The U.S. soliders, more and more having to face the reality that attacks on them can come from anywhere, grow increasingly trigger-happy, firing first and asking questions later. Further, following their civilian leaders, they truly believe themselves to represent a superior culture and religion, which ipso facto makes the local Iraqis into some sort of lower species, who can be handled and mishandled at will when the anger and fear hormones are aroused.
In Vietnam, the symbol for this arrogant ruthlessness was My Lai, where several hundred innocent civilians were massacred. ("The only good gook is a dead gook.") Here, the flash-point symbols are Abu Ghraib and Haditha. Tortures and murders and brutalities are constant and widespread in Iraq, as they were in Vietnam, not "aberrations" by a few lowly soldiers who go "off the reservation," to use this most revealing military terminology.
The bloody result of such vicious, bullying behavior is that not only is the Bush Administration watching its approval ratings at home plummet, on both the war specifically and on other issues in general, but the local populations in Iraq, even those regarded as most friendly to U.S. interests, want the Americans out of there as soon as is practicable. The secular and religious Iraqi leaders may disapprove of the daily insurgent bombings but are absolutely incensed by the seemingly wanton and daily brutilization and slaughter of their citizens by the U.S. occupiers. Estimates range from 40,000 to more than 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths since the U.S. began its Shock&Awe campaign more than three years ago; imagine how we would feel if an equivalent number of Americans, about 1,000,000, were killed and wounded during an Occupation by a foreign power.
At each stage of the Occupation, Rumsfeld and his incompetent war-planners have been many months, or usually years, behind where they should be. Currently, for example, nearly four years late, the troops in Iraq are being given lessons in battlefield "ethics"; i.e., how to relate to the local population in such a way as to minimize civilian deaths. The irony of chief-torturer Rumsfeld and his cohorts lecturing anyone on ethics and battlefield niceties is grotesque, but there we are.
In Vietnam, there were so-called "free-fire" zones, where anybody spotted by U.S. troops was regarded as probable enemies, so blanket permission was given to fire at will. We're fast approaching that gruesome, counterproductive situation in Iraq; the Iraqis have lived that reality for years, the citizenry back home in the States is quickly coming to realize what kind of war is really being fought there in their name. No wonder the U.S. under Bush is regarded as a reprehensible pariah state around much of the globe, and why so many Americans are ashamed of their government's behavior.
CITIZENS TURNING ON THE WAR
More than two-thirds of polled Americans believe the Iraq War to be a mistake, and probably unwinnable. The main thing tamping down active anti-war resistance, a la the Vietnam era, is the lack of a military draft. We now have an all-"volunteer" army -- in effect, covert mercenaries, many from poor and minority communities in the U.S. -- plus thousands of overt mercenaries hired by private companies under contract to the Pentagon. (How these private soldiers are supervised, if at all, by the U.S. military is a good question; how often do these guns-for-hire operate as rogue elements who can violate the rules of engagement and cut ethical corners while in the field, thus angering the locals even more?)
Eventually, the patriotic middle-class home folk back in the States turned on the Vietnam War and on those officials who were responsible for its conduct. Those officials, finally seeing the light, eventually negotiated their way out -- too late for the more than 50,000 U.S. soldiers who died there, along with several million Vietnamese. One suspects that today's current Bush&Co. leaders also know that the Iraq War is unwinnable, that the best that can be hoped for is ongoing stalemate, death by a thousand cuts over an endless period of years. However, rather than face the facts and do the realistic action of cutting their losses and exiting, the Bush Administration is preparing to attack yet another country in the region, Iran, which -- well, imagine that! -- happens to sit on top of huge oil reserves.
