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The Million Year War: How Never to Withdraw From Iraq
Think of the top officials of the Bush administration as magicians when it comes to Iraq. Their top hats and tails may be worn and their act fraying, but it doesn't seem to matter. Their latest "abracadabra," the President's "surge strategy" of 2007, has still worked like a charm. They waved their magic wands, paid off and armed a bunch of former Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda terrorists (about 80,000 "concerned citizens," as the President likes to call them), and magically lowered "violence" in Iraq. Even more miraculously, they made a country that they had already turned into a cesspool and a slagheap -- its capital now has a "lake" of sewage so large that it can be viewed "as a big black spot on Google Earth" -- almost entirely disappear from view in the U.S.
Of course, what they needed to be effective was that classic adjunct to any magician's act, the perfect assistant. This has been a role long held, and still played with mysterious willingness, by the mainstream media. There are certainly many reporters in Iraq doing their jobs as best they can in difficult circumstances. When it comes to those who make the media decisions at home, however, they have practically clamored for the Bush administration to put them in a coffin-like box and saw it in half. Thanks to their news choices, Iraq has for months been whisked deep inside most papers and into the softest sections of network and cable news programs. Only one Iraq subject has gotten significant front-page attention: How much "success" has the President's surge strategy had?
Before confirmatory polls even arrived, the media had waved its own magic wand and declared that Americans had lost interest in Iraq. Certainly the media people had. The economy -- with its subprime Hadithas and its market Abu Ghraibs -- moved to center stage, yet links between the Bush administration's two trillion dollar war and a swooning economy were seldom considered. It mattered little that a recent Associated Press/Ipsos poll revealed a majority of Americans to be convinced that the most reasonable "stimulus" for the U.S. economy would be withdrawal from Iraq. A total of 68% of those polled believed such a move would help the economy.
Anyone tuning in to the nightly network news can now regularly go through a typical half-hour focused on Obamania, the faltering of the Clinton "machine," the Huckabee/McCain face-off on Republican Main Street, the latest nose-diving market, and the latest campus shooting without running across Iraq at all. Cable TV, radio news, newspapers -- it makes little difference.
The News Coverage Index of the Project for Excellence in Journalism illustrates that point clearly. For the week of February 4-10, the category of "Iraq Homefront" barely squeaked into tenth place on its chart of the top-ten most heavily covered stories with 1% of the "newshole." First place went to "2008 Campaign" at 55%. "Events in Iraq" -- that is, actual coverage of and from Iraq -- didn't make it onto the list. (The week before, "Events in Iraq" managed to reach #6 with 2% of the newshole.)
True, you can go to Juan Cole's Informed Comment website, perhaps the best daily round-up of Iraqi mayhem and disaster on the Web, and you'll feel as if, like Alice, you had fallen down a rabbit hole into another universe. ("Two bombings shook Iraq Sunday morning. In the Misbah commercial center in the upscale Shiite Karrada district, a female suicide bomber detonated a belt bomb, killing 3 persons and wounding 10... About 100 members of the Awakening Council of Hilla Province have gone on strike to protest the killing of three of them by the U.S. military at Jurf al-Sakhr last Sunday, in what the Pentagon says was an accident... Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that officials in Baqubah are warning that as families are returning to the city, they could be forced right back out again, owing to sectarian tensions...") But how many Americans read Juan Cole every day... or any day?
On that media homefront, the Bush administration has been Houdini-esque. Left repeatedly locked in chains inside a booth full of water, George W. Bush continues to emerge to declare that things are going swimmingly in Iraq:
"...80,000 local citizens stepped up and said, we want to help patrol our own neighborhoods; we're sick and tired of violence and extremists. I'm not surprised that that happens. I believe Iraqi moms want the same thing that American moms want, and that is for their children to grow up in peace... The surge is working. I know some don't want to admit that, and I understand. But the terrorists understand the surge is working. Al Qaeda knows the surge is working..."
Having pulled the "surge" rabbit out of his hat -- even stealing the very word out of the middle of "insurgent" -- Bush then topped that trick by making Iraq go away for weeks, if not months, on end. Talk about success!
Forever and a Day
If you're wondering why in the world this matters -- after all, won't the Democrats get us out of Iraq in 2009? -- then you haven't come to grips with Bush's greatest magic trick of all. Though a lame-duck president sporting dismally low job-approval ratings, he continues to embed the U.S. in Iraq, while framing the issue of what to do there in such a way that any thought of a quick withdrawal has... Poof!... fled the scene.
Admittedly, somewhere between 57% and 64% of Americans, according to Rasmussen Reports, want all U.S. troops out of Iraq within a year. We're not talking here about just the "combat troops" which both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama seem prepared to withdraw at a relatively stately pace. (Obama has suggested a 16-month schedule for removing them; Clinton has only indicated that she would start withdrawing some of them within 60 days of coming into office.) Combat troops, however, represent perhaps half of all U.S. military personnel in Iraq -- and Republicans are already attacking even their withdrawal as cut-and-run-ism, if not outright treason.
Americans may not have noticed, but the policy that a large majority of them want is no longer part of polite discussion in Washington or on the campaign trail. The spectrum of opinion in the capital, among presidential candidates, and in the mainstream media ranges from Senator McCain's claim that even setting a date for withdrawal would be a sure recipe for "genocide" -- and that's the responsible right -- to those who want to depart, but not completely and not very quickly either. The party of "withdrawal" would still leave American troops behind for various activities. These would include the "training" of the Iraqi military. (No one ever asks why one side in Iraq needs endless years of "training" and "advice," while the other sides simply fight on fiercely.) In addition, troops might be left to guard our monstrous new embassy in Baghdad, or as an al-Qaeda-oriented strike force, or even to protect American security contractors like Blackwater.
