The Fat Lady's Warming Up

by pessimist

Face it, George. It's over. Only you and your toadies can't see this.

A retired Air force officer who created plans for the Joint Chiefs can see it. Bangladeshi newpapermen can see it. Iraqi citizens can tell you why you should see it.

But you're a stay-the-course man - and the iceberg is right ahead.

‘Staying the Course’ Isn’t an Option

Retired Air Force Col. Mike Turner is a former military planner who served on the U.S. Central Command planning staff for operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Before retiring in 1997, he spent four years as a strategic policy planner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff specializing in Middle East/Africa affairs. He is a 1973 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and a former fighter pilot and air-rescue helicopter pilot.

From a purely military standpoint, the war in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster. This administration failed to make even a cursory effort at adequately defining the political end state they sought to achieve by removing Saddam Hussein, making it impossible to precisely define long-term military success. That, in turn, makes it impossible to lay out a rational exit strategy for U.S. troops. Like Vietnam, the military is again being asked to clean up the detritus of a failed foreign policy. We are nose-deep in a protracted insurgency, an occupying Christian power in an oil-rich, Arab country. That country is not now and has never been a single nation. A single, unified, democratic Iraq comprised of Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis is a willfully ignorant illusion at best.

Two thirds of America's combat brigades are now tied down in this war which, under present conditions, is categorically unwinnable. Having alienated virtually every major ally who might help, our troops are simply targets. If Bush is re-elected, there are only two possible outcomes in Iraq:

* Four years from now, America will have 5,000 dead servicemen and women and an untold number of dead Iraqis at a cost of about $1 trillion, yet still be no closer to success than we are right now, or

* The U.S. will be gone, and we will witness the birth of a violent breeding ground for Shiite terrorists posing a far greater threat to Americans than a contained Saddam.

This war is not some noble endeavor, some great struggle of good against evil as the Bush administration would have us believe. We in the military have heard these grand pronouncements many times before by men who have neither served nor sacrificed. This war is an exercise in colossal stupidity and hubris which has now cost more than 1,000 American military lives, which has empowered Al Qaeda beyond anything those butchers might have engineered on their own and which has diverted America's attention and precious resources from the real threat at the worst possible time. And now, in a supreme act of truly breathtaking gall, this administration insists the only way to fix Iraq is to leave in power the very ones who created the nightmare.

If the Bush administration remains in power, failure in Iraq is a virtual certainty. "Staying the course" during a crisis spiraling rapidly downward will cost thousands of American and Iraqi lives, will continue to sap the operational readiness of this nation's armed forces, and will continue to strengthen Al Qaeda's hand. To paraphrase FDR, it's time to change horses. The one we're on is about to drown.

Now some words from our Iraqi citizen:

Liar, Liar...

The elections are already a standard joke. There's talk of holding elections only in certain places where it will be 'safe' to hold them. One wonders what exactly comprises 'safe' in Iraq today. Does 'safe' mean the provinces that are seeing fewer attacks on American troops? Or does 'safe' mean the areas where the abduction of foreigners isn't occurring? Or could 'safe' mean the areas that *won't* vote for an Islamic republic and *will* vote for Allawi? Who will be allowed to choose these places? Right now, Baghdad is quite unsafe. We see daily abductions, killings, bombings and Al-Sadr City, slums of Baghdad, see air strikes... will they hold elections in Baghdad? Imagine, Bush being allowed to hold elections in 'safe' areas- like Texas and Florida.

You know things are really going downhill in Iraq, when the Bush speech-writers have to recycle his old speeches. Listening to him yesterday, one might think he was simply copying and pasting bits and pieces from the older stuff. My favorite part was when he claimed, "Electricity has been restored above pre-war levels..." Even E. had to laugh at that one. A few days ago, most of Baghdad was in the dark for over 24 hours and lately, on our better days, we get about 12 hours of electricity. Bush got it wrong (or Allawi explained it to incorrectly)- the electricity is drastically less than pre-war levels, but the electricity BILL is way above pre-war levels. Congratulations Iraqis on THAT!! Our electricity bill was painful last month. Before the war, Iraqis might pay an average of around 5,000 Iraqi Dinars a month for electricity (the equivalent back then of $2.50) - summer or winter. Now, it's quite common to get bills above 70,000 Iraqi Dinars... for half-time electricity.

