Click on the title to link to the Lenin Internet Archive for an article from 1914 (the start of World War I), "The Tasks Of The Revolutionary Social-Democracy [The future Communists] In The European War".
Commentary
This is a leaflet that a group of us put out locally here in Boston prior to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. It is on the one hand of historical interest, on the other a possible harbinger of things to come in Afghanistan if President-elect Obama has his way.
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A CALL TO ALL ANTI-IMPERIALIST WORKERS/YOUTH: HAVE NO ILLUSIONS- WAR AGAINST IRAQ IS COMING!!!
THIS IS NOT OUR WAR -DEFEND IRAQ AGAINST U.S./UN AND ALLIED IMPERIALIST ATTACK!
SUPPORT EFFORTS BY IRAQI LEFTISTS, WORKERS, PEASANTS, KURDS AND OTHERS TO OVERTHROW THE HUSSEIN REGIME!
DOWN WITH THE UN STARVATION BLOCKADE!
As the United Nations Security Council vote on November 8, 2002 graphically points out the war-crazed Bush-led United States government is leading the world to war. Tens of thousands of American and British troops are getting positioned for a full-scale attack on Iraq, while other powers from Australia to Turkey elbow each other for a role in the slaughter and share of the loot. The White House has already revealed plans for a post-Saddam military occupation of Iraq. One look at the war chest of nuclear weapons that the United States has and threatens to use today and it is clear that the fate of life on this planet is threatened by the continued existence of this American led “ world disorder”. We must act.
In the coming war against Iraq working people and anti-imperialist youth in the United States and elsewhere we must stand for the military defense of Iraq without giving any political support to the Hussein regime. Hussein is a bloody oppressor of Iraqi workers, leftists, Shiite Muslims, the Kurdish people and others. As such he was in the past a close ally and client of the American government for a full two decades before he made a grab for Kuwait in 1990. Now the American government wants a more pliant regime and tighter control of the oil spigot, not the least to put economic rivals like Japan and Germany, who are more dependent on Near East oil, on rations. However, every victory for the American government and its allies in their predatory wars encourages further military adventures, every setback serves to assist the struggles of the working peoples and the oppressed of the world.
Historically, in wars between the imperialist predators and plunderers and their colonial and semicolonial victims anti-imperialists have a side. As Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution of October 1917 which stands as one the greatest antiwar movements ever, stressed in his 1915 pamphlet SOCIALISM AND WAR: “If tomorrow, Morocco were to declare war on France, or India on Britain, or Persia or China on Tsarist Russia, and so on, these would be ‘just,’ and ‘defensive’ wars irrespective of who would be the first to attack; any socialist would wish the oppressed, dependent and unequal states victory over the oppressor, slave-holding and predatory ‘Great Powers.” We must continue that tradition.
The tremendous military advantages of the United States against neocolonial Iraq- a country that has already been bled white through 12 years of United Nations sanctions which have killed more than one and one half million civilians- underscores the importance of class struggle in the imperialist centers as the chief means to give content to the call to defend Iraq. Every strike, every labor mobilization against war plans, every mass protest against attacks on workers and minorities, every struggle against domestic repression and against attacks on civil liberties represents a dent in the imperialist war drive. To put an end to war once and for all, the capitalist system that breeds war must be swept away. However, our immediate task is to stop the imperialist war drive.
The American ruling class manipulated the grief and horror felt by millions at the criminal and demented attack on the World Trade Center to wage war on Afghanistan. But the patriotic consensus in the United States is wearing thin and elsewhere there is massive opposition to a war against Iraq. War demands civil peace and from Los Angeles to London the imperialist war makers are revealed as vicious union-busters and strikebreakers. Declaring that a strike could “threaten national security,” the Bush administration has brought down the force of the capitalist state to coerce the powerful American dockers union, the ILWU, to work under the dictates of the union-busting employers association. Across the seas, British firefighters are threatened with strikebreaking by the army. Plunging stock markets rob millions of workers of their pensions while public scandals expose insatiable corporate greed. Tens of thousands of working people, including the entire workforce at a number of Fiat auto plants in Italy, face a future of crisis. Civil liberties have been shredded and the capitalists have intensified their assault on social welfare and other gains wrested through decades of workers struggles.
