Epitome of bad politics
Wolf Blitzer on CNN tonight rambled on about the obvious–the US military disaster in Iraq is the dominant issue in the 2006 mid-term Congressional campaign. This is as it should be. President Bush has led us into a brutal occupation of a weak, battered Middle Eastern country, in the process causing hundreds of thousands of deaths including those of nearly 3000 US military personnel. The Bush Iraq project is an ongoing travesty of death with no end in sight because Bush and his pigheaded administration can’t afford to admit the truth about the disaster, and they refuse to even think about backing away from their neocolonial ambitions.
So, the public doesn’t like what is happening in Iraq and may turn one or both houses of Congress over to the Democrats as a result. But it’ll be a lot closer than it ought to be, probably a nail biter 24 hours from now.
How could the Congressional election be this close given the total mendacity of the Republicans? Even the 2002 war-drum-beating New York Times now explains,
Congress, in particular the House, has failed to ask probing questions about the war in Iraq or hold the president accountable for his catastrophic bungling of the occupation. It also has allowed Mr. Bush to avoid answering any questions about whether his administration cooked the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. Then, it quietly agreed to close down the one agency that has been riding herd on crooked and inept American contractors who have botched everything from construction work to the security of weapons.
After the revelations about the abuse, torture and illegal detentions in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Congress shielded the Pentagon from any responsibility for the atrocities its policies allowed to happen….
The answer to the question of why the Republicans are not being swept into oblivion rests on the notion that most Democrats and a large swath of the public at large still seem to think waging aggressive war is a legitimate policy. Mass destruction of civilians and infrastructure hardly registers with Americans who exhibit aggressively pro-war attitudes.
Disenchantment with the war is based to a greater degree on the appearance that America has “botched” a rightful ass kicking of some sort of semi-mythic terrorist force now centered in Iraq than on the horror of endless killing. President Bush has been remarkably successful in implanting erroneous conceptions of what is happening in Iraq than many of us in the peace movement wish to believe. People may not like how things are going with the war and may blame the president. But most Americans accept the president’s description of what the war is. Any discussion of the true picture–that the US has taken and dominated Iraq politically while appropriating control of its economy and resources in a manner that amounts to all-out war against the entire Iraqi population–is entirely off the table.
Home-grown Iraqi resistance has been the deadly wrench dropped into the American war machine. Despite the obvious resulting quagmire, the Republican campaign has been designed to make themselves look like the ones who can lead the homeland to victory over terrorists now emanating from Iraq. The Democrats are accused of surrender for even hinting at “redeployment.”
To accomplish this discourse control, a Rovian dose of un-reality is peddled in Republican campaigns, painting an Iraq story to voters heavy on jingoism and neocolonial conceits.
President Bush hammers away in unreality, painting a world where the last line of protection against hords of maurading terrorists is being held by the US military in Iraq, as he does in this campaign speech.
PRESIDENT BUSH: And Iraq is the central front in this war to protect you. Oh, I’ve heard them in Washington. I know you have, as well. They say, well, Iraq is just a distraction, Iraq is not a part of the war. Well, I don’t believe that, our troops don’t believe that, and Osama bin Laden doesn’t believe that. (Laughter.) He has called the fight in Iraq the third world war. He has said that victory for the terrorists in Iraq will mean America’s defeat and disgrace forever. We need to take his words seriously. It doesn’t matter what party you’re in, you need to listen to the enemy.
There’s people in Washington who believe that when we fight for Iraqi democracy, and when we fight to adhere to the policy, “defeat them there so we don’t have to face them here,” it creates terrorists. In other words, it makes the world more dangerous. But I want to remind you that the reason we’re at war with the terrorists is not because of Iraq. See, we weren’t in Iraq when they bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. We weren’t in Iraq when they bombed our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. We weren’t in Iraq when they bombed the USS Cole. And we were not in Iraq on the September the 11th, 2001, when they killed nearly 3,000 of our citizens. (Applause.)
