Wednesday, May 05, 2004

The End of the American War in Iraq Out Now!   There is no longer any reason for any Americans to be in Iraq.     Since Sept. 11, 2001, Pres. Bush has tried to impose an ideology of American exceptionalism in the world.   Using Sept. 11th as an excuse, he and Rumsfeld have said that anyone who attacks America will be attacked.   They specifically refused to follow rules of the Geneva convention in terms of detainees, and they have vehemently refused to accept the World Court, or any of the international treaties set up to protect individuals against the tortures of rogue states.  They have declared a war that they cannot win.  Terrorism is a tactic, no more, no less.  We need to respond tactically as well.  Declaring war on terrorism is like declaring war on the color blue.    We are faced with asymmetrical warfare, and that means that our key weapons are hardening our targets, building a sense of trust and widespread community internationally, and isolating our enemies.  Unless we isolate the terrorists, we will never win.   Instead, Bush has ignored the soft targets that need protecting, has alienated the international community that has to feed intelligence, and has got our military stuck in a no win disaster, creating more and more allies for terrorists with every passing day.   Now, through mismanagement and lies, the entire Iraq invasion is unfolding in disaster.   The neocons saw Iraq as in ideological demonstration, much in the same way the U.S. bombed Hiroshima with nuclear weapons to make a statement.  None of them understood the dynamics of the country itself.   So they had too few troops, because they couldn’t get support for a bigger army.  They tried to delay early elections, because they wanted to privatize the economy, essentially looting the country for the benefit of their contractor friends.   Finally, they use the circular argument that anyone who resists is a “bad guy”, and that America has the right to do what ever it wants to “bad guys”.   With the world wide publication of the torture photos, and the sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners, the entire façade of American good intentions has collapsed.   Now the U.S. faces the choice of occupying the country as a conquering power, and taking on the full colonial responsibility, including denigrating the ability of Iraqis or other Arabs to run their societies themselves, or full withdrawal.   Yes, full withdrawal is an American defeat.  It will enormously damage our interests in the world, and we will have fewer friends and less power to shape events.  But this is the price we have paid for the arrogance and hubris of the Bush administration about Iraq.   Now, the only way to get out of this hole is to stop digging.  A full withdrawal is the only tactic that will let us get on the right road to fight terrorism.  We need to purge our government if those who have created this disaster, and prove to the world that America is indeed a place of openness and rule of law, where we reject racism, and uphold the rights of minorities, and we build our society on the basis of the common good. 9:02:52 AM   comment []

© Copyright 2004 Toby Sackton. Last update: 5/28/2004; 4:09:09 PM.