In the United States, not even the dizzying flag-waving or the heavy fist of state repression has induced the masses to embrace war with Iraq. In Europe, hundreds of thousands of workers and anti-imperialist youth have demonstrated their opposition to this war. The problem is that the anti-war protests in Europe have generally l been channeled into a national-chauvinist direction of getting one’s “own” rulers to stand up to the Americans. In America, many antiwar liberals and leftists plead, “Money for jobs, not for war” and so fuel the notion that fundamental priorities of the capitalist rulers can be altered to serve the interests of working people. The time for such illusions ran out long ago.
The truth is that this whole capitalist system is based on the extraction of profit for the owners of the means of production through the exploitation and subjugation of the workers who produce the wealth of society. War is a concentrated expression of this, as competing capitalist ruling classes scramble to steal natural resources and to carve out new markets for export of capital and fresh sources of cheap labor. Therefore, it is necessary to draw a distinction between bourgeois pacifism, which lulls the masses into passivity and embellishes capitalist democracy, and the yearning for peace of the masses.
Over the past period there have been opportunities to organize class struggle in opposition to imperialist war and for the international workers movement to break out of narrow nationalist and economist limits. During the 1999 U.S./NATO war against Serbia, Italian COBAS unions organized a one-million-strong political general strike against that war. Fiat workers, who today battle plant closings in Italy, organized a campaign of material aid- a campaign supported by all partisans of the international working class- for the workers of the Yugoslav Zastava auto plant, which had been bombed by the imperialists. In 2001, Japanese dockworkers at Sasebo pointed the way forward by “hot-cargoing” (refusing to handle) Japanese military goods for the war in Afghanistan. These types of actions here can concretize our opposition to this war.
Moreover, U.S. military bases across Europe and Asia, as well as high-tech spy installations such as Australia’s Pine Gap, have become deserving targets of antiwar protests by leftists and trade unions. It would be a good thing if the U.S. were deprived of its international launching pads for war against Iraq. For all of German chancellor Schroder’s electioneering against war in Iraq, it is highly unlikely that he will interfere in any way with the key American air bases and military installations across Germany which house some 70, 000 American troops. What we need is not an “antiwar movement” of social-chauvinist support to one’s own ruling class but an internationalist working class opposition to U.S./NATO bases
What is essential is to draw the class line and unshackle the working people and anti-imperialist youth from capitalist politicians, their agents in the trade unions and others who channel their justified hatred of war into illusory calls for parliamentary reforms of the profit-driven system that breeds war and, in West Europe, into support for their own ruling classes against the Americans. Here, in the heart of the beast the workers and anti-imperialist youth united front can point the way forward building an internationalist perspective in the antiwar protests. Our demands should be: Struggle against the bosses and their government here at home- “the main enemy is at home”! Defend Iraq against imperialist attack! Down with the United Nations starvation blockade! All U.S./ UN and allied troops out of the Persian Gulf and Near East!
JOIN AND BUILD THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST WORKERS/ YOUTH UNITED FRONT AGAINST THE COMING UNITED STATES/ UNITED NATIONS ATTACK ON IRAQ!
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ORGANIZING: E-MAIL afjohns@earthlink.net
THE COMMITTEE FOR AN ANTI-IMPERIALIST WORKERS/ YOUTH UNITED FRONT AGAINST UNITED STATES/ UNITED NATIONS ATTACK ON IRAQ
CHECK BOSTON. INDY MEDIA. ORG CALENDAR MA-ACT SECTION FOR ANNOUNCEMENTS OF MEETINGS AND EVENTS
Labor Donated
Showing posts with label troop surge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label troop surge. Show all posts
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
WHAT IF THEY GAVE A WAR AND NOBODY NOTICED?
COMMENTARY
I hope that I am not the only one who has noticed that the war in Iraq has fallen way below the newspaper fold lately. As a prime example in a recent edition of the Boston Globe news of the war was on page 10. Page One, front and center, featured the trials and tribulations of those yuppie trend setters who are ‘pioneering’ the concept of luxury condo living adjacent to upscale malls. Go figure. I was ready to get out the old hankerchief on that on.
Moreover, the vaunted presidential campaign has shifted it axis, especially on the Democratic side, as there is now far more talk about various domestic priorities than the fate of the war. On the Republican side there is a certain amount of gloating, especially by Senator McCain who has hinged the fate on his campaign on the success of the troop ‘surge’ to bring some stability to Iraq. And frankly he should gloat. One would have to be a fool, political or otherwise, to not recognize, that at least in the short haul that military strategy has worked. Whether come next spring when American troop levels go down by attrition and the Iraqi forces have to fend for themselves more that will still be the case is still an open question.