Hard as it is for the audience to separate the mechanics of a magician's trickery from the illusion he creates, it's worth a try. Before the surge began in February 2007, as five combat brigades were dispatched mainly to Baghdad, there were perhaps 130,000 American forces in Iraq (as well as a large contingent of private security contractors -- hired guns -- running into the tens of thousands). The surge raised that military figure to more than 160,000.
The Bush administration's latest plans are to send home the five combat brigades, but not all the support troops that arrived with them, by the end of July. This will still leave troop levels above those of February 2007. At that point, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates suggested only last week, the administration is likely to "pause" for at least one to three months to assess the situation. In other words, when Americans enter their polling places this November 4th, there will probably still be more troops in Iraq than at the beginning of 2007.
TIME Magazine typically put the matter this way:
"The pause, which could last up to several months, would be designed to ensure that the smaller U.S. footprint in Iraq doesn't embolden insurgents to reignite the civil war that ripped the country apart in 2006 and the first half of 2007."
That smaller footprint, however, will be marginally larger than the one that preceded the surge. So consider this a year-long draw-up, not a drawdown. In the meantime, though the mainstream media has hardly noticed, the Pentagon has been digging in. In the last year, it has continued to upgrade its massive bases in Iraq to the tune of billions of dollars. It has also brought in extra air power for an "air surge" that has barely been reported on here -- and nobody in Washington or on the campaign trail, in the Oval Office or the Democratic Party, has been talking about drawing down that air surge, even though there has recently been a spate of incidents in which Iraqi civilians, and some of those "concerned citizens" backing American forces have died from U.S. air strikes.
The Bush administration is also quietly negotiating a Status of Forces Agreement with the weak Iraqi government inside Baghdad's Green Zone. It will legally entrench American forces on those mega-bases for years to come. In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, Secretary of Defense Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied that the administration was trying to bind a future president to Bush's Iraq policies. ("In short, nothing to be negotiated in the coming months will tie the hands of the next commander in chief, whomever he or she may be.") This, however, is obviously not the case. The agreement is also being carefully constructed to skirt the status of a "treaty," so that it will not have to be submitted to the Senate for ratification. All of this, in the grand tradition of Vice President Cheney, might be thought of as the Bush administration's embunkerment policy in Iraq.
In the surge year, when administration officials and top commanders speculated about withdrawal, they increasingly emphasized the Herculean task involved and the need to take the necessary time to carefully remove every last piece of military equipment in-country. "You're talking about not just U.S. soldiers, but millions of tons of contractor equipment that belongs to the United States government, and a variety of other things," Secretary of Defense Gates told Pentagon reporters last July. "This is a massive logistical undertaking whenever it takes place."
As TIME Magazine's Michael Duffy described it, included would be "a good portion of the entire U.S. inventory of tanks, helicopters, armored personnel carriers, trucks and humvees... They are spread across 15 bases, 38 supply depots, 18 fuel-supply centers and 10 ammo dumps," not to speak of "dining halls, office buildings, vending machines, furniture, mobile latrines, computers, paper clips and acres of living quarters." Some top military commanders claimed that it would take up to 20 months just to get part of the American force out. More recently, it has been suggested that it would take "as many as 75 days" for each combat brigade and all its equipment to depart -- and this would, of course, be done one brigade at a time.
When it comes to withdrawal, the highest priority now seems to be frugality in saving all U.S. property. In other words, as the Bush administration continues to dig in, each of its acts makes leaving ever more complicated.
If the subject at hand weren't so grim, this would be hilarious. An analogy might lie in an old joke: A boy murders his father and mother and then, arrested and brought to court, throws himself on the mercy of the judge as an orphan.
The administration that rashly invaded Iraq, used it as a laboratory for any cockamamie scheme that came to mind, and threw money away profligately in one of the more flagrantly corrupt enterprises in recent history, now wants us to believe that future planning for draw-downs or withdrawals must be based on the need to preserve whatever we brought -- and are still bringing -- into the country.
In the land the Bush administration "liberated," violence remains at a staggering daily level; electricity is a luxury; the national medical-care system has been largely destroyed; perhaps 4.5 million Iraqis have either fled the country or become internally displaced persons; approximately 70% lack access to clean water; and 4 million, according to the UN, don't know where their next meal is coming from. Yet, even with such a record before us, the logic of the moment in Washington and in the media remains clear: The last thing we should be doing is getting out of the country with any alacrity. After all, if we do, a disaster, a bloodbath, even genocide might happen.
Put another way, the most self-interested party in the "withdrawal" debate continues to set the terms of that debate. Imagine if, in football, the quarterback calling plays for his team also had the power to assess penalties, declare first downs, and decide whether a ball was caught in or out of bounds.
In the meantime, since the antiwar movement remains relatively moribund, there are no "out now" or "bring the troops home" chants ringing in the streets of our country. You have to look to the fringes for perfectly reasonable suggestions on getting out. Take Professor Immanuel Wallerstein, who wrote an essay, "Walking Away: The Least Bad Option," which you won't find in your local paper. To him, "walking away" would mean "a statement by the US government that it will withdraw all troops without exception and shut down all bases in Iraq within say six months of the date of announcement." He adds: "U.S. withdrawal would mark the first step on the long and difficult path to healing the United States of the sicknesses brought on by its imperial addiction, the first step in a painful effort to restore the good name of the United States in the world community."
Right now, however, any form of "walking away," itself a polite euphemism for retreat from a desperate stalemate or even a lost war, is off that "table" on which this administration has so often placed "all options." As a result, if either Clinton or Obama were to win the next election, enter office in January 2009, and follow his or her present plan -- a relatively long period of drawdown not leading to full withdrawal -- he or she would, within months, simply inherit the President's war. At that point, the present war supporters would turn on the new president with a ferocity the Democrats are incapable of mustering against the present one, attacking her or him as a cut-and-runner of the first order, even possibly even a traitor.
