Both of the Sunday political discussion programs I watched this morning featured very interesting guests with well-reasoned interpretations of what is happening in Iraq. One guest has a new book out called Fiasco, and the other’s book is named Fist in the Hornet’s Nest. I don’t remember the authors' names.
I certainly am not a ‘brain’, but here are some of the impressions I brought away from what I heard this morning.
Some of our military leaders expect the Iraqi government, such as it is, to fall within the year. Rather than leave a vacuum, in spite of their varying agendas, our military leaders have begun to support strong men and their militias by arming them. One guest protested, ”We are not arming them!”, and another said “Oh yes we are.” I have heard this elsewhere, and I think we are. As I understand it, the reason for doing this is because we won’t have enough troops available to sustain the surge after April ’08, when redeployment of our present forces becomes out of the question. Simply put, we won’t have enough troops.
Since it has not proved possible to persuade the Iraqi troops, whom we have already trained, to fight for a central government, these equally armed militias will put aside their differences long enough to drive Al Qaeda, and any other regional foreigners, out of their country. I understand that they have agreed to cooperate for that purpose, and I’ll bet they mean to do it with the understanding that we will go away. They only want our money and armaments.
Relinquishing power to these militias would not divide the country up into three neat sections – Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite, but into even more divisions of these groups. Whatever it takes to keep the peace in individual areas seems right to me. It might create enough of a standoff for us to leave with honor. Or not.
One other idea that impressed me today goes like this:
In regard to the comparisons being made between the war in Iraq and that in Vietnam, the difference is so great there can be no comparison. In Vietnam we had just one unified enemy, North Vietnam backed by China and the Soviet Union. If China and the Soviet Union didn’t want us to win, there was no way we could win without help from our own allies like England, France and Germany, and that was extremely unlikely. If it did happen it, would have ended up being WWIII.
When we left South Vietnam in the care of the rather corrupt and ineffective government that existed, we allowed them to surrender, not to a vacuum that the Iraqi government seems to be, but to one sovereign power – North Vietnam. Without strong forces like the Iraqi militias, there would be no chance of any kind of order; there would be a blood bath. There was also a blood bath in Vietnam after we left, so maybe that is not a valid argument. Hopefully the militias would keep a lid on things.
In the case of Vietnam, you would think our government would have known how our participation would turn out from the experience of France, Vietnam’s old colonial ruler. I think North Vietnam was fighting for independence more than for communism. We naïve Americans are arrogant to think our very young 200-year-old form of government would be good for everybody. People have to fight for it passionately to achieve democracy. The North Vietnamese had more passion. The reasoning for the Vietnamese War was wrong to start with because, when we withdrew, the dominoes did not fall to Communism as predicted.
Iraqi is a whole different ball game. No one will convince me that our purpose in taking down Saddam was anything more than a try at getting control of Iraq’s oil. The inept way we went in and created chaos leading to destruction of all the amenities for a decent life for the Iraqi people, and then gave all the jobs, that were desperately needed by the Iraqi people, to American contractors, did not win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the people. Our mercenaries in the form of Blackwater employees, who play by different rules than our military people, are another reason for the Iraqis to dislike us.
We can’t leave Iraq honorably, in a way that our gallant dead troops will not seem to have died in vain, unless we can turn the welfare of the country over to a strong force that can keep the peace. If that has to be a number of individual strong forces like militias, so be it. What they do after we are gone is their affair. I don’t know if this is right or wrong, but it is a way to end our participation in this fiasco, and stop our soldiers from dying for the welfare of a country other than their own. As I said before, what happens after we leave is up to the Iraqis. We have fulfilled out part of the bargain.
People keep saying, “Fight them over there, so we won’t have to fight them over here.” Even if it were true, since there was not even one Iraqi on the planes that attacked us on 9-11, that is not an honorable way to think. Our arrogance in the way our government has ordered clandestine groups like the CIA to interfere in the governments of other peoples has been making us a lot of enemies for years and years. The terrorists are, and always have been, attacking us come from all over the world. They were not in Iraq before 9-11, but when we went there, they came after us to create havoc any way they can. We, the people, don’t even know the scope of what is being done secretly in our name. But, we are the ones who are going to pay the price for all this aggression, and it shouldn’t be on the backs of the poor people of another country who were not to blame. If we can’t control our own government, we should be the ones to pay.
Well, that’s the way it seems to me this morning. Maybe someone will convince me differently next Sunday.
