"If I ever get married again. . . . .I don't want
any of this white dress business. I shall wear red.
�Bright red.
�The color of blood, the color of roaring, erupting volcanoes, the color of a
dying sun, the color of passion, the color of Resistance . . . The color of
Iraq."
Layla Anwar; Arab Woman Blues, "A Bed of Roses, A Bed of
Thorns"
I wonder what goes
through Cheney�s mind when he visits Baghdad. Does he ever look out the window
of his armor-plated limmo and see the wasteland he�s created -- the burned out
buildings, the pock-marked streets, the wretched orphans sorting through the
garbage for something to eat?
Al Arabiya news says
that there may be as many as 100,000 orphans in Baghdad now. These are Cheney�s
kids, aren�t they -- the vice president�s gift to the �New Middle East�? The
next generation of terrorists?
What a horrible
legacy. What a horrible man.
Iraq is in a
shambles and it�s mostly Cheney�s doing. He was the chief architect of
invasion. It was Cheney who convinced his buddies in the banking and oil
industries that Iraq would be �easy pickins.� And, it was Cheney who figured
out that the American people could be duped into attacking a defenseless
nation. And he was right.
For six years,
Cheney has worked the levers behind the scenes to keep the American people in a
constant state of fear. That gave him the time to move his armies into place
and transform the government into a �one party� police state. For the most
part, things have gone smoothly -- the criminal activities of the state have
been concealed behind the smokescreen of the �war on terror,� the biggest
public relations swindle in history.
Nevertheless, the
overall plan worked like a charm. The public ate it up, the Congress caved in,
and the United Nations looked the other way. Now, Iraq is in tatters -- the
schools are closed, the children are malnourished and traumatized, unemployment
is soaring, the lights are out, the water is toxic, and every day another 35 or
40 civilians are blown to bits in a conflict that seemingly has no end.
Every part of
Cheney�s plan has failed. Four years after �Mission Accomplished,� the �second
most powerful man on earth� still has to slink into Iraq under the cover of
darkness and be quickly whisked off to the safety of the Green Zone by a
security-entourage the size of a small army.
There�s no
�progress� in Iraq and there�s no security. The US military is trying to impose
its will on a civilian population through force of arms and the Iraqis are
flatly refusing. America is hated in Iraq and that won�t change. That�s why
Cheney has to strap on a Kevlar vest and hunker down in the Green Zone whenever
he comes to town. Americans are not welcome.
Cheney�s �surprise�
visit came just one week after Condi Rice passed through the region trying to
drum up support for an Iraqi security plan. What a joke. Iraqis won�t have
security until US troops are withdrawn and the political situation sorts itself
out. That�ll take years if not decades.
The (real) purpose
of Condi�s mission was to open a dialogue with Syria and Iran to see if they�d
help to stabilize Iraq. Up to now, the Bush team has rejected the Baker
Commission�s advice to talk to the two countries. But that�s all changed now.
Bush has put aside his ego long enough to address the �grave and deteriorating�
situation on the ground and see what can be salvaged of the mission.
Rice managed to
corner the Syrian foreign minister and appears to have made some progress
diplomatically. But she got nowhere with Iran. In fact, Iranian Foreign
Minister Mottaki used the conference at Sharm al-Sheik to further humiliate the
United States by blasting American foreign policy and the Bush administration�s
flaunting of international law. Mottaki�s speech was another black-eye for
America.
But that makes no
difference. What�s important is that the administration is trying to talk
directly with its enemies. That gives us some reason to hope. But it also gives
us some idea of how badly the war is going. After all, if Bush is talking to
Syria, the situation must be really desperate. Perhaps, they�re beginning to
see that -- as Harry Reid said -- �the war is lost.�
In his brief stay,
Cheney never poked his nose beyond the 18-inch cement walls of the Green Zone.
