Two weeks ago, an article in the c-ville
Weekly by Josh Levy told us that the "surge" was
going to win the "war" in Iraq. "Victory has
not yet arrived," he cautioned, "and it may be years
before we can mark its arrival with confidence, but we can reasonably
hope to see it."
Somehow, I can't. First I would need someone
to tell me what it would look like. There is no "war"
in Iraq in the sense of a battle between two armies. There is
an occupation of one nation's people by another nation's military.
Dick Cheney told us the whole thing was only going to take a
few months. Five years later we're supposed to continue this
massive crime for additional years because then Levy may be
able to confidently discern "victory"?
Perhaps the reason that Levy doesn't tell us
what a "victory" would look like is that Bush's and
Cheney's idea of victory is permanent occupation. They've discussed
a Korea-like occupation of 50 years. Bush is negotiating an
agreement with Maliki to allow a long-term presence. Bush recently
published a signing statement announcing his right to fund permanent
U.S. military bases in Iraq. Fourteen such bases have already
been built. The Project for a New American Century, the think
tank that originally dreamed up the invasion of Iraq, was not
called the Project for a Few More Years Until Victory. The whole
point was to establish control of Iraq and its oil for the long
term.
Senator Jim
Webb should be applauded for his proposal to take Bush to
court.
A permanent and costly occupation of Iraq is
bad enough, but do we have to listen to announcements of imminent
"victory" every few years for the next century? Levy
admits that this is his second brush with victory anticipation
already. "In 2003," he writes, "after Saddam’s
swift defeat and overthrow, America seemed on the cusp of a
full triumph." Well, not if you were paying any attention
to the warnings of historians and generals including Eric Shinseki,
not if you had heard Dick Cheney's rational explanation for
why he did not invade Baghdad during the first Gulf War.
Now,
"victory" sounds like a nice thing. But some 1.2 million
Iraqis have died so far, 5 million have been driven from their
homes, electricity and water are hard to come by, and the "surge"
has brought no political solutions. While 2007 was the deadliest
year yet for Americans and Iraqis, U.S. troop deaths were up
again in January after a decline. Even the short-lived decline
in violence at the end of last year only took us back to 2005
levels, leaving Iraq by far the hottest war zone in the world.
The U.S. reduced troop deaths temporarily by using four times
as many air strikes in 2007 as the year before. The results
for Iraqis were not pleasant. Neither would be the now threatened
Fallujah-like assault on Mosul. The financial cost of maintaining
this occupation is burying our grandchildren in debt. We cannot
accept more years of this in hopes of an unspecified outcome
that we never asked for and our representatives in Congress
never voted on.
The decline in violence in the last few months
of 2007 came primarily in Anbar and Baghdad, after the U.S.
abandoned the surge and agreed to an alliance with Sunnis it
had been fighting. But this cannot last, because the Sunnis'
goal is the complete withdrawal of US troops and mercenaries.
In Baghdad, the segregation of neighborhoods by religious sect
reduced violence, but the eviction of a million Sunnis created
a refugee problem that is not being addressed. And the Mahdi
Army declared a temporary ceasefire, but its goal - like that
of a majority of all Iraqis - remains ending the U.S. occupation.
Want to support democracy? Let the Iraqi people decide when
U.S. troops should go home. Come to think of it, you could let
the American people decide and get the same result.
David Swanson
is co-founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org
coalition and a board member of Progressive Democrats of America.
His website is www.davidswanson.org. Click
here to contact Mr. Swanson and BC.