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Comments: 32
Well written .... and a good focus to take too .... so many people seem to focus on whether the US was right/wrong to go into Iraq.... (similar to the Canadian question re: Afghanistan) which really doesn't much matter any more ... point is we're there... now how the heck do we get out with the least amount of damage
Our presence is not going to produce a stable government because we are in the middle of factional struggles. Unless,of course, we choose to support one group and commit hundreds of thousands of troops for a long time . No government that we supporting as occupiers will ever be accepted as other than a puppet one.
Our moral responsibility is to seek to save a failed state, but we can't fufill that unless we first withdraw and engage the help of other nations.
Darcey D.
As for you Anna--you are pathetically naive and deluded. Takes all kinds, though, I guess.
Those armed militias, as Paul points out, are not going to bring any stability. They are the ones engaging in mass murder right now, and there is no indication they are going to stop any time soon. You can't expect religious and ethnic fanatics to suddenly become responsible.
This whole thing in Iraq is a sad example of one person's arrogance and ultimately his stupidity in refusing to listen to people who told him exactly what was going to happen if he invaded Iraq and who proved to be 100% accurate in that assessment.
Iraq is ONLY similar to Vietnam in that our troops are filling the role of policeman in another countries civil war. The differences are multitude, as you have pointed out.
Scattering weapons around their country does not sound like a way to peace.
anna g. says: "Unless you are an advocate of letting everyone do as they wish and holding no one accountable after they sign treaties?"
You mean like the US? Any student of history can tell you that the USA has backed out of many treaties that it signed. Just ask the native peoples who were living on this continent before, and after, we Americans moved here.
Our power laden leaders only keep or honor the treaties they feel like keeping.
Thank you for a well-written, well-reasoned article. I do have to disagree with you on a few points though.
The Viet Minh and Viet Cong were NOT Vietnamese nationalists. They were internationalists whose first order of business was to slaughter the Vietnames nationalists - as well as many of their family members.
Ho Chi Minh was a dedicatd Communist. He was one of the 11 original founding members of the French Communist Party and spent most of his early career in Russia, in support of Russian subrogation of minority ethnic groups. Make no mistake about it, Russia was a COLONIAL power and Ho Chi Minh was a supporter of Russian colonialism.
Communism was imposed on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia by the armed forces of the North Vietnames. Though it was popular in the 1970's to blame the United States for the horrible fate of Cambodia, one needs to keep in mind that Cambodia was invaded and half the country was held by 280,000 North Vietnames troops prior to the U.S. incursion into Cambodia.
It is also important to realize that Pol Pot was not an accident, nor a fluke. He was a Maoist whose genocide was foretold by the Red Guards actions in China.
After the US withdrawn from Vietnam and the subsequent conquest of the South, Vietnam was more a politcal and economic colony of the Soviet Union than it was a colony under the French. So total was the domination of the Soviets of Vietnamese interests that Vietnam launched a proxy war on the China at the bidding of the Soviets.
In the end, despite the boat people, the re-education camps, and the genocide, Southeast Asia has recovered -- ONLY because communism died of its own accord.
They were very lucky.
I echo Anna's comments here.
Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Iraqi oil was sold on the world market for world price by the Iraqi National Oil Company. After the invasion of Iraq. Iraqi oil is sold on the world market for world price by the Iraqi National Oil Company.
The concept that any nation or company can "control" the oil of another is absurd. The history of the oil business over the last several decades is a testiment to the INABILITY to own and control assets.
By the way, we get less than 6% of our oil from Iraq. Less than we would get from ANWR in Alaska. The majority of Persian Gulf oil goes to Europe and Asia.
Except for the 100,000 to 300,000 barrels PER DAY that have been coming up missing from Iraq's proclaimed daily production since the start of our invasion four years ago.
I'm not bringing that up to challenge Greg's assertion; only to compliment it. At an estimated $50 per barrel, this equals $5 to $15 million worth of oil disappearing PER DAY for the past four plus years. Where is that oil and money going?
Bill - You are right - ask Native Americans about U.S. treaties!
Carolyn - I agree that the militias are not going to ensure peace, but they may be able to buy us time to get out 'honorably'. We should destroy all our weapons that would cost too much time to get out fast, and I don't think we should dilly-dally, but get every U.S. soldier and citizen across Iraq's border into Afghanistan or Kuwait as much in a group as possible. Blow up what we don't want go into the hands of insurgents. Everything doesn't have to go by air - use trucks and personnel vehicles - just get out. Maybe we could help evacuate Iraqi civilians (if you can tell who is who) to safer places in Iraq or to refugee camps somewhere else before we go.
Anna - Our mistake - No! Bush's mistake - was to ignore the United Nations and go it alone. The inspection plan was working. We had no business trying to go it alone, and now we are paying for our mistake.
