| June
19 , 2006
The Zoom Lens War
Bush's Baghdad Photo
Op
By MIKE
WHITNEY
George
Bush loves playing the war president. He loves strutting across
an aircraft carrier in a tight-fitting jump-suit or dropping in
on the new Iraqi Premier, al-Maliki for a few hours of chummy bravado.
He loves showing Papa-Bush that he can hang in there when things
get tough and that he won’t be pushed around by those niggling
nay-sayers in the Congress.
Unfortunately, things are quickly unraveling in Iraq and, by many
accounts, the war is already lost. Conservatives are jumping off
the bandwagon faster than liberals and Bush’s approval ratings
continue to plummet. Retired General William Odom summarized the
Iraq adventure best when he said, "It is the greatest strategic
disaster in US history."
Bush’s
photo-op in Baghdad only proves the wisdom of Odom’s judgment.
What looked like a triumphant visit by the Commander-in-Chief to
the heart of a war zone, was actually a desperate attempt to garner
support for a failed mission.
The
details of Bush’s Baghdad-junket are similar to his trip to
England last year, when he was surrounded by a phalanx of 3,500
fully-armed security guards who shadowed his every move from the
time he touched down until the final lift-off. All the while, a
squadron of Apache helicopters and F-16s kept circling overhead
to ensure the Dear Leader’s safety. Providing security in
Iraq has ben an equally daunting task.
Three
years after “Mission Accomplished", the U.S. still does
not control one inch of territory beyond the pock-marked parapets
and block walls of their Baghdad fortress. Even inside the Green
Zone, security is so stretched that Bush had to be spirited out
of the country just 5 hours after arrival. What does that tell the
world about the magnitude of America’s failure?
Bush
would never have risked driving through the battered landscape of
downtown Baghdad. Instead, he limited his movements to one small
dot on the map in an ocean of resistance; Bush’s citadel of
"democracy".
"My
message to the Iraqis is this," Bush boomed. “We’re
going to help you succeed. My message to the enemy is: Don’t
count on us leaving before we succeed. My message to our troops
is: We support you 100%. Keep doing what you’re doing. And
my message to the critics is: We listen very carefully and adjust,
and adjust when we need to adjust."
What
gibberish. Bush’s promises are absurd given the enormity of
the catastrophe he has created. By every objective standard, things
were better under Saddam.
The
media gobbled up Bush’s photo-op with their customary zeal.
The visit was yet another successful Rove-coup that probably nudged
Bush’s approval ratings upward, but achieved nothing substantive.
The pictures of smiley-faced politicians glad-handing and chest-thumping
appeared on the front pages of every newspaper in the country. They
added to the festive atmosphere that began with the killing of terrorist-mastermind
Abu al Zarqawi. By all accounts, it was a good week for the Team
Bush.
But
the war won’t be won by the White House public relations team
and people are increasingly suspicious of Bush’s diversionary
publicity stunts like his unannounced trip to Baghdad. The long
litany of war crimes is finally wearing away at the fragile American
psyche.
Haditha,
Falluja, Abu Ghraib; these are the names that will forever identified
with Iraq and engraved in the public’s consciousness. Their
scars are bound to be felt long after the war is over. Brand Bush
is now irreversibly linked to criminal renditions, abusive treatment
of prisoners, and massive slaughter. Nothing Rove does will remove
the stain of those atrocities from America’s reputation.
American
elites are steadily abandoning their support for the war. Madeleine
Albright, Brent Scowcroft, William F Buckley, Richard Holbrook are
just some of the heavy-hitters who now see the futility of pursuing
the present policy. President Jimmie Carter’s national security
advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski has been particularly outspoken in
his criticism of the war and the failure to provide even minimal
security for the Iraqi people.
In
an interview last week on the Jim Lehrer News Hour Brzezinski said
that the invasion "was not worth it" and that it was a
"major misadventure".
"This
is worse than the bad days of Vietnam… We do not have a free
and democratic government that is functioning… The authority
we have installed is besieged and relatively helpless, and a civil
war is beginning to mushroom, under the occupation which is unable
to crush the insurgency, because it is a foreign occupation….We
no longer live in an age of colonialism. We no longer have to assume
the 'white man’s burden’ in order to 'civilize’
others."
Brzezinski
finished the interview by offering a 4-step strategy for withdrawing
from Iraq; something that the Democratic leadership should consider
immediately.
1.
Talk to the leadership about when to leave.
2.
Set a date for withdrawal.
3.
Let the government convene a conference of all Iraq’s Muslim
neighbors about stabilizing Iraq and helping it to stabilize.
4
"Convene a donor’s conference of interested countries
in Europe and the Far East who benefit from Iraqi oil on helping
to rehabilitate Iraq. This would allow us to leave and still say
that we basically achieved what we wanted—the removal of
Saddam—though not providing a secular, stable, united Iraq
under a perfect democracy."
Brzezinski
poses realistic solutions for a situation that will progressively
deteriorate into anarchy. His analysis cannot be easily dismissed.
He is respected among his peers as a hard-edged Machiavellian strategist
who is not given to flights of fancy. If he says the war is over,
it is not because of some heartfelt connection with the Iraqi people,
but because it is "unwinnable" and damaging to America’s
long-term interests.
In
an earlier interview, Brzezinski articulated his belief that the
war has been a "moral setback" for America overshadowing
our other activities in the world. He added that if we were unwilling
to commit 500,000 troops and $200 billion a year, for an unspecified
amount of time then victory would probably be unachievable.
He
said, "There comes a point in the life of a nation when such
sacrifices are not justified…and only time will tell if the
United States is facing a moment of wisdom, or is resigned to cultural
decay".
Brzezinski
is right; America is at a crossroads. The moral squalor of our political
system has never been more evident, nor the conduct of our leaders
more vile. It’s no longer a matter of simply extracting ourselves
from Iraq. Now, we’re fighting to pull what’s left of
our country out of the ash heap.
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