
That's hardly a failure. AND Sir, 10,000,000 Iraq
This is the Iraqis future. They are all dead men walking. So is anyone who has been there for any length of time.
http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/background.htm
Does anyone (besides Ron Paul) in that God-forsaken Congress have a conscience? How long will they allow this daily carnage of Iraqis and our troops to continue?
How about thinking of something other than getting re-elected or helping your party re-elect a person who is a real detriment to this country?
When are we going to find out what the CFR connections are to these people? And the Rhodes Scholar to CFR connections as well?
None of the real information is given. That is why most of the public votes with their eyes wide shut.
KEM PATRICK,
Please do not give the overlord applicants any ideas! I believe McCain has already promised to confront Chavez in Venezuela, i.e. murder Chavez and Venezuelan patriots to try to steal Venezuela's oil. We should never underestimate the rapaciousness and ruthlessness of those who vie to become leaders of the corporate empire.
Finally somebody has used the correct word -bravo Scott! This IS an OCCUPATION pure and simple - nothing to do with 'war' as no declaration of war was ever made. We should all make a point of vehemently correcting anyone we discuss with who uses this term so loosely and irresponsibly.
Let's see: over 1 million killed by us. We torture and imprison without habeaus corpus. We love war. We really love war! Christ, Shock and awe was better entertainment than Nascar!
We are a nation for corporate interests mainly. Hey we are good fascists! With a little more work, we could become good Nazis-- er corporate citizens-- oh what the heck go for the gold-- NAZIS! Parents gotta love that! Little Farquar in a SS uniform. Sooo cute! Hey the Nazis were cool dressers. Leather long rider coats for the Gestapo. Gotta admit those SS uniforms were very sharp! Of course we have to change that swastika to something a little more Amerikkkan. Hey those stars and bars need a little more mileage... And they stand for a great cause and proud history...After all those slave ships and plantations were little Auschwitzes. Hey in corporate speak: "All we need is to leverage that!"
Hey, if Nazi seems a little too "Euro", we can call ourselves Rebels! Yeah.. coool! We're rebels! Still like the cool uniforms though. Gotta keep those.
I think Amerikkka is back. Marching proud. After all fascists don't think; THEY MARCH! God bless Amerikkka. I love W. And W stands for War. War forever! Just as long as I don't have to fight in it.
It makes me feel so sad to read this ... and to know that people in power are surely as aware of this situation as Scott Ritter ... and refuse to do anything to stop it. I am sick of hearing about Super Tuesday and all the election crap. Give me some truth and give me some real democracy -- NOT THIS STUPID ELECTORAL/SUPER ELECTORAL xh*t.
To learn more about the Corporate Empire's plans for dealing with the Baghdads and Fallujahs in the future, read Mike Davis' In Praise of Barbarians (Essays Against Empire). The beat of horror goes on.
As a Brit I, too, have enormous respect both for Scott (and, indeed, Ms Naomi Wolf) - its odd but the merits - even status of events in Iraq seldom make our great BBC anymore! Scott was a frequent contributor guest at one time.
Its all being held down here in the media..and that is spooky too.
Fact is , no matter how mighty an "empire" someone will exact revenge at some time. You surely do reap what you sew!
Powerful, brave and eloquent as always. Thank you, Scott Ritter, for continuing to speak truth to power.
Some, not all, members of Congress do understand the oil law and do NOT want Iraq to sign the benchmark giving its new drilling to US and British oil companies.
If Iraq does not agree to this benchmark and the oil companies do not move in, there is no reason for the US to stay there to protect the companies for 20-30 years. Iraq's new drilling could be conducted by the union workers who have ably managed oil production for decades. Iraq could and should nationalize all its drilling to be sure the major portionof oil profits remain in their country.
We need to vote for House and Senate candidates who truly understand that we would indeed destroy Iraq FOR NO GOOD REASON (wouldn't they sell us oil whether or not its wells were nationalized as as other Middle Eastern wells are?).
Is there enough oil there in that DU polluted wasteland for our needs, or do we have to destroy Iran also? Doesn't Mexico have oil deposits? Why can't we destroy a country that has decent weather conditions, isn't 6,000 miles from our shores and has really good food? __ Bush is nuts.
Ya know, I wish Scott Ritter was our king, he tells it like it is.
Iraq is well on its' way towards becoming the Yugoslavia of the Middle East. Those who actually paid attention in the 90's know how that turned out. Thus it is necessary to handicap the already-in-progress Iraqi Civil / Break-up War. The Kurds have the advantage of organization & experience, plus they are sitting on a lot of oil. Their main problem is Turkey. The Shiites have sheer numbers and a powerful backer in Iran (despite the issue of Arab / Persian racial hostility). They are not politically united though. The Sunni's are in the weakest starting point, but potentially have the rest of the Sunni Arab world on their side. Due to their favored status under Saddam's regime, they have a viable infrastructure for guerilla warfare (as US forces have found out to their dismay) & are motivated by the knowledge they have nothing to lose, which makes them dangerous opponents. Another factor to consider is who will wind up with the lion's share of the military equipment: guns, ammo, tanks, artillery, etc.
Mr. Ritter is right about everything but the final outcome. I'd put my money on Moqtada al-Sadr winding up as the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iraq when this is over.
Mao Zedong's description of the principles of guerilla warfare: When the enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops, harass; when he tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue describes perfectly the apparent success of "The Surge". Come summer when insurgency reaches it's yearly maximum, The Surge will appear less than successful.
