- Congress is back from its July 4 break and with it more
bluster and political posturing on changing course to keep things the same,
including everything not working in place. It's the same old scheme, back
again, to fool enough of the people all the time and most all of them long
enough to move on to the next change of course mission shift starting the
whole cycle over again. Even the blind can see the hopelessness of staying
the course in Iraq. Aside from its lawlessness and immorality, pushing
on with a failed effort qualifies as a classic definition of insanity -
continuing the same failed policies, expecting different results.
-
- The only sensible, honorable option is a full, speedy
withdrawal along with providing multi-billions for Iraqis to rebuild what
we destroyed and have no intention restoring now or ever beyond what's
needed for permanent occupation. The only other honorable option is owning
up to what no one in Washington or the major media will do - that the Iraq
and Afghan conflicts are illegal wars of aggression making those responsible
for them in the administration and Congress war criminals warranting prosecution
for their crimes.
-
- That won't happen nor will the administration and Congress
do anything more substantive than say one thing and do another. It's been
an unbroken pattern since 9/11, and especially on Afghanistan and throughout
the run-up to the Iraq invasion. Both wars were sold through lies and
deceit. They're based on a fictitious "outside enemy" threat
without which no "war on terrorism" could exist, and no imperial
foreign wars could be waged.
-
- They're possible only by scaring the public enough to
believe the threat is still real, and "Enemy Number One" Osama
bin Laden (recruited through Pakistan's ISI as a CIA asset in the 1980s)
and Al-Queda represent it. So with Saddam gone and no WMDs found, staying
the course is vital to the nation's security even when, in fact, the truth
is the opposite, crying wolf's wearing thin, and selling snake oil solutions
get harder to do. But schemers keep trying with complicit Democrats as
much part of the scam as Republicans and Bush loyalists, dwindling down
to a precious hard line few but still around in key positions making noise.
-
- With "the walls of Jericho" crumbling around
him as the world's most hated man and the ship of state listing badly,
a pathetic caricature of a president keeps pleading for more time. He
claims it's needed to head off the threat of "mass killing on a horrific
scale" in Iraq and plenty at home as well. He then continues using
the same timeworn line that the war can be won, the "surge" is
working, give it a chance, and withdrawing will be disastrous. Be more
patient, and we'll know more in September we're told.
-
- The Iraqi puppet government gets blamed for what's gone
wrong with no one in Washington pointing the finger where it belongs.
George Bush can do no better than keep asking Congress and the public "to
give (generalissimo) David Petraeus a chance to come back (September 15)
and tell us whether his (unworkable) strategy is working, and then we can
work together on a way forward (further over the cliff)."
-
- At his July 12 news conference, he never mentioned and
attending shameless journalists never pressed him on CIA Director Michael
Hayden's earlier bleak assessment of things on the ground. He called the
Iraqi puppet government "unable to govern" and its inability
to do it "irreversible." Also not discussed was the July UN
refugee agency's plea for doubling its Iraq funding to $123 million for
the growing humanitarian needs of an estimated 2000 people fleeing uncontrollable
violence in the country daily (60,000 a month) and an estimated four million
or more displaced refugees within and outside the country.
-
- No comment or questions were raised either on what journalists
Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian (daughter of US political prisoner Sami
Al-Arian) reported in the July 30 issue of The Nation. Based on interviews
with 50 returning Iraq combat veterans (ranking from privates to captains),
they wrote about "disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops"
and an indiscriminate use of force (with pictures to prove it) amounting
to a "depraved enterprise." Mentioned were accounts of American
troops gratuitously killing Iraqi civilians, including children, that these
actions are common, go unreported, are rarely investigated, and almost
always go unpunished.
