"Commit" To This, Chickenhawk!

This appeared in the editorial section of yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer (please note that I end up using a bad word further down in this post - couldn't find a better one)...

Serious or not on Iraq war?

That's the choice, not run vs. stay. And if we are, we need a national debate on sacrifices required.

By James Russell

The midterm elections were only the latest occasion for Americans to listen to shop-worn variants of the "cut and run" or "stay the course" sound bites describing our choices in Iraq. All such characterizations are wrong. The real choice facing us is to decide how seriously we take the war.

Now before I say anything about this trite, pathetic screed, let me provide this link to a bio on the author from the Naval Postgraduate School of Monterrey, California; the site features scenic vistas of that state’s glorious coastline and lots of images of classroom instructors and students impeccably dressed and listening attentively in almost antiseptically clean classrooms.

As I reviewed James Russell’s bio, I found that a record of military service was noticeably absent. And given that, I’d like to make the request here and now that any propagandistic garbage such as this henceforth should at least be written by someone who has actually served or it shouldn’t be published anywhere.

And by the way, Mr. Russell, who is this “we” and “us” that you’re talking about, the ones who supposedly aren’t taking this war “seriously”? We are ALL affected by it, and MANY of us ARE TAKING IT SERIOUSLY, so much so that we ACTUALLY ELECTED A NEW CONGRESS A FEW WEEKS AGO AND TOLD THEM TO END THIS MESS!!

And, Dubya, tone deaf as always, continues to ignore us.

Most observers would rightly conclude that up until now the United States remains uncommitted to the fight.

That’s an incredibly insulting comment on our troops who are fighting, getting maimed and dying in that nightmare, you chickenhawk.

Less than 13 percent of our 1.4 million active-duty military are deployed in Iraq. Fewer than 15,000 of the 150,000 troops in Iraq today are actually engaged in combat operations.

Where exactly are you getting that number? The same bodily orifice used by Flush Limbore, perhaps? (please scroll down slightly for the 75 percent number...freeper alert site, by the way).

The insurgents and the death-squad militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan have figured this out. While not 10-feet tall, this loose collection of groups is resilient, adaptive and tenacious, and the insurgents are fighting on their home turf. How else is it that a series of street thugs and gangs armed with AK-47s, RPGs and cell phones are pushing around the world's preeminent global power?

How else? Maybe they’re doing it because we didn’t send enough people over to do the job in the first place because Don (“The Defense Secretary You Have”) Rumsfeld decided that he knew more than the generals. Maybe because we didn’t have a plan to help the people who we did send over. Maybe because Shi’ites, Sunnis and al Qaeda all figured out long before we did that our troops could get stuck in such a mess of almost unspeakable stupidity to the point where their presence would be both loathed and begged for at the same time. Maybe because we’re fighting a war in a place where it never should have been fought to begin with.

The surrounding states have also figured this out and are hedging their bets against what looks like the inevitable attempt to craft politically acceptable circumstances that will give us "peace with honor" and the withdrawal of American forces.

If we’re lucky, though it sounds like Dubya is pretty much begging Iran and Syria for help at this point, though it won’t be reported as such in our corporate media, of course, spun instead as Bush showing something like statesmanlike leadership or some such lie.

Our adversaries and our erstwhile allies see a nation that refuses to place itself on a "war" footing. They see a nation of people who spend most of their time in movie theaters and at shopping malls. Our enemies are right to conclude that they are more committed to the fight than us.

And whose fault is that? Is it somehow supposed to be OURS?

I’ll tell you what, Mr. Russell; read this to learn more about the corporations who are getting rich off blood money in this mess from the price paid by our troops; it sounds like they’re “committed to the fight” as long as they can make a buck from it. I’ll communicate these highlights (lowlights?) to you:

- CACI and Titan's role at Abu Ghraib led the Center for Constitutional Rights to pursue companies and their employees in U.S. courts.

"We believe that CACI and Titan engaged in a conspiracy to torture and abuse detainees, and did so to make more money," says Susan Burke, an attorney hired by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), whose lawsuit against the companies is proceeding into discovery before the Federal Court for the District of Columbia.

The private suits seem to have already had some effect: In September 2005 CACI announced that it would no longer do interrogation work in Iraq.

- In July, (Bechtel’s) reputation for getting things done unexpectedly plummeted like a 12-ton slab of concrete when Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), released an audit of the Basra Children's Hospital Project, which was $70 million to $90 million over budget, and a year and half behind schedule. Bechtel's contract to coordinate the project was immediately cancelled.

Now that the money is running out, American officials are beginning to blame Iraqis for mismanaging their own infrastructure. But as Bowen warns, contractors like Bechtel, the CPA and other contracting agencies will only have themselves to blame for failing to train Iraqi engineers to operate these facilities (esp. water, sewage and electricity) when they leave.

- The fraudulent use of outside contractors by Aegis Defense Services and Custer Battles is likewise documented.

- The stock of General Dynamics has doubled and the company’s profits have tripled since 2001. That by itself is not bad, but due to lax to nonexistent oversight, David K. Heebner, a former top aide to Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, was hired by General Dynamics a year before a contract was sealed to provide Stryker Light Armored Vehicles used in the Iraq war (Shinseki announced a new "vision" to transform the Army by moving away from tracked armored vehicles toward wheeled light-armored vehicles at around the same time that Heebner was hired in November of 1999 – I should point out though, to be fair, that I worked in DoD consulting for a time, and stuff like this is a common occurrence).

