We hear a lot about the Sunni, Shia, and Kurds of Iraq, but John Allen reports on the toll the war has taken on Iraq's Christian community, one of the oldest in the Middle East.
And this from Aljazeera:
Even the UN is worried.
Every war has its war profiteers. No matter how noble the cause, there are those for whom it is a cause for profit, and who coin the sacrifice of soldiers into gold. The Haliburton's we have with us always, and the Haliburton's are always well-connected with those running the war. They are not always as blatant as Lincoln's first Secretary of war, Simon Cameron. Lincoln queried one of Cameron's political supporter's, Sen. Thaddeus Stevens, about Cameron's honesty. “Well,” replied Stevens, “he wouldn't steal a red-hot stove.”
But our fathers were crude people in this regard, and with modern techniques, there may a way to steal the red-hot stove without getting burned. The current war presents a very lucrative niche indeed, not just in the war, but in the war-guilt. We are particularly sensitive to guilt in this war. Oh, not guilt about the war itself. We all want it to end, of course, but the truth is, it is not really very important, one way or the other. Most of us are simply not affected by the war. Few of us have relatives fighting there, and the all-volunteer army allows us to say, “well, that's what they signed up for.” Of course, that's not what the reserves signed up for at all, but that's another story, one we would rather not hear.
It was different in Vietnam (my war). Every mother's son, or nearly, was subject to the draft and many mother's sons went and fought and died. Everybody knew a dozen or more who were fighting, had fought, were wounded, or were dead. Today, for most of us, they are just names in the newspaper, and we don't read the newspaper. In the Vietnam war, everybody paid a 5% income-tax surcharge to help pay for the war. For this war, those who most insist that it be prolonged indefinitely are also the ones who insist that we do not pay for it. “Leave that to the children and grandchildren” could be the McCain campaign slogan.
This separation from actual events leaves us with a red-hot guilt, and the more we suppress it, the brighter it burns. We would very much like to support the troops. We slap magnetic “yellow ribbons” on the side of our SUV's, ribbons that say “support the troops,” always missing the irony that the SUV is at least part of the reason for the troops being in danger in the first place. Nevertheless, we do realize that such “support” is likely to be of limited value, and we really would like to do more. This guilt, which becomes stronger as the sufferings of the troops becomes more distant and abstract, presents a market opportunity to get our hands on the red-hot stove without getting burned.
I am sent daily an email from an outfit called GOPUSA. The “content” of the slick email consists mainly of links to “news” stories of the latest Democratic perfidy in general and the maliciousness of Barrack Obama in particular. But half the space is given over to ads for patent medicines, investment gurus, medical nostrums, and books by Ann Coulter and other right-wing intellectuals. And if you click on their links, you will be directed to a site where you can vote on whether to “bomb Iran.” But sometimes GOPUSA dispenses with the “news” portion and just sends pure ads. Investment advice (from Ann Coulter, no less), and Medical nostrums ("Now You Can Slow Down, Halt, or Even Reverse the Progression of Arthritis") are the most popular. I am sure that the entrepreneurs of GOPUSA promise an easily frightened audience that can easily be swayed by even these crude appeals. But yesterday's missive from this group was special, and deserves our close attention.
It was a letter signed by Brigadier Gen. Arthur F. "Chip" Diehl in behalf of the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes (CSAH). This sounds very noble, and the story that General “Chip” tells is very true: it is the story of soldiers having their homes foreclosed while they are recovering from battle wounds. This is indeed a cause for shame, and our guilt for letting this happen should indeed burn red-hot. But such appeals are always more interesting for what they don't say. And the first thing that GenChip doesn't tell us is that he is getting $5,000/month for making these appeals. And the second thing that Chip doesn't tell us is that he is being paid this money a certain Roger Chapin.
Roger Chapin is a “philanthropy entrepreneur” who, since the 80's has founded a string of non-profit organizations for such things as cancer, Alzheimer's disease and drug-free youth. These “charities” have raised millions of dollars, but very little of the money raised ever seems to find its way to any actual charity. Unless, that is, you consider Roger Chapin himself to be a charity. After all, last year, CSAH paid Roger and his wife (listed as “newsletter editor”) $562,000, according the Forbes Magazine. They also provided Roger with a $17,000 country-club membership, and a luxury Washington condo.