-
- George Bush's comments (and most others) ignore as well
that over 7 in 10 Americans favor a force withdrawal, over 60% say the
war was a mistake, only one in five believe the "surge" improved
things, and new polls keep showing the numbers getting worse the longer
the conflict continues. It's got the president's approval rating barely
above the lowest ever registered since polling began with Richard Nixon,
Harry Truman, during the unpopular Korean war, Jimmy Carter, briefly in
1980, and his own father sharing bottom honors.
-
- Maybe George Bush is kept above rock bottom through some
creative manipulation of the data or the result of what questions were
asked, to whom, the phrasing used, and the order in which they were presented.
It seems likely for the most despised, distrusted and disgraced US president
ever. Even clever pollsters, however, can't salvage Dick Cheney's rating.
At a bottom-scraping 12% reported, it's the lowest number scored for a
president or vice-president ever, by far and then some.
-
- The reason is simple. A decisive majority in the country
think the war's unwinnable, was a mistake, want it ended, and know it was
based on lies. People resent being had. Even through heavily filtered
mainstream news reports, they know the situation on the ground is out of
control and an appalling US-inflicted crime against humanity atrocity of
enormous proportions.
-
- No one in Iraq is safe anywhere, even in the heavily
secured, fortress-like Green Zone becoming more like a embattled one daily
with regular attacks on it causing damage, injuries and deaths. Few are
reported, but one on July 10 was with two to three dozen katyusha rockets
and mortar rounds striking inside the world's "ultimate gated community"
killing at least three persons and wounding 25 or more. Throughout the
country, violence long ago spiraled out of control, and since the "surge"
began in February, even the Pentagon admits things are worse, not better,
in its quarterly April - June report to Congress.
-
- It contradicts generalissimo Petraeus' claim of "astonishing
signs of normalcy" in Baghdad overall and "breathtaking"
progress even though he (and others high up) earlier said repeatedly there's
no military solution to the conflict. The only thing "breathtaking"
about Petraeus is his inconsistency and that he's either more incompetent
than Custer at the "Little Bighorn" or a man who'll say anything
to please George Bush. On the ground, in fact, civilian deaths are higher
than ever. They number well over 5000 a month known about and countless
others never reported, the claimed June numbers notwithstanding that are
too low to be believed and should be discounted and ignored as meaningless.
In addition, US forces are sustaining more attacks and suffered the highest
level of listed fatalities and injuries in the latest three month April
- June period since the war began.
-
- Nearly everyone outside the administration and Congress
knows the war is lost, but no one's brave enough to admit it or do anything
about it. So shifting mission means "damn the torpedoes, full speed
ahead" with the dominant media always in tow to shape the facts on
the ground to fit the policy. Admiral Farragut would be proud.
-
- Now it's back to the political drawing board with a repackaged
new scheme certain to end up little different from the last one. Ideas
floating promise a substantial drawdown of troops leaving behind what's
claimed is needed to maintain security for the Iraqi people that's killing
thousands of them every month. All NATO combined can't contain the hate
and growing opposition in both war zones matched against any size occupying
force put in place to contain them. Iraq and Afghanistan have a long history
of resisting occupiers and a successful record of ousting them in the end.
It will be the same this time as earlier after many more lives are lost
in a futile effort to prove otherwise.
-
- In Iraq and Afghanistan, the struggle for liberation
is on the ground. At home, shifting mission is being concocted by scared
politicians up for reelection in 2008. They'll face millions of angry voters
fed up with wars they want ended and ready to throw out the bums who won't
do it. So it's back to political posturing (again) with Democrats and
Republicans trying to convince voters this time they mean it, and what
they say is what they'll follow through on. It's the same old repackaged
scam in the nation's capitol where nothing can be taken on its face. It's
high time the public realized the criminal class there is bipartisan, and
nothing short of a new breed of uncorrupted officials will change things.
And that won't happen until enough fed up voters elect them.
-
- For now it's business as usual, and summer battle lines
have the "intrepid" Democrat-led Congress and a few nervous Republican
defectors facing off with the Bush administration on the FY 2008 DOD budget.