We Don't Do Permanent Sen. John McCain made a small stir recently by saying that he doesn't care if American troops stay in Iraq "100 years" as long as "Americans are not being injured, harmed or killed." In fact, as Mother Jones' David Corn reported, the senator later elaborated on that statement, adding "a thousand years," "a million years." The President and various top administration officials have offered similar, if more restrained formulas, speaking vaguely of "years" in Iraq, or a "decade" or more in that country, or simply of the "Korea model," a reference to our garrisoning of the southern part of the Korean peninsula for well over half a century with no end yet in sight.
Of course, this administration has already built its state-of-the-art mega-bases in Iraq as well as a mega-embassy, the largest on the planet, to suit such dreams. Yet in April 2003, the month Baghdad fell to American forces, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld first denied that the U.S. was seeking "permanent" bases in Iraq. Ever since then, administration officials have consistently denied that those increasingly permanent-looking mega-bases were "permanent."
Just the other day, the President again told Fox News, "We won't have permanent bases... [but] I do believe it is in our interests and the interests of the Iraqi people that we do enter into an agreement on how we are going to conduct ourselves over the next years." Dana Perino, White House press spokesperson, offered further clarification by indicating that we do not actually have permanent bases on Planet Earth, even in Korea more than half a century later. "I'm not aware," she said, "of any place in the world -- where we have a base -- that they are asking us to leave. And if they did, we would probably leave." (She made a singular exception for Guantanamo.)
Consider this a philosophic position. Evidently, we don't do permanent because all things are evanescent; everything must end. Where, after all, are the Seven Wonders of the World? Mostly gone, of course.
Such a position might be applied to far more than the permanency of bases. Let me offer two linked predictions based on impermanency:
As a start, the surge-followed-by-pause solution the Bush administration whipped up is a highly unstable, distinctly impermanent strategy. It was never meant to do much more than give Iraq enough of the look of quiescence that the President's war could be declared a modest "success" and passed on to the next president. It relies on a tenuous balancing of unstable, largely hostile forces in Iraq -- of Sunni former insurgents and the Shiite followers of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, among others. It is unlikely to last even until the November presidential election.
And let's remember that those on the other side(s) are just as capable of reading drawdown -- and election -- schedules, of gauging weakness and strength, as we are. It's likely that by the fall the surge effect will have worn off -- signs of this are already in the air -- and Iraq will be creeping back onto front pages and to the top of the TV news.
Given that Senator McCain is so tightly linked to the surge's "success," as well as the war itself, he is likely to prove a far weaker Republican candidate than now generally imagined. Similarly, it may be far harder to Swift Boat the Democrats over Iraq by this fall -- if, that is, the Democratic presidential candidate doesn't move so close to McCain on the war as to take the sting out of his situation. Already, as Gary Kamiya has written at Salon.com, the Democrats' "timid, Republican-lite approach to Iraq and the 'war on terror' has put the country to sleep... Indeed, polls show that the main reason the public has such a low opinion of Congress is that it failed to force Bush to change course in Iraq."
Iraq is a deeply alien land whose people were never going to accept being garrisoned by the military of a Western imperial power. It was always delusional to think that our situation there could be "enduring," no matter how many permanent-looking structures we built. It is no less delusional for Senator McCain to imagine a 100-year garrisoning -- in fact, one of any length -- in which Americans will not be "injured, harmed or killed."
The time for withdrawal from Iraq has long passed. In those endless years in which withdrawal didn't happen, the Bush administration definitively proved one thing: We are incapable of "solving" Iraq's problems, "building" a nation there, or preventing an endless string of horrific things from occurring. After all, it was under U.S. occupation and in the face of the overwhelming presence of American forces that Iraq devolved and massive ethnic cleansing occurred. It was during the months of the President's surge in 2007, with U.S. troops flooding the streets of the capital, that many of Baghdad's mixed neighborhoods were most definitively "cleansed."
It is a delusion to believe that the U.S. military is a force that stands between Iraqis and catastrophe. It is a significant part of the catastrophe and, as long as Washington is committed to any form of permanency (however euphemistically described), it cannot help but remain so.
Every day that passes, the Bush administration is digging us in further, even though surge commander General David Petraeus recently observed that "there is no light at the end of the tunnel that we're seeing." Every day that passes makes withdrawal that much harder and yet brings it ineradicably closer.
Getting out, when it comes, won't be elegant. That's a sure thing by now; but, honestly, you don't have to be a military specialist to know that, if we were determined to leave, it wouldn't take us forever and a day to do so. It isn't actually that hard to drive a combat brigade's equipment south to Kuwait. (And there's no reason to expect serious opposition from our Iraqis opponents, who overwhelmingly want us to depart.)
When withdrawal finally comes, the Iraqis will be the greatest losers. They will be left in a dismantled country. They deserve better. Perhaps an American administration determined to withdraw in all due haste could still muster the energy to offer better. But leave we must. All of us.
53 Comments so far
Show AllFrom the article: "When withdrawal finally comes, the Iraqis will be the greatest losers. They will be left in a dismantled country. They deserve better. Perhaps an American administration determined to withdraw in all due haste could still muster the energy to offer better."
I believe that is what Obama will try to orchestrate, and I believe an Obama presidency would offer Iraqi factions their best motivation to "get it together."
We may already be seeing them start trying.
And even if some of them secretly wanted our military to stay a long time, McCain's likening this prospect to America's occupation of Japan and Germany after WWII must give them heartburn and pause. Yet McCain drew that very analogy again this morning on national TV.
It has the ring that conquerors must be occupiers.
Islamists everywhere probably are boiling in their beanies every time they hear McCain speak.
The irony of this article's position is that the longer we have a military presence in Iraq, the more it resemble's Saddam Hussein's military dictatorship - minus the stability for most of the population, the many Iraqi professors, more liberated women in the middle east, access to power, access to jobs, etc.
The long stay of our troops in Iraq will end up promoting Saddam's era as a mythical golden era - very sad.
