The War of Words

This week our president is going to make a speech in which he is will try and drag the Americans deeper into his Iraqi quagmire. He wants to escalate military operations.
The timing is suspicious.
The strategy is simple and devilish.

From the beginning he has branded the aggressive invasion and military occupation of Iraq a war. When Americans became restless he threatened them with the shame of defeat. This week he will promise them victory.

It’s a semantic slight of hand carefully crafted to obscure reality.

Iraq is not a war in the traditional sense; a conflict in which there is a defined enemy, a clear objective and a declared winner.
Iraq is not our enemy but a former ally. The fact that the leader of Iraq was part monster and part “Donald Duck” has more to do with US interference in Iraqi internal affairs than any malicious intent on the part of the Iraqi people. Even the infamous foray into Kuwait was given a wink and a nod by the US Ambassador. A relationship gone sour.

Iraq, weakened by wars and years of abusive sanctions, was no threat to the US or its neighbors.

Invading Iraq was a mistake and very likely a crime. Concepts such as victory and defeat do not apply in Iraq. You don’t win or lose a mistake. No one has yet won or lost a crime.

The Iraqi people are resisting the US military occupation of their country. Even the sectarian violence can be linked to the US presence. Iraqis who are seen as collaborating with the US are killed. US policies have served to exacerbate ethnic differences. A weak central government supported by the US has created a power vacuum. The US military occupation has flooded the country with weapons making the inevitable power struggle grotesquely bloody. Only a small number of insurgents have ever been foreign fighters. They are only tolerated because they fight the American occupation.

There is no handful of diehards that can be wiped out by targeted military operations. Almost the entire nation is against the US presence and it’s no mystery why.
The US occupation has placed too much reliance on brute force and reprisals. Adding more troops is a step in the wrong direction.
No modern nation has yet been willing to commit the level of genocide necessary to sustain a hugely unpopular occupation. We should not be the first.

The US provisional authority illegally rewrote Iraqi law to favor itself. They gobbled up resources and infrastructure which is also illegal.
No militarily occupied country can be said to have free elections. There is plenty of evidence that Iraq was no exception.

By building a massive fortified embassy and constructing permanent military bases, the US has declared it intends to stay. These actions contravene Iraqi nationalism and fuel the insurgency. Congress has forbidden the use of funds for the construction of permanent bases in Iraq. The Bush administration has illegally moved ahead.

The US has illegally neglected its responsibilities as an occupying power in failing to provide for the basic human needs and safety of the citizens of an occupied country.

There is no war to be won or lost; only tragic errors and crimes that must addressed.
We need to understand that Bush, blinded by hubris and greed is not defending our nation but abandoning it.

We, the citizens of this nation will be left us to face the hatred Bush's policies have engendered with a broken military, our credit cards maxed out and our economic fate in the hands of foreign governments.

Carol DW