It calls for an astonishing $648.8 billion plus an additional $142 billion
war supplemental likely to end up topping $800 billion when the dust settles
and usual pork is added in. Debate will play out the same as last year
with Democrats in the end failing to use the one constitutional power Congress
alone has - the appropriation authority to cut off funding and end the
Bush administration's imperial adventurism once and for all. No money,
no wars, that simple.
-
- It's apparently too simple, and all that's likely ahead
is more disingenuous posturing over restricting troop deployments and setting
an open-ended timetable for an unspecified partial withdrawal at the discretion
of the administration taking full advantage to do as it pleases. And if
that doesn't work, George Bush promises to veto any legislation setting
timelines for withdrawal he'll ignore even if overridden. On July 10,
he repeated his earlier statements that Iraq troop levels "will be
decided by our commanders on the ground (obeying White House orders), not
by political figures in Washington, DC" (except him, Dick Cheney and
their hard line cronies.
-
- The president has no more to fear from "opposition"
Democrats and "defecting" Republicans than he had before, but
he's quivering anyway. Their posturing (and his) is as phony now as immediately
post-9/11 in selling the Afghan war and enacting police state laws. It's
as bad as in pre-March, 2003, last year's budget debate, and this spring's
agreement to continue funding through September with George Bush certifying
(on his word alone) progress is being made and Iraqis are carrying their
share of the burden that's impossible because the world's only superpower
can't handle its own.
-
- But note Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's compromising
language with a September 15 administration/Pentagon accountability report
upcoming: "The war is headed in a dangerous direction, and Americans
are united in the belief that we cannot wait until the administration's
September report before we change course in Iraq." His next statement
shows he's not preaching pullout but only says "We cannot ask our
military to continue to fight without a strategy for success (never mind
there is none short of full, unconditional withdrawal), and we certainly
cannot ask them to fight before they are ready to do so."
-
- He's referring to deployment lengths (unchanged after
July 11 Senate amendments were blocked) and concern for a broken military
the Pentagon already admits to. The likely outcome of current debate will
be the same quick fix as before, save for a few dubious amendments achieving
nothing. In the end, the compromise solution will be to kick the can down
the road and throw lots more money at the problem hoping it will go away.
It'll only get worse. No amount can salvage a lost war, lawmakers and
the Pentagon know it, but solutions like last year and this spring are
coming with bloated budgets getting more bloated.
-
- Ignore meaningless party line votes like the one the
House passed July 12 for withdrawing most combat troops by April 1, 2008.
Not while this administration's in power, and so far, the Senate's going
nowhere. It can't get the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican promised
filibuster, and votes cast in both Houses are to deceive voters, not get
action. They're made knowing they're safe with George Bush promising to
veto any change of course and can make it stick.
-
- The wars will thus continue to progress in an endless
cycle of more spending with no results beyond growing deficits, intensifying
public anger, greater violence on the ground, and defeats getting worse
as the conflicts drag on. George Bush calls it "progress. I know
we can succeed in Iraq, and I know we must" he said on July 12. Incredibly,
he claimed it on eight trivial military benchmarks under US control, blaming
eight more important political failures on the Iraqi puppet government
in charge of little more than cleaning daily rubble and dead bodies off
streets. He added results to date are a mixed bag and overall it's too
early to pass judgment - after over four disastrous years of failure and
a conflict longer in duration than WW II when war raged on three continents
against formidable enemies, and it was no simple task beating them.
-
- It again proves this man is unchallenged as a world champion
serial liar. By now, he may believe some of his own lies the way writer
Alex Cockburn said Ronald Reagan believed his. "Truth (for the great
fabricator) was what he happened to be saying at the time. He (and Bush)
went one better than George Washington in that he couldn't tell a lie and
he couldn't tell the truth, since he couldn't tell the difference between
the two."
-
- There is a difference, however, between the two deceivers.