Apparently we can "hire" Iraq citizens for $ 10 per day for military duty. Iraq had about 17 million people at the start of the war, so for approximation let us say that 15 million still are around for hire. This would come out to $150 million per day. We are currently spending on the order of $ 280 million per day, so we could save something like $ 130 million per day if we left them in charge and put the checks in the mail. $ 130 million per day would pay for a new hospital or two everyday or maybe a new community college everyday. In 100 or 1,000 years we could have wall to wall community colleges interspersed with hospitals.
Funny how oil is never mentioned. It gotta figure in as to why we're devoting so much treasure to the place.
Sad to say, but in this oligarchy of ours, you and me don't get to decide on a Iraq pullout, The oil companies do.
If Obama gets all the troops and mercenaries out of there in 6 months--I'll eat my hat.
The Iraqi people, when polled, overwhelmingly wanted the US military to leave. What nation WANTS to be occupied by a foreign nation?
The sectarian violence in Iraq did not have much depth before the US presence. And British Troops were caught posing as 'Arabs' in a false flag operation to create that 'sectarian violence' the empire uses to divide and conquer.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=KEE20050925&articleId=994
Our slogan, as with Vietnam, should be "TROOPS OUT NOW."
There have been HUGE protests against US military bases, for example in the Philippines and Korea--mostly ignored by the US corporate media and allowing some Republican stooge to say US bases around the world have no local critics.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/2003/0710imperialmap.htm
The politicos, on both sides, don't want to leave Iraq for one simple reason: If we leave Iraq, ever, we'll be leaving the door open for other countries, such as France, Russia or Germany, to move in and begin setting up oil deals with the Iraqis in exchange for helping them rebuild their country.
I mean, wouldn't you be willing to make a deal with anyone who was even halfway nice to you after you just got the crap beat out of you? I know I would.
This is all so freaking obvious.
I am beginning to believe that we 'succeeded' in Iraq. In my twisted mind, I really think that events are playing out as planned by the 'powers that be'. The more chaos, the better for our chicken-hawks led by the '100 year' rhetoric of an aging, has-been, turncoat, candidate who has turned his back to decency and humanity in his greedy quest for the power of the presidency. He'd better be careful(as should we) of the person selected to be his VP running partner; 'natural causes' have a way of happening.
Thank you stiv, for the 'false flag' reference.
Makes one think about the events that created divisions between Iraqi ethnic groups.
The way out of Iraq is this. If you remember the Star Trek episode where they land on a warring planet to stop the killing, this methodology works. After Capt. Kirk meets with everyone it is finally decided that the two factions won't stop their killing one another. So, he tells the leaders, I am going to supply both sides with the same amount and force of deadly arms. "You can either learn to live in peace, or die in pieces!" Give all the women in Iraq AK-47's and teach them how to use them.
Why will the US withdraw? The Iraqi population has been lessened and with continuing murder and lack of clean water and sewage facilities, they will be lessened further. Cholera and other disease are very effective killers.
With a million dead and 3 million refugees so far, almost 20% of Iraqis are out of commission. The rest are checkpointed and ID'd and restricted by concrete barricades to their places.
As soon as Exxon gets ahold of that oil, oh, baby, the money will flow.
To think that the US will withdraw and leave all that oil is really naive. If they have to kill every Iraqi, they will. But they won't have to. There will be a point at which the remaining Iraqis submit, just like the people in the other 130 countries in which the US has military bases.
If there was no oil in Iraq, we wouldn't be there. This is all part of the geopolitical struggle between the major nations who are dependent on oil for their economies. Such a shame to be spending so much money on military strategies while peaceful strategies (such as sustainable energy research) get dismal levels of funding.
"How Never to Withdraw From Iraq"
Or Japan (50,000 soldiers,) S.Korea (30,000,) or any of the other 750+ US Military bases ringing Earth.
No biggie. Oh, except for this from CNN: "The Iraq war has strained U.S. forces to the point where they could not fight another large-scale war, according to a survey of military officers."
Of course, there is no "war," but the illegal, inhumane occupation continues.
P.S. - Here's another way to stay in Iraq until the oil runs out and/or Jesus stops by for a chat:
Take forever to "train" already trained and battle-hardened Iraqis, then provide them with crap equipment, no navy, no air force, no independent intel gathering regime, and house them in "new" barracks that leak shit on their heads while they sleep.
Good thing the "surge" is working or we'd all really be f*cked...
In so far as division amuong Ethnic Groups in Iraq, this devisiveness has always existed, Saddam kept it in check. Sunni's are the minority in Iraq because he, Saddam was Sunni he rapidly and with force, usually deadly, kept the Shi'i and Kurds in check. As hated as he was he is now seen by all Iraqi's as the lesser of two, they hate us and want us gone, GTFO of Iraq NOW. Why do we stay why is Congress a bunch of whimpy, whining snake oil sales persons?
Oil, I know we must be exporting it some way somehow, it must be, it is being exported to the US they would not go this long without stealing Iraqi oil, bush et al must be some how retaining large profits from this theft, I trly find it difficult to believe they are letting oil rigs that could be made fully operative by Military sit there, they are evil and would never allow such a profitable commodity sit.
If he wasn't we would be on lines that stretched around blocks, like in the 70's. They just raise prices in order for us to curse all in the ME with ample gas/oil supplies.
I am NOT a conspiracy Theorist, just using common sense. This Evil Empire within the confines of our Executive Branch must GET GONE, IMPEACH, the evidence is overwhelming, yet Congress sits on their hands, tape their mouths shut and sit.
I am sure Exxon, Chevron, Lukoil(always suspicious of that name) have enough oil from Iraq to sell to us at .99 cents a gallon. F$$K them, get out of Iraq, leave them be and let them work it out. TROOPS OUT NOW!! No one, No Thing, left there. No bases, no gulags, NADA.
The new republican campaign slogan : Sometimes it's hard to pull out.