This is a good time to be clear here about why we opposed this war in the first place. If for no other reason, we opposed this war as an act of imperial hubris. We very definitely did not oppose it under a standard of whether it made military sense or that the question of ‘victory’ for the American side was important or not . We have to remember that as we are once again, as in the immediate aftermath of the invasion in 2003, somewhat isolated and shut off politically. In short, the political slogan of the day still is- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of U.S. Troops and Mercenaries from Iraq! Know this though- there is a world of political different between forcing the troop question through our political efforts and the leisurely withdrawal of troops, if any, on the Bush (or any) Administration’s timetable. We must continue to force the issue. More, much more on this question will follow as the situation develops over the next few months.
I hope that I am not the only one who has noticed that the war in Iraq has fallen way below the newspaper fold lately. As a prime example in a recent edition of the Boston Globe news of the war was on page 10. Page One, front and center, featured the trials and tribulations of those yuppie trend setters who are ‘pioneering’ the concept of luxury condo living adjacent to upscale malls. Go figure. I was ready to get out the old hankerchief on that on.
Moreover, the vaunted presidential campaign has shifted it axis, especially on the Democratic side, as there is now far more talk about various domestic priorities than the fate of the war. On the Republican side there is a certain amount of gloating, especially by Senator McCain who has hinged the fate on his campaign on the success of the troop ‘surge’ to bring some stability to Iraq. And frankly he should gloat. One would have to be a fool, political or otherwise, to not recognize, that at least in the short haul that military strategy has worked. Whether come next spring when American troop levels go down by attrition and the Iraqi forces have to fend for themselves more that will still be the case is still an open question.
This is a good time to be clear here about why we opposed this war in the first place. If for no other reason, we opposed this war as an act of imperial hubris. We very definitely did not oppose it under a standard of whether it made military sense or that the question of ‘victory’ for the American side was important or not . We have to remember that as we are once again, as in the immediate aftermath of the invasion in 2003, somewhat isolated and shut off politically. In short, the political slogan of the day still is- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of U.S. Troops and Mercenaries from Iraq! Know this though- there is a world of political different between forcing the troop question through our political efforts and the leisurely withdrawal of troops, if any, on the Bush (or any) Administration’s timetable. We must continue to force the issue. More, much more on this question will follow as the situation develops over the next few months.
Monday, December 03, 2007
ON IRAQ: AN INTERVIEW WITH 'STREET' JOURNALIST NOEL TOERTT
My old friend Noel Toertt, free-lance ‘street’ journalist and contributor to the monthly political magazine New Dawn, is just back from Iraq. If you are merely interested in the handouts from the U.S. Embassy or press conferences by Central Command in order to find out about the situation there pass this by. However, if you want to know what the situation is on the ‘street’ Noel will more times than not give you some insight into what is happening and why. Sometime I will give a real biographic sketch on the man but for now know that he is of Russian-German heritage. His grandfather was a Czarist general at the time of the Russian Revolution. An uncle fought in the Ernst Thaelmann Battalion of the International Brigades in Spain during the Civil War. Those seemingly contradictory facts will tell you part of the tale of his life. Make no mistake, as the interview below will make clear, we do not share the same political universe for the most part. What we do share is the need to turn the world upside down. This interview took place on October 21, 2007. More of the interview will follow in later entries. Any transcription problems are mine. Any political problems you can be the judge.
Markin: Noel, long time no see. How are you doing? You look at little tired?
Tortt: Ya, my flight back from the Middle East was a nightmare. I think I would rather have been on a cargo plane at least you have room on them. And the booze is better.
Markin: Just to set the frame for the interview when did you first go to the Middle East?
Tortt: Actually I started covering the area at the time of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, about 1980; I worked out of Pakistan first. Iraq about 1990 during the build up for the first Iraq war. Afghanistan again in 2001 and Iraq again, off and on, since late 2003. I have written about all of this maybe a hundred times.
Markin: Okay now that we have established your ‘credentials’ here is the first ‘softball’ question. I have been arguing, unhappily, since late spring that, all things being equal, that the Bush troop ‘surge’ in Iraq by placing more troops on the ground would be successful in the short haul. As long at the American troops stayed in the lead. Now several months later and after the Petreaus/Crocker reports to Congress and the tamp down on known acts of violence it looks to me like that is the case. What is your take on this?