CSAH claims that it provided $20,000,000 in services to veterans. That sounds impressive, but it turns out that $18,750,000 of these “services” consisted of “phone cards” that are good only for calling a sports line.
Who did get the money? Well, Richard Vigurie, the right-wing direct-mail guru got $14 million of it, which doesn't include expensive gifts to him and his wife from Chapin but charged off to “Help Hospitalized Veterans,” another Chapin “charity” that doesn't seem to do much for veterans. You can read the Better Business Bureau report on CSAH here.
Nor is “Chip” the only general in on the scam. General Tommy Franks, who led the initial invasion way back when received $100,000 from Chapin for the use of his name. Now, It is likely that Generals Chip and Tommy have broken no actual laws. However, they have engaged in “conduct unbecoming an officer,” and as retired officers receiving generous pensions, they may still be under military justice. If so, they should be tried and stripped of their rank and pensions. Not that this will affect Chip that much; he has a deal with Chapin to pay him 75% of his salary on retirement. In any case, these generals have certainly earned our contempt. They have used to blood of the soldiers they were supposed to lead and turned it into money. Shame, and eternal shame on them.
Roger Chapin isn't the only scoundrel playing the guilt game. ABC News ran an investigation which found that of 28 veterans “charities” surveyed, only four received an “A” rating. Another three received a grade of “C” and the rest were “D” or “F”, mainly because so little money actually went to veterans. See the scorecard here.
The audience for something like GOPUSA legitimately feels that they are under attack from know-it-all liberals who are quite willing to tell them how worthless their faith and their families are. However, this fear, legitimate or not, makes them easy prey for hucksters. Add to this the fact that they tend to be supporter's of a war with which they have no actual involvement or real knowledge, and you can add guilt to fear, making them the perfect target audience for the guilt entrepreneurs. But at the same time, even Simon Cameron would have admired their chutzpah. He never did figure out how to get that red-hot stove.
John McCain has recently tied success in his presidential bid to the success of the surge in Iraq. It took him about two milliseconds for him to realize his mistake, and he attempted to take it back. But whether he takes it back or no, it is likely to be at least partially true. Success in the surge may not be enough to carry him to the White House, but failure in Iraq is likely to defeat him all by itself; as one of Cheney's strongest allies in this war, McCain's fortunes are tied to Iraq, and he has said that he is willing for the United States to stay 100 years if that is what it takes to “win” (whatever “win” means in a place like Iraq.)
Right now, the War Party is in somewhat of an “I-told-you-so” mood over the “success” of the surge. The grounds for this claim of success is that there are fewer bodies bleeding on the ground. This cannot be denied. But the reasons for it are not good reasons, and began before the surge. Long before the surge, the Sunnis found friends against the American-backed government (or for what passes for government in Iraq) among Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda gave them arms against the government or rather against the Shiites, which is largely the same thing. But shortly before the surge, they found better friends with better arms: The Americans. Just as once we backed the Taliban against a foreign-backed government in Afghanistan, so now we are backing “The Awakening” against another foreign-backed government in Iraq. The difference is that this time, we are the foreigners backing the government. For all the stupidity of the Soviets in Afghanistan, they were never quite stupid enough to back their own assassins. Our government, such as it is, is fond of blaming Al Qaeda for arming the Sunnis and Iran for arming the Shiites. We have driven them both out of business by arming Sunni and Shia against each other, leaving little room (or need) for the competition. And it is not look before we will unite them in the only cause that can unite them: driving out the Americans, along with their puppet government in the Green Zone. As for the puppet government itself, it really doesn't care; its only care is to loot the American aid as long as the money lasts, and then make their way out of that God-forsaken country.
On such a cause, John McCain has staked his cause, and wants the rest of us to stake him to the presidency, even if it means a hundred-years war. Senator McCain would do well to pick up the latest issue of Rolling Stone and read Nir Rosen's account of The Myth of the Surge . Rosen is qualified to write this because he actually speaks Arabic; that is to say, he can actually do what the American commanders cannot do: listen directly to the people. Some quotes from his article:
"We are essentially supporting a quasi-feudal devolution of authority to armed enclaves, which exist at the expense of central government authority," says Chas Freeman, who served as ambassador to Saudi Arabia under the first President Bush. "Those we are arming and training are arming and training themselves not to facilitate our objectives but to pursue their own objectives vis-a-vis other Iraqis. It means that the sectarian and ethnic conflicts that are now suppressed are likely to burst out with even greater ferocity in the future."
