The U.S. Navy faces wave after wave of suicide bombers. 62
years ago. From the classic, Victory At Sea.
This Memorial Day finds the country in an extraordinary situation. Embroiled in a war in Iraq which has lasted longer than World War II, over 70% say America is moving in the wrong direction. Nearly two-thirds say the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. The war itself has become a bloody stalemate. Because of the unprecedented use of the National Guard, which the Bush Administration never anticipated, states such as California find their ability to respond to crises at home sharply diminished, as equipment departs with the units to Iraq, but doesn’t come back with the citizen-soldiers.
It’s ironic, because the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the toppling of Saddam Hussein was actually a great triumph of American arms. Saddam was clearly one of the worst dictators in the world. He looted his country of revenues it earned while being sanctioned for weapons programs violations after the first Gulf War, causing the death of hundreds of thousands of his own citizens while making himself one of the richest men in the world. He used poison gas to put down internal uprisings, freely employing a murderous secret police for which the most grotesque forms of torture were de rigeur.
The US armed forces stormed through Iraq, captured Baghdad, eliminated the regime, and sent Saddam into a pathetic course of hiding in spider holes. But by the time he was captured, it had all gone sour for America in Iraq. And the execution of Saddam a few months ago, seen here, dramatically revealed how little real control or understanding of the situation we have, as the event turned into an impromptu demonstration on behalf of a fundamentalist cleric whose militia kills American soldiers.
Did it have to be this way? Simply looking at the map reveals the significant advantages of having bases in Iraq. From there, the US could readily check the adventurist ambitions of Iran and Syria, strike at terrorist enclaves throughout the region, and backstop Israel. With a multi-national presence, power and oil revenue sharing arrangements, and a decision not to make American soldiers targets, things might have gone better. Or maybe not.
But egged on by con men and charlatans, the US seized on a pretext and a fantasy to embark on a massive project it never understood. A pretext of largely non-existent weapons of mass destruction (to be fair, a fiction engineered at least in part by Saddam, to maintain order and pose a credible threat after his army was exposed in the first Gulf War). And a fantasy about the likely response of the Iraqi people. Having denounced “nation-building” as a presidential candidate, George W. Bush, with the exile Iraqi National Congress exposed for what it was, and with the Iraqi people souring quickly on a US occupying force that couldn’t keep the lights on, ended up engaged in exactly that.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who’d had ample opportunity to think through the Iraq War, having publicly committed to it in the late 1990s, employed his conception of the “revolution in military affairs” — a melding of high tech weaponry with fast-moving, smaller forces — to quickly topple Saddam. But the force was far too small to maintain order and infrastructure in the country, showing that he and his allies had no concept of what they were doing once there. A comedy of errors ensued as the complex ethnic and religious brew of a country created by British imperial fiat and maintained through brute dictatorial strength spiraled into chaos. Which made it an excellent haven and proving ground for Al Qaeda, which previously had had only incidental contact with the Iraqi regime.
As we struggle to come to grips with the situation, those who would replace the shrunken president struggle with their own concepts and statements.
John McCain mused about how safe it is now to move about Baghdad. When accompanied, as it happens, by a company of infantry with helicopter gunships overhead.
Rudy Giuliani torturously struggles to distinguish between torture (which is not nearly so effective as it seems on 24, which actually cut back the torture-for-information scenes on advice of the Army) and “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Which is a clear frontrunner for euphemism of the year.
John Edwards declares the war on terror to be a bumper sticker slogan. Which ignores the fact that America has very real enemies who have attacked us — New York, Washington, 9/11, ring a bell? — and are undoubtedly waiting to do so ago. And that the war is no less real for being botched.
There have been others, but those spring immediately to mind. Sadly so, since each of those men is quite able and quite intelligent.
And so we muddle on on this Memorial Day. Facing a complex set of challenges that become harder rather than easier as misfiring strategists keep moving the target. Oh, we’re having trouble catching Bin Laden, the real problem is Saddam. Oh, surprise, we’re in deep guano in Iraq, the real problem is Iran. And so forth.
America has faced and overcome many excruciating challenges in the past. As the video above shows, suicide bombers are nothing new except to the ahistorical. Challenges can be met, but they should not be treated as dares. With intelligent leadership, blending sophisticated diplomacy with military power, the anti-American wildfire that Islamic jihadist forces seek to ignite around the world will go unlit.
With a policy of aggressive containment, Al Qaeda will be effectively countered around the world. Iran, to the extent that it poses a threat, can be countered and reformist forces within can begin again to flourish. Iraq is a stickier wicket, having been so thoroughly botched through each iteration of policy. US troops will not be withdrawn anywhere near immediately. The country, while rejecting the latest Iraq policy as it has every other, has no consensus on how to end the war. So the Bush Administration slowly but surely moves to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, seemingly rejected months ago, and meets today in Baghdad with representatives of Iran and floats scenarios of massive troop cutbacks even as it moves to further increase the number of combat troops in the short-term. It’s a mess shot through with irony. But a solution will be found. The lesson of Memorial Day, and the sacrifice of centuries, is that one nearly always is.
