Sunday, November 19, 2006
Stuck, trapped:
The reason there is no consensus on Iraq is there is no easy exit. Victory has a hundred fathers, defeat is an orphan. The “stay the courses” messages from the high command are because there are not real alternatives to various forms of defeat. There is no way to victory only more or less painful loss. As a British and American Generals and have said “we can’t win and we can’t be defeated and we can’t just leave, so we are stuck.”
This mess was fully predictable and many experts did so. A known mess after occupation was the reason the First Gulf war did not end in Baghdad. Leaving Saddam Hussein in power was because it was all too clear to planners in 1991 the nature of the overwhelming problems of creating any stable government after regime change under foreign occupation. There was also a hope the baathist government would just come apart on its own.
Iraq in 1917 and Lt. Gen. Sir (Lord) Stanley Maude issued a document in Baghdad saying "we have come here not as conquerors but as liberators to free you from generations of tyranny." The results were 30,000 dead and a less than noble retreat by 1923. (see below)
Is the current mess due to immovable conflicts between religious and social groups augmented by outside interests?
or was it possible to make less painful even a successful transitions?
In other words was the current mess inevitable or caused by our stupidity or both?
What if the
1.) Invasion had enough troops to avoid the massive looting and stripping of the infrastructure, (stuff happens)
2.) kept the Iraqi army in some sort of operation and employed,
3.) Avoided massive Debaathification, and unemployment
4.) Had we avoided making the transitional government an agent of Shiite militias and parties, and subject to Iran and Syria by keeping some Sunni power -
5.) The transition government had not used the occupation for the employment of unqualified political appointees hiding in the green zone,
6.) Had we used the money from the oil for peace program in a rational manner, and had awarded reconstruction contracts to a wider variety of contractors with better controls, to product electricity, water, oil, employment, etc. rather than have billions stolen to fund the rebellion,
7.) Used the State Departments after war planning rather than keeping everything in the DOD and the band of neo-cons,
8.) and a few dozen other stupid mistakes under the command of the civilian leadership of the pentagon and the Vice-Presidents office
9.) Having a more outspoken general military command – rather than careerist that duck responsibility.
10.) Listen to the neighbors and the gulf states – if they did not feel threatened by the WMD and Iraq most likely there was no real threat. There was a real danger in 1990 but not in 2003.
The fault of the Bush neo-con bunch was to ignore reality and “cut to the quick” with ideology and passion for action taking over from thoughts and fears which make “cowards of us all”. It was hopeless stupid to go it alone. The Bush bunch lack respect for science, information, facts, expertise, and believe character is more important than knowledge or understanding. This is common among upper class twits who know what they lack in solid education but believe that their superiority rests on character – they can always hire experts so don’t really have to know anything because they are moral and well intended.
So “we are, where we are” and have no good choices. Senator Levin and his allies have the least unpleasant policy. The policy is to announce a time for withdrawal and force the Iraqi security to take over. The Iraqization of the war is the same policy as in Vietnam “secret plan to end the war” which was to give us a decent interval as we retreated from that lost cause. In Vietnam we had states as enemies, in Iraq the enemy is civil war and chaos aided by the neighbors. The reality is how to limit the disaster since we can not prevent it.
We announce we are going to “reemploy” to strategic bases. We speed up mobilization of Iraq security forces. Britain's Top Soldier Sparks Storm with Call to Withdraw from Iraq Soon. General Sir Richard Dannatt, chief of the general staff, told the Daily Mail newspaper that the army's presence was "exacerbating" Britain's security problems both in Iraq and around the world. The Shiite government will continue to conduct a war with the Sunni with or without the occupation. Civil wars end when the one of the two sides or both sides become stalemated and worn out.
During the days of the British Raj, Indian soldiers were used to put down nationalist rebellions, at home and abroad. Blood was spilt all across the empire - much of it in Iraq.
During the First World War, what was then the Ottoman province of Mesopotamia became a battleground between Turkish and British empires. The low point of Britain's Middle East campaign came when 12,000 soldiers - more than half composed of Indian divisions - surrendered the garrison to Turkish forces in May 1916 after a siege which lasted 147 days. Of the troops who left Kut with their captors, more than 4,000 died either on their way to captivity or in prisoner-of-war camps. In four years of fighting, 31,000 British and Indian lives were lost, pockmarking the country with graves and pyres.
The birth of what would become modern-day Iraq was a painful one. Mesopotamia was Britain's prize after the First World War - and like today, its peoples struggled against the occupying forces. Indian troops were used to suppress the country's nationalist uprising in the summer of 1920. Like today's American forces, the 60,000 British and Indian troops securing Mesopotamia were never engaged in battle, facing instead hit-and-run raids from the desert. More than 1,000 Indian soldiers and 8,000 Arab fighters were either killed or captured in a few weeks. Despite Britain's military prowess, Iraq slowly slipped from its grasp.
But Washington appears indifferent to the lessons of history. The subtle shift from hegemony to empire could again see troops from the subcontinent becoming the tools of a great power's foreign policy. America refuses to believe in the empirical evidence of its own empire. Its people are suspicious of foreign entanglements - witness the declining support for the Iraqi occupation. Sizeable numbers of Pakistani and Indian troops would enable thousands of American soldiers to return home.
Left to face the growing anger engendered by the chaos that has replaced the power vacuum brought about by the fall of Saddam, troops from India and Pakistan - countries that opposed the war - will be left to secure the peace in the face of guerrilla attacks and organized resistance. If it looks, sounds and feels like empire redux, that is because it is.
