How Dare We Call It a War!

This rose is starting to smell more like skunk-weed.

The Backpedal War - Possibility of Quagmire Looms
Commentary, William O. Beeman,
Pacific News Service, Mar 25, 2003

Rosy predictions of a quick and (for U.S. troops) painless war have evaporated in the face of Iraqi resistance and no widespread welcoming of coalition forces. The accuracy of another prediction, the discovery of weapons of mass destruction, waits in the wings.

Almost as soon as war in Iraq began, President Bush began to backpedal, equivocating on the optimistic predictions that had preceded the conflict.

The rosiest scenario, promulgated by virtually every administration official, was the specter of millions of Iraqis throwing down their arms at first sight of American troops, lining the streets and cheering them as liberators. Television commentator Chris Matthews called this the "gold standard" for gauging the war's success. Such a picture is surely the image the administration wishes to promulgate by naming the military action "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

In the first days of fighting, such jubilation has been far from evident. Despite the parade of retired military commanders on television touting the progress of the U.S. troops, resistance has been stiff. U.S. soldiers have not been welcomed by the Iraqi population. Moreover, hundreds of thousands elsewhere in the Islamic world have turned out to protest the American actions in what seems to be a perpetual demonstration.

In his March 17 speech throwing down the gauntlet for the offensive attack, President Bush promised a short war. Almost instantly the administration revised its scenario. Bush told the American public on March 19 with the opening volley that the war would be longer and harder than anticipated. Since then, weather has not cooperated. Sandstorms and heat have inhibited military operations. The longer these operations last, the more difficult they will become. Heat, humidity and wind increase significantly as summer approaches. By May or June, if the war lasts that long, military operations may be at a standstill.

The "coalition" of nations helping the United States, touted so heavily by the White House, turns out to be mostly lip service from remote, miniscule states. Aside from Britain and Australia, the largest contribution of actual fighting forces has come from Poland, which sent several hundred troops, mostly non-combatants. The sober truth is that most of those sacrificed in battle will be Americans.

This also means that the administration will pay the billions the war will cost out of American taxpayers' pockets. President Bush has already requested nearly $75 billion. Less than half a billion of that is earmarked for humanitarian aid, and only $1.4 billion for reconstruction of Iraq. Almost all of the money will be blown up.

Pro-war pundits have had to do significant revisions regarding post-war prospects.

"Instant Democracy" in an ethnically integrated post-war Iraq was predicted by many -- most prominently by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and White House cheerleader and National Standard editor William Kristol. This too is looking very shaky, as strange activities on the Northern Front call into question the status of the Kurdish and Turkoman regions. Turkish troops in that area make the annexation of all or part of the region a looming possibility. This would touch off an internal war in the north, hindering integration of the nation.

Shi'a leaders in the South, noting the majority status of their population, are already demanding control of government, raising the possibility of a Shi'a dominated region in Southwest Asia. This region would reach from the Afghan border to Bahrain and Eastern Saudi Arabia and to the Mediterranean in Southern Lebanon. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the other Sunni states in the region are horrified at this prospect.

However, the greatest revision is yet to come. American troops have not found the weapons of mass destruction that were the ostensible reason for the war. Neither have the Iraqis yet employed chemical and biological weapons, which Washington predicted. The Bush administration will have to concoct some very serious spin if these materials are not discovered.

Now that the war has begun, it is unrealistic to expect that the United States will stop or pull back, barring disaster. However, Americans can pray for no further bad news. There is a fairly predictable relationship between public sacrifice and public support. If the war lasts longer than three weeks, and if loss of American life begins to exceed two to three thousand, Americans will begin to seriously question the viability of the conflict.

At that point, the Bush administration would be in very serious trouble. Let us hope that every optimistic prediction for the war is true. There would be nothing messier than being trapped in a quagmire, not able to go forward, and no longer able to backpedal out.

PNS contributor William O. Beeman ([email protected]) teaches anthropology and is director of Middle East Studies at Brown University. His forthcoming book is "Iraq: State in Search of a Nation."

"Quagmire"...boy, is this a word these boys jump on in press conferences. But it is possible, no matter how much they insist, over and over again "there is no question about the final result". Of course, it's difficult to see more than one thing when you are looking through a straw, or a gunsight.

If these guys have gotten it wrong regarding Iraqui citizen response (and that is certainly possible given that the push for this war from 1992 on evolved out of concerns other than helping Iraqui citizens realize their own wishes) then it could get very ugly indeed. Today's doonsebury... http://www.doonesbury.ucomics.com/strip/dailydose/index.htm

Yeah, but seriously, does anyone even CARE what Mr. Jane Pauly thinks?

Assuming of course, he DOES think....

Doonsberry is SO ten years ago.

Max...at the leading edge of matters intellectual again. You know another political cartoonist with greater distribution? With a Pulitzer? And 'ten' years ago...not nine, not eleven? And we're guessing you read him each day. And we're thinking that your assumption that the TV celebrity of his wife gives her some senior importance suggests you do more TV than book in your home, but we sort of knew that anyway.