It's been abundantly evident since 2003 we were never going to leave Iraq once we invaded. All that oil means constant vigilance over its distribution among western, mostly American oil companies. Controlling the flow can't happen if we aren't there militarily, with maximum force. So instead of the bullshit propaganda of "phased withdrawal" bandied about many months ago (as if), we're committed to phased staying forever. We'll be sliding in and out of one scenario or another of permanant entrenchment from now to doomsday. Iraq will be our Hotel California in the Middle East: We can check out any time we like, but we can NEVER leave. It's Bush's gift to his country, a war crime of the first order that he'll never be punished for and we'll be left holding the bag of shit he's handed us for countless decades, maybe centuries. Thank Congress and the corporate media for refusing to even consider impeaching this criminal piece of shit and his whole sick crew, especially Cheney, Dr. Evil himself. The bill of indictment needs to land on this junta's desk immediately (it won't), but also on Pelosi's, Reid's, Hoyer's, McCain's, Emanuel's, Lieberman's, and even the eternally foot-dragging Conyers'. They're all culpable, and none of them will pay any price.
How do we get out of Iraq?
Just like we got in. By plane, truck, helicopter, boat, tank, or boots.
An important question is how long the occupation and "war crimes" can be sustained with increasingly funny American money ?
It may not be long before our currency is no longer valued for reasons discussed here:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19388.htm
Perhaps the dumb greedy and violent Americans have been lured into an "economic jihad" that will eventually suck the imperial blood right out of the " Babylon vampire system " ?
Thus far both the dollar and the American economy have declined at a steady pace since war related deficit spending began. And as the dollar declines it will require more of them to purchase the oil that runs our world creating endless cycle of inflation !
Since modern money is more or less a confidence game, perhaps it is time America did something to restore global confidence in our economy and role in the world ?
As Emmanuel Todd explains in "After The Empire", America has designed it's own decline.
Get out! get out! Get Out! The so-called war is illegal! Don't you get it?
Iraqis will have better solutions once we are not dictating to them what to do...chances we are ONLY there for the OIL and to benefit from the trillions of dollars being spent in Iraq.
McBush's 100 year Reich is just around the corner; if you thought Bush was bad, wait until you get a war criminal and war monger with his hand on the nuclear trigger, an intellect than is only marginally better than the idiot bush. and a seething anger that can only be assuaged by bombing the entire world.
Josephmorton- Seething anger, all real men have that.
Here is a very good reason to pull out now:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/77356/
Even those who cannot empathize with the plight of the Iraqi people should be able to visualize this because it happened in your own country to your own people.
Once you get your citizens home, contractors and military alike, get them ALL into mental health treatment programs immediately. It would be doable because you would not be spending millions a day to keep them there.
its capital now has a "lake" of sewage so large that it can be viewed "as a big black spot on Google Earth"
I love Google Earth. The images of Bagdad are wonderful. It is such a peaceful looking city. There are hardly any cars or trucks on the streets. Maybe everyone are inside enjoying A/C and afternoon happy hour?
The nation of Iraq sat on great oil,
so the US of I broke it up for spoil,
Shiite and Sunni forgot they were one,
And so the war will never be done.
The entire US wealth blown away in Iraq,
To keep US private wealth in the black,
By reducing Iraq to rubble mangled bodies,
US congress people get paid all their subsidies.
The US ate itself till it could grow no more,
unless eating other nations to feed its hungry maw.
Hating every foreigner just out of spite,
Because they cannot feed its appetite.
'Feed ME oh Feed ME, I am so hungry now.
The oils running out, and I am such a fat cow.'
It takes so much energy and cost for a US citizen to get through the day,
That they could run entire third world nations on one CEO's pay.
George Wanker Bush invaded and occupied Iraq at least partly for the same reason that FDR threw Japanese-Americans into internment camps. Since the U.S. military couldn't actually strike the Japanese homeland after Pearl Harbor, the government did the next best thing that most Americans found emotionally satisfying - put Japs in concentration camps. In the putrid mind of George Wanker Bush, killing wogs by the truckload in Iraq would turn him into a Great American Hero alongside Washington, Lincoln and FDR, George Armstrong Custer and James K. Polk. He never cared about combating terrorism, only pumping up his outsized yet puny sociopathic ego. Now he and his military lackeys have destroyed Iraq and bankrupted the United States. With the bipartisan campaign slogan "IN FOR A PENNY, IN FOR A POUND", the next shit weasel who becomes president will act as Lyndon Johnson did during Vietnam - "Cain't git out 'cos it'll make us look weak." We'll leave Iraq only when the Iraqis throw us out, or foreign governments no longer decide to finance our stupidity and wickedness.
The FED announced today that inflation and unemployment will continue to rise, http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080220/fed_economy.html
Yet it continues to LOWER interest rates. This bit of news underscores the fundamental reason why the USE will not stay in Iraq much longer; the USE is about to drown financially. JConrad's linked ICH item provides even more evidence of why this is so, as do the items I posted by Engdahl last year (link to his site, http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/ )
Oil broke $101 on the NYMEX today. Any new demand destruction in the US and/or additional oil extraction brought online this year will be gobbled up by the booming economies of Chindia (which includes SE Asia), Russia, and the Persian Gulf, which means $80 oil will be unlikely, and even cheaper oil--the sort CERA dreams about--is a fantasy.
There's a new game in town, and the USE is one of the weakest players, the sort of player never chosen by either side.
The Million Year War?
This world will be lucky to survive another five years. Humans, deranged creatures that they are, are in self-destruct mode and nothing will stop it happening.
Drink lots of good wine and party like crazy. It'll all be over soon!
www.dangerouscreation.com
"would offer Iraqi factions their best motivation to "get it together." - Daniel David
"Our slogan, as with Vietnam, should be "TROOPS OUT NOW." - Stiv Whitman
Over 70% or the so called Iraqi parliament has for years favored a timeline for withdrawal and non-privatization of the oil industry so I don't see a lack of motivation or talent on the part of the Iraqis.
Which direction the Troops move I think depends on the mission and the mission, to be most beneficial for Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, must be changed.