“Osama [an Awakening commander] himself makes no secret of his hatred for the Shiite government and its security forces. As we walk by a checkpoint manned by the Iraqi National Police, which is comprised almost entirely of Shiites, Osama looks at the uniformed officers in disgust. "I want to kill them," he tells me, "but the Americans make us work together."
“Most Shiites I speak with believe that the same Sunnis who have been slaughtering Shiites throughout Iraq are now being empowered and legitimized by the Americans as members of the ISVs. On one raid with U.S. troops, I see children chasing after the soldiers, asking them for candy. But when they learn I speak Arabic, they tell me how much they like the Mahdi Army and Muqtada al-Sadr. "The Americans are donkeys," one boy says. "When they are here we say, 'I love you,' but when they leave we say, 'Fuck you.'"
“Gottlieb had recently conducted an inventory of the weapons assigned to the 172 INP — short for 1st Battalion, 7th Brigade, 2nd Division. There were 550 weapons missing, including pistols, rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. "Guys take weapons when they go AWOL," he says. The police were also reporting fake engagements and then transferring to Shiite militias the ammunition they had supposedly fired. "It was funny how they always expended 400 rounds of ammunition," Gottlieb says.”
“With American forces now arming both sides in the civil war, the violence in Iraq has once again started to escalate. In January, some 100 members of the new Sunni militias — whom the Americans have now taken to calling "the Sons of Iraq" — were assassinated in Baghdad and other urban areas. In one attack, a teenage bomber blew himself up at a meeting of Awakening leaders in Anbar Province, killing several members of the group. Most of the attacks came from Al Qaeda and other Sunni factions, some of whom are fighting for positions of power in the new militias.”
The saddest comment comes from Captain Arkan Hashim Ali, a member of the Iraqi National Police:
"Before the war, it was just one party," Arkan tells me. "Now we have 100,000 parties. I have Sunni officer friends, but nobody lets them get back into service. First they take money, then they ask if you are Sunni or Shiite. If you are Shiite, good." He dreams of returning to the days when the Iraqi army served the entire country. "In Saddam's time, nobody knew what is Sunni and what is Shiite," he says. The Bush administration based its strategy in Iraq on the mistaken notion that, under Saddam, the Sunni minority ruled the Shiite majority. In fact, Iraq had no history of serious sectarian violence or civil war between the two groups until the Americans invaded. Most Iraqis viewed themselves as Iraqis first, with their religious sects having only personal importance. Intermarriage was widespread, and many Iraqi tribes included both Sunnis and Shiites. Under Saddam, both the ruling Baath Party and the Iraqi army were majority Shiite."
"Arkan knows that the U.S. "surge" has succeeded only in exacerbating the tension among Iraq's warring parties and bickering politicians. The Iraqi government is still nonexistent outside the Green Zone. While U.S.-built walls have sealed off neighborhoods in Baghdad, Shiite militias are battling one another in the south over oil and control of the lucrative pilgrimage industry. Anbar Province is in the hands of Sunni militias who battle each other, and the north is the scene of a nascent civil war between Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen.”
Personally, I have a great deal of respect for Senator McCain, but in all honesty I must say that he scares me. Like too many veterans of my generation, he wants to re-fight the Vietnam War; he is convinced that we lost that war through a failure of will and resolve. We lost it because of Jane Fonda, or the New York Times, or the liberals, or whatever. But in fact, the American public stayed with their government and displayed remarkable patience. The war lasted from 1959 to 1975 and cost 55,000 American lives, not to mention uncounted Vietnamese lives and vast amounts of treasure. We even imposed an income-tax surcharge on ourselves to pay for the war (can you imagine either Cheney or McCain doing that?) It was not a failure of will, but a failure of arms. And arms will always fail in such a war, where the population does not support us. But we had great support among the Vietnamese compared to the support that we now have among Sunni and Shiite alike. In such circumstances, there is no way to win. And frankly, no real reason to “win.” When we have “won,” what precisely is it that will have gained? Stopping Al Qaeda? That is an organization we created in Afghanistan and the Iraqis really want no part in it; they were just temporary allies against the Americans. A Democracy in the Middle East? And that will get us what exactly? Securing our oil supplies? Both sides in the civil war want nothing more than to sell us oil. We can get out of Iraq precisely the same thing we would have gotten out of a “victory” in Vietnam: nothing.