I do a lot of "book" in my home, and in my home, we don't consider "cartoons" "book", obviously things are different in yours.

My condolences.

If it quacks like a duck .....


The Plan
Were Neo-Conservatives' 1998 Memos a Blueprint for Iraq War?
ABCNEWS.com

March 10 ?- Years before George W. Bush entered the White House, and years before the Sept. 11 attacks set the direction of his presidency, a group of influential neo-conservatives hatched a plan to get Saddam Hussein out of power.


• Nightline, 3/5/03
COMMUNITY
• Should the U.S. Attack Iraq?


The group, the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, was founded in 1997. Among its supporters were three Republican former officials who were sitting out the Democratic presidency of Bill Clinton: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.

In open letters to Clinton and GOP congressional leaders the next year, the group called for "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power" and a shift toward a more assertive U.S. policy in the Middle East, including the use of force if necessary to unseat Saddam.

And in a report just before the 2000 election that would bring Bush to power, the group predicted that the shift would come about slowly, unless there were "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor."

That event came on Sept. 11, 2001. By that time, Cheney was vice president, Rumsfeld was secretary of defense, and Wolfowitz his deputy at the Pentagon.

The next morning ?- before it was even clear who was behind the attacks ?- Rumsfeld insisted at a Cabinet meeting that Saddam's Iraq should be "a principal target of the first round of terrorism," according to Bob Woodward's book Bush At War.

What started as a theory in 1997 was now on its way to becoming official U.S. foreign policy.

Links to Bush Administration

Some critics of the Bush administration's foreign policy, especially in Europe, have portrayed PNAC as, in the words of Scotland's Sunday Herald, "a secret blueprint for U.S. global domination."

The group was never secret about its aims. In its 1998 open letter to Clinton, the group openly advocated unilateral U.S. action against Iraq because "we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition" to enforce the inspections regime.

"The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power," they wrote, foreshadowing the debate currently under way in the United Nations.

Of the 18 people who signed the letter, 10 are now in the Bush administration. As well as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, they include Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; John Bolton, who is undersecretary of state for disarmament; and Zalmay Khalilzad, the White House liaison to the Iraqi opposition. Other signatories include William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine, and Richard Perle, chairman of the advisory Defense Science Board.

According to Kristol, the group's thinking stemmed from the principles of Ronald Reagan: "A strong America. A morally grounded foreign policy ... that defended American security and American interests. And understanding that American leadership was key to not only world stability, but any hope for spreading democracy and freedom around the world."

Pushing for a More Assertive Foreign Policy

After the 1991 Gulf War ended with Saddam still in position as a potential threat, Kristol told Nightline, he and the others had a sense that "lots of terrible things were really being loosed upon the world because America was being too timid, and too weak, and too unassertive in the post-Cold War era." In reports, speeches, papers and books, they pushed for an aggressive foreign policy to defend U.S. interests around the globe.

Clinton did order airstrikes against Iraq in 1998, but through the rest of his presidency and the beginning of Bush's, America's "containment" policy for Saddam lay dormant ?- until September 2001.

"Before 9/11, this group ... could not win over the president to this extravagant image of what foreign policy required," said Ian Lustick, a Middle East expert at the University of Pennsylvania. "After 9/11, it was able to benefit from the gigantic eruption of political capital, combined with the supply of military preponderance in the hands of the president. And this small group, therefore, was able to gain direct contact and even control, now, of the White House."

Like other critics, Lustick paints PNAC in conspiratorial tones: "This group, what I call the tom-tom beaters, have set an agenda and have made the president feel that he has to live up to their definitions of manliness, their definitions of success and fear, their definitions of failure."

Kristol dismisses the allegations of conspiracy, but said the group redoubled its efforts after 9/11 to get its message out. "We made it very public that we thought that one consequence the president should draw from 9/11 is that it was unacceptable to sit back and let either terrorist groups or dictators developing weapons of mass destruction strike first, at us," he said.

Predicting Vindication

Now that American bombs could soon be falling on Iraq, Kristol admits to feeling "some sense of responsibility" for pushing for a war that will cost human lives. But, he said, he would also feel responsible if "something terrible" happened because of U.S. inaction.

Kristol expressed regret that so many of America's traditional allies oppose military action against Iraq, but said the United States has no choice. "I think what we've learned over the last 10 years is that America has to lead. Other countries won't act. They will follow us, but they won't do it on their own," he said.

Kristol believes the United States will be "vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass destruction and when we liberate the people of Iraq." He predicts that many of the allies who have been reluctant to join the war effort would participate in efforts to rebuild and democratize Iraq.

This report originally aired on Nightline on March 5, 2003.

This artical is far too lengthy to print here but please read it in it's entirety .....

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/10/ma_273_01.html

"Iraqis think Saddam is America's man," says a computer programmer from Basra named Saad, who now lives in Florida and asked that his last name not be revealed in order to protect family back home. "These people are not going to forget what has happened to them. In their eyes, it is genocide. And people do not forget genocide."


http://www.motherjones.com/magazine/ND01/iraq.html

Hope?

