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07.03 Notice for Extension of Unemployment Insurance Benefits
07.02 A Cost-Saving Way to Travel: Rent a House
Ref. : Letters to the editor
06.30 An Open Letter to Barack Obama
07.17 Corporate Media Blackouts Continue as Iran War Looms and Impeachment Moves Ahead
07.17 The Pentagon and the Hunt for Black Gold
07.16 Washington Post's McCain-Friendly Poll
07.15 You Can’t Tell a Magazine by Its Cover Or A Candidate by His Rhetoric
07.09 The Forgotten: Somalia's American-Made Road to Perdition
07.03 Press distorts Clark’s comments
06.30 Iran-Contra's 'Lost Chapter'
06.27 Robert McChesney's The Political Economy of Media (Part II)
06.25 Robert McChesney's The Political Economy of Media (Part I)
06.20 Remembering Russert
07.18 Making Americans Unsafe
07.18 I Was a Victim of the Government’s Absurd and Over-Hyped War on Terror
07.15 Thinking About Safety
07.15 The High Cost of Bush's Iraq Gambit
07.11 McCain's Nomination - A Possible September Surprise?
07.07 Is Barack Obama Patriotic? Is Any Politician?
07.07 Obama's FISA Statement is a Mess (Just like his Stand on Faith-based Programs)
07.07 Campaign Notes: Of Flip-Flops and Fly-Bys
07.07 Supreme Court, Inc.: Supremely Pro-Business
07.03 The Real Meaning of the Fourth of July
07.03 Three Amigos: Bush, McCain, Obama Draw a Blood-Red Line on Iran
07.02 Rep. Ron Paul Assails Congress's "Virtual Iran War Resolution
07.02 How Ignorant Are We?
06.28 Primary Season Over, Barack Channels Hillary
06.27 Senate Overwhelmingly Approves Bill to Fund Iraq War Until Mid-2009
06.27 Defending the President as Tyrant
06.25 Critical Malfunction: Misreading Gore Vidal
06.23 Campaign Finance Reform Has Failed
06.23 Thinking About Flip-Flops
06.23 Heat Waves: Burning Off the Fog of the FISA Fiasco
06.23 Alarm over 'Unfair' Campaign Money
06.23 The Supreme Court, Habeas, John Yoo and Murdoch's Wall Street Journal
06.20 Keeping America Safe from Child "Terrorists"
06.20 SuperCorridor Defeat? Don't Bet On It
07.19 'Justifying' Torture: Two Big Lies
07.18 Torture As Official US Policy
07.16 Bush Asserts Exec Privilege; Blocks DOJ From Releasing CIA Leak Documents
07.16 Impeachment Hearings: A Win is a Win
07.15 Torture for the Torturers
07.14 Imperial Wizards: The Nangarhar Massacre and U.S. Plans for Central Asia
07.12 Kucinich Pushes on Impeachment
07.11 Disorderly Conduct: Subverting the Bipartisan Paradigm on Iraq
07.10 Mukasey: Bush's New 'Mr. Cover-up'
07.09 Legitimizing Permanent Occupation of Iraq
07.08 Buchanan, MacDonogh, Pilger Books Explode Illusion Of American Exceptionalism
07.07 Bush-Cheney Crony Got Iraq Oil Deal
07.07 Keeping Count (When Ours Goes Down, Theirs Goes Up)
07.02 Iraq Oil Deals Fulfill Cheney's Goals
07.02 Bush's 'Wonderland' Logic
06.30 Operation Horse's Head: U.S. Raid Sends Message on Iraq "Agreement"
06.30 Invisible Hand: Washington Role in Iraq Oil Deal Revealed
06.27 It Was Oil, All Along
06.27 Big Dog, Little Tail: The American Elite Resolves on War With Iran
06.26 A Totally Lawless Regime
06.23 Top Dems Hand Bush Key Victories
06.23 Democrats Legalize Bush's Crimes
06.20 Torturegate: Truth, But No Consequences
06.20 Bomb Iran? What's to Stop Us?
07.11 Running on Empty
07.10 A Work Force Betrayed
07.08 Paul Krugman and Blindness About the War and the Economy
07.07 Thinking About Turnarounds
06.30 Thinking about Dependence
06.26 Health-Care Crisis Endangers Economy
07.17 Renunciation and Escalation: Conflicting Tides in the Terror War
07.16 Maliki's 'Timetable' Shakes Iraq Debate
07.16 Drought and Israeli Policy Threaten West Bank Water Security
07.14 Enabling Tyranny—Brigitte Bardot And Other Victims
07.14 Duce Bags: Italy Leads Fascist Revanche in Western Democracies
HOW TO “WIN” AN ILLEGAL WAR:
Bush's “New” Iraq Strategy Revealed: More Troops, More War
Did anyone really imagine it would be any different? The Guardian reports that Bush has already decided on his "new" strategy for Iraq, ahead of the recommendations of the "Iraq Study Group" he appointed—and ahead of the internal government review of strategy which he ordered only this week. And what is the strategy? More of the same. How could it be otherwise? The Decider-in-Chief cannot admit, not even to himself, that any of his decisions have ever been wrong. How can they be, when they are dictated by his "gut," and his gut is guided by God Almighty?