Carolyn - I give a lot more heedance to military leaders on the ground in Iraq than to the views coming from back here at home. If they think they can jury-rig a system using the strongmen with militias, who are the only Iraqis who still have power, to keep any kind of peace for a length of time for Bush to declare 'victory' and give us a chance to get out, I think it may be the best of a lot of bad choices.
Clarke - I guess what I am suggesting is a fall-back plan for the power in the country go back to what they once had - a standoff among warlords who represent the various Iraqi factions. We just need to leave because we are fighting a different war than the Iraqi people are.
Lynn - We always hate to have our loved ones have to put themselves in harm's way for such a badly reasoned and badly managed war. We should only go to war when we absolutely have to.
Chip - Yes, I have read some of your stuff and noticed we are on the same side on issues like this. We reinforce each other's arguments. Thanks.
Carole - Thanks for your support.
Everyone else - Thanks to you all for reading and commenting.
From an article by Jennifer Kerr, Associated Press, 5/28/2007:
//One of the biggest challenges for troubled vets is the stigma of a mental health disorder, said Meshad. "It's very, very hard for you to reach out and say 'I'm hurting.' It's hard for men to do it, but particularly (for) a soldier who's endured life and death situations."
Kim Ruocco of Newbury, Mass., said her husband, John, was a role model for the young Marines he led in war. He worried about the ramifications of seeking help, personally and professionally.
"He felt like that was the end of everything for him," Kim Ruocco recalls. "He felt like his Marines would, you know, be let down."
Ruocco ended his life in February 2005, a few weeks before he was to redeploy to Iraq.
Joshua Omvig, 22, a member of the Army Reserve from Grundy Center, Iowa, also took his own life. In December 2005, he shot himself in front of his mother after an 11-month tour in Iraq.
His parents, Ellen and Randy Omvig, say Joshua wouldn't talk much about Iraq. They tried to get him help, but he worried that it would hurt his career if the Army found out, said his father.//
Cheney explained how it would de-stablize the entire region and said it would have been a quagmire. Sound familiar?
But Bush II wanted to outdo Daddy. In that he was successful... he's outdone every president we've ever had in creating a quagmire that's a problem to extract from.
Armed militias won't keep the peace, they will represent their tribe in the many-sided civil war that will continue in earnest when we leave. Nevertheless, leave we must, because two wrongs never made a right and staying is our second wrong.
I pray for our troups and for those poor people. This administration has sown a whirlwind... whatever will we reap?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY
We are again fighting an enemy who is passionate – and utterly insane.
Frankly, I find that there is an inverse relationship between passion and a peaceful aftermath. I think that the world has known this since The Great Terror of the French Revolution. This basic theme has been repeated many times -- with the Bolshevik Revolution turning into a holocaust of terror, and the Chinese Communist Revolution degrading into the worst tragedy in human history.
Yes, the South Vietnamese government was corrupt but no more corrupt than the government that now rules the country, or rules China.
I am sad about your son. I cannot imagine anything worse than losing a child.
I heard an author interviewed about his new book called something to the effect of "What will be left when we are extinct". He has figured just how long it would take for sea water to seep into the subway tunnels of New York City causing the collapse of the streets and buildings. It's going to happen someday anyhow and sooner than later if we keep on as we are going. Boy am I in a dismal mood!!
Charles - I wonder where Cheney left his common sense since he said that years ago.
Carolion - The suicide rate of the troops is shocking and I'm afraid it will get worse as realization of what is happening sets in. It worked that way after Vietnam.
Chive - I will look for the books you mentioned. We need all the help we can get to understand the chaos coming down the pike.
From 1995 until 2000, he served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company and market leader in the energy sector. Cheney's record as C.E.O. was the subject of some dispute among Wall Street analysts, and a 1998 merger between Halliburton and Dresser Industries attracted the criticism of some Dresser executives for Halliburton's lack of accounting transparency.[31]
During Cheney's tenure, Halliburton changed its accounting practices regarding revenue realization of disputed costs on major construction projects.[32]
In 1997, along with Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol and others, Cheney founded the "Project for the New American Century," a neo-conservative U.S. think tank whose self-stated goal is to "promote American global leadership."[33] One of the PNAC's positions involved urging the United States to remove Saddam Hussein's regime from power in Iraq, using "diplomatic, political and military efforts".[
Here in Yellow Springs we're having a six-week Peace Cinema series. I've only seen one so far: JOYEUX NOEL, about the Christmas Eve during WW I when the soldiers of all sides set down their arms and joined together. To make that movie, several nations which had been bitter enemies during that time and in the following war, joined together.
