insomnomaniac

Iraqnaphobia

After listening to tidbits of Bush's press conference the other day, I found myself both relieved and discomfitted all at the same time. I was relieved that the guy finally showed some passion for the policy that has dominated his presidency for the past four years, but I was discomfitted by the fact that even now, even after it's so obvious that major mistakes were made, the President isn't taking action consistent with a belief in his own rhetoric: We MUST win in Iraq, period.

Foremost example? Don Rumsfeld still has a job. OK, I know, I used to love the guy, but not because he was some brilliant military genius. I loved him because he was in-your-face direct with the media, and anyone who knows me knows I loathe the media. I liked the way he parsed their questions to make clear their true meaning (i.e., "Isn't it true Mr. Secretary that you suck, Bush sucks and the USA in general sucks?"). I also liked his optimism in the face of so much pessimism. Isn't it too bad that my craving for public figures who don't mince words got in the way of my listening to the meaning behind those words? I'd say so.

Rumsfeld has been mischaracterizing this war for so long it's as though he--and not the media--is working overtime to ensure we are all disappointed by our progress. By continually calling the period we're in now the "Post-war" period, Americans have come to expect a whole lot less killing than we see--on all sides. By insisting that things are better than we think, he's setting it up so the media will have an easy time refuting his claim. His verbal evidence is easily trumped by their powerful visual claims. Let's face it, the visual aftermath of a bombing is a whole lot more powerful than the verbal claim that it was just one event in a nation of millions of more positive events every day. As long as we're not seeing those "positive" events, what he says doesn't amount to a hill of shit.

It's the old business of getting people's hopes up only to have them dashed. Oddly enough, we did the same thing to the Iraqis it seems. We told them they'd be free. We didn't say "Oh, except you Sunnis and military men who lived privileged lives under Saddam."

Yet that's what we meant, isn't it? When Paul Bremer fired the entire Iraqi Army without pensions and instantly rendered a large portion of the militarily trained (and most-likely-to-be-armed) male popluation unemployed and bitter, what did we think would happen? Didn't we think they might be more easily lured to the dark side of insurgency?

We also told the Iraqis they'd be safe, but did nothing to stop the looting that went on right after major combat stopped. I'm not talking about protecting museum artifacts here, but rather everyday places like homes and shops. The last thing we needed were people thinking wistfully about the "good ol' days of 'security'" under the Saddam regime. I mean, let's face it, if you weren't being hauled off and killed by the regime itself, if you kept your nose clean and your powder dry, you didn't have to worry too much about being hauled off and killed by anyone else. A strange paradox perhaps, but one we obviously didn't consider. Whether we like it or not, for some, the devil they know is better than the Zionist ones they don't.

What's that? Does this mean I've been won over by the dark side myself? Does this mean I think it was a mistake to go in the first place?

HELL. NO.

This is the part I don't get. I don't get where the people in the middle are these days--those who agreed the President had no choice but to hold Saddam "to account" (as he said), who weren't sure there were WMD, but who didn't want to take a chance on being wrong, who were sure that Saddam would--if he didn't already--happily deal with Al Qaeda, either to save his own power or skin, or to simply get back at the USA for taking Kuwait away from him. Where are we in this argument? Seems all I hear are those who are deathly afraid of the whole Iraq issue--Democrats who want to focus instead on Presidential censure, homeland security at our ports, corrupt lobbying practices (perpetrated ironically equally by their own people), and Republicans who don't want to appear too supportive of a policy-gone-wrong that they lose in November--and those who can't stop repeating the same old line about how things are really better there than we think.

ENOUGH ALREADY! We're not stupid. How about some truth? Things in Iraq SUCK. They probably will suck a little more before they get better, but there's still a chance for them to get better if we all hang in there and make some key changes to our policy over there. If we keep hanging on to a plan that isn't working, whether to save face or to remain loyal to its crafters, we are all doomed. We need to admit to a few mistakes and hurry up and change course before the bad guys wake up and figure we might (and plan their counter-attack accordingly).

What am I suggesting? Shit, I'm not sure. I suppose I'd fire Rummy first. It's past time. Second I'd start talking turkey. I'd tell the Iraqis--publicly, so Americans can hear it too--that it's time for them to not only step it up on the defensive side, but also to step it up politically. If they want to be Iran's puppet, keep going the way they are going, but if they (we'd be talking to the Sunni population mostly) want to have a chance at a country bigger than the size of a thimble (what the Sunni--those who'd be left after the inevitable slaughter or enslavement anyway), they'll start participating fully right about NOW. If they want to keep fighting Americans or killing Shi'a (or killing Sunni), they can be assured of one thing: We will pull out, but they will be left with a giant red bull's eye on their backs. That's what happens to countries that suddenly become the property of nuclear dictatorships, and if they keep going the way they are going, and we do pull out, that's exactly what they'll be.