The best way to change the mission is as O roe says: "IMPEACH".
Thus, our slogan should be:
Change
The Mission:
Impeach!
People need to avoid any generalization linking in any way Franklin D Roosevelt to any such inferior types as W, his dad, Bill Klanton, the second Klan president, and the rest of these swine. FDR made a mistake with what he did about the internment camps for Japanese Americans, and Earl Warren, California's governor at the time and so loved today by liberals and progressives pushed and leaned on him to do it. For that reason we need to get real about this reference. FDR was a saint compared to Theodore Roosevelt though he never defended raping, torturing, pillaging, and killing those who happened to be of a different color the TR did with regard to the Philippines.
Oh, and we "don't have people in any countries" we have a military presence protesting that presence. Has this "VIP" dawg ever heard of Great Britain, that "small insignificant" country that kept the Nazis off our backs when it really counted? If this individual has apparently that person needs to look at the facts. The British people won't US military presence to cease pronto and have been damn well saying so especially north of the border in Scotland, but also further south in England. Somebody in the 'good old USA" needs to "get out more often."
Editorial correction-- reference to Franklin D Roosevelt compared to Theodore Roosevelt should have been more clear. The reference should have been that FDR never defended the torture, rape, pillage, and killing of those who happened to be of a different color the way TR did in the Philippines.
Stiv Whitman -
Soldiers and marines on Okinawa are confined to base (basically) because of the latest rape scandal, adding to the drunk driving, etc., atrocities inflicted upon the Okinawans. Keep an eye on this.
---
It's not just an administration thing, the forever-occupation. It's a militaristic beast thing, as well. Only Greece, Iran and the Philippines have thrown our military out. Where bases are built, there we stay.
The Army wants more soldiers, the Air Force wants another 20 billion (above what the budget proposes).
The Beast's hunger grows and nobody is strong enough to face it down. Especially not a weak, lame-ass duck of a president.
"It was always delusional to think that our situation there could be "enduring," no matter how many permanent-looking structures we built. It is no less delusional for Senator McCain to imagine a 100-year garrisoning — in fact, one of any length — in which Americans will not be "injured, harmed or killed.""
McCain, like most other delusional Republicans believe that we can fight a 100 or 1,000 year occupational war with a volunteer army; and sadly, many Democrats also believe this idiotic bull$hit or are too frightened of the military/industrial complex to think otherwise.
This country is a f-king disgrace!
"It isn't actually that hard to drive a combat brigade's equipment south to Kuwait. And there's no reason to expect serious opposition from our Iraqi opponents, who overwhelmingly want us to depart."
As the guerilla warfare manual instructs, when the enemy attacks, you retreat; when the enemy digs in, you harrass; when the enemy withdraws, you then attack. And as for strategic vulnerability, if the Shia in the south decided to shutdown the Baghdad-to-Kuwait highway and the insurgents outside the Green Zone decided to haul out the stinger missles to neutralize the airport, I've always worried about another Dien Bien Phu.
I mean, with the exception of the manufactured appearance of "surge success" that Tom describes so wonderfully, just about every thing that's happened in Iraq since Mission Accomplished has been one big SNAFU. Why should we believe withdrawing will be any different?
Although I do not share his optimistic outlook, Tom hits directly upon the right points that should be squarely addressed: how do you avoid the ominous awaiting pitfalls of incrementalism, and get completely out of Iraq in an orderly manner that minimizes the violence? The textbooks claim a successful field withdrawal ranks just behind an amphibious landing in the pecking order of difficulty when it comes to military risk.
First, I suggest a major patch up overture to Turkey, so that US troops and equipment can leave by heading north as well as south.
Second, publicly announce a fairly short, fixed time frame (Prof. Wallerstein says six months) to complete the task, and start the process to provide visual evidence of US sincerity. Publicize to all the Iraqi militias and insurgent factions that the only thing that can delay (but not prevent) a total American departure is if our troops get attacked - by anybody - while they are in the process of going home.
The announced rules of engagement would authorize a massive self defense response by US forces if some folks are thinking of following the guerilla warfare manual rules. The Maliki government should also be able to call for US air support if it's the central Iraqi government's troops that are attacked instead, while Uncle Sam is in the withdrawal transition.
Third, try to use the same six month time frame to get the immediate geographic neighbors to deal with the potentially explosive, interrelated issues of Iraqi refugee return, and the departure of all foreign jihadis from Iraq to coincide with the departure of the western infidels. This should make Iraqi nationalism a force for nonviolence, a way of bridging internal sectarian, partisan, and tribal divisions at least temporarily until the Yanks are all gone.
I wholeheartedly agree with Tom Englehardt's bleak assessment of what's in the cards if a Nixonian style gradual, phased withdrawal over many months or even years were utilized. Not only will the present supporters of George Bush's war turn on the 2009 Democrat in the White House (who will have indeed inherited the occupation of Iraq) with savage, venomous partisan attacks the likes of which we have not seen since Reconstruction. At the same time, I don't think that Democratic president will be able to bank on much political cover coming from an equally angry antiwar party base that senses it has been betrayed or was lied to all along.
As the country classic says, you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.
Bill from Saginaw
We won't be there forever. The oil in Texas, Alaska and under the North Sea is fading fast. Give Iraq's oil maybe 20 years. Then we go home.
After the election, I hope the democrats vote to start a draft. Only instead of a lottery like what was used during the Vietnam War, they should go by family income, with no college deferments. Start with children of the top 1% of incomes and eventually trickle down to the bottom of the chain. The rich have the most to gain with this war. Want to see a war end abruptly?!
Last December I read Ann Patchett's novel 'The Magician's Assistant'. In January I discovered Commondreams and Tom Engelhardt, whose metaphors re Iraq blow me away (see 'The Corpse on the Gurney'). The novel's protagonist gives great detail on how magic tricks work; that they are always cons; that they always assume a very gullible audience. It was great to get into a good story that had nothing to do illegal U.S. occupations or torture of innocent civilians.
