The first paragraphs of this piece are entirely too kind and deferential to Bush and his neoconservative aides and allies.
In the case of Vietnam, the U.S. began by assisting a friendly government resisting communist takeover in a civil war, though the conflict disintegrated into a failure that still haunts this country. The 1991 Persian Gulf War, under Bush's father, was a successful response to Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait — and Bush's father deliberately stopped short of toppling Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq.
The US began in Vietnam by installing Diem in Saigon as a way to undermine the agreement that ended the French colonial war in Indochina. That agreement called for elections to reunify Vietnam; the inevitable winner would have been the George Washington of Indochina, Ho Chi Minh. The Vietnam War derives from that act.
No doubt those in administrations of both parties who followed through on this act to its consequence of armed conflict would have said that they were doing so in order to contain Communism. At least they could say this with a straight face and a clear conscience; however, a strategic retreat from Vietnam would have been the better approach.
The current president outlined a far more aggressive policy in a speech to the West Point graduating class in 2002, declaring that in the war on terror "we must take the battle to the enemy" and confront threats before they emerge. The Iraq war was intended as a monument to his new Bush Doctrine, which also posited that the U.S. would take what help was available from allies but would not be held back by them. It now stands as a monument to folly.
In a sense, by installing Diem and preventing the reunification of Vietnam under Ho and the Communists, the US "took the battle to enemy" in Vietnam. One may ask if "taking the battle to enemy" is simply a bad idea. This would seem simplistic. The questions that must be asked are more complex. Fundamentally, they are whether a military action would be met by popular resistance (a question that should have been asked in both Vietnam and Iraq and was not) and whether the action really furthers whatever goals have been defined.
The answer to the first question in both cases is that the military action has been met with popular resistance; the people of the occupied country, South Vietnam and Iraq, do not support the installed government and many actively seek to overthrow it. To the second question, the answer was problematic at best in the case of Vietnam and, in Iraq, clearly negative.
Since Saddam had no working relationship with al Qaida, it was not possible for Saddam's ouster to have furthered US goals in the war on terror. Indeed, since Saddam had no relationship with al Qaida and had a deep hostility to Islamism, the Bushies would have done better in terms of the war on terror to leave Saddam where he was, as unpalatable as that might seem. Furthermore, Saddam was a contained threat in every other respect. For all his bluster, he was a paper tiger with no ability to disturb the balance of power in the region.
All the main justifications for the invasion offered beforehand by the Bush administration and its supporters — weapons of mass destruction, close ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq, a chance to make Baghdad a fountain of democracy that would spread through the region — turned out to be baseless.
These were not honest mistakes by policy makers based on poor intelligence reports. Where the intelligence reports did not flatly contradict the administration's case for war, they were qualified and ambiguous. The evidence suggests that the policy makers politicized the intelligence, both by
rewriting it before disseminating it and
pressuring analysts into doctoring reports before they were written. This behavior does not suggest that the policy makers in the Bush administration were making honest mistakes based on poor intelligence, but suggests that they wanted to make certain that the intelligence supported their case for war regardless of the real facts. There is nothing honest about that; it is willful deception.
In short, they deliberately lied. The policy makers in the Bush administration knew or had reason to know that Saddam neither had links to al Qaida nor in any other way posed a threat. While those in the administrations of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon can honestly claim that their errors in Vietnam were motivated by a desire to contain Communism, the neoconservative ideologues in the Bush administration cannot say that they honestly thought that anti-terrorists goals would be met by invading Iraq and toppling Saddam. All evidence points to the fact that they knew better. They listened to Ahmed Chalabi not because they thought he told the truth -- they knew otherwise -- but because he told them what they wanted the American people and the people of the world to believe.
This leaves the neoconservatives' inability to consider the possibility of popular resistance to any government they installed in Iraq as a root of the present Iraqi quagmire. As they admit daily, they underestimated the popular opposition. US sponsored polls show that over 80% of the Iraqi people oppose the occupation. If they don't understand the problem, they might profit from reading
this analysis by Canadian journalist Naomi Klein of the reasons why common Iraqis have come to hate the occupation and the foreigners who profit from it. This isn't likely to change just because next Wednesday they will start calling the occupation "sovereignty."
The rest of the piece follows from this. With the people resisting this undemocratic concept of democracy, the occupiers must resort to brutality. The siege and bombings of Falluja and the torture of detainees in Abu Ghraib are but two aspects of this brutality. No amount of US troop strength will secure Iraq from the Iraqi people, ergo the lengthened tours of duty and the use of private contractors to protect foreign business interests.
Of course, there is price America has paid in international influence, as noted by the piece:
The planned transfer Wednesday of limited sovereignty from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority to an interim Iraqi government occurs with U.S. influence around the world at a low point and insurgent violence in Iraq reaching new heights of deadliness and coordination. Important Arab leaders this month rejected a U.S. invitation to attend a summit with leaders of industrialized nations. The enmity between Israelis and Palestinians is fiercer than ever, their hope for peace dimmer. Residents of the Middle East see the U.S. not as a friend but as an imperial power bent on securing a guaranteed oil supply and a base for U.S. forces. Much of the rest of the world sees a bully.
The piece suggests investigating contracts as a remedy. True enough. We may well find that the root of the quagmire in Iraq was not a need to fight terrorism but the most grotesque campaign finance scandal ever. Imagine Watergate manifested not a bungled burglary but as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Let the investigations begin and let the guilty be punished. If the federal justice system is unable or unwilling to do so, then it would be appropriate for this purpose to convene an international tribunal.
However, investigating corrupt business deals and crooked administration policy makers that resulted in a misguided colonial war won't solve the problem of US forces in harm's way in Iraq. Those forces are needed elsewhere in order to fight a real war on terror and should be sent to where they can do some good.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
