thedrifter
01-12-04, 05:07 AM
01-08-2004
Accountability for Dubya’s War
By Jim Revels
As the nation enters the 2004 presidential election season, Dubya’s War will surely spawn debate and argument. What will probably not be debated is the issue of accountability.
Using spin doctors and skillful political pundits, the Bush administration has staked out the moral high ground to justify its doctrine of “regime change” in Iraq. Anyone who opposes this doctrine is deemed “unpatriotic.”
The American people have been misled to believe Iraq posed a future threat to our national security. Accordingly, Dubya said the United States was morally justified to expel Saddam and his gang of evil-doers.
History reveals that other presidents improperly used the moral justification to legitimize imperialism. William McKinley justified his war with Spain by claiming the moral high ground, spawned by Spain’s brutal treatment of its colonies. A phantom terrorist act – the explosion that sank the battleship USS Maine in Havana harbor, later determined to be a coal-bunker fire – was also used to justify the Spanish-American War.
Sound familiar? Spain never posed a threat to U.S. national security either.
Writing in The New York Times on Sept. 14, 2002, liberal columnist Paul Krugman noted, “Almost without exception, the cost of acquiring and defending a colonial empire greatly exceeded even a generous accounting of its benefits. These days, pundits tell us that a war with Iraq will drive down oil prices, and maybe even yield a financial windfall.” Nothing could be further from the truth. “The United States cannot defray the costs of war out of oil revenues,” Krugman continued, “not unless we are willing to confirm to the world that we’re just old-fashioned imperialists, after all.”
During the saber-rattling phase of the buildup to the march to Baghdad, our fighting forces were told they would be greeted as liberators, but soon after capturing Baghdad, our forces became to many Iraqis, hated occupiers. Now, no one wants to admit the truth about the invasion, and why it was launched.
Michael Ignatieff, writing in The New York Times Magazine on Sept. 7, said, “The Muslim fighters rushing to join remnants of Saddam Hussein’s loyalists in a guerrilla war to reclaim Iraq have understood all along what the war has been about, that is was never simply a matter of preventing the use of weapons of mass destruction; rather, it was about consolidating American power in the Arab world.” Now, Iraq has become for America what Afghanistan was for the Soviet Union, a never-ending struggle to break the resistance of Islamic extremists.
Author Jessica Stern, addressing the aftermath of the war in Iraq, wrote in The New York Times, “America has created, not through malevolence but through negligence, precisely the situation the Bush administration has described as a breeding ground for terrorists: a state unable to control its borders or provide for its citizens’ rudimentary needs.” The real tragedy emerging from the flawed decision to invade Iraq is not the thousands of military lives and families destroyed, but the increase in The nation’s vulnerability, she added. “The occupation has given disparate groups from various countries a common battlefield on which to fight a common enemy,” Stern concluded.
Bush’s political opponents cite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and the ongoing Iraqi resistance as evidence that the war was nothing more than a skillful political diversion. As Krugman argues, it was a “diversion from the real issues of dysfunctional security agencies, a sinking economy, a devastated budget and a tattered relationship with our allies.”
Unable to obtain needed financial and military support from our most powerful allies, the Bush administration has been forced to spend billions of dollars of U.S. tax revenues and the lives of armed forces personnel to sustain the Iraqi occupation. While generals and privates alike voice pride and confidence in their ability to restore order and security in Iraq, Few political and military experts share such confidence in the future of democracy there.
An American military presence in Iraq will be required for years to achieve the desired level of security and stability. Maintaining a large military presence, in a region that applauds the demise of Saddam but despises our presence, is very costly and unwise.
So far, nearly 4,000 United States warriors have been killed or wounded by hostile fire in Iraq. Because the occupation is expected to last for years, the cost of Dubya’s War is exceeding expectations and promises.
The question that should dominate the coming presidential campaign is, what is the truth about Iraq?
Another important question that warrants debate is, what should the Untied States do now, that we find ourselves in the snake pit that is Iraq today? First, drain the pit, then re-double our efforts to put a multi-national face on the rebuilding and peacekeeping efforts. Otherwise, al Qaeda will continue to successfully argue that our presence in Iraq is all about oil.
Likewise, we have no choice but to turn over more of the security responsibility to Iraqis. By no means should we cut and run just because the mission has become more difficult than expected.
The Bush administration is obliged to account for all its actions and decisions that have placed five combat divisions, plus their support units – about 135,000 warriors – in harm’s way in Iraq. Those asked to make the supreme sacrifice, to support political decisions, deserve nothing but the whole truth. As Col. David Hackworth recently wrote in DefenseWatch, “Only then will their sacrifices not have been in vain, and only then can we all move on with the enlightenment we need to protect and preserve our precious country’s future.”
“The pursuit of truth,” Clarence Darrow wrote, “shall set you free, even if you never catch up with it.” Let the pursuit begin today.