I hate hearing about the lack of planning, the incompetence of this administration. But Iraq WAS planned as the con it is. Magician's assistants are not really sawed in half, they are always safe. Too bad about those civilians.
Good analysis by Englehardt prompting these comments.
(1) Withdraw gradually and get blamed for the situation of Iraq, versus withdraw quickly with the language of "trying to address the errors of the previous administration the best we can". "They have had six years and it is obvious it isn't working." Quick withdrawal being the "least bad choice" (presented to us by the legacy of the previous administration). The US shouldn't be training Iraqi armed forces either at this point--that should be handed off to multinational Arab countries, the French, whoever. Probably the withdrawal will also require giving out a few hundred thousand green cards to Iraqis who cooperated with the U.S., on analogy with taking in Vietnamese refugees who were on "our side". Do it expeditiously and always explain "least bad choices" (compared to alternative of staying), and pin the blame on the former administration; do it slowly and it becomes owned by the Democrats.
(2) What to do about billion-dollar bases already built and that huge embassy? Vacate the properties! Literally. On the embassy, move to some smaller (secure) building elsewhere or even conduct diplomatic relations from outside territorial Iraq. Just abandon the properties! Ghost bases. Real estate "for sale" signs on the front lawns. Pay for landscaping maintenance but they are literally abandoned (and in due course, sold). It is a symbol of American seriousness not to be occupiers--a symbol that would work well on a number of levels. Guess who gets the blame? The administration who built those bases! When saying "we have no plans for permanence"! The abandoned bases would immediately become a stark symbol of Bush-Cheney era waste of money, true, but what's the alternative? Stay on forever? This should also be done quickly by a new president or else it becomes owned by the Democrats.
(3) On the oil, a smart new administration might do something like this: negotiate a new "lease" of oil facilities in Iraq by US/US-affiliated companies that expires sometime safely after eight years of an Obama administration. After that time it is like the Panama Canal Treaty expiring, the Iraqis say "go" and the US goes. Since we weren't there for their oil anyway (just ask Bush and Rumsfeld, they'll tell you that had nothing to do with it), this should be smooth sailing politically. (A little sarcasm there, but the serious point is this would be in keeping with STATED U.S. objectives, and it would also be rational self-interest since it is cheaper to buy oil or become self-sufficient than it is to have all these wars--and explain it this way to the American public).
Curtis. Please write more posts. mike peters.
The military ind complex will not leave without a fight!! All troops out now!!!
" locust February 20th, 2008 7:08 pm
...
It's not just an administration thing, the forever-occupation. It's a militaristic beast thing, as well. Only Greece, Iran and the Philippines have thrown our military out. "
NO, UZBEKISTAN also threw out U.S. military, or both U.S. and NATO, and precisely when this happened is something I'm not sure of, but believe it was in 2005, or since. Initially, the Uzbek president had accepted to side with the U.S. in this GWoT and then some party tried to assassinate him, which he also initially believed was Russia. When he realised that it was NOT Russia but the U.S., then he graciously, wisely gave the U.S. six months to GET OUT of the country; NO MORE U.S. forces being allowed there.
However, I do not know if that status has been reversed. And I learned of this I believe through one or more articles at www.globalresearch.ca , though not recalling the titles and names of authors, I'm unable to say which to check. Otoh, going to the website and checking for articles in the most closely related subindex should provide the article.
Actually, I just did a web search and the second article returned is definitely one I had in mind, and to go immediately to where this above subject is specifically written about, scroll down to the subheading, ""Velvet Revolutions" Backfire in Central Asia".
"The Sino-Russian Alliance: Challenging America's Ambitions in Eurasia
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research, September 23, 2007
- 2007-08-26"
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6688
That wholly is a very important article, too, and the section I just mentioned is a convincing one. It all fits with USE(mpire) building; iow, the project for conquest for eventual domination.
Some people would now immediately refer to PNAC and it's of course valid; only, if we really have something substantial between our two ears, then we don't need to refer to PNAC, for what the Bush-Cheney and the real ruling elites are after is obvious enough anyway. PNAC does, however, can be useful (maybe anyway) for helping opaque people to finally wake up about critical matters that they've been asleep on.
It's basically what the U.S., NATO and U.N. did with former president Slobodan Milosevic, and there are several or more very recent or current articles at globalresearch.ca on what's now happening in Kosovo. They didn't assassinate him directly, but the ICC took care of this part for ... who else, but the U.S. and the imperialist, corporatist, ... ruling elites! We do NOT need to be educated in law to be able to SEE what the f*ck they hellbent did there and to him, and all Serbs of Kosovo and Serbia.
Kosovo was part of Serbia, but no longer. Now it's under the U.S. ruling elites' puppet regime rule of the criminal Albanian KLA, etc.
Oh, these goons have major plans about their so-called and deluded self-interests.
From a Web search just performed, now, the following article doesn't mention the above about the boot given to the U.S., but much enough quotes president Islam Karamov on the Uzbek economy and how it (really) was that the West and the WB were demonising him and his govt, which he clearly took no liking to at all and responded excellently; as per this article anyway.
"Uzbek President: "Don't tell us whom rely upon whom be friends with"", March 22, 2006,
http://www.anakstore.com/uzbek-president-dont-609342.html
The WB joined Western media in trying to demonise him and his govt, the above in terms of the economy, while the IMF did the opposite. Interesting "twist".
"Mordechai Shiblikov February 20th, 2008 5:30 pm
... In the putrid mind of George Wanker Bush, killing wogs by the truckload in Iraq would turn him into a Great American Hero alongside Washington, Lincoln and FDR, George Armstrong Custer and James K. Polk. He never cared about combating terrorism, only pumping up his outsized yet puny sociopathic ego. ..."
TRUE, BUT while the Bush administration clearly has never intended to combat terrorism, it is awfully clear that they intended and continue to intend to commit only MORE, a LOT MORE; being far from finished according to their deluded plans and minds, and soulless selves.
