The Stab In The Back
The stinging Democratic vote to continue the funding of the War on Iraq without withdrawal is still pulsating throughout the Republic. Americans are dismayed. Some leading figures have given into the despair and feeling of helplessness manifested by the current situation and folded up their tents of opposition. The most notable, obviously, being the anti-war mother Cindy Sheehan. In all this, one has to ask, why? Why did the Democrats, in the end, decide to restructure the war-funding bill so as to refit it without a timetable for withdrawal and cast a majority vote for its approval? Why did the Democrats run counter to what the people wanted? Why did the Democrats not do what they were elected to do? Why did the Democrats decide to do what the Republicans were ejected out of their Congressional seats for continuing to do?
The Democrats were elected, and expected, to end the destructive machinery that is destroying the lives of Iraqis and Americans. They were elected and expected to erect a blockade to the current administration’s imperialist ambitions in the Middle East. They did not. Why? Why, in light of the American public’s opposition to the War on Iraq and tens of thousands of Iraqi protesters calling for the U.S. to leave their country?
The Government Of The Government
It must be understood that a good slice of U.S. economic policy is driven by, and devoted to, the need to prepare for, and engage in, war.
Not adequately planning to safeguard Iraqi cultural or economic institutions upon invasion postulated mayhem. Iraqi museums were subsequently looted and destroyed. U.S. officials “were warned repeatedly about possible damage to irreplaceable artifacts, either from bombs and missiles or from post-war instability after the removal of the Iraqi government, but they did nothing to prevent it.”
The disbanding of the Iraqi Army, “the Republican Guard and the Revolutionary Command Council, among others…,” unleashed a Hydra. This action, which put “an estimated 350,000 to 400,000 soldiers out of work, as well as an estimated 2,000 Information Ministry employees,” was supposed to be part “of a robust campaign to show the Iraqi people that the Saddam regime [was] gone and [would] never return.”
Not providing adequate forces permitted the burgeoning of a vibrant Iraqi nationalist-reactionary-insurgency. Iraqis soon rose up after the fall of Baghdad to resist the invading coalition of foreigners. “Before the war, several experts — including then Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki — warned the Bush Administration that [approximately] several hundred thousand troops would be needed to secure post-Saddam Iraq.”
Army planners said they needed an initial occupation force of 250,000, which would still be half the number that the historically proven formula called for. Had they been listened to, and a robust force moved in at the start to establish firm control of the country and disarm the militias of political factions, it is possible that a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces could have followed.Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2007. “
Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2007. “Pelosi Leads Democratic Opposition to Iraq Troop Surge.” NewsMax.com Wires.
Slow progress in training Iraqi security forces further exacerbated security issues. “Nearly a year and a half after Iraqi reconstruction efforts began” it was reported that “one of the administration’s highest priorities — training Iraqis to provide their own security — remain[ed] far behind schedule.” The administration “failed to put adequate military personnel in place to oversee training… mismanaged funding appropriated for security forces development… [and] chose to contract out security training, rather than allow experienced U.S. military trainers do the work.”
Amidst the flurry of mistakes, the formerly Republican dominated Congress appropriated funds to build an embassy in Baghdad that is “ten times the size of the typical U.S. embassy, the size of 80 football fields, six times larger than the UN, the size of Vatican City” and “more secure than the Pentagon.”
The Congress also appropriated funds to build permanent super-bases that will have recreation halls, cybercafés, premium coffee shops, miniature-golf courses, movie theaters, bus systems, supermarkets, and restaurants. It is no wonder that these structures have been called the “warrior’s country club.”
In late 2003, Lieutenant Colonel David Holt expressed that there “was already… several billion dollars being sunk into base construction, which has been continuing ever since.”
An Unlikely Prospect
The more instability that is garnered in Iraq, the more justification will be given to stay. When the Democrats came to power, there was much hope that things would change. Their congressional activities thus far have dimmed hopes. It seems, unfortunately, that if the Democrats do maintain power into the next congressional cycle, even obtain the presidency in ’08, there will not be much of a drift in terms of leaving Iraq. For those well intentioned people inside the party itself, there is no hope of penetrating the impermeable power structure within. Does one really expect the second most powerful corporate sponsored party in the country to abstain its newly given power, and potential to acquire more, by pulling out from a part of the world that holds key resources and valuable potential for new markets? Does one really expect it to deconstruct, even leave, the super-bases and embassy that costs billions to build, and which are near completion? Does one really expect the profit-making, runaway defense establishment to give up its entrenched governing power over the government? The prospect is unlikely. Such an action would require a political and social revolution that is unlikely to take place.
The powers that be will continue to keep “American soldiers on Iraqi soil well into the century… [and use the state as] a platform… to launch new acts of aggression.”