The Bushevik run-up to war with Iran is unnervingly similar to that which preceded the U.S. attack on Iraq. The leadership of Iran is demonized, with hyped-up stories of how they endanger America because of their alleged WMD and their fledgling nuclear program and their supposed support of "terrorists." Of course, even the Bush Administration's own experts say that Iran is five to ten years away from having operational nuclear missiles, which surely provides time enough to try solutions other than military. (Also, dastardly stories are invented about the "enemy." In Iraq, prior to the 1991 invasion, it was Kuwaiti babies being ripped from incubators by Saddam's forces; here it was a widely-reported tale of Christians and Jews being forced to wear yellow badges in Iran. Both stories were phony, probably engineered in the Pentagon, but used to generate citizen hatred and desire for revenge against the "enemy.")
But Rice and Bolton and Cheney and the other Buth war-hawks are issuing daily threatening ultimatums to Iran and are not about to aim for a diplomatic solution to the Iran situation, other than to get some kind of an ambiguously threatening resolution from the United Nations Security Council that can be twisted into use by the Bush Administration in order to launch its war. The Bush&Co. ideology and schedule are taking them inexorably down the road to an attack, probably an air assault on Iran's weapons laboratories and nuclear-research buildings. (The timetable? My guess is either within six weeks, or postponed until after the November elections.) The aim is to cripple Iran's nuclear capacities for a decade or more, and to foment an uprising against the hardline mullahs who run that country.
AVOIDING THE "GROUNDHOG DAY" LOOP
Remember Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz and others telling us how the Iraqis would greet the advancing American troops as "liberators" with flowers and kisses -- the B.S. "cakewalk" theory of Occupation? Believe it or not, the Busheviks have created much the same scenario with regard to Iran. The theory goes that when the Iranian population (especially the more liberal young people) see their leaders humiliated after the research facilities are bombed to smithereens, they will rise up and overthrow the current hardline regime. Yeah, sure. The more likely result will be a patriotic population rallying around their leaders -- in short, exactly how we would respond if attacked by outside forces.
No, Cheney and Rumsfeld, representing the ideologues in control of American foreign and military policy, will have their war. Unless we stop them.
After four-and-a-half years, America has checked and once again has seen its shadow, which predicts several more years of moral winter -- unless we act to prevent them. In this revised "Groundhog Day" scenario, that means defeating the BushCheneyRumsfeldRove forces in November (acting aggressively to demand honest balloting and vote-counting), impeaching and removing them from office, and thereby providing the opportunity for our country to open its heart and grow once again into the larger, decent America we all love.#
First published by The Crisis Papers and Democratic Underground 6/6/06.
Copyright 2006 by Bernard Weiner.
In Vietnam, the symbol for this arrogant ruthlessness was My Lai, where several hundred innocent civilians were massacred. ("The only good gook is a dead gook.") Here, the flash-point symbols are Abu Ghraib and Haditha. Tortures and murders and brutalities are constant and widespread in Iraq, as they were in Vietnam, not "aberrations" by a few lowly soldiers who go "off the reservation," to use this most revealing military terminology.
The bloody result of such vicious, bullying behavior is that not only is the Bush Administration watching its approval ratings at home plummet, on both the war specifically and on other issues in general, but the local populations in Iraq, even those regarded as most friendly to U.S. interests, want the Americans out of there as soon as is practicable. The secular and religious Iraqi leaders may disapprove of the daily insurgent bombings but are absolutely incensed by the seemingly wanton and daily brutilization and slaughter of their citizens by the U.S. occupiers. Estimates range from 40,000 to more than 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths since the U.S. began its Shock&Awe campaign more than three years ago; imagine how we would feel if an equivalent number of Americans, about 1,000,000, were killed and wounded during an Occupation by a foreign power.
At each stage of the Occupation, Rumsfeld and his incompetent war-planners have been many months, or usually years, behind where they should be. Currently, for example, nearly four years late, the troops in Iraq are being given lessons in battlefield "ethics"; i.e., how to relate to the local population in such a way as to minimize civilian deaths. The irony of chief-torturer Rumsfeld and his cohorts lecturing anyone on ethics and battlefield niceties is grotesque, but there we are.
