There Was Never an Intention to Win

by Michael Gaddy
by Michael Gaddy

Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of international relations at Boston University and author of The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, has penned an opinion piece at the LA Times in which he claims the military is no longer trying to "win" the war in Iraq. While most astute in the majority of his observations, it is my belief the professor has assumed a vital fact not in evidence: hand puppet Bush and the ventriloquist Neocons did not intend this to be a war where victory would be "won," certainly not in the true military sense.

This war was, from the very get-go, designed to be a war of occupation and not a war for any other purpose. The constantly changing "goals," like the rabbit running ahead of the greyhounds, is proof positive. It was not deposing Saddam, eliminating the threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction, or implementing democracy: the true goal was establishing a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq. Had any of the aforementioned causus belli been the real purpose of this war, our troops would have been brought home when the stated goals were reached. If Bush or these Neocons had a simple cursory knowledge of history, they would know that wars of occupation always develop into a quagmire.

The Neocon establishment knew a war without real objectives would be a hard sell to the American populace. The Vietnam War, though over 40 years old, was still a painful memory in the minds of millions. A war of occupation where the soldiers are nothing but targets for a people tired of their presence is a no win situation. A nation soon tires of the casualties and no sign of victory. That is why the Neocons spoke so passionately in their 2000 document, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century." While the vision of American empire, as perceived by many who populate the Bush Administration, received little attention during the 2000 election and was largely dismissed as the work of hard-liners, the PNAC report itself admitted the process of accomplishing this transformation was "likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor"

If one pays attention to any corrupt regime they will see that occasionally one of the members will throw out nuggets of truth so when the balloon goes up on their fraud they can point to this revelation of truth. These nuggets of truth help maintain a semblance of credibility. This strategy is also employed to keep Boobus Americanus in support of the fraud.

This was probably the strategy recently employed by Larry Diamond, former senior advisor to L. Paul Bremer, U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq when he addressed the UCLA International Institute on February 3^rd of this year; or could it be Diamond, who is writing a book titled, Squandered Victory is beginning his book tour early?

In his presentation, Diamond spoke of the players in Iraq's new political lineup, strategies for defusing the insurgency, and some of the serious mistakes the U.S. has made, and continues to make.

While first speaking as a supporter of the Neocon/Bush program, Diamond stated, "First of all, let me say that this election on Sunday, from everything I have read and heard, was a profoundly moving and historic experience; for Iraq, for the Middle East, and potentially for the world." This he later counters with a truth nugget, "…it was a very superficial election and in some ways a very unfair election. There were more than one hundred parties in lists. Most of them had no money, no access to the media, and no ability, obviously, in the state the country was in, to campaign."

Diamond offers another nugget of truth concerning those we now know to be the winners of the election. "The United Iraqi Alliance has enormous funding because it has gotten plenty of it from Iran. It has strong organization because there are thousands of Iranian intelligence agents all over the Shiite south helping it to organize." Is this why we have killed so many Iraqis and what so many of our soldiers have died and been maimed for: an Iranian satellite? Diamond continues in his assessment of the election and its winners, "it would stand to logic that Shiites were not 60 percent of the electorate but 65 percent or 68 percent, close to 70 percent. And if the United Iraqi Alliance wins 70 percent of the Shiite vote and Shiites were 70 percent of the voting public, then they could win an absolute majority, more or less."

Diamond confirms what many at LRC and Antiwar.com had predicted would happen if the U.S. invaded Iraq. "Iraq has become, after the war, what it was not before the war, a haven for Al Qaeda and other international terrorists, a magnet for the sort of international jihadist movement that was pouring into Afghanistan before September 11. And they are spread all over, they are organizing many of the car bombings, and so on."

Diamond cites the problems he saw with the conduct of the war by the Bush administration. "I think an opportunity was lost over a year because of the stubbornness of the United States, its decisions in terms of dissolving the Iraqi army early on, instituting such a sweeping policy of de-Baathification, which jettisoned from public employment not only many high-ranking government officials but many skilled bureaucrats, technicians, engineers, and tens of thousands of schoolteachers, to the point that some schools in northern central Iraq were simply emptied of teachers for a period of time before the policy was finally rolled back…"

Diamond tells what is feeding the insurgency and why this quagmire will not end until the U.S. withdraws: something the Neocons will not allow to happen until the morons in this country wake up and pressure the administration. Unfortunately for those serving in the armed forces, this wake up will not occur without an increasing body count of American soldiers. "…there is something that could help now on the part of the United States which tragically is not going to happen…. One of the things that is necessary to wind down the insurgency and create a much more hopeful, enabling environment for the development of democracy and even political stability in Iraq is for Iraqis, and particularly those Iraqis who are involved with or sympathizing with the insurgency, to become convinced that we really are going to leave. That the American military occupation of Iraq is going to end and that they are going to get their country back. I urged the administration to declare when I left Iraq in April of 2004, that we have no permanent military designs on Iraq and we will not seek permanent military bases in Iraq. This one statement would do an enormous amount to undermine the suspicion that we have permanent imperial intentions in Iraq. We aren't going to do that. And the reason we're not going to do that is because we are building permanent military basis in Iraq." (emphasis added) Here a man on the inside confirms Bush intends for our soldiers to have a permanent presence in Iraq. How many lives and how many trillions will this cost?

Diamond shoots holes in the BS story given by Bush and the Neocons: we want Iraqis to be in charge of their own country. "…the repeated insistence on the part of the United States that Iraq write into its interim constitution a provision that would enable a treaty, for example, a treaty granting permanent military bases, to be approved by the lowest possible threshold imaginable. Initially our position was, signed by the prime minister should be good enough. Then when the Iraqis, one of whom was a lawyer trained in the United States who has taught law in the United States and understands our constitutional system well, said, "Well, you have two-thirds vote of the Senate to ratify your treaties. That sounds like a reasonable threshold," there got to be an interesting pushing and shoving match between the Iraqis and the United States. They said two-thirds, we said simple majority. It went back and forth down to the final night of the writing of the Iraqi interim constitution. And guess which vote was enshrined into the Iraqi constitution? Simple majority."

Then he provides a simple solution for the entire fiasco. "If we were to say that we will not seek permanent military bases in Iraq, and if we were to establish at least some target date for permanent military withdrawal, based on conditions in the country, the winding down of the insurgency, it could change the climate in the country."

Perhaps Diamond was simply promoting his new book, while in some ways paying homage to the Bush regime. Regardless, he revealed what is the truth of the matter: this war was designed to be a war of occupation and permanent military bases and all the run-up to the war and the reasons de jour given by the Neocons and the Bush administration were all lies. Lies that have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands, maimed many for life, made Americans much more at risk to terrorism, and lined the pockets of the military/industrial/congressional complex! How much longer will the eyes of the American people be blinded by the lies?

February 24, 2005

Michael Gaddy [send him mail], an Army veteran of Vietnam, Grenada, and Beirut, lives in the Four Corners area of the American Southwest.

Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com

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