Of course if we back one foot out of Iraq, Osama will be unleashed all over America, that’s so obvious To Mr. Bush. On the other hand, surely it cannot be imagined that the extreme civilian death caused by the US occupation is a possible terrorist inspiration. Oh, and history began on 9/11/2001.
In Mr. Bush’s favor, I will say that he is not entirely living in fantasy on this. Doesn’t he have a sophisticated geostrategic rationale for insisting that America must own and dominate the Middle East, its people, and its resources, for our protection?
PRESIDENT BUSH: The enemy has made it abundantly clear that they want us to retreat so they can have, one, safe haven from which to launch further attacks — safe havens similar to that safe haven they had in Afghanistan. Secondly, they want us to retreat so they can topple moderate governments. They want to be able to spread their ideology as far and wide as possible, and they understand our presence prevents them from doing so.
Thirdly, they would like to control energy resources. Imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals, bound together by a hateful ideology, was able to say to the West, to the United States, for example, if you do not abandon your alliances, if you do not withdraw, we will run the price of oil up to the point that chokes your economy. You can imagine somebody saying, abandon Israel, or we will bring you to you knees. Or, get out of our way, or we’ll bring you to your knees. And couple that with a country which doesn’t like us with a nuclear weapon, and people will look back at this period of time, and say, what happened to them in 2006? How come they couldn’t see the danger? What clouded their vision? Well, I want you to know I clearly see the danger. That is why we will fight in Iraq and win in Iraq. (Applause.)
Man, if you let them have their own oil, the next thing that will happen is they’ll rip a page out of an old Soviet playbook and they’ll be running the world through nuclear blackmail! I take back the notion that this is some sort of likely geostrategic reality. It is neocolonial conceit of the worst kind, bordering on racism.
Most Americans know few of the details of what the war has brought. What’s behind those high pole numbers on war disapproval then? I’m now convinced it’s a mistake to read those numbers as a concensus for peace. The American public–in abstration–is as bloodthirsty as ever. That cuts across red states, blue states, liberal and conservative. No, the way I read much of the disapproval is that a lot of Americans want a better war. It’s about a perception that we are not kicking their butts. This is revealed when there is a spasm of gleeful reaction to extrajudicial assassination of Zarqawi and the death sentence–illegal under international law–put on Saddam. It is a relentless “we got him” mentality.
Despite some recent organizing success within the peace movement, we are mostly invisible and mostly ignored in Congress. I’m not hopeful that the American people can be educated and re-oriented. We’d really have to be losing for that to happen–real widespread pain of a kind very few of us yet have had over this war. I’m not trying to suggest 25,000 casualties (US deaths and injuries from the war) is anything but a major sacrifice for those who have had to suffer the losses while the administration fails to care. But, statistically it’s noise.
Will some kind of wave of conscience to come over us in order enable genuine political pressure. So far, the little waves that have happened, like Cindy Sheehan, have been Swiftboated away. In no small measure this is because of hostility from the Democratic and liberal side.
The neoliberal economic program is advancing capped by a “hydrocarbon law” that will ensure decades of concessions to the international oil companies. Total corruption under the occupation government will not be penalized. The entire Development Fund for Iraq vanished, maybe $20 billion. There does not appear to be an authority powerful enough to pursue justice on that one. Meanwhile, the FOXies still hype WMD and Oil-for-Food. It’s grotesque.
Our Mandarins in the White House have great taste for killing. They thought it could work for them in Iraq. They had a plan–raise Iraq’s puppet army, smash Ramadi as was done to Fallujah, punish mercilessly every area with concentrated support for resistance until they say uncle, then intimidate them so they cower in a broken society for the rest of their lives. That looked like the plan anyway, with very few contrary bleats from Democrats.
The Democrats may have a slightly better sense of reality, but they’re very limited. Last year, the Democratic establishment failed to support Congressman John Murtha’s withdrawl call immediately and forcefully. It is shameful that the eventual “timetable” Senator John Kerry came up last summer with could only find 13 Senate Ds.
If the Democrats take any control in Congress tomorrow, a big if, I will not hold my breath waiting for change.