After Bush finished his piece about the glamorous changes in Iraq, Allawi got his turn. I can't seem to decide what is worse- when Bush speaks in the name of Iraqi people, or when Allawi does. Yesterday's speech was particularly embarrassing. He stood there groveling in front of the congress- thanking them for the war, the occupation and the thousands of Iraqi lives lost... and he did it all on behalf of the Iraqi people. It was infuriating and for maybe the hundredth time this year, I felt rage. Yet another exile thanking the Bush administration for the catastrophe we're trying to cope with. Our politicians are outside of the country 90% of the time (by the way, if anyone has any news of our president Ghazi Ajeel Al Yawir, do let us know- where was he last seen or heard?), the security situation is a joke, the press are shutting down and pulling out and our beloved exiles are painting rosey pictures for the American public- you know- so everyone who voted for Bush can sleep at night.

Allawi actually said "thank you" nine times. Nine times. It really should have been more- at least double that number of Iraqis died yesterday... and about five times that number the day before. Looking back on the last month alone, over 350 Iraqis have been killed either by American air strikes, fighting, or bombs... only 9 thank yous?

And now for the Grand Finale:

Zakaria bleats as the fat lady is getting ready
Sep 21, 2004, 12:02

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s recent statement to BBC that he thought that the Iraq war was illegal and at cross purposes with the UN Charter is significant: Annan stating the obvious apparently only when he feels that there is no peril in doing so. He had made a similar statement some time back (but well after the Bush-Blair invasion and occupation of Iraq was a fait accompli) when he declared to the UN General Assembly that preemptive military intervention poses a fundamental challenge to the UN and could lead to the law of the jungle. "My concern is that," he declared then, "it could set precedents that resulted in a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without credible justification."

It would have carried far greater weight (if not necessarily effectiveness) had he uttered the words at the time when the US cynically arm-twisted the UN Security Council into passing Resolution 1441, which was then shamelessly used as a convenient pretext to launch the preemptive strike.

Predictably, Annan’s latest opinion has drawn ire from the US establishment apologists, as well as assertion from Australia and Great Britain that 1441 was good enough for international authorization for unilateralism. That 1441 was even passed in the first place on the basis of spurious American and British evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is a sad commentary on the success of US bullying tactics.

Whatever one may make of Annan’s timing of his statements, there is little to dispute the gravity of his words, especially when viewed from the broader perspective of the operation of the international system in a unipolar world dominated by a hyperpower run by a cabal of evil men and women. That cabal has a number of apologists with origins in some of the very regions and professing the same faith that it has taken hostile action against.

The problem with the US is its penchant to see the rest of the world in its image and values, when several of its values are dubious at best in other people’s eyes, and its image is less than universally splendid. Its notion of manifest destiny when foisted on its foreign policy is at the root of a good portion of the global problems. It is the very indiscriminate use of that policy, especially by the George W. Bush administration, that has alienated many of its European allies, not to mention so many other nations. His apology that "a world that reacts instinctively against the United States will be less peaceful, less cooperative, less prosperous, less open, and less stable" may justifiably be challenged by the counter-assertion that certain American policies have contributed to, if not initiated, a less peaceful, less cooperative, less prosperous, less open, and less stable world.

The same argument may be made against his stricture against Europe that its self-anointed role as a "kinder, gentler, whatever" as distinct from the US threatens to fracture global efforts on trade, proliferation, the Middle East, and so on. The US is accused by other developed countries as conducting unfair trade practices, not to mention browbeating poorer nations, condoning Israel’s openly secret nuclear weapons programme, and conducting jaundiced policies that have impeded efforts to bring lasting peace to the Middle East.

As Paul Street, an American, has sadly concluded, the 9/11 terror attacks "were all-too morally consistent with a long and bloody record of US behavior and policy." The myth of the American moral high ground has been a concoction of brilliant and relentless US media spin, but has little resemblance to the reality of US foreign policy in action. George W. Bush’s justification of going to war against Iraq on moral grounds is as laughable as it is spurious.

And, what of Iraq? Annan doubts that a free and fair general election can be held there by January 2005 as planned. But a free and fair election under an effective UN presence and power may be a better option for both a dignified American retreat and an end to the suffering of the Iraqi people.

The US believes that elections conducted under the Allawi administration’s (meaning its) aegis will offer it an honourable exit strategy, but some of their own pronouncements (like the Falluja residents can be ignored for the election until later, or that insurgency is increasing as the scheduled election time approaches) betray their inner doubts. The reality is that the freedom fighters' ability to hit hard and often with devastating effects has forced the Americans to resort to aerial action and keep their ground troops behind the Allawi soldiers to minimize their own fatalities in an election year. In the process, indiscriminate bombing is causing mostly civilian casualties, leading to greater public resentment against the Americans, and the Allawi troops are taking a massive battering.

The Americans are already in a no-win situation and the fat lady may be gearing up to sing for their imminent withdrawal.

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