U.N. Security Council to Meet Over Iraq
Wed Mar 26, 2:53 AM ET
Add World - AP to My Yahoo!

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS - For the first time since the U.S.-led war against Iraq (news - web sites) began last week, the divided U.N. Security Council called an open meeting where any of the 191 U.N. member states can express their views on the military campaign to oust Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).


Arab and non-aligned nations demanding an end to war in Iraq and the immediate withdrawal of the invasion force asked for Wednesday's council meeting, which is likely to continue on Thursday and attract at least 50 speakers.

It was not clear whether the 22-member Arab Group and the Non-Aligned Movement, which represents about 115 mainly developing countries, would introduce a resolution demanding a halt to the fighting and withdrawal of all foreign forces.

Council diplomats said the two organizations would wait to see whether they could get nine "yes" votes in the 15-member council, the minimum number for a resolution to be adopted. The United States and Britain would almost certainly veto the resolution, but would lose face by doing so.

"The veto itself is sometimes a kind of defeat," Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri said.

Council diplomats said the amount of support would depend on the wording in the resolution. Last week, the United States, Britain and Spain abandoned their resolution seeking an ultimatum for Saddam and U.N. authorization for a war against Iraq because of strong council opposition led by France, Russia, Germany and China. Those countries favored Iraq's peaceful disarmament through strengthened U.N. inspections.

Wednesday's meeting was called at the urging of Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo, Egypt. Kuwait didn't object, but was unhappy that the foreign ministers did not condemn Iraq for firing 12 missiles into civilian areas of Kuwait. Most of the missiles exceeded the 93-mile limit allowed under U.N. resolutions.

If a resolution is vetoed in the Security Council, the Arab Group was to seek an emergency meeting of the 191-member General Assembly. To get a special session, supporters have to present a petition signed by 97 nations.

No nation has veto power in the General Assembly, but its resolutions are not legally binding ?- unlike those in the Security Council. Nonetheless, General Assembly resolutions are viewed as reflecting global opinion.

I wonder if Gelisgesti has some sources which actually said that the campaign in Iraq would be easy and relatively painless. I have found no such sources.

Desert Strom took 43 days.

Today is the seventh day of the current campaign.

It may be that Gelisgesti doesnt know that the US campaign in 1991 was a campaign to liberate Kuwait--quite a different problem than the removal of the Saddam Regime by invading Baghdad.
It would appear that surrounding Baghdad after seven days of fighting would be a superb feat to all but the most pessimistic of viewers.

Gelisgesti quotes a source on MAr. 25th which indicates that the US forces may be in a "quagmire".

It may be instructive to refer to a quote from Secy. of Defense Rumsfeld from "Bush at War" by Rumsfeld.

quote
"At his November 27 briefing to the news media, Rumsfeld took the position that this outcome had been certain all along. "I think that what was taking place in the earlier phases was exactly as planned" The suggestions that things had not gone well initially were uniformed. "It looked like nothing was happening. Indeed. it looked like we were in a "and he asked the press to join in--"all together now, quagmire." Reporters chuckled softly."
end of quote

It may be that the prediction of "quagmire" is, to put it mildly, premature. When the current offensive( which is much different qualitiatively, than Desert Storm which, it must be remembered took 43 days and was of a much different nature than the present campaign-liberation of Kuwait vis a vis Liberation of Badhdad) reaches 43 days, then it may be acceptable to talk about "quagmires". Before then, usage of the word would appear to be a product of wishful thinking and Arab propaganda.

I am Cherokee, not Arab....... my people also were attacked and killed for our land and its resources. I'll bet you thought that was justified also.

The "quagmire" was before the war began, now it's "quicksand"!

Actually, I stopped reading the comics, when Berke Breathed stopped writing Bloom County. No more Opus...

As for Doonsbury, the novelty wore off, as we got older. Now his satire, seems that of predictable rhetoric. The guy just isn't funny, any longer. Time for fresh young minds, giving us satirical wit on todays events. Us old dogs, had our time, and it really is sad, that Trudeau is still trying to milk the laughs

Doonsbury, has definitly "Jumped the Shark."

exactly, ferrous.

The "Quagmire" of Viet Nam was largely the product of massive third-country material support for the North Vietnamese. Saddam can count on no similar massive, ongoing replensihment and support from any third party. Viet Nam was a proxy war between the US and The Soviet Union. Iraq is in no way an analogous situation, rhetoric to the contrary not withstanding.

Sounded in the reports last night as though the Arab countries are at least considering support for the Iraqi civilians. Reason: for the first time just about ever, the Saudi and other regimes find themselves in agreement with their people who are demanding intervention against the US.

Should have said "reports on the BBC World Service."

It is an invasion. Or maybe an attack. We are now no different from the Japanese who struck us at Pearl Harbor. This exercise of power is illegal, immoral, and not even in the interests of the United States in the short run. It will breed hostility and more terrorism. It will destroy our moral standing in the world community. It will not make us one iota safer.

Agree, Larry. I just think our moral standing has already had it.