The contagion set in less than a year into the war, when, three days after the Madrid terrorist bombings of March 11, 2004, Spain’s conservative government, which had sent thirteen hundred soldiers to Iraq, was defeated at the polls. The soldiers were out within three months. In May of 2005, it was the turn of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, of Italy, President Bush’s loudest West European supporter, who had sent three thousand troops; his successor, Romano Prodi, brought them home.
In June of this year, Tony Blair was finally obliged to relinquish his grip on Britain’s Labour government, largely because of Iraq; the new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has signalled that he intends to withdraw Britain’s troops—some five thousand of the original commitment of forty-five thousand remain—by the end of 2008. Six weeks ago, Poland’s premier, the twin brother of the country’s President, lost to an opponent whose platform included bringing back the nine hundred Polish troops that are still in Iraq.
A week ago last Saturday, John Howard, the second longest serving Prime Minister of Australia, became the newest casualty of this political epidemic.
Other countries whose voters have dispensed with the services of leaders who enrolled them in Bush’s “coalition of the willing” include Hungary, Ukraine, Norway, and Slovakia.
Hertzberg fails to mention that Iceland recalled its Iraq contingent as well--a single female officer, but still, yet another shoe dropped among the coalition of the willing.
One can hardly foretell the end of war without listing those who are no longer on board as allies and, inarguably, Hertzberg's list is impressive. If war is no longer the nomenclature of the fighting yet to come, then we must name it. Possibilities include
- the shot from the dark,
- Paul Simon’s bomb in the baby-carriage,
- the suicide bomber in Starbucks or perhaps
- the clean-cut guy walking confidently into the American Embassy in Prague.
In any case, hundreds of billions on an all-service vertical takeoff jet fighter-bomber seem a waste when the current model is so superior that not a single plane has ever been lost in combat. Nor do weapons piloted from closed rooms in Arizona make all that much sense when the target is one among a thousand bearded, robed Islamists on a crowded street.
What does make sense is easing the fear-driven and idiotic restrictions that prevent the Pentagon, State Department, FBI and CIA from recruiting native Arabic speakers from across the spectrum of Muslim nations. It helps immensely to understand those intercepts and it’s difficult to insert a kid from Brooklyn into a jihadist organization in Pakistan. We’re at least ten years behind that curve already. But, lest you think lessons have been learned, check this out from last October;
(Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker 10-8-07) At a White House meeting with Cheney this summer, according to a former senior intelligence official, it was agreed that, if limited strikes on Iran were carried out, the Administration could fend off criticism by arguing that they were a defensive action to save soldiers in Iraq. . . The former intelligence official added, “There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, ‘You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we’re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.’
But Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President.”
Bush-Cheney, the authors of this decade’s debacle on all fronts (military, foreign affairs, economic) can hardly be expected to apologize or even admit to the breadth, width and depth of their folly.
It makes me grin that investigative journalism has migrated from the New York Times and Washington Post to the pages of The New Yorker. Is there a message there?
The wholesale shutdown of Boeing’s military division, Lockheed and other major (and minor) military contractors isn’t viable. How the hell do you shut down something so large and prevalent, without destroying our necessary ability to keep ourselves moderately and effectively armed?
Certainly whole divisions dedicated to turning out militarily indefensible army-against-army hardware ought to be diverted to building bridges, high-speed rail and other necessary upgrades of American infrastructure before we simply fall apart under the load of yet another useless submarine.
The End of War (or not) seems an honest enough question for the current (still standing) presidential candidates. But then honesty is a scarce commodity these days and the combined ability of military lobbyists to buy whatever votes are necessary to keep this useless and wasteful pot boiling are always at hand. The cowboys of Dr. Strangelove are in the driver's seat.
It would take a real patriot to face down those forces of darkness. But the country and the world is ready--as ready as they will ever be.
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