During his first term at least, Reagan (as a former actor, albeit a B-rated
one) did a reasonable job impersonating a president. He could find his
"mark" and read his lines. George Bush never rose to that level
even as Texas governor or any other time in his life, and when it comes
to lying, he can't stop doing it even when he knows the difference. He
proved it July 12 in his ludicrous portrayal of the true state of things
in Iraq. It's part of his desperate effort for new congressional funding
in even greater amounts. To get it, he ignores growing public disenchantment
and deep revulsion about a criminal lost cause enterprise launched and
continued on the basis of lies.
-
- That notwithstanding, Reid and other Democrats have their
grandiose notions of mission shift. It's to avoid "a precipitous
withdrawal from Iraq" with legislation he'll propose calling for permanent
occupation forces on the ground for the spurious notion of "conduct(ing)
counterterrorism operations, protect(ing) our assets (meaning oil) and
train(ing) Iraqi forces." Senate Armed Services Committee chairman,
Carl Levin is on board with him. He'll support a limited troop withdrawal
by late year, an end to combat operations on the ground by April 30, 2008
with Iraqi forces taking over, and a large remaining permanent occupation
force hunkered down inside fortified super-bases. Never mind what Iraqis
want that excludes our presence in their country. And the same is true
for the Afghans.
-
- Voices from the administration, Pentagon, Congress and
the dominant media assure they'll be disappointed as the top goal is salvaging
America's imperial adventurism and mission shifting current operations
into a workable permanent occupation. Here's why. The Afghan and Iraq wars
are for resources, primarily oil, and in the parts of the world where more
than four-fifths of proved reserves are located. Canadian journalist and
author Linda McQuaig explains the grandest of grand prizes is "hidden
in plain sight" in Iraq. It's the country's oil treasure - the planet's
last remaining bonanza of easily harvested "low-hanging fruit"
with more potential reserves than Saudi Arabia, the great majority of them
untapped.
-
- It makes the country "the most sought after real
estate on the face of the earth" according to one Wall Street oil
analyst she quoted. Even with dated information on its potential, it's
known Iraq has at least 10% of dwindling world reserves. But it's potential
was "frozen in time" with no new development in over two decades
because of intervening wars in the 1980s, economic sanctions following
the Gulf war in 1991, and the current war ongoing since March, 2003. If
the country's potential doubles or triples, as Saudi Arabia's did in the
last 20 years, it would, in fact, have the world's largest (mostly untapped)
proved reserves making Iraq too rich a prize for America and its Big Oil
allies to pass up. It's worth trillions of dollars and immense geopolitical
power at a time of peak oil in the face of future dwindling supplies, except
in this resource-rich country the US won't ever leave as long as there's
enough of them in the ground and region to justify staying.
-
- It's why the country is being turned into a giant permanent
military base protecting the ocean of oil beneath it Washington intends
to control for its Big Oil friends and to have veto power over who gets
it, who doesn't, and at what price. To understand what's happening, consider
Korea. The US arrived in the country in 1950 following Harry Truman's
committing American forces to help the South after Washington's instigated
civil war began there on June 25 that year. Fifty-seven years later, around
37,000 troops still remain with no intention to leave. Washington has
the same thing in mind for Iraq. The Pentagon set up shop there and intends
to stay.
-
- Below is shown, as best we know, how far advanced we've
come toward militarizing the country for permanent occupation no matter
how debate plays out in Congress. It's all bluster providing cover for
administration policy both parties support.
-
- Plan Iraq - Permanent Occupation
-
- Drawdowns, withdrawal, timelines, mission shifting, building
democracy and all the other current and long-standing phony rhetoric aside,
America is in Iraq to stay as a conqueror and occupier - that is, until
Iraqis finally kick us out as they will in time in a part of the world
long a graveyard for foreign invaders. But it won't happen quickly or
before countless more thousands die, are injured, suffer immeasurably,
are displaced, and lose everything. This is the ugly dark side of imperialism,
nurtured on conquest, unchallengeable control, and keenly focused on destroying
and permanently occupying the cradle of civilization now smashed and planned
for dismemberment.