1959-1975 is only 16 years, not quite McCain's 100-year war. But the Middle East is a larger place and a tougher problem. And it is not really our problem. Those concerned will have to work things out for themselves; the American were not appointed by God to be either their judge or their rulers. Those who would have us rule in the East do well to tell us that it will be a 100-years war. Oh well. Five years down already; only 95 to go.
Read more...By the official count, 3,972 of our troops have been killed in Iraq and another 483 in Afghanistan. More than 29,000 have been wounded (more than 1,800 in Afghanistan). But even these grim numbers may not tell us the full human cost of the war. We are using the same troops over and over again because we have an army that was simply not prepared for such a protracted struggle. It is not uncommon for a soldier to serve three, four, or even five tours. These soldiers have been in combat for a longer period of time than any soldier in World War II. It should not be surprising if such repeated duty took a heavy mental and psychological toll on our troops. I say “it should not be surprising,” but the Bush Administration seems very surprised indeed. The VA doesn't even have statistics on suicides among the returning vets; they can only tell you about those killed while on active duty.
CBS News did it own survey of 45 states, and the results are grim. In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year. Veterans in these 45 states commit suicide at twice the rate of other Americans (18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.) But one group in particular stands out: those veterans aged 20 to 24 who have served in the so-called “war on terror.” They commit suicide at a rate of between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000, as compared to 8.3 per 100,000. But once again, even this understates the problem, since for every soldier who commits suicide, there is likely to be some number who deal with their Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in other ways. And finally, since we use a high number of reserves, many of the casualties are among older men, which leaves a larger proportion of widows and orphans than in most wars.
Everybody likes to say that they support the war; few actually do. I recall my own service in Vietnam. In the popular myth, the public turned against both the war and the soldiers who fought it, but I had no experience like that. Rather, I was not only welcomed home, but the VA system and the VA benefits were excellent. But then the whole country was actually involved in the war. Every mother's son carried a draft card and could be called at any moment. Further, we were asked to actually pay for the war with a surcharge on our income taxes. Further, the news was relatively uncontrolled, and the war was broadcast into homes on a nightly basis, in a way that simply is not permitted today. This war, on the other hand, is an abstraction to most of us; we do not have any personal contact with it. It is largely a political issue, for those interested in politics, and for only a very few a personal issue. It is fought by a “professional army” while the rest of the country absents itself. Even the name, “The War on Terror,” is more of a marketing device than a real description. And we are not even asked to pay for it; rather, we have placed the burden for fighting it on the young (and the unlucky reserves) and debt for it on our children and grandchildren. We are asked to “support” this war, but not to inconvenience ourselves in any way over it.
All of this serves as introduction to the film, In the Valley of Elah, which was released this week on DVD. The movie is loosely based on a true story, that of Specialist Richard Davis, who after returning from Iraq was killed by his own comrades after a night on the town. He was stabbed 33 times and his body burned. The army did not even open an inquiry into his case until 60 days after he was reported AWOL, and even that took badgers from Davis's father, a retired career Military Policeman who went to Fort Benning to investigate his son's disappearance for himself.
In the fictionalized account, Tommy Lee Jones plays Hank Deerfield, a retired military policeman whose son has just returned from Iraq. He gets a call from the Army that his son is AWOL and asking him to call the army if his son shows up. Instead, Deerfield drives two days to his son's base in New Mexico to investigate for himself. Deerfield is a strict military man; you can take Hank out of the army, but you can't take the army out of Hank. Even when staying in a cheap motel, he makes his own bed each morning with tight military corners. Yet from both the army and the local police, he gets only indifference; no one is much interested in the missing veteran. And when his body turns up, burned and in pieces, there is a jurisdictional dispute between the civilian and military police.