Contributing Editor Jim Revels is a retired U.S. Army colonel. He can be reached at jwscezer@mailstation.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=323&rnd=850.7722601054024
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
Accountability for Dubya’s War
By Jim Revels
As the nation enters the 2004 presidential election season, Dubya’s War will surely spawn debate and argument. What will probably not be debated is the issue of accountability.
Using spin doctors and skillful political pundits, the Bush administration has staked out the moral high ground to justify its doctrine of “regime change” in Iraq. Anyone who opposes this doctrine is deemed “unpatriotic.”
The American people have been misled to believe Iraq posed a future threat to our national security. Accordingly, Dubya said the United States was morally justified to expel Saddam and his gang of evil-doers.
History reveals that other presidents improperly used the moral justification to legitimize imperialism. William McKinley justified his war with Spain by claiming the moral high ground, spawned by Spain’s brutal treatment of its colonies. A phantom terrorist act – the explosion that sank the battleship USS Maine in Havana harbor, later determined to be a coal-bunker fire – was also used to justify the Spanish-American War.
Sound familiar? Spain never posed a threat to U.S. national security either.
Writing in The New York Times on Sept. 14, 2002, liberal columnist Paul Krugman noted, “Almost without exception, the cost of acquiring and defending a colonial empire greatly exceeded even a generous accounting of its benefits. These days, pundits tell us that a war with Iraq will drive down oil prices, and maybe even yield a financial windfall.” Nothing could be further from the truth. “The United States cannot defray the costs of war out of oil revenues,” Krugman continued, “not unless we are willing to confirm to the world that we’re just old-fashioned imperialists, after all.”
During the saber-rattling phase of the buildup to the march to Baghdad, our fighting forces were told they would be greeted as liberators, but soon after capturing Baghdad, our forces became to many Iraqis, hated occupiers. Now, no one wants to admit the truth about the invasion, and why it was launched.
Michael Ignatieff, writing in The New York Times Magazine on Sept. 7, said, “The Muslim fighters rushing to join remnants of Saddam Hussein’s loyalists in a guerrilla war to reclaim Iraq have understood all along what the war has been about, that is was never simply a matter of preventing the use of weapons of mass destruction; rather, it was about consolidating American power in the Arab world.” Now, Iraq has become for America what Afghanistan was for the Soviet Union, a never-ending struggle to break the resistance of Islamic extremists.
Author Jessica Stern, addressing the aftermath of the war in Iraq, wrote in The New York Times, “America has created, not through malevolence but through negligence, precisely the situation the Bush administration has described as a breeding ground for terrorists: a state unable to control its borders or provide for its citizens’ rudimentary needs.” The real tragedy emerging from the flawed decision to invade Iraq is not the thousands of military lives and families destroyed, but the increase in The nation’s vulnerability, she added. “The occupation has given disparate groups from various countries a common battlefield on which to fight a common enemy,” Stern concluded.
Bush’s political opponents cite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and the ongoing Iraqi resistance as evidence that the war was nothing more than a skillful political diversion. As Krugman argues, it was a “diversion from the real issues of dysfunctional security agencies, a sinking economy, a devastated budget and a tattered relationship with our allies.”
Unable to obtain needed financial and military support from our most powerful allies, the Bush administration has been forced to spend billions of dollars of U.S. tax revenues and the lives of armed forces personnel to sustain the Iraqi occupation. While generals and privates alike voice pride and confidence in their ability to restore order and security in Iraq, Few political and military experts share such confidence in the future of democracy there.
An American military presence in Iraq will be required for years to achieve the desired level of security and stability. Maintaining a large military presence, in a region that applauds the demise of Saddam but despises our presence, is very costly and unwise.
So far, nearly 4,000 United States warriors have been killed or wounded by hostile fire in Iraq. Because the occupation is expected to last for years, the cost of Dubya’s War is exceeding expectations and promises.
The question that should dominate the coming presidential campaign is, what is the truth about Iraq?
Another important question that warrants debate is, what should the Untied States do now, that we find ourselves in the snake pit that is Iraq today? First, drain the pit, then re-double our efforts to put a multi-national face on the rebuilding and peacekeeping efforts. Otherwise, al Qaeda will continue to successfully argue that our presence in Iraq is all about oil.
Likewise, we have no choice but to turn over more of the security responsibility to Iraqis. By no means should we cut and run just because the mission has become more difficult than expected.
The Bush administration is obliged to account for all its actions and decisions that have placed five combat divisions, plus their support units – about 135,000 warriors – in harm’s way in Iraq. Those asked to make the supreme sacrifice, to support political decisions, deserve nothing but the whole truth. As Col. David Hackworth recently wrote in DefenseWatch, “Only then will their sacrifices not have been in vain, and only then can we all move on with the enlightenment we need to protect and preserve our precious country’s future.”
“The pursuit of truth,” Clarence Darrow wrote, “shall set you free, even if you never catch up with it.” Let the pursuit begin today.
Contributing Editor Jim Revels is a retired U.S. Army colonel. He can be reached at jwscezer@mailstation.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=323&rnd=850.7722601054024
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: