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Occupational
Hazards of War Without End
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Last week, Pentagon chiefs unveiled a grandiose plan for obliterating any point on earth at the touch of a button. In the Empire's future wars, our laptop bombardiers won't even have to leave the comfort of their own desks to wreak havoc the world over. With the way things are going in Iraq these days, it looks like they'll be better off. A Glorious Liberation Indeed, with an election-wary president looking to avoid more fatalities, 150,000 foreign troops are being sought out. Washington's desperation is such that, hell, everyone need apply – even "rogue states" – just so long as the body bag syndrome will do minimal political damage. So much for the old American adage, "you break it, you buy it." Now, with the American death toll surpassing 200 and rising every day, the neocons' self-assured predictions of a "cakewalk" are starting to appear as they were all along – arrogant and wildly wrong. Instead of the glorious "liberation" of the Iraqi people everyone was promised, the situation is descending into a quagmire – though Donald Rumsfeld is doing his best to deny it. Iraqi resistance, slowly increasing during June, finally exploded in a spate of attacks at month's end. On 1 July was reported the grim news of another 6 US troops dead, and 4 wounded. On Independence Day, July 4th, more incidents left 1 soldier dead and many injured. Just yesterday, a soldier relaxing at Baghdad's university was shot point-blank by an unknown assailant. According to the Seattle Times (among others) the escalating attacks are not coming at random, but may well be signs of a wider revolt: "US troops are getting ambushed everywhere and every day." The BBC's comprehensive list of attacks clearly indicates a trend – one continued during last night's attack, which left another 4 US soldiers wounded. Drop the Hammer! While this situation is clearly starting to unnerve the soldiers on the ground, for those ensconced in airy Washington, the rising dissent is just an irritation. And, as with Dubya's "bring 'em on" bravado, it's one to be dealt with as bluntly as possible: "'...clearly, they (the Iraqis) are emboldened by success,' said a senior military official in Washington. 'You have to go in and tell them: "we're gonna do what we did in Germany and Japan. We're gonna write your constitution. We're gonna install your government. We're gonna write your laws. We're gonna watch your every move for a decade, and then maybe you'll get a chance to do it yourself."'" Who's 'We,' Paleface? For all that, should we expect that he personally is about to "go in and tell them?" Apparently this subtle thinker doesn't care that Iraq's most senior Shia cleric has issued a fatwa against any such foreign-imposed "constitution." Never mind – this is simply another trivial little annoyance to be ignored, like all the rest before it. One wonders who this anonymous blusterer thinks he is speaking for. While the American people proved willing to go along for the ride when the war began, this owed largely to two promises the Administration had made: one, that Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat to the United States; and two, that the war would be over quickly. The first claim has, of course, not materialized and in failing to do so, has produced a firestorm of controversy about whether or not "Bush lied." The second promise too has been broken. Once-confident Americans are losing heart: polls show plummeting support for the occupation as the death toll rises and fears of a never-ending engagement grow. Indeed, we have to presume this man is speaking for himself when he says, "we're gonna watch your every move for a decade." At the rate things are going, one wonders what percentage of the American people will be interested in watching this harebrained "nation building" scheme unfold ten weeks from now – let alone ten years from now. A Growing Catalog of 'Incidents' While neoconservative fascists bloviate on about the need to advance America's "historic mission" by "destroying traditional societies," their questionable ideal of "creative destruction" is being re-appropriated by furious Iraqis, who are actually putting the idea into action. Every day, it becomes more and more obvious that American troops are quickly sinking into an Iraqi morass. According to retired Army Colonel Daniel Smith, writing in the Asia Times, the ever-increasing round of attacks on American troops in Iraq bears all the hallmarks of America's most famous quagmire: "…such (Iraqi) opposition, armed only with AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and light mortars, may seem puny against tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and modern aircraft with precision-guided munitions, but that is what Vietnam-era administrations thought in the 1960s and early 1970s. Between June 9 and June 22, the Pentagon logged 131 "incidents" involving US troops in Iraq, including 41 attacks on US compounds, 26 attacks on sentry or observation posts and 26 on convoys. The next 24-hour period saw an additional 25 incidents." The number of American deaths, which Rumsfeld and Co. tritely continue to downplay as "militarily insignificant" and "to be expected" remain (barely) within the acceptable range for most Americans. However, if we consider all of the possible deaths that could have happened from 131 different attacks – and those only up until 22 June – the