Thursday, November 30, 2006

Iraq in the Time of the Refuseniks

If you think of Iraq as an old-fashioned amusement park carousel with the horses and rest of the menagerie rising and falling in organ-music syncopation as it rotates, the events of the last several days would have sent it spinning so fast that it would be a blur. And as for the riders? Only the toughest won't be thrown off.
President Bush worked on earning a new moniker -- The Refuser -- in drawing a big line in the sand at a time when taking a deep breath, as well as a cue from the reality-based community, seemed wise.

He refused to acknowledge that his own national security advisor had written a secret memo stating that Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki is seemingly not be capable of keeping Iraq together.

He refused to contemplate troop withdrawals even if the Iraqis didn't get their bloody house in order.

He refused to stop telling The Big Lie -- that the U.S. is in Iraq to fight Al Qaeda -- when the reality is that the terrorist group insinuated intself into the war well after the invasion and primarily because of Rumsfeld's botched occupation.

He refused to acknowledge that Iraq is in civil war despite a mounting chorus of voices, most recently that of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, that the violence in Iraq met that standard.

He refused to entertain opening lines of communication with Iran and Syria with the treat of the war spilling over into the Middle East seeming to be greater than ever.

And he said he'd refuse any Iraq Study Group recommendation that didn't comport with his own fantasy world.

Said Iraq Study Group, according to a published report, refused to propose a timetable for a complete troop withdrawal.

The Pentagon refused to comment on a report that about $2 billion worth of equipment, from rifles to tanks, is wearing out or being destroyed every month, about a quarter of the total per month cost of the war.

Refusing to accept reality, retired Army General Barry McCaffrey said that "we've got 24 months" to better equip and train the Iraqi army and police. The reality, of course, the army is a dissolute mess despite all the training to date and the police already are in the fight -- working with Shiite militias to exterminate Sunnis.

Meanwhile, Al-Maliki, upset over disclosure of the memo, refused to meet with Bush on the opening day of their sitdown in Jordan.

Moqtada Al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric and Al-Maliki's puppet master, refused to call off a boycott of the government after the prime minister disobeyed him and flew to Jordan.

Finally, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, told visiting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani that he refused to accept the status quo and declared that the first step toward securing Iraq was the “exit of the occupiers.”
Round and round the carousel goes. Where it stops no one knows.

1 comment:

cognitorex said...

Executive Branch Conflict of Interest re Iraq

Were it not for the fact that two thirds of the earth's known hydrocarbon reserves are in or proximate to Iraq we would not be in our present mess. Each and every one of Vice President Cheney's lies concerning Iraq are consistent with his serving the interests of Halliburton and the major oils. To say that he and, to a similar or lesser extent, the President do not have the appearance of a conflict of interest is disingenuous.
Given that the executive branch has a conflict of interest, what follows is that US foreign policy will be skewed to meet the oil interests until 2009.
The Republicans had best now combine with the Democrats to force implementation of what are perceived to be the best available foreign policy initiatives. We just had a "Vote of no-confidence" for this Presidency and 2008 will be more of the same unless what is best for the oils is jettisoned in favor of what is best for the US.
___________________

(below: reprint of my letter to editor Cape Cod Times 9/30/04)

"Peace in Iraq isn’t in U.S. interest"

It is now wholly obvious we will never pacify, integrate and/or achieve anything remotely near peaceful democracy in Iraq.

If history is kind, future writings will say the democracy goal was sincere, not just a cover to set up a puppet government to control Iraq's plus or minus 3 million barrels a day.

If the Iraq Mission drags out forever, we will control Iraq's enormous oil reserves, forever. An unqualified success in Iraq would cost the United States it's control over the only available oil resources with which to guarantee U.S. self sufficiency. Winning integrated peace in Iraq is not in our best interest.

The Sunni's and Shiite's are not going to set aside 700 years of differences and dance with flowers in their hair. Men and boys, native and foreign, will blow us up as occupiers a la Northern Ireland, Palestine and Revolutionary America ad infinitum and not remotely because they hate freedom, which is patently absurd.

Our men from Texas have brought home the big one, the multi-billion barrel reserve.

We're going to have inflamed terrorists talking about our “mission" till the stars dim in some distant millennia, but rightly or wrongly, for good or for evil, right now, "We got oil."
cognitorex