Blog For Arizona

We've already lost Iraq

Former Command Generals, experienced military analysts at the Army War College, and regional specialists are saying that our situation is Iraq isfar graver than Vietnam was. W. Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College, says "If we leave and there's no civil war, that's a victory."

No bloodbath is a victory, now. Not establishing democracy; we'll be lucky to get a stable government that can hold the country together. Not access to Iraqi oil or markets; after what we have put the Iraqi people through we'll be lucky if they don't embargo US trade. Not an ally in the war on terror; the next 9/11 many involve mainly Iraqi terrorists, instead of Saudis. Bush has failed miserably at safeguarding American interests. He attempted a hail mary pass into the unknown, with wishful thinking substituted for planning and fore-thought.

The worst of it is that American voters seem content to allow the driver who rammed us into a wall stay behind the wheel. The main reason being that we really haven't felt the pain yet. Sure. 1000 kids are dead. Sure, when you factor in all medical evacuations, some 25,000 casualties have been taken - 6,000 of which are permanent disabilities. Sure, we've spent 200 billion dollars to no purpose. Sure, the world despises and fears us. But we haven't yet felt the real pain which would wake us up to the incompentent weaving of the bastard behind wheel. We're still in shock and and not yet feeling the pain. We haven't yet been able to assimilate that Afghanistan is lost, and Iraq is lost, and our relations and our military effectiveness in the Middle East has been radically degraded.

Can we respond effectively to an Iranian infiltration of the Shi'ite areas of Iraq? No. Could we respond to a Kurdish separatist movement? No. Might such initiatives destablize the entire region, involving Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and almost certainly an increasingly beligerent Israel? You bet. Are all players disgusted at our apparent inability to do anything effective about the command officers and civilian leadership which abetted or allowed torture to occur at Abu Ghraib and other military facilities? Oh, yes. Our military has been humilitated, mistreated, given a mission we weren't prepared to follow through with, by a draft dodger and a man who got preferment to get into the champaign unit and guard and couldn't even fulfill that obligation. Bush a goddamn worm without a shred of respect for the military and their role. Rumsfeld has presided over a marvellous disaster.

Unfortunately the public will not feel the pain of these disasters for some time. Likely not before the election. If Bush is to be defeated, brave men and women of the armed forces will need to come forward and tell their tales to a waiting and worshipful press. They are going to need to buck the tradition of not criticizing the CIC and tell the nation frankly what this pipsqueak has done to us. Like the frog in the pot, our water is only heating gradually, but when it gets the signal finally, it will be much to late to act. Zell Miller was right about one thing in his rant, only the soldiers can purchase our freedoms now.

Bush has invested so much political capital into making the troops an object of political veneration, in order to reflect its light on himself, that they are now the primary vessel of the very virtues Americans will respond to strongly. In large groups, and in concert with their families, their credibility will be unassailable. There have been a few cracks, but there needs to be a flood of whistleblowers and truth-telling, or Americans might just cast their lot for 4 more years of Bush, and an end to the American way of life.

posted by Michael Bryan @ 9/16/2004 04:08:00 AM