So into the graveyard of Iraq, George
Bush, commander-in-chief, is to send another 21,000 of his soldiers. The
march of folly is to continue...
by Robert Fisk
It is de rigueur, these days, to recall Vietnam, the false victories, the
body counts, the torture and the murders but history is littered with
powerful men who thought they could batter their way to victory against the
odds. Napoleon comes to mind; not the emperor who retreated from Moscow, but
the man who believed the wild guerrilleros of French-occupied Spain could be
liquidated. He tortured them, he executed them, he propped up a local
Spanish administration of what we would now call Quislings, al-Malikis to a
man. He rightly accused his enemies Moore and Wellington of supporting the
insurgents. And when faced with defeat, Napoleon took the personal decision
"to relaunch the machine" and advanced to recapture Madrid, just as Bush
intends to recapture Baghdad. Of course, it ended in disaster. And George
Bush is no Napoleon Bonaparte.
No, I would turn to another, less flamboyant, far more modern politician for
prophecy, an American who understood, just before the 2003 launch of Bush's
illegal invasion of Iraq, what would happen to the arrogance of power. For
their relevance this morning, the words of the conservative politician Pat
Buchanan deserve to be written in marble:
"We will soon launch an imperial war on Iraq with all the 'On to Berlin'
bravado with which French poilus and British tommies marched in August 1914.
But this invasion will not be the cakewalk neoconservatives predict ... For
a militant Islam that holds in thrall scores of millions of true believers
will never accept George Bush dictating the destiny of the Islamic world ...
"The one endeavour at which Islamic peoples excel is expelling imperial
powers by terror and guerrilla war. They drove the Brits out of Palestine
and Aden, the French out of Algeria, the Russians out of Afghanistan, the
Americans out of Somalia and Beirut, the Israelis out of Lebanon... We have
started up the road to empire and over the next hill we will meet those who
went before."
But George Bush dare not see these armies of the past, their ghosts as
palpable as the phantoms of the 3,000 Americans let us forget the hundreds
of thousands of Iraqis already done to death in this obscene war, and
those future spirits of the dead still living amid the 20,000 men and women
whom Bush is now sending to Iraq. In Baghdad, they will move into both Sunni
and Shia "insurgent strongholds" as opposed to just the Sunni variety which
they vainly invested in the autumn because this time, and again I quote
General Odierno, it is crucial the security plan be " evenhanded". This
time, he said, "we have to have a believable approach, of going after Sunni
and Shia extremists".
But a "believable approach" is what Bush does not have. The days of
even-handed oppression disappeared in the aftermath of invasion.
"Democracy" should have been introduced at the start not delayed until the
Shias threatened to join the insurgency if Paul Bremer, America's second
proconsul, did not hold elections just as the American military should have
prevented the anarchy of April 2003. The killing of 14 Sunni civilians by US
paratroopers at Fallujah that spring set the seal on the insurgency. Yes,
Syria and Iran could help George Bush. But Tehran was part of his toytown
"Axis of Evil", Damascus a mere satellite. They were to be future prey, once
Project Iraq proved successful. Then there came the shame of our torture,
our murders, the mass ethnic cleansing in the land we said we had liberated.
And so more US troops must die, sacrificed for those who have already died. . . .
[The first step must be the recognition that the solution to the Iraq crisis
must be generated first internally, and then, importantly, at the regional
level. The two are linked and the successful resolution of one would lead to
the other.
No foreign power, no matter how benevolent, should be allowed to dictate the
terms of a possible historic and stable settlement in the Middle East.--Ali
Allawi, "For the first time, a real blueprint for peace in Iraq,"
Independent, January 5, 2007]
[Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about
to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies
under a controversial law--Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim
Webb, "Future of Iraq: The Spoils of
War," Independent, January 7, 2007]
[The central issue in the new plan is operation control. Iraqis insist that
they be given full control of all operations within Baghdad, a control that
U.S. commanders - concerned that Iraqi forces will serve as a tool on one
side of a civil war - have been reluctant to hand over.--Sabrina Tavernise, "Iraq wants no
part of more U.S. soldiers," International Herald Tribune, January
10, 2007]
[The basic fact remains that Bush's escalation is designed to smash
Muqtada's Mehdi Army. That can only mean, in practice, a mini-genocide of
vast masses of unruly, extremely dispossessed Shi'ites: the coming battle of
Sadr City, which the Pentagon has been itching to launch since the spring of
2004. The Pentagon is actually declaring war on no fewer than 2.2 million
(poor) people. A sinister symmetry still applies: the Pentagon will attack
dispossessed Shi'ite masses - just as the Israeli Defense Forces attacked
dispossessed Shi'ite masses in southern Lebanon in the summer of 2006.--Pepe
Escobar, "Surging
toward the holy oil grail," Asia Times, January 12, 2007]
[Polls and reporting by Post correspondents suggest that, overwhelmingly,
Iraqis of all factions want U.S. forces to leave. . . . Only Iraqis have a
chance of finding a political resolution for their divisions.--Robert G.
