Stoopid Stuff

First Move all the Goalposts

Once again, the Bush Administration and the War Party won the game while the Democrats were still arguing about the rules. Petraeus and Crocker came in lying, loud and strong, reaching conclusions about minutiae without ever revealing either the source of their data nor the methodology used to derive the figures. Never mind that no organization has been able to reproduce their results. Never mind that the information we DO have about how they determined what was a sectarian killing and what was a simple murder is entirely artificial. Never mind that they have served as partisan political propagandists from the very beginning, primarily because Bush and Cheney have lied about Iraq so often and so blatantly that their credibility with the American people is effectively zero.

Even if we credulously accept every single conclusion provided by the General and the Ambassador, it still doesn't alter the fact that, as originally proposed, the Surge has been an utter failure. So how can they sit before the Civilian leadership and claim that black is white? Simple. They utilized two longstanding approaches to propagandistic dissembling. First, they recognized that the original premise, that increased US forces would suppress the civil war violence in order to provide the Iraqi government under Nouri al Maliki with the "breathing space" necessary for political reconciliation, had been a pipe dream, and of course, even if provided with the breathing space, the Maliki government had no intention of reconciling with the Sunnis, nor did they have any intention of ceding any more control than absolutely necessary to the Kurds in the North. So General Petraeus simply focused on minutiae. In order to avoid being confronted with the overall failure of the strategy, he focused on a number of dubious tactical successes, effectively turning the argument from "did the surge accomplish it's goals?" to "what did the surge accomplish?" These are quite obviously not the same questions.

Of course, they knew that ultimately it would be pointed out that the general had no clothes, and that in spite of any small tactical military success or reduction in violence, if the political conditions didn't change, the overall situation would continue to deteriorate. So they went to that other noted solution for declaring victory in the face of overwhelming defeat - they simply moved the goalposts. You see, they explained, the surge has begun to have a positive effect on the political and sectarian violence, and, as those gains are fragile, must be sustained in order to - ready for this? - provide the Iraqi leadership with the "breathing space" they need to engender political reconciliation.

It can no longer be debated. The illegal American occupation of Iraq will continue for the foreseeable future. At the very least, there will be over 100,000 troops in Iraq when President Bush leaves office in January 2009. I have profound doubts that the new American President will truly withdraw all American troops from their permanent bases on the oil fields.

Let's face it. The reason there does not appear to be a goal for the US in Iraq is simply that the goal has been achieved all along. The goal was always simply to install a permanent American military presence on the Persian Gulf oil fields in order to intimidate the oil producers, so as to make certain that America receives what it defines as it's share of the oil production, and enforce any American dictates about how that oil is distributed. As long as American soldiers are in Iraq in reasonably large numbers, the Bush/Cheney cabal and the war party will have exactly what they want. And if the casualties stay in the range of 1000-1500 KIA per year, and their propaganda machine can keep pumping out feel-good stories to obscure the loss and waste, then they will have everything they wanted.

As a final note, it is ironic that the very greed and hubris that has allowed them to be so completely successful to this point will be their ultimate undoing. If they follow through, as it appears they will, and instigate hostilities with Iran before the end of the Bush term, the spasm of violence, bloodshed and economic instability that creates will FORCE the withdrawal of American forces, not just from Iraq, but from the region in it's entirety. Sort of like the claims that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ultimately saved lives, both American and Japanese, perhaps this final paroxysm of bloodletting will ultimately lead to the cessation of large scale hostilities throughout the middle east.

Certainly it is likely to be another generation at least before America forgets the lessons she learned at such tragic cost and decides the simplest solution to a given geopolitical problem is warfare. And that would be a good thing...

posted by mikey @ 11:09 AM