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| Comments (63) |
It’s about fighting jihadist elements that are fighting us.
It’s long since morphed into something more complicated than that.
At least in Iraq, the people fighting us are also fighting each other. And some of them potentially could be persuaded to quit fighting us. At the very least, their backers could be persuaded to pull the plug on them. Iran has an interest in having the Shiite majority in Iraq see them as friends and benefactors, which on the one hand is served by propping up violent Shiite militias who “protect” Shiites from Sunni militias and provide “vengeance” killings when that fails; but on the other hand that interest is not so well served if this course leads to the entire country dissolving into violence, sending both refugees, and potentially Sunnis seeking yet more vengeance, across the border.
If there is to be a “war on terror”, it will be much more complicated than a straightforward military campaign. And it probably should tone down the “war” talk, because its most important goal (preventing the recruitment of new terrorists, and “inoculating” entire societies against the infectious memes of violent zealotry) is poorly served by that metaphor. Folks in Iran and Pakistan already feel like we’re hostile to them — saying we’re “at war” with some ill-defined entity that is responsible for “terror” invites the misinterpretation that we’re at war with them. (Especially given that we have idiots around like that general who “knew that my God was bigger than his”, and entire chorus of Coulter types who want to “kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity”.)
Complication does not equal peace.
It is still a war, albeit one in which bombing is not the first order of the day.
We are very much at war. bin Laden isued a FATWA in 96 of some 11,500 words from Afghanistan. In months it was relayed around the world by tapes and publications. the title says it all “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places” We didn’t get then…even though he describes the need for Muslims everywhere to to undertake a jihad against the US and our supporters…he was clear then and is followers are clear now…they are at war with us..btw John Ewards has a whole other for Israelis and when he is speaking before an AIPAC audience.
I mean : JE has a whole other speech ……sorry….I am grooming my horse and posting at the same time…
Got it.
War is one way of thinking about it, but I think not all that useful a way — again, see the “War on Drugs”, which unless we untangle its various aspects (reducing poverty, unemployment, and disaffection among our poor population; perhaps legalizing some less-dangerous drugs on a status like alcohol and cigarettes; corruption and paramilitarism in countries like Colombia) is inherently unwinnable.
I found the quote that had me irritated the other day: It was Mitt, saying that a coalition of “Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda” wants to “bring down the West.” This is both ignorant (rolling together groups that compete with each other), and inflammatory (saying that the huge overarching groups of “Shia and Sunni” are part of this alleged coalition).
Again, until the vast majority of Americans treat this kind of ignorance with the contempt it deserves — rather than treating people who talk like this as if they were serious candidates to lead us — most Muslims outside the US, and some Muslims within it, are going to get the idea that we are at war with them.
If it’s not a war with Islam, then either stop calling it a war, or demand that our politicians do a much better job defining whom we’re at war with.
This is so incredibly unlike the “war on drugs.”
We don’t have to be at war with all of Islam for it to be a war, and in fact are not.
exactly…although the US invasion of Iraq has helped that sort of propaganda. the same mentality that salutes bin Laden also assassinated Sadat and wants to destoy the Kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Jordan and much more Getting rid of this militant radical element is fighting for Islam. and from your quote of Romney …he sounds like he understands the Muslim world as much as the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence DEM Sylvestre Reyes.
Stupidity is not inherently partisan, as Reyes demonstrates, but if you saw the GOP candidates disgusting competition over who would be most enthusiastic about torturing suspected terrorists to protect the homeland, it does seem like the “security first!” GOPers would not be particularly good at ensuring our security. Quite the contraray.
If you were a resident of, say, Turkey, or even a Muslim resident of Britain or Germany, and you saw the leading candidates of one of our two major parties enthusiastically talking about “doubling Guantanamo” — where, it is acknowledged by our government (which has even had to quietly release some people back to their homelands), we have tossed a fair number of innocent people with no charges, there to rot with no trial, no lawyer, no knowledge of the charges against us — what would you think of us?
It’s a major theme in the campaign speeches of both Edwards and Obama — we’re better than this.
Remember, it’s not torture. It’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
Or, “severe interrogation,” as a former European power used to call it.
“Vee haff vays of making you talk.”
So this was many months ago: Stunned in the aftermath of a brutal shellacking meted out by Chris Cyborg, MMA fighter Gina Carano entertained one of them standing at the crossroads moments. Which is around when Hollywood came knocking, when Steven Soderbergh decided to call and ask her to star in a movie. And here’s HAYWIRE, fruit of their collaboration, a film that isn’t high-brow or artsy or a Major Motion Picture. What it is, though, is gritty and action-packed and massively appealing. It just might make a movie star of Gina Carano. She’s better looking than the Rock.
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