Let's not forget, there was a fairly large and powerful group of people within Iraq who asked for our help, who wanted us there, who prayed that we'd come. I think they have to take responsibility for getting what they wished for, and for not blaming us for the less-than-savory side-effects of that wish. This means they share in the blame for any "failure" to stabilize the country. It's not all on us just because we did the heavy lifting.

Americans want to hear this. Every American who's lost a loved one over there in particular wants to hear that Iraqis are not some mindless group of sheep depending on us for their safety and security (and future independence and prosperity). They sure as hell want to stop hearing Iraqis blaming us for any mess they are now in.

Of course the left and anti-war crowd loves to hear Iraqis blame us. They feed on it like maggots on a corpse. They somehow think it provides them with vindication, proves they were "right" to have opposed going in the first place. I realize I'm digressing from my point for a moment but I have to ask: WHAT WOULD THEY HAVE DONE INSTEAD?

Well and good to recognize and try to correct mistakes we can correct now that we are there, but at least accept the reality that we are there and we can't go back and undo that one fact. What joy can anyone derive from patting him or herself on the back now and saying "see, we were right, we never should have gone!"

To say that is to relegate over 20Mil people to a life under a horrible dictator. To say that is to accept the possibility that a guy who at least wants WMD, a guy who at least tells his top generals he already has them (and is convincing enough that they believe him), will someday get them and pass them off to terrorists. To say that is to deny the proven fact that Saddam did have relationships with terrorists from Islamic Jihad and Hamas to Abu Nidal. To think he would not have extended a helping hand to Al Qaeda if it meant holding onto power for himself and his family (like the Saudi royals do with terrorists who threaten their kingdom) is to live in a fantasy land.

So what should we have done? Keep working through the UN, ignoring their obvious complicity in the Oil-for-Food scandal? How could we have trusted anything they'd report? How can we now act like they would be any more reliable or any less impotent than they are proving to be in the case of Iran, or proved to be in the case of North Korea? How many examples do the naysayers need before they realize we had to do something militarily in Iraq, if only to maintain any credibility with the enemy we desperately need to scare as best we can.

What I want to hear, need to hear, and am not hearing is an alternative plan for NOW. Like I said, I hear the same old same old from Rummy and the President, and the same old same old from the dailykos and moveon crowd too. Where are the folks in the middle? Where are those who say "OK, whether it was right or wrong to go, we're there now, and here's what we need to do to WIN!"

There will be no special medals or awards given out to the team who was right in the first place--ALL war (and I do mean all) is based essentially on a miscalculation by one side or the other. The point we have to remember is that the miscalculator doesn't have to lose. Case in point? The US Civil War. The North thought it would be a cake-walk. They'd roll on into the South with their superior firepower, superior armaments and superior manpower and it would be over in a matter of days or weeks. Almost five years later and hundreds of thousands of American dead later, it was over. Lincoln was loathed for going, even by his own party, but he held firm, and thanks to his resolve, so did the Union.

We may be facing a similar situation now, the big question is, how will history tell this tale? If we just keep shying away from the issue, assuming it will just go away (Republicans) or lauging at it as some kind of proof-positive that our President is a chucklehead (Democrats), we all lose.

I mean it. We will all be in serious danger if Iraq devolves into chaos. We can't afford to allow Iran to control almost 1/2 of the world's oil supply. We also can't afford to allow what will soon be a nuclear power to be in spitting distance of the Saudis, certainly not with such close ties to terrorism. If we don't succeed in Iraq, we'll be facing no less than total world war on a grand, possibly nuclear scale. Iran will use its weapons against Israel, they've said so, and if they control so much of what is so vital to our economy, there will be no choice but for us to sit back and let them. Problem is, if they succeed at destroying Israel, I'm sure Israel will destroy them back--I'm sure they have at least one dead-man's switch on their nukes, and then you're looking at a radioactive middle east and an American economy in ruins--we're talking depression-era bad folks.

And what then? What happens when the weather systems we've been facing destroy another section of the country, only there's no money to rebuild it? What then? Will we be faced with rampant looting and chaos like we now see and either ignore or laugh off in Iraq? What will we do? Even if we open up our emergency supply of oil, or drill in ANWAR, we're fucked.

I realize this is a very gloomy way to look at things, but I believe we have to think long and hard about worst-case-scenarios. This is a very big deal. It's not just a tipping point for an election over here, nor is it an opportunity for bragging rights--for either side. Nothing less than the survival of the map as we know it and stability as we know it is at stake--right here at home.

And lest you think we could have avoided all this if we'd just left Saddam in power, just imagine how much easier it would have been for Iran to get nuclear weapons sooner if we were not knocking (literally) on their back door. Just imagine how much easier it would have been for terrorists like Zarquawi to use Iraq as a training center for attacks in the USA if he weren't so busy fighting our soldiers and Iraqis in Iraq?

We could sit around all day and argue the merits of going or not going, leaving or staying, but one thing is clear: Such conversations are pointless.

Posted by insomnomaniac at March 23, 2006 4:38 PM | TrackBack