Also, my fellow CDers who believe the Iraq occupation is all about Iraqi oil, please try to consider that fact it is about Middle-East oil, not just Iraq. The US has lost its military bases in Saudi, Israel will not permit US bases (though the US has built several in Israel), we are losing influence in Turkey, and so other than the Navy's 6th and 7th Fleets, the US has no way of projecting power in the region (Diego Garcia is available, but it is too far for routine operations). The US "needs" bases in the area to be able to project power all the way to the Caspian Sea. The huge air force bases at Rasheed (2 bases), Balad, Taji (2 bases), Mosul and Kirkuk are not necessary to protect 4,000 miles of oil and gas lines and 2 oil terminals in Iraq.
One thing not mentioned: the United States Air Force.
Iraq will just be one more victim of The United States of Everything's sputtering Empire Express. It's been rolling along for centuries and peaked after WW2. The current driver is speeding it to its demise rather than slowing the collapse.
Hoa binh
I heard Mr. Ritter on radio recently and he sounds as beaten down as is the reality of this aritcle. Today is primary day here (CA). I will vote, but I have never been as depressed to do so. My candidate Kucinich has been silenced. A few weeks ago we were inundated with Hilary's 'tears'. What about the wailing for Iraqi dead? Nothing. Today it is reported that US soldiers opened fire on a family in an Iraqi house. One daughter survived. What have we done to her? What have we done to the young men who opened fire? Who cares?
Thanks Scott.
Scott Ritter has been right about everything he has said about Iraq in the past six years. I hope he keeps writing these informative articles to pull the blinders off of those who just keep gobbling up the excrement that our polititians and MSM keep feeding us.
I wonder why Americans are not listening to Scott Ritter? He has correctly and factually stated the events in the Middle East for over seven years, before our invasion of Iraq. We are all complicit with the deaths of Iraqis and many others in the stealing of their oil and destroying their country. The Law of thermodynamics is real, and we will all pay many times over for our silent support of our administrations games for world power. Yet, we watch major events like football and continue to fall asleep while our country continues to die at the hands of American fascists calling themselves Christians. Shame, shame America. Gore Vidal is right, "Amnesia of the United States of America."
As Ritter describes it, Iraq is in its death throes.
And America spends its money and its soldiers there for what?
I'll tell you for what: to control middle eastern oil.
And America will stay till the oil runs dry. And the corporate politicians all agree with this decision.
Now America has become the evil empire and America keeps Watching the Super Bowl while people in the mid east die in terror!
Those in power are in denial of America's rapid decline. Fortunately, many of us are not. The world is undergoing paroxysms of change while America adheres to throw-back policies of centralized control designed to secure the wealth and power of the economic elites. An overblown military and applied fear are their tools. It is only a matter of time until the economy collapses under the weight of the militarization of America. The 21st Century looks bleak.
Thank you Mr. Ritter for the reality based insight that you continue to share. You're an inspiration to those fighting for an end to this horrible situation.
There is no plan to end the occupation in Iraq until all the oil is siphoned out of their soil. The permanent bases are there not to protect freedom and democracy of Iraq, but to protect the oil company assets. The US military has become the mercenary arm of the Oil Oligarchs.
This is also the plan for Iran. Don't be fooled into thinking that Iran is now on the back-burner for this corrupt admin. There are constantly looking for an excuse. And if they find one, don't be surprised by marshall law or a third term for the moronic messiah in the WH.
Through events of the past several years I have come to trust what Scott Ritter writes. I have read all of his articles throughout this entire debacle, since before it started. I find that he has been consistently correct and almost predictive in his assessments. The one thing I would question, however, is the continued use of the word war, which I find him using in this article. That particular word has been used fast and loose for the last couple of decades now, to the point where people are unfortunately developing a fuzzy comprehension about what war really is really all about. The proper word to use here is occupation. It has been avoided by the politicians, press, and pundits in an effort to manage the parameters of the debate. They would resist reframing this crisis as an effort in empire as much as they would resist an outbreak of the black plague.
"Iraq is dying; soon Iraq will be dead. True, there will be a plot of land in the Middle East which people will refer to as Iraq."
Not to mention the millions of barrels of oil beneath that plot of land.
HOPE:Clearly,President Barack Obama should pick Scott Ritter as his Secretary of State.SHOCK AND AWE:If you are unaware, please google NAOMI WOLF and her thesis on American Fascism in 10 EASY STEPS, which checking our history appears to me as a long 20th Century progression with ebbs and flows.The radical, zealotic lawbreakers that are the current Administration may have permanently destroyed meaningful democracy in our beloved country. But I'm not sure. Have you voted today on Super Tuesday?
We never had a chance to win in Iraq: I.E.D.s cost
almost nothing, and there a millions of shells around, whereas a Humvee costs $125,000 not including its occupants.
Can you hear 'em saying "Bring them on?"
Nuclear War is our fear, of course.
Good article... very depressing. What a disaster Bush has wrought on all of us.
"President Bush all but declared victory over the insurgency in Iraq."
well, why on earth would he do that?
the war ended in may of 2003.
everyone knows that.
just ask billo
The War for Mid-east Oil has another purpose: The impoverishment of the US and its reduction to a 3rd World plantation society, allowing the implementation of martial law and a permanent Fascist police state. Mission Accomplished!
From the Neocons' perspective, this war has been a total success.
I see that Scott got a hold of my Crystal
Ball.... Right on Colonel!
According to the Prophecy