-
- In the meantime, a new "peace candidate" will
become president in January, 2009 on the strength of distant echos of Richard
Nixon's "peace with honor" 1968 campaign and hopes history would
call him a "peacemaker." Instead, there were five and one-half
more years of intense war, thousands more American deaths, and one to two
million more Southeast Asian victims in Vietnam and the secret wars in
Cambodia and Laos.
-
- Whatever little, if anything, a new president does at
home, the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan will remain with plans for
Iraqi forces eventually to do most of our killing and dying for us. If
or when they're up to it, the scheme involves US troops staying hunkered
down inside their super-bases, used as needed outside them, with massive
air power deployed freely to slaughter innocent victims on the ground whenever
they resist what no one should ever have to endure. For now, Iraqis have
no choice but to bear up and fight back because it's their misfortune to
have an ocean of "our" oil beneath their sand we laid claim to.
-
- Already discussed is Iraq's importance as the planet's
last remaining "low-hanging fruit" bonanza of mostly untapped
oil riches worth trillions of dollars as the key reason America came to
stay. The US military arrived in March, 2003 and dug in for the long haul
with fixed military installations around the country. Dick Cheney's former
employer, Halliburton, got most of the huge no-bid contracts, worth many
billions, to war-profiteer and build them, irrespective of its outlandish
record of waste, fraud and abuse.
-
- As of May, 2005, US forces were operating out of 106
bases around the country from an original estimated 120 sites. They range
in size from the huge Main Operating Base (MOB) Camp Victory complex near
Baghdad airport where thousands of American troops are stationed to smaller
ones known as Forward Operation Sites (FOS) that are still major installations.
In addition, there are many Cooperative Security Locations (CSL) that
are small outposts for as few as 500 personnel, a number of prisons and
detention facilities, and an original dozen sites given to Iraqi military
or police units that now likely number many more.
-
- Reports vary, and much remains secret, about the administration
and Pentagon's current and future construction plans for Iraq. What is
known is $18 billion earlier was allocated for in-country work that includes
base installations, the US Embassy and whatever other occupation facilities
are intended. The current figure is likely much higher. It's also known
US engineers are focusing on building 14 large "enduring bases"
for extended encampments for the tens of thousands of US forces there now
and future replacements.
-
- Professor Emeritus Jules Dufour of the University of
Quebec, Canada discussed "The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases"
in his July 1, 2007 article posted on Global Research.ca. It included
detailed information plus maps and much more on what he called "the
Worldwide development of US military power (in place) to view the (entire)
Earth surface as a vast territory to conquer, occupy and exploit (for giant
US corporate behemoths it's in league with)." He characterizes the
scheme as a process of "Humanity....being controlled and enslaved
by this Network of US military bases." He and Chalmers Johnson believe
they number 1000 or more that, according to Johnson, were in 153 countries
as of September, 2001 and now likely in 160 or more. There are also many
other secret, espionage, and other bases jointly used in many countries
with their hosts.
-
- Dufour says post-9/11, the US built 14 new bases in the
Persian Gulf region. It's also involved "in construction and/or reinforcement
of 20 bases (106 structured units as a whole) in Iraq" plus others
in Afghanistan and other Central Asian former Soviet bloc countries and
elsewhere to encircle and control both regions' strategic resources, mainly
oil, and the pipeline routes needed to transport it.
-
- Iraq bases are located or are being built around Baghdad,
Mosul, Taji, Balad, Kirkuk, Nasiriyah, Tikrit, Fallujah and Irbil. There
are also plans to rebuild and improve Baghdad, Mosul and other airfields
as well as rebuild roads and other essential infrastructure strategically
needed for occupation. There are no plans to help the Iraqi people left
on their own. They have the barest of essential services, and infrastructure
to provide them, like functioning hospitals, medications, electricity,
clean water, safe food to eat, fuel, schools, and most everything else.