depth and danger of the Iraqi opposition become clear. Since that date, the rate of attacks has risen precipitously. Indeed, it is the ever-increasing number of "incidents," not only of actual casualties and injuries, that bodes so ill for the future. The Administration: Cold and Calculated, or Just Incompetent? That said, it is immaterial whether "Bush lied" concerning the WMDs. It now appears quite likely that he did. However, while inexcusable, such fibs are entirely normal for politicians. Whether or not Saddam possessed WMDs is an interesting topic for talk show antagonists, but in the end, it's mere entertainment. We would have gone to war regardless. What is important, on the other hand, is whether the Administration deceived us regarding the likely outcome of the occupation. For if they did, it will come as deeply disturbing news to the families of American soldiers killed or wounded since the war officially ended in early May. To think that their loved ones were knowingly sent in as cannon fodder for the realization of certain people's interests would not sit well with the millions of Americans waiting worriedly for news from the front – which these days is becoming increasingly bad. We may never know if the American government consciously minimized the potential dangers of the post-war occupation. For their sake, we had better hope that instead of ruthless they were merely fools. Luckily, there is ample evidence to support the latter proposition. Today's G-Men: Misguided and Comically Secretive First we must note the disturbing pattern of law-enforcement misdeeds – from arbitrary detentions, intimidation, outrageous use of force, absurd interrogations ("are you a member of a terrorist group?"), and above all a bafflingly creative way of locating perpetrators (netting college students, advocates for the poor, popular musicians, any Green Party members, etc.). No wonder that bin Laden and other terrorist masterminds remain at large. Second of all is the issue of transparency, another feature of democracy-building that America loves to export to weak countries. Yet perhaps they should consider trying it at home first. Take the example of "one of the CIA's deepest and darkest secrets," the December 1974 plot by the "Ebenezer Scrooge" terrorist front to take out Santa Claus: "…researchers who recently uncovered the report say the joke memo warning about a potential terror attack on the North Pole, which had been classified 'secret' for decades, speaks more about the U.S. government's obsession with keeping information from the public than it does of the black humour of the spies who wrote it. "… Details of the memo were only recently revealed after historians compared the censored and uncensored versions of the document and realized the CIA considered a decades-old joke about Santa Claus as a matter of the utmost national security. "'This shows that the system is not about protecting real security issues,' said Thomas Blanton, director of the U.S.-based National Security Archive, which made the Santa records public. 'The bulk of what government keeps secret is to avoid embarrassment.'" Finding the WMD: a Fatal Waste of Time? Finally, there is the issue of productive use of time and energy. For political and diplomatic reasons a huge amount of time and effort was spent on finding the celebrated WMDs – or at least with concocting believable stories about them that could then be force-fed to the media. Yet could our intelligence officers have been doing something more important with their time? Apparently, finding the "smoking gun" associating Saddam with banned weapons was more important than finding the "smoking gun" that reflected poorly – if accurately – on the US's occupational hazards to come. However, even without such documents as the above link describes, it was merely a matter of listening to the Iraqi people – and not to the think-tanks and those Iraqis (like Ahmed Chalabi) propped up by the Pentagon to say what it wanted to hear. After all, we should remember this eerily prophetic Los Angeles Times article of December 2002, quoting an average Iraqi in Baghdad: "…Americans think they will come here and rule us. They don't know what they are coming into. If they get food from someone, it will be poisoned. If they turn around with their back to us, we will stick a knife in it. Snipers will be looking for them from every rooftop." Long before the war, the hazards of occupying Iraq were clear to anyone with common sense. Yet the Bush Administration has been loath to admit it. Keeping up a weary nation's morale, it seems, is something that can only be done only through stifling dissent with fear. The president, after all, said on Independence Day that "we are still at war." And wartime, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, is a very special time indeed: "'…most of the rights you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires.' He added that in wartime 'the protections will be ratcheted down to the constitutional minimum.'" In other words, sit down and shut up – even as your countrymen are dying, forced to fight someone else's war, well on their way to becoming the traumatized and forgotten vets of the next generation. As time passes, and the casualties mount, more and more Americans will come to realize that the present state of eternal war is no "noble sacrifice" – but rather a foolish and tragic one, created by those whose imperial aspirations continue to betray the republican foundations on which America was created.