Deerfield finally gets some help from Detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron), a single mom and an outsider in the police squad room. The story proceeds as a murder mystery, but while the story is compelling enough by itself, it mostly serves as a framework to examine the meaning of war and its aftermath. Hank thinks he knows what this means, having been through it himself in Vietnam. When early in the investigation, Sanders wants to treat the murdered man's comrades as suspects, Hank tells her that she is wasting her time; men who have shared the dangers of combat together do not turn on each other in murder. Military comradeship is the fixed point in Hank's life, and the idea that it could have devoured his son is such a gruesome way is incomprehensible to him. Is seems that the institutions he has trusted all of his life have turned on him. Hank is connected to his son by only some grainy JPEGs taken in Iraq on his cell phone. It is in slowly deciphering the meaning of these images that the truth of Mike's war comes out.
Susan Serandon plays Hank's wife, Joan. It is practically a cameo role in this film, but in a short space she gives a glimpse of the ocean of grief of a military wife who has lost her son not to battle, but to battle's terrible aftermath. The tension between the old soldier and the grieving mother is palpable. Tommy Lee Jones gives an understated performance, very similar to the one he gave in No Country for Old Men.
This film is moving and entertaining on its own terms, but it is clear that the director wants to direct us towards the whole issue of the American public's relationship to this war. In Vietnam, there were likely any number of people who let their dislike of the war spill over into dislike of those who fought it. Or so I am told; I never actually met any. But in this war, everybody “supports our troops” with yellow ribbons and political rhetoric, but won't accept being inconvenienced in any way. We will not pay for it, and we will not pay for the “care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.” The returning troops meet with official indifference to wounds that cannot be seen, but are certainly present. Occasionally, public outrage will force a little reform, such as that at the Walter Reed Hospital. And for the visible wounds, the authorities do their best. But when we send so many of our children so many times to the gates of hell, we must expect that they will have some difficulties when they return. And we cannot be indifferent to that.
Last night, I tuned into Fox News, as I do from time to time, because I always suspect that they provide insight into the latest in administration thinking. I watched Paul Gigot, the Wall Street Journal editoralist, and The Beltway Boys. The prime topic was "what to do about Iran," and the general feeling was "why haven't Cheney and Bush sent in the bombers yet?" The Boys at Fox and WSJ seem to be ready for another war, seeing as we've had so much success in the current one.
Gigot quoted an interesting report that said that 70% of all American casualties come from roadside bombs planted by Shiite militias with parts supplied by Iran. Now, I have no way of knowing whether this is true or false. What makes this "statistic" interesting is that it directly contradicts everything else the administration is saying. In every single speech and statement about Iraq, we are told, "Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda!" In fact, Cheney and Bush pause in saying "Al-Qaeda" only long enough to interject "9/11!." Now the party line seems to be shifting; the enemy is not the Sunni insurgents (since Petreaus has made a temporary alliance with them), but the Shiites, especially those who share religious and cultural ties with Iran. They are the ones (so the current story goes) who plant most of the bombs that are responsible for most of the body bags, lost limbs, and lost minds.
I can't get over the feeling that we are seeing another sales job, similar to the one that got us into the war in the first place. It looks like the same accident about to happen all over again. Only worse. Much worse. While we were promised a six-month war in Iraq with a relatively small occupation force, this war is supposed to last three days with no army at all. Instead, the Air Force will take out 1 to 2,000 targets, the regime will collapse, and everyone will live happily ever after in a New Democratic Paradise, just as they do in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
Unfortunately, this fairy tale is even less relevant for Iran that it was for Iraq. Saddam Hussein was friendless and the head of a weak and unstable country. Iran, on the other hand, is acquiring powerful allies, namely, the Russians and the Chinese. In fact, the administration seems bent on forcing these old competitors into an anti-American alliance, an alliance which has already borne fruit in largely forcing the Americans out of the central Asian countries that were formed in the break-up of the Soviet Union, places that Americans know nothing about and can't even pronouce. Russian is re-establishing its hegemony over its old empire, thanks in large part to this administration's diplomatic and military blunders. And China's insatiable need for oil and raw materials makes an alliance with Iran a tempting prospect. I don't think they would overtly join a war to defend Iran, but they can give the Iranians advanced technical and military support, and put all kinds of pressures on Europe and the United States.