If he had, he might have seen �the hell that is Iraq.� As Patrick Cockburn said
in his latest article, �A
Small War Guaranteed to Damage a Superpower�: �The extent of the
military failure over the previous three-and-a-half years is extraordinary. The
foreign media never quite made clear how little territory the U.S. and the
Iraqi army fully controlled -- even in the heart of Baghdad.�
Cockburn makes an
important point that�s normally papered-over in the media -- that after four
years, the US still doesn�t control ANY ground beyond the Green Zone. And, now,
even the Green Zone is increasingly coming under fire.
Cockburn also adds
this: �America blithely invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein to show
its great political and military strength. Instead it demonstrated its
weakness. The vastly expensive U.S. war machine failed to defeat a limited number
of Sunni Arab guerrillas.�
How true. Big
military, but nothing to show for it. Just a long, protracted bloodbath and the
looming prospect of defeat.
Cheney�s plan for a
�New American Century� depends heavily on the $500 billion US war machine. But
the military has flopped in Iraq. Bombs don�t produce political solutions and
the use of excessive force has only alienated the public and strengthened the
resistance. The army is ineffective in urban warfare. Its advantages in
weaponry and firepower are lost in an environment where guerillas can strike at
will and then vanish without a trace.
Still, Cheney &
Company �soldier-on,� impervious to the lessons of the last four years and
unwilling to change their basic strategy. If the definition of insanity is doing
the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then, the vice
president should be institutionalized.
The occupation has
just been one dismal blunder after the other; like Abu Ghraib and Falluja. Both
suggest the moral superiority of the resistance, and both have been used to
enlist new recruits.
Falluja was a
particularly stupid error. The siege was an extension of the same muddled
thinking that produced �Shock and Awe.� The Bush Team appeared to believe that
Iraqi fighters would cower at the first sign of American firepower and simply
throw down their weapons. What nonsense. Instead, it rallied the resistance and
intensified the fighting.
Falluja was attacked
on November 8, 2004, in Operation Phantom Fury. The city of 300,000 was surrounded
by concertina wire and a six-foot high mound of dirt. The townspeople were
forced to evacuate without food, water or shelter. Many still haven�t returned
to their homes three years later.
The city was
leveled. The Dresden-type bombing continued week after week -- hospitals,
schools and mosques were destroyed, civilians who left their homes for food or
water were shot by snipers, bodies were left to rot on the streets, and corpses
were deposited in makeshift graves in the local soccer field. From beginning to
end, Falluja was a war crime -- illegal incendiary bombs and other
�unidentified� chemical ordinance was dropped on civilians. The BBC reported
that 65 to 70 percent of the city was in ruins.
Falluja was a
turning point in Cheney�s war. It should be regarded as the milestone for when
the war was lost. The resistance has steadily grown in strength ever since. The
Iraqis now understand that there can be no negotiations with people who are
willing to flatten entire cities to achieve their imperial ambitions.
To fully understand
what happened in Falluja we refer to a statement made by Vietnamese General
Tran Quang Co who met with ex-Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara in the 1990s.
Tran was trying to explain to MacNamara when exactly he knew that America would
lose the war in Vietnam.
He said, �When
the US bombed the North and brought its troops into the South, well, of course,
to us these were very negative moves. However, with regard to Vietnam, US
aggression did have its positive use. Never before did the people of Vietnam,
from top to bottom, unite as they did during the years that the US was bombing
us. Never before had Chairman Ho Chi Minh�s appeal -- that there is nothing
more precious than freedom and independence -- go straight to the hearts and
minds of the Vietnamese people as at the end of 1966�
Falluja united the
Iraqis against American occupation. This fact is evident in all the surveys
that have been conducted since the time of the siege. The overwhelming majority
of Shiites and Sunnis now want the US to leave. Public support for the
resistance continues to mushroom. The neocon plan to �teach the Iraqis a
lesson� by creating a humanitarian catastrophe has backfired spectacularly.
After Falluja, a
political solution is no longer possible. The US must either �pacify� the
population by increasing the level of violence or withdraw. The middle ground
has been cut away.
