Iraq & Vietnam War Stories

Last Friday night when John McCain had the unmitigated gall to declare that we were winning the War in Iraq, I wanted Barak Obama to tell the truth about what is really happening there.  I knew from my own reading that a big reason for the so-called success of the surge was that we were paying Sunnis to stop fighting.  I also knew that there had been so much fighting between Sunnis and Shiites, which had caused so many Iraqis to flee that there were places where there were no more of one group or the other to engage in killing one another.  Then this afternoon I found the following article on COMMONDREAMS.ORG and my worst suspicions were confirmed.  But with the enormous media attention being paid to the financial crisis, news like that contained in this article is not finding its way into the mainstream media.  So, here it is.  The truth about Iraq, about the surge and about the effects of our policies on the government and the people there.  Winning?  Such a pronouncement is indeed shameful and it was appropriate for Obama to remind McCain that the war didn’t begin with the surge.  But there is so much more that needs to be told.  The following is a step in that direction…

With Congress rejecting the $700 billion bailout package, the Dow falling 700 points and the U.S. economy on the edge of a cliff, no one is paying much attention to Iraq. Money talks, and incomprehensible and endless wars walk. From a purely financial perspective, that dismissive attitude makes no sense. The Iraq war has already cost almost $700 billion, and as Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes have argued, [1] its total cost, factoring in huge back-end costs like disability payments, could end up exceeding $3 trillion. As Tom Engelhardt and Chalmers Johnson point out on TomDispatch, [2] the money we’ve poured and are continuing to pour down the bottomless pit of Iraq, to the tune of $10 billion a month, could have bailed us out many times over.

But of course, the Iraq war is about a lot more than money. It’s about the 146,000 U.S. troops still stationed there, and their families. It’s about the stability of the Middle East, and our vital national interest in ensuring that it does not explode. It’s about the overall direction of our foreign policy. It’s about how America is perceived throughout the world. And it’s about the fate of Iraq itself, a nation that our invasion devastated and that we owe our best efforts to rebuild.

Along with fixing our economy, then, what we should do about Iraq is the most important issue facing the country. And the choices offered by the two presidential candidates could not be more different. John McCain will continue the same policies as George W. Bush. He insists that Iraq remains “the central front in the war on terror,” claims that the surge was a decisive turning point and that we are now winning the war, and warns that if America elects Barack Obama, we will lose, with catastrophic consequences. Obama argues that the war was a mistake to begin with, that it led us to “take our eye off the ball” and allow Osama bin Laden to escape and al-Qaida to regroup, and that it has strengthened Iran. He says that if elected he will withdraw American troops in stages over a 16-month period.

The first presidential debate highlighted these clear differences between Obama and McCain. But, unfortunately, Obama did not really challenge McCain’s central claim that we are “winning” in Iraq. There are good political reasons why he didn’t: The fact that he opposed a war that McCain ardently supported, and that most Americans have long turned against, allowed him to win the debate without venturing onto that dangerous terrain. But as a result, McCain’s exaggerated claims about the surge, and his larger claim that we are winning in Iraq, have gone unrefuted. And what is actually happening in Iraq bears no resemblance to McCain’s triumphant vision.

George W. Bush has defined “victory” in Iraq as a unified, democratic and stable country. McCain echoed this definition in the debate, saying that Iraq will be “a stable ally in the region and a fledgling democracy.” Yet McCain never explained just how Iraq is going to become unified, democratic or stable, let alone a U.S. ally — and Obama did not demand that he do so. McCain was lucky he didn’t, because there is no answer.

McCain’s entire position on Iraq boils down to two words: the surge. According to McCain, Gen. Petraeus’ counterinsurgency tactic worked to perfection, and after years of failed approaches, victory is now within our grasp. McCain endlessly attacks Obama for not supporting the surge, painting his rival as a craven defeatist who, as McCain’s top foreign policy advisor put it, [3] “would rather lose a war that we are winning than lose an election by alienating his base.”

The media has largely bought into this rosy view of the surge. Violence has fallen sharply in Iraq and U.S. casualties are down, and the media and the U.S. public have tacitly accepted both that the surge was largely responsible for these laudable outcomes and, to a lesser degree, that the underlying situation in Iraq has fundamentally improved. Unfortunately, neither claim is true.

First, the surge was not primarily responsible for the drop in sectarian violence in Iraq. It played a role, but was far less important than the simple, grim fact that the Shiite militias in Baghdad had already succeeded in ethnically cleansing the city. This was established by a team of UCLA geographers [4] who analyzed night-light signatures in the city. They found that night lights in Sunni neighborhoods declined dramatically just before the February 2007 surge and never came back. “Essentially, our interpretation is that violence has declined in Baghdad because of intercommunal violence that reached a climax as the surge was beginning,” John Agnew, a UCLA professor of geography and the study’s lead author, told Science Daily. “By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left … The surge really seems to have been a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.”

The UCLA scientists’ findings are supported by Shiite expert Juan Cole, who argues that the surge [5] actually helped the Shiite militias to ethnically cleanse Baghdad by disarming Sunnis. “Rates of violence declined once the ethnic cleansing was far advanced, just because there were fewer mixed neighborhoods,” Cole argues.