Of course, the war propaganda is not confined to the right-wing. We had the spectacle of Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia University, lecturing Ahmadinejad with incredible rudeness. It is not that Bollinger was wrong to pose the tough questions to the Iranian president; he was right to do so. But you do not invite a man to your house for the express purpose of insulting him. Across the Middle East, the whole thing was taken (correctly, I think) as the very sign and symbol of American arrogance and condescension towards the "Third world" in general and the Muslim world in particular. Ahmadinejad is quite capable of making a fool of himself (as he did) without the host's help. Instead of exposing a pretentious fool, Bollinger managed to make him a figure of sympathy in the Middle East and in Iran, where he is normally very unpopular.
Are Cheny and Bush planning another war? Who knows. Insane as it might sound, it is certainly a possibility with this pair of arm-chair warriors. Will the country stand for it? I doubt, but the real question is, "does that matter?" The nation has already turned decisively against the current war, and that hasn't mattered one little bit. The Democrats are too weak and divided to to do much about it, and the Republicans too wedded to the party line to dispute the question very much. Indeed, the fact that neither Cheney nor Bush will ever again have to face the voters may mean that they can ignore the voters. And their past actions have shown that they are quite willing to ignore reality. Cheney and Bush may wish to go out in a blaze of glory and no-bid war contracts. And what's a few thousand body bags compared to that?
The signs of war preparations will not be so much the gathering of military force, but the volume of propaganda. If the party line continues to shift from Al Qaeda to Iran, then you will know that war preparations are underway. Fox News is always the first source for this shifts in party line. From what I have been seeing, we should be afraid, very afraid.
We are about to enter the silly season, that is, the season when silly things will be said about serious matters, matters of life and death. The Battle of Baghdad is nothing compared to the battle to spin the Battle of Baghdad, with the administration desperately looking for some sign of "success" that it can use to sell its pointless war in Iraq. And it seems as if the selling point in this marketing campaign is the success in Western Iraq, namely Anbar province. And indeed, there has been some improvement, but the source of this improvement is worth examining.
In the first place, "our" success is viewed as a failure--even a great danger--by the Iraqi government. What we have done is arm the local Sunni sheiks, the same sheiks who oppose the mainly Shiite government. This in itself is not a bad thing. However, it does create a counter-force to the central government, and lays the groundwork for a new front in the civil war. What we did in Fallujah is essentially the same thing the British did in Basra: resign control of the city to local militias and withdraw to an isolated fortress. We condemned the British for this tactic, but are doing the same thing ourselves.
In the second place, this "success" is greatly exaggerated. For example, we are told that American deaths are down for July and August. And this is true. However, of the five July's we have been in Iraq, this July was the bloodiest and August the second bloodiest. And September, through the first six days, has already seen 18 deaths, or three/day.
But Fallujah is "quiet" right? Yes, deathly quiet. Since May, all car and truck traffic has been forbidden in the city, which certainly cuts down on car bombs, but has also wrecked the economy of the city. And while attacks are down, they have not stopped by any means; rather they have been reduced from 400/month to 100/month.
Gen. Petraeus will tout Anbar as a symbol of our success. The problem is that the General has a history of making claims of "success" that are later refuted by events on the ground. In 2004, he claimed that "Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt" and "Iraqi leaders are stepping forward." In 2005, he proclaimed that "there has been enormous progress with Iraqi security forces." Now we have more claims. Should we put any more trust in them then in previous claims?
But the real problem with the "Anbar Argument" is that it argues not for a surge, but for a withdrawal. If the answer is to turn security over to the locals and withdraw to a fortress, the best fortress is fortress America. The truth is, only Iraqis can fix Iraq. The Kurds are running their own affairs without out help, and Southern Iraq is more or less self-governing because the "coalition" has little involvement. The best argument (and really the only intelligent one) for staying is the "pottery barn" argument: we broke, and its up to us to fix it. However, this begs the question of whether we can fix it, or whether or very presence makes the situation worse. But if the experience of Anbar, Kurdistan, and Basra is any indication, the best way "we" can fix it is to leave the Iraqis alone to take care of their own affairs. In fact, that might be a pretty good foreign policy principle in general.