· Randeep Ramesh edited The War We Could Not Stop: The Real Story of the Battle for Iraq, published by Guardian Books
The reason there is no consensus on Iraq is there is no easy exit. Victory has a hundred fathers, defeat is an orphan. The “stay the courses” messages from the high command are because there are not real alternatives to various forms of defeat. There is no way to victory only more or less painful loss. As a British and American Generals and have said “we can’t win and we can’t be defeated and we can’t just leave, so we are stuck.”
This mess was fully predictable and many experts did so. A known mess after occupation was the reason the First Gulf war did not end in Baghdad. Leaving Saddam Hussein in power was because it was all too clear to planners in 1991 the nature of the overwhelming problems of creating any stable government after regime change under foreign occupation. There was also a hope the baathist government would just come apart on its own.
Iraq in 1917 and Lt. Gen. Sir (Lord) Stanley Maude issued a document in Baghdad saying "we have come here not as conquerors but as liberators to free you from generations of tyranny." The results were 30,000 dead and a less than noble retreat by 1923. (see below)
Is the current mess due to immovable conflicts between religious and social groups augmented by outside interests?
or was it possible to make less painful even a successful transitions?
In other words was the current mess inevitable or caused by our stupidity or both?
What if the
1.) Invasion had enough troops to avoid the massive looting and stripping of the infrastructure, (stuff happens)
2.) kept the Iraqi army in some sort of operation and employed,
3.) Avoided massive Debaathification, and unemployment
4.) Had we avoided making the transitional government an agent of Shiite militias and parties, and subject to Iran and Syria by keeping some Sunni power -
5.) The transition government had not used the occupation for the employment of unqualified political appointees hiding in the green zone,
6.) Had we used the money from the oil for peace program in a rational manner, and had awarded reconstruction contracts to a wider variety of contractors with better controls, to product electricity, water, oil, employment, etc. rather than have billions stolen to fund the rebellion,
7.) Used the State Departments after war planning rather than keeping everything in the DOD and the band of neo-cons,
8.) and a few dozen other stupid mistakes under the command of the civilian leadership of the pentagon and the Vice-Presidents office
9.) Having a more outspoken general military command – rather than careerist that duck responsibility.
10.) Listen to the neighbors and the gulf states – if they did not feel threatened by the WMD and Iraq most likely there was no real threat. There was a real danger in 1990 but not in 2003.
The fault of the Bush neo-con bunch was to ignore reality and “cut to the quick” with ideology and passion for action taking over from thoughts and fears which make “cowards of us all”. It was hopeless stupid to go it alone. The Bush bunch lack respect for science, information, facts, expertise, and believe character is more important than knowledge or understanding. This is common among upper class twits who know what they lack in solid education but believe that their superiority rests on character – they can always hire experts so don’t really have to know anything because they are moral and well intended.
So “we are, where we are” and have no good choices. Senator Levin and his allies have the least unpleasant policy. The policy is to announce a time for withdrawal and force the Iraqi security to take over. The Iraqization of the war is the same policy as in Vietnam “secret plan to end the war” which was to give us a decent interval as we retreated from that lost cause. In Vietnam we had states as enemies, in Iraq the enemy is civil war and chaos aided by the neighbors. The reality is how to limit the disaster since we can not prevent it.
We announce we are going to “reemploy” to strategic bases. We speed up mobilization of Iraq security forces. Britain's Top Soldier Sparks Storm with Call to Withdraw from Iraq Soon. General Sir Richard Dannatt, chief of the general staff, told the Daily Mail newspaper that the army's presence was "exacerbating" Britain's security problems both in Iraq and around the world. The Shiite government will continue to conduct a war with the Sunni with or without the occupation. Civil wars end when the one of the two sides or both sides become stalemated and worn out.
During the days of the British Raj, Indian soldiers were used to put down nationalist rebellions, at home and abroad. Blood was spilt all across the empire - much of it in Iraq.
During the First World War, what was then the Ottoman province of Mesopotamia became a battleground between Turkish and British empires. The low point of Britain's Middle East campaign came when 12,000 soldiers - more than half composed of Indian divisions - surrendered the garrison to Turkish forces in May 1916 after a siege which lasted 147 days. Of the troops who left Kut with their captors, more than 4,000 died either on their way to captivity or in prisoner-of-war camps. In four years of fighting, 31,000 British and Indian lives were lost, pockmarking the country with graves and pyres.
The birth of what would become modern-day Iraq was a painful one. Mesopotamia was Britain's prize after the First World War - and like today, its peoples struggled against the occupying forces. Indian troops were used to suppress the country's nationalist uprising in the summer of 1920. Like today's American forces, the 60,000 British and Indian troops securing Mesopotamia were never engaged in battle, facing instead hit-and-run raids from the desert. More than 1,000 Indian soldiers and 8,000 Arab fighters were either killed or captured in a few weeks. Despite Britain's military prowess, Iraq slowly slipped from its grasp.
But Washington appears indifferent to the lessons of history. The subtle shift from hegemony to empire could again see troops from the subcontinent becoming the tools of a great power's foreign policy. America refuses to believe in the empirical evidence of its own empire. Its people are suspicious of foreign entanglements - witness the declining support for the Iraqi occupation. Sizeable numbers of Pakistani and Indian troops would enable thousands of American soldiers to return home.
Left to face the growing anger engendered by the chaos that has replaced the power vacuum brought about by the fall of Saddam, troops from India and Pakistan - countries that opposed the war - will be left to secure the peace in the face of guerrilla attacks and organized resistance. If it looks, sounds and feels like empire redux, that is because it is.
· Randeep Ramesh edited The War We Could Not Stop: The Real Story of the Battle for Iraq, published by Guardian Books