Tortt: Look, let’s look at this from this perspective. A conventional army like the American one, and especially the American one, can rain hell down on any other conventional army if it has the will. Adding a few more troops, more or less, doesn’t really change the mix. This asymmetric warfare is a different baby though. Once the numbers for the ‘surge’ and where they would be concentrated became general knowledge insurgent decisions had to be made. For the various insurgent operations you noticed what amounted to a self-imposed tamp down on confronting the American forces. So yes, today, and I only speak of today in an almost literal sense, the ‘surge’ has had some successes. But listen, the atmosphere in places like Baghdad is so tense you could cut a knife through it. That’s the real situation. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Markin: Waiting for the other shoe drop and do what?
Tortt: Waiting for the Americans to back off enough to go back on the ‘offensive’ and this time with more sophistication and probably more co-coordinated attacks. One thing that gets forgotten in the mix is that these guys have nothing but time. Hell for the most part it’s their country so they aren’t going anywhere. They also know that the Americans have to leave sometime so like smart guys they prepare, keep up enough of a presence to worry the American generals and move when the time is right. Not a nice picture from the American side but that is the story.
Markin: How do you know that they, the insurgents, have not just decided that there is no way forward on the road they were pursuing and have decided to close up shop?
Toertt: Let’s go back to that tension in the air business I mentioned a while ago. Nothing indicates that they have given up the struggle. Let me tell a little point to bring that home. I ran into a kid, and I do mean kid, who was carrying about a half dozen cell phones in need of various repairs. He approached me and asked me for some batteries that I did not have. I asked since the phones did not seem to work what he needed batteries for. He replied that a ‘friend’ would have them working pretty soon. The way he said it made me think that something more than calling his girlfriend was on his mind. No, they are getting ready believe that. By the way those cell phones were thrown away by the Americans in the Green Zone if that kid was not lying, and I do not think he was. Shades of Vietnam all over again.
Markin: What do you mean?
Toertt: Well, the American army in Vietnam supplied, incidentally and unintentionally, a fair amount of material to the South Vietnamese Liberation forces that they turned around and used as ammo, etc. against the Americans. Also remember the Iraqis are smart people. Hell this area is the cradle of civilization and although they have lost a few steps over the centuries they are still smart. It never did anyone any good to underestimate a determined foe, although the Americans repeatedly do so.
Markin: Well, if the Bush strategy is a temporary success at least what about the other part of the puzzle- turning the war over to the Iraqi national army and police forces?
Toertt: That, Markin, is a whole different ball game. Let me take a couple of steps back on this. Saddam build a pretty good national army in his time. At least it looked like it could fight or be used, as is the usual case, for any internal disturbances. However, he squandered that army in the Iran wars in the 1980’s. Then the cream got decimated in the Kuwait fiasco in 1991. After that the thing was a bleeding hulk. By the time 2003 rolls around it is essentially human dust. Nothing since then has indicated that a national army, or for that matter police force, can be built that will do the job of defending the government or put a stop to foreign interventions. Look it is hard to create a real army. You need cadre. As I mentioned above that, for the most part, has been liquidated. So what you have now are a bunch of kids who have seen nothing but failure being forced usually out of economic necessity to take up the gun. Add in the sectarian aspect and the stigma of working with the occupiers and that does not present a very good picture. That is what the American generals scream into the night about.
Markin: That sounds like a recipe for a very long occupation
Toertt: Right, do not let anyone kid you, nobody I talked to realistically thought about being out of Iraq for five to ten years with the ten years being more likely. And they were not sure even then that the army they trained could do the job. Believe me when they invented the expression between a rock and a hard place they had something like Iraq in mind. More than that though I do not see a will to create an army. There are just a bunch of scared kids (justifiably so) in a place they do not want to be in. The proof of that are the exceedingly few operations the Iraqis do on their own. You made me laugh one time when you said in one of your commentaries that you would like to see the Iraqis do an operation without half the 82nd Airborne beside them. You hit the nail on the head on that one.
Markin: Well here is the ‘hard’ question. We have talked earlier today and at previous times about this. As you know for the last year or more I have been arguing for a change in orientation for the anti-war movement away from the futile parliamentary maneuvering and linking up with the rank and file troops in Iraq to end the war. I asked you before you left for Iraq this time to get a feel for this for me. What did you think?