I have just returned from Washington, D. C. While there, I visited the Viet Nam War Memorial with my son. It is a remarkable monument, more poignant because we had just been through the rather bombastic World War II memorial at the other end of the reflecting pond. But the Vietnam memorial is quite another thing. One particular feature is that the names of the dead are inscribed on stone, but not alphabetically, but historically; that is, in the order in which they died, and next to the soldiers that died with them: comrades in arms, comrades in the roll call of the dead. As we walked the grim roll of shattered youth, I could not avoid talking with my son about that war and this one, and wondering were they would put the panels, and how many more panels it would take to count the dead from Baghdad and Anbar.
The monument has another peculiar feature: it is made of black marble polished to a mirror-like finish. And when you lose focus on the seemingly unending roll of names, you suddenly see yourself standing among the dead. For a veteran of the war like myself, this means standing with old and lost comrades, and it is an intense experience. But I do not write of that experience, but of another, of an experience I can only imagine but cannot know. And it is the experience of one who has no connection with the war, who wasn't there and lost no son, no lover, no brother, no father, to the terrible hell's gate of the war. What must they think seeing themselves in the stone mirror among names they do not know? Since I do not know (I cannot divorce myself from my own experience) I can only speculate. Or rather, I can only hope. And what I hope is that they really will see themselves among these dead, and see these unknown dead, these lost boys, as what they are: their own brothers, their own sons, their own lovers. And I hope that their grief cannot be less then those who knew the names, and know the faces behind the names.
As it turns out, at nearly the very time that I was musing on the Vietnam and Iraqi wars, our President was doing the same thing. But he was drawing some rather peculiar and, in my humble opinion, erroneous and damaging conclusions. He was repeating the Myth of the Premature Withdrawal That Lost us the War We Had Won. In this mythical world, a victorious nation, at the behest of Jane Fonda, resigned its victory and embraced defeat; "If only," they say, "if only we had held out a little longer!" Never mind that we held out ten years and 55,000 American deaths (the Vietnamese deaths will never be properly counted). Never mind that we had more than half-a-million men in a country half the size of Iraq, and had trained and equipped dozens of Vietnamese divisions. The myth says we lost because of what is possibly the stupidest woman on earth, hankering as we were, no doubt, for more of her pointless movies and useless exercise tapes.
But in truth, we did not lose this serious business because of a stupid woman; rather we lost it because serious men made the business stupid. The same bodyguard of lies that marched us into Saigon was redeployed to Iraq. The same tales of terror, of beating them "there" so they wouldn't come "here." And America was patient; for 10 years, mothers watched their sons die, and young girls reached out in longing for lost lovers. And still they stayed with the war until they could stay no longer. In the end, it was not the antics of Jane Fonda but the real grief of real women that brought the troops home, home from a contest that could not be won.
Or rather, it could not be won by us. Such wars are not won by foreigners. As outsiders, we can help one side or the other. But the wars must be won and lost by the people in the country. If Iraq really is a country, and not merely an abstraction of the British Colonial Office, then the Iraqis must by their own arms decide their own fate. We can place arms into their arms, and what can be accomplished by training, or logistics, or the like, we can accomplish for them. But they themselves must win their own battles. And ever was it thus. This has happened in Iraqi Kurdistan, a prosperous and free corner of Iraq, free because they freed themselves. There are but 60 American soldiers in the whole province, and even they have little to do. That's six-zero; not 600, not 6,000. SIX-ZERO. I suspect that if there were a similar number in Baghdad, Baghdad would sort itself out in short order. and if they will have problems, as they certainly will, they are problems they will learn to deal with by means they will have to choose.
Kurdistan is successful because we left it alone, Iraq is unsuccessful because we cannot leave it alone, and Vietnam successful since we have left it alone. The problems that will arise are not problems that can be solved by inscribing more names on a stone wall. They are problems caused by men who largely have no comrades on the stone mirror, and who cannot see themselves or their sons among the dead; they avoided the last war ("I had other priorities," says Dick Cheney, chief of the war party) and will let no one avoid this one. But mostly, it is a war of men who cannot admit a mistake, a tragic mistake. That is to say, the problem is not a stony wall, but stony hearts. I would hope such hearts could be softened in the stone mirror, by a grief that identifies with weeping mothers. As I walked the wall with my son, I imagined for one terrible instant, and without attempting to do so, seeing his name on such a wall. And for one terrible moment, all I could feel was grief, and all I could think of is "What will I tell his mother?"
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