CITIZENS TURNING ON THE WAR
More than two-thirds of polled Americans believe the Iraq War to be a mistake, and probably unwinnable. The main thing tamping down active anti-war resistance, a la the Vietnam era, is the lack of a military draft. We now have an all-"volunteer" army -- in effect, covert mercenaries, many from poor and minority communities in the U.S. -- plus thousands of overt mercenaries hired by private companies under contract to the Pentagon. (How these private soldiers are supervised, if at all, by the U.S. military is a good question; how often do these guns-for-hire operate as rogue elements who can violate the rules of engagement and cut ethical corners while in the field, thus angering the locals even more?)
Eventually, the patriotic middle-class home folk back in the States turned on the Vietnam War and on those officials who were responsible for its conduct. Those officials, finally seeing the light, eventually negotiated their way out -- too late for the more than 50,000 U.S. soldiers who died there, along with several million Vietnamese. One suspects that today's current Bush&Co. leaders also know that the Iraq War is unwinnable, that the best that can be hoped for is ongoing stalemate, death by a thousand cuts over an endless period of years. However, rather than face the facts and do the realistic action of cutting their losses and exiting, the Bush Administration is preparing to attack yet another country in the region, Iran, which -- well, imagine that! -- happens to sit on top of huge oil reserves.
The Bushevik run-up to war with Iran is unnervingly similar to that which preceded the U.S. attack on Iraq. The leadership of Iran is demonized, with hyped-up stories of how they endanger America because of their alleged WMD and their fledgling nuclear program and their supposed support of "terrorists." Of course, even the Bush Administration's own experts say that Iran is five to ten years away from having operational nuclear missiles, which surely provides time enough to try solutions other than military. (Also, dastardly stories are invented about the "enemy." In Iraq, prior to the 1991 invasion, it was Kuwaiti babies being ripped from incubators by Saddam's forces; here it was a widely-reported tale of Christians and Jews being forced to wear yellow badges in Iran. Both stories were phony, probably engineered in the Pentagon, but used to generate citizen hatred and desire for revenge against the "enemy.")
But Rice and Bolton and Cheney and the other Buth war-hawks are issuing daily threatening ultimatums to Iran and are not about to aim for a diplomatic solution to the Iran situation, other than to get some kind of an ambiguously threatening resolution from the United Nations Security Council that can be twisted into use by the Bush Administration in order to launch its war. The Bush&Co. ideology and schedule are taking them inexorably down the road to an attack, probably an air assault on Iran's weapons laboratories and nuclear-research buildings. (The timetable? My guess is either within six weeks, or postponed until after the November elections.) The aim is to cripple Iran's nuclear capacities for a decade or more, and to foment an uprising against the hardline mullahs who run that country.
AVOIDING THE "GROUNDHOG DAY" LOOP
Remember Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz and others telling us how the Iraqis would greet the advancing American troops as "liberators" with flowers and kisses -- the B.S. "cakewalk" theory of Occupation? Believe it or not, the Busheviks have created much the same scenario with regard to Iran. The theory goes that when the Iranian population (especially the more liberal young people) see their leaders humiliated after the research facilities are bombed to smithereens, they will rise up and overthrow the current hardline regime. Yeah, sure. The more likely result will be a patriotic population rallying around their leaders -- in short, exactly how we would respond if attacked by outside forces.
No, Cheney and Rumsfeld, representing the ideologues in control of American foreign and military policy, will have their war. Unless we stop them.
After four-and-a-half years, America has checked and once again has seen its shadow, which predicts several more years of moral winter -- unless we act to prevent them. In this revised "Groundhog Day" scenario, that means defeating the BushCheneyRumsfeldRove forces in November (acting aggressively to demand honest balloting and vote-counting), impeaching and removing them from office, and thereby providing the opportunity for our country to open its heart and grow once again into the larger, decent America we all love.#
First published by The Crisis Papers and Democratic Underground 6/6/06.
Copyright 2006 by Bernard Weiner.
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