Kaiser, "Trapped by Hubris, Again," Washington
Post, January 14, 2007]
[The "surge" gives Congress, the media, and the foreign policy establishment
something to debate and oppose, while Bush sets his plans in motion to
orchestrate a war with Iran.--Paul Craig Roberts, "Only Impeachment
Can Stop Him," counterpunch.org, January 15, 2007]
[He conceded that some "sectarian" acts were being perpetrated. But he said
there would not be a civil war because Sunni and Shia had lived in peace for
many years.--Stephen Farrell, "Give
us guns - and troops can go, says Iraqi leader," Times, January 18,
2007]
[ . . . the Brookings report urges the creation of a regional group to help
contain a civil war. That would see exactly the contacts with Iran and Syria
that the Bush administration steadfastly refuses.--Rupert Cornwell, "US
must abandon Iraqi cities or face nightmare scenario, say experts,"
Independent, January 30, 2007]
[Spreading democracy, using sticks to try to prevent nuclear proliferation,
threatening "regime change," using the hysterical rhetoric of the "global
war on terrorism" - all undermine the stability we so desperately need in
the Middle East.--William E. Odom, "Victory Is Not an Option," Washington
Post, February 11, 2007]
[He said a British military presence would remain in Iraq into 2008--"Blair
announces Iraq troops cut," BBC News, February 21, 2007]
[The ORB poll also shows that a majority of Iraqis believe the security
situation in Iraq will get better when the "multi national forces" leave
Iraq--Jesse Nunes, "Polls show
Iraqis live surrounded by violence, distrust US," Christian Science
Monitor, March 20, 2007]
[ . . . 51 percent of Iraqis think it is OK to attack coalition troops . . .
53 percent of all Iraqis polled agreed that "from today's perspective, and
all things considered," it was "wrong that U.S.-led coalition forces invaded
Iraq in spring 2003."--Robert Scheer, "
Saddam Has the Last Laugh," truthdig.com, March 20, 2007]
[His aim was for Iraqis to hold elections within 90 days and for the U.S. to
pull troops quickly out of the cities to a desert base.--"Jay
Garner: Iraq four years on," BBC Hardtalk, March 20, 2007]
[It is all a remarkable change of tone for the man who was once a friend of
Ahmed Chalabi, has been praised in public by Vice President Dick Cheney and
is highly regarded by anti-Saddam Iraqi democrats. . . .
Makiya played a strong role in persuading the Bush administration that
Iraq's modernity, secular leadership and high levels of education would
permit it to rebound with little need for an intensive nation building
effort..--"We
failed, says pro-war Iraqi," Observer, March 25, 2007]
["Isolating parts of Baghdad with barbed wire and concrete barriers will
lead to more sectarian tension," the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party said in a
statement. "Dividing the capital in this way will be the starting point for
dividing Iraq."--Dan Glaister, "Iraqi
premier calls on US to halt construction of Baghdad wall," Guardian,
April 23, 2007]
[CNN, along with the local media co-sponsors, have announced that Mike
Gravel will not be invited to their planned debate in June in New Hampshire.
Fox News has also announced that Ron Paul will not be included in their
upcoming Republican debate.--Eric Garris, "Gravel
Won't Be Buried," Antiwar.com, April 27, 2007]
[A relentless attack from the air against Iraq and Afghanistan has been
going on for years, with the United States conducting an average of 75 to
100 airstrikes in the 2 countries every day. The death toll from these
attacks is unknown, but a reasonable estimate is in the range of 100,000 to
150,000 in Iraq, with the number in Afghanistan as yet unexplored.--Jeff
Nygaard, "The Secret Air
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: Unreported casualties," Z Magazine
Online, June 2007]