The war drags on
Cheney�s trip
coincides with a number of stories that are being suppressed in the Western
media. Currently, the Iraqi city of Samarra is under siege -- a cordon
surrounds the city, the entrances have been blocked and food, water and medical
supplies have been cut off. Similar to Falluja, the media have been banned and
the city�s people are left to survive as prisoners in their own country.
Also, there are
reports that the US is building another Guantanamo-type facility in southern
Iraq, in Dhi-Qar province. It�s clear that the crimes perpetrated at Abu Ghraib
have not deterred the authors of the war from continuing the brutalizing of
Iraqi prisoners.
Also, author and
activist Sarah Meyer has also reproduced a map showing the location of
�permanent� US bases in Iraq -- all of them conveniently situated in the main
oil fields. (�The Iraq Oil Crunch:
Index Timeline�) It�s a useful primer for those who care to grasp the real
objectives of the war.
There�s also a
new report from the child advocacy group, Save the Children, confirming
that �The infant mortality rate in Iraq has increased by a shocking 150 percent
since 1990 -- the highest such increase recorded for any country in the world .
. . According to the report, one in eight Iraqi children -- 122,000 in all --
died before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of these deaths were
recorded among new-born infants, with pneumonia and diarrhea claiming the
greatest toll among Iraqi babies.� Save the Children�s report comes on the
heels of earlier surveys which show that Baghdad orphanages are teeming with
100,000 orphans of the conflict, most of whom are severely traumatized by the
increasing levels of violence.
Finally, there�s the
tragic story of the young Marine who was involved in the massacre of Iraqi
civilians at Haditha -- and who expressed his rage by urinating
on their corpses as they lay in a pool of blood on the street.
This is the �democracy�
Cheney has brought to Iraq.
In an impromptu
press conference, Cheney casually dismissed the suffering of the Iraqi people
by saying that Baghdad is still �a dangerous place.� This is about as close to
an admission of guilt as the V.P. will ever get. That�s why he adroitly shifted
the topic to the failings of the al-Maliki government -- America�s new stooge
in Baghdad. Maliki has become the convenient scapegoat for everything that has
gone wrong in Iraq.
After his short
visit to Baghdad; Cheney zoomed off to the Gulf where he delivered a
predictably threatening speech on board the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C.
Stennis.
He said, �With
two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we�re sending clear messages to friends
and adversaries alike. We�ll keep the sea lanes open. We�ll stand with our
friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats. We�ll disrupt attacks on
our own forces. We�ll continue bringing relief to those who suffer, and
delivering justice to the enemies of freedom. And we�ll stand with others to
prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region.�
Cheney�s fiery
rhetoric was mainly intended to soothe the Saudi Royal family, which is
increasingly nervous about the rise of a Shiite-dominated Middle East with Iran
as the de facto superpower. Still, Cheney�s shameless sabre-rattling cannot be
entirely ignored. There are signs that the more hawkish members of the
administration are still considering an unprovoked attack on Iran. Such an
attack would ensure that the entire region would be consumed in a decades-long
conflagration.
The administration
has upset the fragile balance of power in the region by toppling the largely
secular Sunni regime in Baghdad. The unintended consequence of this is that
Islamic fundamentalism is progressively on the rise and bound to be a major
factor in Iraq�s political evolution.