-
- Most important for the planned long haul will be four
to six or more super-sized bases on the order of small towns with their
own neighborhoods and kinds of amenities found in typical US ones. Inside
them, it's hard distinguishing between Iraq and America unless more sophisticated
and better aimed rocket and mortar rounds strike nearby that's becoming
more common.
-
- The biggest of these bases so far is the huge Balad one.
It houses the major Air Force operation in the country, including its new
spacious, state of the art, "Kingpin" air traffic control center
dividing the country's airspace into "kill boxes," called the
Common Grid Reference System. The largest Army logistical support center
is here as well, and it's also where thousands of civilian contractors,
in neighborhoods known as "KBR-land," are based with all the
comforts of home for them and military personnel when it's quiet inside.
The so-called secret Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force (CJSOTF)
is also at Balad. It's kept behind "especially high walls" for
privacy and seclusive separation from other operations based there.
-
- The al-Asad airbase is the largest marine encampment
in the country located in western Anbar province where resistance to US
occupying forces has been stiffest. It, too, has a hometown feel with similar
amenities to the country's other major bases intended to be permanent.
While the Pentagon won't admit it, four super-bases were operating last
year with plans likely for at least two more. In addition, it was planned,
but now not certain, that British forces would maintain a permanent military
presence in the south around Basra where it's now based. If Britain pulls
out, as its public demands, the Pentagon will move in and likely expand
the facilities with at least another super-sized one for that strategically
oil-rich part of the country. They'll need it as the Brits are no more
in control there than US forces anywhere else. Their 2006 Operation Sinbad
flopped with militias on the ground in full control.
-
- Nonetheless, America came to Iraq to stay as long as
the Middle East is resource-rich and the greatest untapped portion by far
is in Iraq. But history shows the best-laid plans don't always work out
as intended. Occupiers aren't welcome anywhere with Iraq and Afghanistan
particularly adept at expelling earlier ones that tried and failed, including
the British from both countries who should know better. Journalist Felicity
Arbuthnot notes on Global Research.ca July 14 that on this day in 1958,
"the Iraqi army toppled the British (post WW I-imposed) royal regime,
which had opened the door wide for Western monopolies to plunder the country's
oil wealth under unjust concession." Her message to modern-day plunderers:
"Listen to history."
-
- Permanency may only be in the eyes of the beholder and
may end much sooner than planned. Our super-bases, with all their size,
security and comforts of home, may become no more permanent than their
mega-predecessors in Danang, Cam Rahn Bay and the Saigon embassy (a miniature
compared to the Vatican-sized behemoth in Baghdad's Green Zone) where the
last remnants of US presence in Vietnam were helicoptered from its rooftop
in defeat and humiliation. It forced us to give up what we intending keeping
unchallenged with visions as conquerors no different than today.
-
- In the end, we abandoned them because we were beaten
and had no other choice. What a determined third-world Asian country did
30 years ago to the world's strongest superpower, Middle East and Central
Asian ones are doing today to the only remaining one slipping fast and
running out of excuses why.
-
- It's just a matter of time before history repeats with
the same result. Iraqis and Afghans believe it and intend to prove it again.
Too bad Washington hard-liners know little history and haven't figured
it out. One day they will. They're just slow to catch on. Ruling empires
never see the tide turning and that they're swimming against it. George
Bush's America is no different. It bit off more than it can swallow and
will end the same as others wrecked on the shoals of their own hubris.
-
- The scene is playing out in the graveyard of other imperial
powers in the Middle East and Central Asia. It just remains for the final
chapter to be written ending rest in peace unless Americans locate their
cajones and write their own version first. It has to reject corrupted
power politics; remove the criminal class; restore the rule of law; place
the rights of humanity and democratic values above wealth and privilege;
and end forever the hellish wars fought for them.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com
Saturdays at noon US central time.
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