| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"PagCal" |
| Date: |
27 Mar 2005 03:48:34 AM |
| Object: |
Two Years Now - An American Quagmire in Iraq |
The headline in Friday’s New York Times says it all: “Attacks Kill 15 in
Iraq, Including 5 Cleaning Women at U.S. Base.”
Outside of the five innocent women — three sisters and two friends — the
other dead included Maj. Gen. Salman Muhammad, who commanded an Iraqi
army brigade based in Basra, gunned down as he was leaving the funeral
of a friend; six Iraqi soldiers taken out by a suicide bomber in
Iskandariya; a truck driver hauling steel to Baghdad; and nine police
commandos in Ramadi, also victims of a suicide bomber.
That was Thursday.
On Tuesday, in a raid on an insurgent training camp, Iraqi troops called
in U.S. helicopter gunships that killed close to 80 foreign trainees,
including Jordanians, an Algerian and a Filipino. The Times quoted Maj.
Richard Goldenberg of the 42nd Infantry Division as saying his outfit,
whose job is to secure the northern Sunni Triangle, had never “come
across such an organized facility for the Iraqi insurgent elements.”
Two years into the war, what have we accomplished? Oh yes, that’s right:
elections. Remember?
Here’s what elections have brought to Iraq: not much. Innocents still
risk their lives by having anything to do with Americans, and operations
to train foreign recruits are getting bigger and more sophisticated as
opponents of the American occupation dig in for a long resistance.
Oh, and last Sunday, a band of 40 to 50 attacked an American convoy.
Optimistic observers like to point out signs that democracy is making
inroads in the Middle East, inspired, they think, by the victory over
Saddam and the spectacle of Iraqis lining up to vote. Something like a
Berlin Wall is falling, they hope.
There’s only one problem with this evaluation: It doesn’t fit. While
Eastern Europe’s communism was clearly a rotten fruit ready to drop from
the branch, militant Islam is an enthusiastic thing, and the American
presence in Iraq gives it new purpose and vigor.
Iraq might have had elections, but it still doesn’t have a government.
And despite two years of American intervention, its troops are unable to
function without the backup of American muscle power.
(Page 2 of 2)
Knight-Ridder reports that soldiers testifying at a hearing at Fort
Bliss, Texas, told of being trained to administer “compliance blows” in
an Army course. Such blows, according to a soldier accused of killing
one detainee, were a common way to deal with uncooperative prisoners.
Superiors at the prison knew this and approved of it.
Now we have a new Orwellian twist on this war, yet another example of
how you change the language to make something horrible seem routine.
What the Army calls “compliance blows” is known to ordinary mortals as
beating someone into submission.
Each week, it seems, we learn more gruesome details about the culture of
violence against detainees in American custody. Each week, the veil of
secrecy over detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay
is lifted a little more, and I fear we have only begun to get an idea of
what has gone on in those places. And that doesn’t count the people sent
to unknown fates in countries with conveniently more lenient laws
against torture.
The viewers of Al-Jazeera are very interested in these developments, as
well.
In other news, we find this week that the Army is not expected to meet
its recruiting goals for the next couple of months. Big surprise there.
That’s despite offering $10,000 bonuses to new recruits. There’s no end
in sight; we’re told there are no plans to reinstitute the draft;
experienced soldiers are not re-enlisting.
Al-Qaida, however, and its many brother organizations large and small,
are not having this sort of problem.
What does this add up to? You tell me. One side can’t bribe enough
people to fight, despite the fact that it has all the money, technology
and firepower imaginable at its disposal. The other side has an
unlimited supply of committed fighters willing to dig in for the long haul.
How do you define a quagmire?
.
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