Lt. General William
Odom cautioned that invading and occupying Iraq would not serve America�s
strategic interests. He said, �We cannot win a war that serves our enemies
interests and not our own. Continuing to pursue the illusion of victory in Iraq
makes no sense. We can now see that it never did.�
But Cheney doesn�t
heed the advice of the experts. He knows everything about war -- except how to
win. Now, he�s trying to mollify the allies in the Gulf by assuring them that
the chaos in Iraq won�t spill over into other countries and set the whole
region ablaze. But how would Cheney know? He�s been wrong about everything so
far; so, why would anyone trust his judgment now? With 2 million Iraqis
refugees in Jordan and Syria (Many of them wealthy Ba�athists) the prospect of
a larger regional conflict is certain. In fact, the real prize for the Iraqi
resistance is not Baghdad at all, but Riyadh. If fighting breaks out in Saudi Arabia,
then oil futures will shoot through the roof and wreak havoc with energy
supplies across the planet. It�s the quickest way to bring the industrial world
to its knees -- and don�t think these groups don�t know it! That�s probably why
the Saudis rounded up 172 �terror suspects� without any evidence of wrongdoing
just last week. The Saudis know that their widely reviled regime is now
squarely in the crosshairs of terrorist organizations.
Is this the war that
Cheney wants? If so, he�s crazy!
This conflict is
perfect-fit for decentralized guerilla cells that can independently carry out
operations on vital pipelines, tankers and oil facilities. It�s a �no-win�
situation for the rest of us. There�s just no way to protect sensitive
infrastructure or resource transport in a free market. Suppression of the
population alone will not work.
Just look at
Nigeria, Somalia, Afghanistan, of course, Iraq. This is not a war that can be
won by military means. We must look for political solutions and stop the
recriminations and violence.
Iraq has been the
biggest mistake in American history. Bush kicked open Pandora�s Box and now
we�re all going to pay the price. If the war spreads beyond Iraq; the era of
cheap oil will come to a swift and decisive end. Our job now is to force the
administration to rethink their strategy, change directions and work for
�regional stability.� The present course will end in catastrophe for the entire
world.
The world is
changing quickly and America will soon be on the outside looking in. Its benign
sounding institutions (the World Bank, IMF, UN) are already in trouble and new
alliances in Latin America and Asia are crystallizing into power centers for
the new century. America�s �soft power� and moral authority have been discarded
and coercive diplomacy is no longer working. America is treading on quicksand
while the Chinese Phoenix continues to rise in the East.
The exorbitant cost
of the war, the ballooning deficits and the falling dollar have all contributed
to the steady wearing away of American power. These long-term problems are only
exacerbated by the fanatical dependence on militarism.
Victory was never
possible in Iraq. It was just the fantasy of armchair warriors who never served
in battle and never understood the realities of war. Wars are not won by
superior firepower alone. Cheney never understood this simple point.
Did he really
believe that we could put a Christian army of occupation in the center of the
Muslim world? What arrogance. The plan was doomed from the very beginning.
Countless thousands
of Iraqi civilians have been killed or maimed in Cheney�s war -- innocent
victims shot down or bombed in their own cities, on their own streets or in
their own homes! Iraq has become the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time
and it�s a long way from over.
America�s reputation
is in ruins. The good faith we received after 9-11 has dried-up and been
replaced with suspicion and rage. As former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew
Brzezinski says in his new book, �Second
Chance�, �Barely fifteen years after the wall came down, the once
proud and globally admired America was widely viewed around the world with
intense hostility, its legitimacy and credibility in tatters, its military
bogged down. . . . its formerly devoted allies distancing themselves, and
worldwide public opinion polls documenting widespread hostility toward the
United States . . . The Middle East is fragmenting and on the brink of
explosion. The world of Islam is inflamed by rising religious passion and
anti-imperialist nationalisms. Throughout the world, public opinion polls show
that U.S. policy is widely feared and even despised.�
America is headed
for a fall. Everywhere we look we see the telltale signs of U.S. aggression --
the partial remains of bombed-out buildings, the scattered piles of wreckage
and debris, the bloated corpses of dead victims being eaten by dogs.
This is Cheney�s
dark vision of the future -- a �through the looking glass� world where people
are slaughtered without cause and entire nations are pounded into dust. This
nightmare-scenario threatens to swallow up the entire planet if a global
resistance doesn�t quickly materialize.
If Cheney is not
stopped, millions of people will die. That�s a fact.
Mike
Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com.