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Previous articles by Christopher Deliso on Antiwar.com Occupational
Hazards of War Without End McNews
Comes Gunning for Greece The
Albanians and the State Washington's
Confused Macedonia Policy 'The
Yanks Have Really Screwed Up in Iraq' Wolfowitz
in Skopje – What Next for Macedonia? America's
'Conservative' Christians – and the Middle East's Occupation
by Bad Example Iraq's
Cultural Catastrophe – and Ours Has
America Gone Commie? The
Ends of Alliance in Iraq Washington's
Hubris Invites a Fatal Iraqi Misjudgment Suing
in England, Vacationing in France: the Misplaced Patriotism of Richard
Perle Top
Ten Bogus Justifications for the Iraqi War Disaster
Par Extraordinaire? Almost
Spot On: The British Critique of American Newspapers So
Many Fronts, So Little Sense Poisonings
or Power Plays? Terrorist
Bombing in Kumanovo, 1 Dead The
Instability Myth, Free Markets and Macedonia's Future The
Interview That Never Happened The
Price of Paranoia The
Trouble with Turkey Greater
Albania: a Place, or Just a State of Mind? Explosion
Rocks Macedonian Parliament
Baghdad
Braces for War Envisioning
Peace in the Shadow of War Seducing
Intervention: Nobody's
Fault But Their Own? In
European
Intelligence: The US Betrayed Us In Macedonia A
Georgian Gaffe Heavy
Fighting Erupts in Aracinovo on First Anniversary of NLA's 'Free Zone' Kodra
Fura and Macedonia's Emerging War Kosovar
Terrorists Renew Attacks on Macedonia Macedonia
On War Footing Over Kosovo Border Provocations Macedonian
Tortured In Tetovo Village, As Gang War Rages Macedonia:
A Nation of Ingrates Mujahedin
In Macedonia, or, an Enormous Embarrassment For the West How
Not To Capture Osama bin Laden Whispers
of Folly and Ruin Blurring
the Boundaries in Macedonia When
The Terror Goes Down To Georgia: Some Thoughts On The Caucasus Imbroglio
In
Macedonia, Terrorism Remains the Law But
Would It Be an Evil Axis? Economics
and Politics in Macedonia: an Interview with Dr. Sam Vaknin Macedonians
and the Media Secrets
of the Blue Café On
the Front Lines in Tetovo Interview
with Ljube Boshkovski A
Connection Between NATO and the NLA? The
Legacy of War: Kidnapped Persons in Macedonia The
Day's Disturbances and Developments in Macedonia
Crisis in Macedonian Government –
Albanian Hackers Deface Macedonian Website
Partition: Macedonia's Best Lost Hope? Important
Notice to Readers of the Macedonia Page Selective Democracy Comes
to Macedonia Macedonia Capitulates With a Friend Like Pakistan Afghan-Americans Oppose Interventionism,
Seek Unity The Afghan
Quagmire Beckons Suddenly, Terrorists
Are Everywhere Turkey's Eclipse: Chechnya Comes Home
To America A Quiet Battle in the Caucasus:
Georgia Between Russia & NATO Central Asia: The Cauldron
Boils Over Bin Laden, Iran, and the KLA The Macedonian Phrase-Book:
Writing NATO's Dictionary of Control Barbarism and the Erasure
of Culture Macedonian Endgame: The Sinister
Transformation of the Status Quo Christopher Deliso is a freelance writer and Balkan correspondent for Antiwar.com, UPI, and private European analysis firms. He has lived and traveled widely in the Balkans, southeastern Europe and Turkey, and holds a master's degree with distinction in Byzantine Studies from Oxford University. In the past year, he has reported from many countries, including Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Hungary, Greece, the Republic of Georgia and the Turkey-Iraq border. Mr. Deliso currently lives in Macedonia, and is involved with projects to generate international interest and tourism there. |