- Chevron and ExxonMobil are also mentioned in the article concerning profitability due to the war, and do I really need to point out anything else there?

And why should we stop at blaming our august captains of industry for their “commitment to the fight”? Let’s read the ThinkProgress information from this link about the architects of this horror that were once “committed to the fight” also, but are now “committed” to reaping whatever reward they can for their dark deeds.

Back to Russell...

If we want to rescue any favorable outcome in Iraq, the nation must decide whether or not to commit itself to the fight.

Why don’t you say the “D” word, Mr. Russell? Do you want to get roasted like Charlie Rangel, who is wrong but at least has a record of service?

Here’s a link to the great “Peace Takes Courage “ site, OK? Try viewing some of these heartbreaking presentations and then seriously try to stand up in front of some grieving families and friends and spout this “commit to the fight” bullshit!

This should be the starting point for the Baker Commission and the other groups examining courses of action in Iraq. Being at war and committing the nation to achieving its objectives in Iraq means shared sacrifice and service, and may mean - gasp - higher taxes.

It may mean also – gasp – repealing the Repugs’ insane, sickening, insulting tax cuts since the incoming Democratic congress will be left with the mind-numbing task of trying to fix the results of perhaps the worst fiscal congressional stewardship this country has ever seen.

It means getting serious about the nonsensical way our military is organized and funded, wrenching these hidebound bureaucracies away from their Cold War mentality. Perhaps most importantly, it means engaging the American people in a national debate about the real human and monetary costs that are entailed in rescuing success in Iraq.

How do you define “rescuing success in Iraq,” Mr. Russell? Do you have the guts to at least try to venture a guess on that?

The time for all of this, by the way, was prior to March of 2003. Lay the blame squarely where it belongs for the fact that that did not take place.

Iraq has become a "slow bleed," in which American blood, prestige and credibility are all slowly and inexorably being spilled in ever increasing quantities.

That is your first intelligent statement in this entire column.

Neither political party appears to know how to stop the hemorrhage. Neither party displays any interest in forming a unified front to address the slow-motion disaster.

That’s not true, of course. Different Democrats have offered different plans that will have to be hammered into a coherent strategy since the people of this country tasked them to do that when they elected them to power a few weeks ago (oh, I'm sorry; I forgot...you were trying to breathe new life into the "divided Democrats" narrative again - my bad). Dubya, of course, will ignore this recommendation as usual and do his best to leave Iraq as a mess that will have to be cleaned up by someone else.

For all the talk of Iraq's flawed constitution, fractured government structures and ineffective president, perhaps it's the United States that doesn't realize the gravity of the situation and the crying need for a national unity government of its own.

With all of our issues of trying to get the Dems and Repugs to play nice, is Russell SERIOUSLY trying to compare our government to what passes for that in Iraq?

Iraq is a strategic problem that requires a strategic solution - a solution that blends mutually supportive steps on the domestic and international fronts to bring a truly coordinated response to the crisis. Another series of missed ultimatums or deadlines foisted on a hapless Iraqi government won't cut it.

And again, this is a lesson Bushco has learned far too late.

As a first step, it's time for us to acknowledge that the American center of gravity in Iraq lies not in Baghdad or in Anbar province, but here in the United States. If our political leaders would prefer to continue having foreign debtors finance the war rather than ask the American people to open their wallets, maybe we have no business remaining in Iraq. This has been the default approach of both political parties, and it's just plain wrong.

I sense that Russell is slowly – very slowly – coming to the realization that the Iraq war has been a totally misbegotten enterprise from its foul origins. And as far as “opening our wallets,” that is a sick joke given the corporate thievery and cronyism that has taken place since the war began that I mentioned earlier (and if Russell wants his argument to be taken seriously, the least he can do is support the commission into contractor fraud supported by Rep. Louise Slaughter that, God willing, may now become a reality).

The situation cries out for elected officials to do what they were elected to do: lead. Honestly explaining the real costs and the stakes for the United States in Iraq is a good place to start. And the results of the midterm elections provide an opportunity to forge a national consensus.

And by the way, don’t you just love the way that Repug sympathizers like Russell manage to give their favored political party a total pass here? “Now is the time to forge a national consensus,” and we must “hold our leaders accountable.” How about holding accountable the political party under whose alleged stewardship this horror has transpired?

Could anyone argue with a partnership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Harry Reid and President Bush that formed an effective unity government to bring all instruments of national power to bear on Iraq? Does anyone believe that Mideast states would remain on the sidelines hedging their bets if they were confronted by a U.S. government they knew was finally serious about solving the Iraq problem?

I don’t know what that first sentence means exactly, but the answer to the second sentence for me is yes; they would stand on the sidelines if it weren’t for the fact that they realized the danger of Iraq’s civil war spreading throughout the region long before we did.

And by the way, a traffic ticket is a “problem.” A hangnail or a doctor’s appointment canceled at the last minute perhaps requiring child care coverage necessitating missing a day from work is a “problem.” The Iraq War is a full-blown, epochal military, humanitarian and ecological disaster of proportions that I, for one, have not seen in my lifetime and hope never to see again.

The current "slow bleed" is the worst possible place to be - a place that will inevitably lead to our ignominious retreat. It's time for our leadership to take this issue to the people and collectively decide how serious we really are about the war. Once we address that issue, we can decide whether to make the necessary commitments of national resources that can make "success" more than just a sound bite.

I actually agree with some of that; it is “the worst possible place to be.” And that’s why we need to start getting the hell out.

Now!