Joining Cole and the UCLA team is one of the best field reporters in Iraq, Nir Rosen, author of an important piece, “The Myth of the Surge,” [6] which appeared in Rolling Stone. Rosen points out that another key factor behind the cessation of violence is that U.S. troops began bribing their former deadly enemies, Sunni insurgents, to cooperate. (The Sunnis had turned against al-Qaida because of its brutal tactics — a key factor in the decline of terrorist attacks in Iraq that the surge had nothing to do with.) But these Sunnis, called “the Awakening” or “Sons of Iraq,” will be off the U.S. payroll on October 1, and Rosen paints a grim picture of what is likely to happen next. “There is little doubt what will happen when the massive influx of American money stops: Unless the new Iraqi state continues to operate as a vast bribing machine, the insurgent Sunnis who have joined the new militias will likely revert to fighting the ruling Shiites, who still refuse to share power.”

The final reason for the cessation of violence was the stand-down by Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, which is lying low. That stand-down, which can be reversed at any time, was brokered by — Iran. But Iran is playing all sides: It supports both Maliki and Sadr. The U.S. simply cannot compete in this kind of deep game, at which Iran has excelled for centuries, without diplomatic engagement. But for McCain, that is anathema.

Insofar as the surge helped to contribute to lowered levels of violence in Iraq, it is to be commended. And there is no doubt that Gen. Petraeus’ adoption of classic counterinsurgency doctrine, which mandates moving troops out of secure bases and closer to the people, was a significant improvement over previous tactics. But as the above should make clear, the surge was not the main reason for the reduction of violence — which remains at terrifyingly high levels. In any case, the mere reduction of sectarian violence does not prove that the U.S. is “winning.” Even the Bush administration has acknowledged that the critical issue in Iraq is political reconciliation. And the sad reality is that there has been no political reconciliation in Iraq, that there are no indications it is on the horizon and that there is no reason to believe that the continued presence of U.S. troops will help bring it about.

As analyst Peter Galbraith points out in an excellent piece [7] in the New York Review of Books, the salient fact about Iraq is that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government is allied with Iran, wants to create a Shiite Islamic state and will never integrate the Sunni Awakening forces into the Iraqi Army, because it correctly sees them as threatening the current regime’s existence. Its rapprochement with the Kurds, the only group that supports the U.S., is fragile and could collapse at any time, with the fate of the disputed, oil-rich city of Kirkuk likely to be the trigger.

Galbraith sums up the situation thus: “George W. Bush has put the United States on the side of undemocratic Iraqis who are Iran’s allies. John McCain would continue the same approach. It is hard to understand how this can be called a success — or a path to victory.”

Most critically, the Maliki regime wants U.S. forces to leave Iraq — on the same 16-month timetable as the one Obama has proposed. The Iraqi people also want the U.S. out. The U.S. simply lacks the power to oppose this demand, and McCain’s bluster about staying in Iraq until “victory” is absurd in the face of it.

McCain’s talk of “victory” is not just logically false, it is morally obscene. Our unprovoked invasion destroyed Iraq. Up to a million Iraqis may have died. The infrastructure is dreadful, far worse than in Saddam’s time. Most of Iraq’s doctors have fled or been killed. Vast numbers of Iraqis have been forced into exile, and few have dared to return. The sectarian war our invasion let loose has ripped the country apart. Iraq remains one of the most dangerous and violence-torn countries in the world. (On Sunday, five bomb attacks in Baghdad [8] killed at least 27 people.)

What do we do confronted with this situation? What do we owe the Iraqi people? What do we owe ourselves? What is in our national interest? And with our economy melting down, how long can we spend $10 billion a month waiting to decide?

There are no easy answers to these questions. But we cannot hide them behind cheap talk of “victory” and incoherent fear-mongering. We will have to hope that in January we will get a new administration, one not deluded by empty slogans and neoconservative ideology. And they will then have to begin the difficult process of figuring out how to responsibly extricate ourselves and the Iraqi people from the nightmare we created.

I received this yesterday from a good friend and it tells an important story that bears sharing…

This is Your Nation on White Privilege

September, 14 2008

By Wise, Tim

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you’ll “kick their fuckin’ ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office–since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s–while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you’re black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do–like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor–and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college–you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a “light” burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain. 

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull. For review copies or interview requests, please reply to publicity@softskull.com

There are so many reasons why American citizens should not be duped into supporting the Republican candidates for president and vice-president.  Just today a fellow blogger commented on the irony of Sarah Palin’s 17 year old daughter being pregnant when her mother consistently has opposed sex education in our nation’s schools.  But one of the most abysmal positions taken by John McCain has been his consistent opposition to benefits and programs for veterans.  How could someone who served during wartime and suffered the effects of both his service and his imprisonment not support at every possible opportunity the fullest, most extensive benefits a veteran could receive?  Could it be as a result of being in denial about his own PTSD?  It is truly mind-boggling and the ultimate failed test of character by the man who touts his military service in speeches and commercials.

Some of those veterans who see the hypocrisy in McCain’s words and actions chose to gather at the RNC in St. Paul and while there they were interviewed by DEMOCRACY NOW!  Their words capture the disillusionment and frustraion of seeing one of their own so clearly not get it regarding the need to honor those who served, not just with fancy rhetoric, but with all kinds of support services, courses, jobs, health care, mental health care, and more.

Several of the veterans interviewed served in the Vietnam War.  They are particularly troubled by McCain’s using their war for political gain since they see it as a misrepresentation of the war, which for them was essentially a tragedy.  That he is using it to accentuate either his patriotism or his leadership ability is a source of sadness and anger.

Here are their own words in the interview: