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CounterPunch
April 1,
2003
Operation Embedded
Folly
Welcome to a Vicious
Cycle of Violence
By TARIF ABBOUSHI
Two weeks and 8,000 missiles into the war on Iraq,
things have not gone quite as planned. The much-ballyhooed 'shock
and awe' strategy has failed to precipitate the quick capitulation
of stunned Iraqi forces or an internal overthrow of Saddam Hussein's
brutal dictatorship. Far from throwing in the towel in the first
round, Saddam's men have taken our laser-guided punches and satellite-homed
hooks and put up a fight. Not only have we yet to reach Baghdad
for the inevitable siege, we have struggled to take Basra, a
city a mere hour's drive north of the Kuwaiti border, and one
we were led to believe would welcome our troops with flurries
of petals and rice.
There is shock and awe aplenty, but not
as was scripted. Set against the backdrop of our heralded ability
to minimize 'collateral damage' with the awesome precision of
our technology-laden arsenal, the waywardness marking some of
the missiles fired by our navy from ships in the Mediterranean
and Red Seas is notably shocking. U.S. Central Command has reported
that some not only failed to hit their targets in Iraq, they
completely missed the country! (They landed instead in Turkey
and Saudi Arabia.) Needless to say, CentCom has cancelled missile
launches from MedRed.
Equally shocking are our intelligence
failures. In mid-March, before the order to attack, our top military
commander in the Middle East confidently declared that we were
ready, that we had enough troops in position to prosecute the
war and complete the mission. On the tenth day we scrambled an
additional 100,000 soldiers to bolster the 250,000 already engaged
in the Iraq 'theater'. And just hours before the first bombs
fell on March 19th, special operations teams were deployed to
what U.S. Central Command considered the four highest-priority
locations inside Iraq. By now they were to have uncovered stockpiles
of weapons of mass destruction. They have found none, an outcome
that leaves inspectors of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification
and Inspection Commission--Hans Blix's UNMOVIC--unmoved. The
CIA advised that if Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction,
the sure way to have him use them is to attack Iraq. That probably
still holds true, but so far Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
have been conspicuous by their absence.
Then, on Saturday, March 30th, there
was the most significant shock of all, a grim, forbidding milestone,
and a harbinger of hell to come. Four of our finest were manning
a Najaf roadblock. A solitary Iraqi in a car, an explosion, five
men dead. The war's first suicide bombing--guaranteed to be the
first of many--will no doubt be seen as an awesome precedent
by the conscripts sure to swell the ranks of Iraq's faceless
martyrdom brigades.
Our rules of war are based on overwhelming
superiority of the force at our disposal compared to that of
the enemy. Israel's experience in Lebanon and the Palestinian
territories tells that overwhelming force cannot quell fiery
nationalism. And history tells that Iraqi nationalism is as fierce
as any. The cost of ignoring that will only mount with time.
We will turn to the Israeli military, the world's most experienced
in combating suicide bombers, and adopt their methods. We'll
claim our right to defend ourselves against the retaliation of
those we attack. Our presence on their land is what they detest,
yet we will see their killing of our soldiers as proof they are
the terrorists our presence is needed to wipe out. We'll force
cars to stop at a safe distance and make their occupants approach
on foot. Then an Iraqi patriot will shuffle up to marines at
a roadblock and detonate a concealed explosives belt strapped
to his waist. Our counter-terrorism experts will advise that
we force Iraqis civilians to strip to their waists before they
approach our men.
The effect, as Israel knows all too well,
will be to alienate the indigenous population. Our actions will
ratchet up their resentment and intensify their loathing of the
foreign military power controlling their lives. The number of
Iraqis ready to die to kill anyone sporting a Star-Spangled Banner
or a Union Jack will mushroom.
We can win the war, but the peace will
enervate us. Welcome, America, to a vicious cycle of violence
like that Israel is mired in. In time our nation will yearn to
be free from Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Tarif Abboushi lives
in Houston, Texas. He can be reached at: tabboushi@aol.com
Yesterday's
Features
David
Lindorff
Liberating Iraqis from Their Homes
Neve Gordon
A Different Kind of Despair
John
Chuckman
Absurdities and Contradictions
Ron Jacobs
Bernie Sanders Voting Maybe on
War
Wayne
Madsen
The Siege of Washington
Mark Franchetti
Slaughter at the Bridge of Death
Robert
Fisk
Blood and Bandages of the Innocent
Robin Cook
Send Our Soldiers Home
Anthony
Gancarski
Investigate Perle
Uri Avnery
The Devil's Dictionary
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 03/31
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