And so he is going to intensify the war as much as politically possible, push the envelope of further brutality and repression as far as he can, for as long as he can, and hope that this will finally do the trick. It won't, of course, but as the Guardian notes, quoting a former top Bush official, "He is in a state of denial about Iraq. Nobody else is anymore. But he is." He believes that his willfuly ignorant "gut feelings"—formed, of course, out of the malevolent whisperings of his handlers, especially those who most assidiuously flatter his prejudices and his enormous, infantile ego—must be correct and will win through in the end.
Thus he is now planning to send at least 20,000 more troops to Iraq, to "secure Baghdad" and free up the U.S. forces currently tied down there to spread out and "pacify" the rest of the country. There will be a stab at securing "regional cooperation" for the "successful rehabilitation" of Iraq. The Saudi and Kuwaiti royal families—longtime business partners of the Bush Family—will be hit up for "reconstruction" money: more fodder for Bush-connected contractors and the bottomless corruption of the Bush-backed Iraqi government. How then will this be different from the epic of waste and corruption we have already seen in the "reconstruction" process?
As for bringing Syria and Iran to the cooperation table—the fond, wan dream of Bush's fellow lameducker, Tony Blair—that is highly unlikely to produce any results, if it even happens at all. Bush has already rejected talking to Iran—the only outside country that could conceivably offer any realistic help at stabilizing the chaos in Iraq—until Tehran drops its nuclear power program, which he knows they won't do.
Another part of the "new" strategy—which IS being drawn up by the Pentagon brass who are "advising" the Iraq Study Group—involves "reviving the national reconciliation process." How do the Bushists propose to do this? By "creating a credible political framework." But isn't that what all the ballyhooed, purple-fingered elections were about? Haven't we been told, over and over, that Bush has "liberated" Iraqis into a "genuine democracy"? What then can Bush change about the political framework he's already created? Is he going to ban the Shiite parties that were empowered by his framework? Is he going to install a strongman? How will this "revive the national reconciliation process"? The only possible way to achieve any kind of national reconciliation at this point would be to bring the main insurgent groups into the government. In other words, admit that the U.S. has lost the war and must now treat with the enemy. Will Bush do that? Will the Shiite leaders and their militias accept that?
It's obvious that all the other prongs of the "new" strategy are non-starters; they probably won't even be attempted. So there is only one actual element to the new approach: more troops, more killing, more insurgent reprisals, more sectarian terror, more chaos, more ruin, more suffering. That is the sum total of Bush's "strategic rethink." That is the plan.
Oh, but what about the "Iraq Study Group"? What about the "blue-ribbon, bipartisan" panel of the great and good, led by the greatest and goodest of them all, the all-wise, omnicompetent James Baker? Why, every savvy Beltway media insider knows that this dream team of wise elders will lead us out of the wilderness into the promised land of victorious peace and national unity. Unfortunately, as the Guardian story makes clear—or rather confirms what has been evident all along—the "Baker Group" is essentially just a means of shifting responsibility of Bush's vast war crime onto others, especially the congressional Democrats, who will be expected to sign off on the group's "bipartisan consensus. (That's why Rumsfeld had to do; there would be no way to package the continuation of the present strategy as a "new bipartisan plan" if Rumsfeld, the lightning rod and scapegoat for the Establishment- approved war of aggression—were still in charge of it.)
The Baker Group also serves as a talking shop for the American Establishment to work out its differences over the nuances of the corporatist militarism that has been the hallmark of American policy since World War II. (See "Family Feud" for more on this.) But what the Group will not do—and is not designed to do—is to come up with some genuinely fresh, non-partisan approaches toward extricating the United States from the ungodly mess that Bush's gut has dragged it into. As regards the specifics of Iraq policy, the Group exists merely to put some PR dressing on whatever deal is hammered out in the backroom between the Daddy wing and the Dubya wing of the Bush Faction. The Guardian notes, ominously, that the Iraq Study Group's "recommendations are expected to be built around" the very Pentagon plans outlined above; the Pentagon is in fact working with the Baker group to devise this "victory strategy."
The fact is, almost all of the principals involved know that the jig is up in Iraq. They know that this last throw of the dice is almost certain to fail. How can it not, being the same strategy that has already failed so spectacularly? They know that in six months' time, or a year, they will have to admit that this last heave-ho fell short; and then the "phased withdrawals" or some other partial, muddled disengagement will begin, or will begin to be talked about seriously. But by that point, the debacle in Iraq can be written off a bipartisan failure, a noble effort in which we all did our best but simply couldn't prevail against intractable circumstances. (Circumstances which will no doubt include "the inherent barbarity of the Iraqi people, who simply couldn't handle the gift of democracy we gave them." Indeed, this theme is already shopworn among the chickenhawks of the Rightwing echo chamber.)
Knowing all this, the Bushists, backed by the Establishment, will still keep dragging out the war, month after month, year after year, in one form or another. Thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis will die, hundreds if not thousands more American soldiers will die, Iraq will sink further into chaos, the United States will sink further into bankruptcy.
So that is the plan. This is Bush's answer to the American people's obvious, overwhelming desire for ending the war in Iraq. He is going to spit in America's face. He is going to tell the American people to go to hell, or perhaps borrowing the language that Dick Cheney used in the United States Senate, to go fuck themselves. He is going to say: let your sons and daughters die, you worthless peons: I will never admit I was wrong.
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This story was published on November 16, 2006.