In my heart there is a deep desire to see the same thing happen for Viet Nam, which is not "complete" and never will be until we all join together to give birth to something.
There's a way to deliberately "pay it forward" in our thoughts now, too, concerning the Middle East. I'm holding the thought, for instance, that the Greenbelt work of Wangari Matthai and so many women, including some helping in Palestine - that this reforestation of desertified war-grounds by women - the planting of Trees of Peace by women, and their followers - men, children, elders - This greenbelt work will grow in our awareness and we'll devote more creative energy to it, more supportive thoughts and prayers - and the attention to continued warmongering will then lose importance and die away.
All in my mind right now. I honor your son's passing with these thoughts.
Greg's assertions up there that we aren't really there for the oil completely ignores the little known fact that that Iraqi oil bill that is yet to be shoved through parliament, is loaded with sweetheart deals for American, and British oil companies. The original document was debated in Congress and the basic result of the original being passed would be the rape of Iraq's oil, at the hands of foreign oil companies, ours and the UKs. Only eighteen percent of the fields would remain in Iraqi control. I tend to believe that the discord on that bill was less over the division of the revenues, than the thought that they would be drastically reduced in the first place. Funny how Bush was left to explain they stopped for the summer because of the heat. Of course, if you believe they walked out in disgust at having that shoved down their throats, you won't get that from the corporate controlled media anymore.
What we focus on is what the powers-that-be then proceed to increase.
There are Iraqui peacemakers working together with other peacemaking teams from around the world. I've gotten word through the US/Canada-based Christian Peacemaker Teams that they're preparing to send a team back into Iraq, and the tensions there are increasing.
For those readers who are interested in the positive use of our mental faculties in the creative power of visualization, I respectfully suggest frequent moments during this day and following days and weeks devoted to "out-picturing" relaxation of tensions there and here, and the fading away of greedy-grabber obsessive warmongering corporate stuff, and the huge increase of respect for women, children, elders, for the preciousness of the various ancient cultures of the Middle East, for the energizing of the HEART CONNECTIONS worldwide.......And for the Peace-reforestation of the desert grounds created by non-peace.
The hallmark of a liberal is the inability to quantify.
Liberals think of terms like "a whole bunch" or "lots a" or "sweetheart deals" and "profit". Conservatives and business think in terms of exact amounts. That way they can compare one deal to another and calculate the risks.
I am sure there is money to be made in the Iraqi oil business, but there is also money to be lost there. In the Iraqi oil business, it is easier to lose money than to make it. That pretty much makes Iraqi unique in the oil business.
Anyone with half a brain would realize that the political situation in both Iraq and the United States is unstable. Who would toss a dime into a situation from which the United States could withdraw in 14 months and the emerging government in Iraq would be hostile?
The history of the oil companies in the last half century is a long series of deals broken and assets seized, the latest example being Russia and Venezuela where the oil companies lost tens of billions. Why would any oil company invest in a situation far more unstable and hostile than either of them?
Why not just make money from oil futures, services, transportation and retail -- which is what most western companies do.
The oil factor in the Iraq War was not one of controlling oil but one of stabilizing the region so that the flow of oil was predictable and not subject to disruption.
The hallmark of a neoconservative is the ability to obfuscate and divert attention from their self-serving motives and the nefarious actions that result from those motives. Greg, you were doing well, arguing points and defending US commercial interests as risk takers who "calculate the risks." It makes them sound so sensible, even (dare I say it) MORAL. They are nothing of the kind, and I suspect that you are well aware of that.
Greg - There are many ways for blind men to view an elephant. Each of us use arguments we assemble from what we read from the sidelines, and we tend to read authors who voice our own opinions. Facts and figures can all be, and often are, in direct dispute with someone else's facts and figures. It does not further your argument to belittle other people just because they don't see things the same as you do. Instead of helping to understand the very complex causes of the Iraqi problem, rudeness incites more rudeness and stops any desire to understand your view. Remarks like "anyone with half a brain --" tells me you are using only half of yours.
Bert - Your words always seem to me to be right on the mark. Thanks for defending us liberals. To me, to be a Liberal is to be reasonable, care greatly about one's fellow man, and prone to be polite in dealings with others. The folks that Greg is declaring are so much smarter, are the ones who got us into this awful mess in Iraq. Their philosophies are based too much on corporate and personal greed, and not for the general welfare of We the People. Greg may be right about figures, though. I read a lot of them, but don't retain them. They vary according to the beliefs of who is keeping score. There are always figures that can be trotted out for any occasion.