U.S. Still Baffled by Iarqi Quagmire

It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and for power - power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors; they want to retaliate.

Eric Hoffer "The True Believer"

One can take only so much of this folly without resorting to, well, the keyboard. Anesthesia no longer works, especially since so many Americans running the world appear to be drowning in it. Or is it pure delusion? It’s not clear.

The most recent example is the O’Hanlon/Pollack Op-Ed piece in the NY Times, which now prints all the opinions that fit (their warped Neoconistic world view). You’d think that the "paper of record" (a record they should be ashamed of) would be more careful about the views they dispense since their "reportage" was, to a great extent, responsible for legitimizing the Iraqi war in the first place. But, no; they are routinely proving that you can fool most of the people most of the time.

Is the surge working militarily as their piece contends? Maybe an exceptionally skilled sophist could concoct a defense of that position without, of course, the use of many facts. A more serious inquiry, however, reveals that "the enemy" - the one that is supposedly being defeated - is commonly misunderstood and misrepresented.

U.S. officials throw around the terms, insurgents, Al-Qaeda, and asymmetrical warfare as if they conclusively define the situation as Cowboys versus Indians once simply defined the Old West. But they don’t. The so-called Sunni "insurgents" represent a faction that lost power due to an immoral, illegal war. Granted, they were propped up by Hussein’s fascistic, Baathist regime. But an outside, neoimperialistic force with an eye on the country’s liquid assets, removed them without a plan for peaceably reabsorbing them into a new government. Wouldn’t you be irate if this happened to your clan? Would you sit back and quietly take it? Especially when the armed Shiites are understandably hungry for revenge?

After all, America supported Hussein, looking the other way for decades as he mercilessly oppressed the Shia. Now, the foot’s on the other neck. Are American troops trained for and capable of stopping such a bloodbath? No. But, let’s say for a moment, O’Hanlon and Pollack are correct and the surge is working. Is that indicative of a long-term solution or a respite? Who really knows? The answer depends on how much hatred and resentment reside in the hearts of the now oppressed Sunni minority. Add to this the salafi/jihadist ideology increasingly gaining strength in many Islamic circles as a way of forcing the occupiers out of a sovereign country. For further clarification see recent posts on http://juancole.com/

For the sake of beating the "War on Terror" drum, that constituency, which is far broader than Qutbian Al-Qaeda, is commonly called Al-Qaeda, which further confuses the situation. It’s like a distant cousin of a Mob boss pretending to be a wiseguy, or a putz wearing the Hell’s Angels insignia without owning a motorcycle. Al-Qaeda in Iraq? Please, how about some further differentiation, maybe, I don’t know, from the "paper of record."
And asymmetrical warfare? How about using the term, guerilla - a concept folks in general can understand? As is, the chaotic, diffuse, and mad-dog fighting now going on hardly represents warfare, strictly defined. Ahmed’s brother was tortured and killed last night so he and two uncles are taking to the streets tonight for a bit of revenge. Is that war? Is that something the West Point grads, well trained for true warfare, should be subjected to?

The Revenge Factor - the core animus for what once was an actual war - is going to determine above all other factors how long this conflict will endure. Treaties and constitutions, much less "democracy," aren’t going to work until people have gotten the hate out of their system. And the longer America occupies Iraq and kills more Iraqis the higher the Revenge Factor will be. That’s the ugly part of human nature illustrated throughout the ages on bloody grounds around the world. You don’t have to be in or have visited Iraq to know the malicious potency of hatred and oppression. You can smell that kind of poison in the air even across an ocean or two.

Sadly but predictably, the government has been broken with the withdrawal of Sunni representatives. And it’s only a matter of time before the Kurds pull out in an effort to solidify an oil-rich Kurdistan. What you now see is a group of puppets masquerading as a constitutional government, pretending to represent a unified front. What happens in the next few months when the charade can no longer be carried off? Another five-year stint for Reservists? See: http://tomdispatch.com/post/174827/...

America moves on somehow, its media barely working, its legislators entangled in routine, Manichean conflicts that end in stalemate, its people tired of the war but not ambitious enough to grasp the wisest way of ending it. Decline and fall beckons. And somehow, the inexorable slide continues one story at a time, without so much as a screech from the "leaders" who should know better. In the near future let no person deny that whatever dreadful fate awaits this once great nation could have been prevented had appropriate actions been taken along the way.