One example that we basically never read about is found in the globalresearch.ca article linked in my above post; an important or very important example, while sadly far from the only one.
The following is the Democratic recipe to keep the war machine going in Iraq under a kinder, gentler machine gun. These statements came off their websites:
Hillary: Hillary will not lose sight of our very real strategic interests in the region. She would devote the resources we need to fight terrorism and will order specialized units to engage in narrow and targeted operations against al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations in the region.
Obama: If al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.
Take your pick, Tweedle Dee or Dweedle Dum?
Michael Chavers: I've been saying this for two years now. Everyone who has ever been in the service or even ROTC for a few days knows the three magic words of leaving: "ABOUT FACE - MARCH!"
The rightwingnuts will call it surrender but how can you surrender something that you never owned? It was never ours to surrender so how can we loose it?
If the security situation has improved so much in Iraq, why do Bush, Rice and Co have to always visit Iraq unannounced?!
Usually only thieves do not announce their arrival in advance.
scroller, item #3 - cheney's not interested in leasing oil. furthermore, being self-sufficient is no longer feasible, and even furthermore, although it might be cheaper to buy oil (for who?), let's not overlook the huge profits derived from war: weapons manufacturing. as long as another country has oil, the u.s. will be at war. consider this next scene: the saudi government shows a weak link (instigated by who??), bam,our future conflict. certainly none of us here would even think the u.s. would be content with the world's SECOND largest oil reserves, would we? we want (need) it all.
There are the obvious theories about why the M$M does what it does, what the true aims of corporations are- and may I say I am with most of you CDers- but I'd love to take a moment to ask on a different pshycological scenerio: If we, the viewers, grow sick of war, or sick of being unable to affect it, does that not create an incentive for the networks to come up with something different? If we stop to look at war and political and humanitarian coverage in terms of ratings and popularity, what does it mean when that show gets 'cancelled' and replaced with The Britney Show? What does it say of we, the viewers, and how we take in the world, how we feel about and ultimetley treat our neigbhors- even the very far away ones?
Now, after that, think about how a network could nurture a dislike of war stories, how someone could emphasis the fluff and downplay the meanngfull. I'm no scientist, but I would guess that if networks allowed everyone of us to get right up into the face of war and tradgedy, maybe some of us would realize its bad and not glorious, that some of those responsible also own the networks- maybe we'd stop buying GE and stop enlisting in the army. Fluff is much easier to watch.
My point being, sure there are evil people in corporations. Actually I don't believe in evil. Most I would think are human beings making selfish or nonhonorable choices that leads them into very difficult moral situations. So how would I, being of somewhat decent though untested moral standing, rationalize the dumbing down of america in so far as being a program director at a major network?
Sometimes "putting yourself in their shoes" will really help your perspective and your argument. Just sayin....
It's hard to penetrate the mind of a Plutocrat, but they still seem to think that war is good for the economy, or that their view of "the economy" is limited to the M.I.C. and top 1-5% of the nation, and that trickle-down is natural. If this is their view, they believe that thievery (militarized crime) is ethically acceptable, so long as you don't get caught with your pants down.
Or it may well be that they're simply modern robber barons, and this is only a half-hearted attempt at justifying it.
It doesn't ultimately matter -- it may well be that Rome could walk into a new region, barely populated with illiterate peasants, and easily claim it with relatively small and decisive battles. The modern Plutocrat doesn't appear to understand that war is no longer a sustainable enterprise. I don't give our present way of life more than 5 years.
Iraq DOES NOT have to have oil. Think in terms of empire!
1. Saddam was not as 'accepting" of American, or any imperial, dominance of his country or the region in 1990. So we bombed the shit out of him. (remember to that he thought he had tacit approval to invade Kuwait from the US ambassador, and Kuwait did owe him many millions of dollars, and part of kuwait "originally" belonged to Iraq anyway.
2. We supported the Iran/Iraq war to WEAKEN the main threats to US hegemony.
3. One giant reason why our goverment invests so much in Isreal is that it serves as a buffer, an outpost for our military machine against our colonial targets.
4. remember the main (stated) reasons why 9/11 happened? Isreal in Palestine, US troops in Saudi Arabia, and that westerners are infedels. Can' do much about the 3rd (can make it worse with bombs though) but we CAN move our troops from Isreal and SA and elsewhere into Iraq. It's a PRIME location.
5. Really putting to to the Iraqi people will make other Middle Eastern People more hesitant about questioning US or any other Imperial Hegemony.
6. We better do it before France or China or Russia does.
7. plus, if it works, we get the oil. If not, we just got to spend some wonderful trillions on related war/occupation costs.
Just ask anyone "does the US have an Empire?" its amazing the reactions you get.
{The Million Year War: How Never to Withdraw From Iraq}
From the beginning of terror attack on Iraq, and later when some complained that the admin. had no exit plan, I pointed out that the admin. had no intention of ever leaving; so there was no need for an exit plan.
Later, we heard that if we left before the "mission" was complete, civil war would break out. Later still, we was told if we left before the mission was complete, that would be cut and run. Now we are told if we leave before the mission the is complete, [they] would follow us home.
Is this admin. admitting that approximately five hundred $billion spent in Iraq, and approximately four $billion a year on the so-called "Homeland Security" are all for nothing?
It boggles the mind to watch these vicious liars hold a straigt face and declare that the USA is in danger of an attack. How will they [the terrorists] arrive here? Fly like Superman and avoid the radar? Or, swim like sharks and avoid sonar?
No, I didn't forget 9/11.01
But let's remember that #1. 911 happened on this admin's watch. #2. these visitors came legally. #3. They were trained to fly in the USA. #4. They were assisted by the USA. They didn't smuggle ONE airplane, nor ONE gallow of fuel.
Now if the US is no safer today where by "THEY" can follow us home if we leave, these warmongers should resign at best, or be imprisioned at worst.