Toertt: Markin, you have got to move away from your love of the Russian Revolution and all that happened there. It is starting to unbalance you. Sure the Russian troops then were ready to lead the fight against continuing the war and they did it with their feet. Hell, they tried to boil my grandfather the General in a barrel. But that was different. They were war weary, they had land hunger and mainly they were tired of the offensives that led nowhere except to death. Rather exceptional circumstances won’t you agree. And nothing like today.
Markin: I figured I would have to take a verbal beating from you on this but as I have pointed out before the whole point of making propaganda for this position was to change the axis away from reliance on essentially Democratic parliamentary maneuvering to bring about a troop withdrawal. Believe it or not I realize that conditions in Russia in 1917 and today are different but the task is the same.
Toertt: Okay, Okay we have been through that before but to answer your question I do not see any movement like that today. First, the ‘success’ of the surge has tended to solidify the rank and file back to at least neutrality about what they are doing there. Secondly these kids are a long way from home and want to get home fast. The shortest way seems to be to do their time and rotate. I also think that the effects of being a part of a professional force tend to militate against those kinds of actions. In Russia, and even in the late stages of the Vietnam War, these were actions of citizen-soldiers fed up with the way things were going. I got no sense of that. Sure there is some opposition to the war among the rank and file. And also some confusion about why they are there. And importantly, some resentment toward those who they perceive are not respectful of their mission. All those things are normal and to be expected.
Markin: Okay, that is a fair enough evaluation although it does not negate the need for a change in orientation. One last question for this round. Where does all this go? If parliamentary maneuvering is doomed, if the troops will not lead us out- then what?
Toertt: You like to call yourself a hard socialist realpolitik politician. I like to call myself a tough liberal realpolitik observer. Here is the hard reality. Korea and Germany. Yes, a long term occupation force smaller than today’s for a very long time, make that a very, very long time no matter what administration is in power, except if your guys take political power before. Ouch.
Markin: Thanks, I will take that under advisement.
Markin: Noel, long time no see. How are you doing? You look at little tired?
Tortt: Ya, my flight back from the Middle East was a nightmare. I think I would rather have been on a cargo plane at least you have room on them. And the booze is better.
Markin: Just to set the frame for the interview when did you first go to the Middle East?
Tortt: Actually I started covering the area at the time of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, about 1980; I worked out of Pakistan first. Iraq about 1990 during the build up for the first Iraq war. Afghanistan again in 2001 and Iraq again, off and on, since late 2003. I have written about all of this maybe a hundred times.
Markin: Okay now that we have established your ‘credentials’ here is the first ‘softball’ question. I have been arguing, unhappily, since late spring that, all things being equal, that the Bush troop ‘surge’ in Iraq by placing more troops on the ground would be successful in the short haul. As long at the American troops stayed in the lead. Now several months later and after the Petreaus/Crocker reports to Congress and the tamp down on known acts of violence it looks to me like that is the case. What is your take on this?
Tortt: Look, let’s look at this from this perspective. A conventional army like the American one, and especially the American one, can rain hell down on any other conventional army if it has the will. Adding a few more troops, more or less, doesn’t really change the mix. This asymmetric warfare is a different baby though. Once the numbers for the ‘surge’ and where they would be concentrated became general knowledge insurgent decisions had to be made. For the various insurgent operations you noticed what amounted to a self-imposed tamp down on confronting the American forces. So yes, today, and I only speak of today in an almost literal sense, the ‘surge’ has had some successes. But listen, the atmosphere in places like Baghdad is so tense you could cut a knife through it. That’s the real situation. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Markin: Waiting for the other shoe drop and do what?
Tortt: Waiting for the Americans to back off enough to go back on the ‘offensive’ and this time with more sophistication and probably more co-coordinated attacks. One thing that gets forgotten in the mix is that these guys have nothing but time. Hell for the most part it’s their country so they aren’t going anywhere. They also know that the Americans have to leave sometime so like smart guys they prepare, keep up enough of a presence to worry the American generals and move when the time is right. Not a nice picture from the American side but that is the story.
Markin: How do you know that they, the insurgents, have not just decided that there is no way forward on the road they were pursuing and have decided to close up shop?
Toertt: Let’s go back to that tension in the air business I mentioned a while ago. Nothing indicates that they have given up the struggle. Let me tell a little point to bring that home. I ran into a kid, and I do mean kid, who was carrying about a half dozen cell phones in need of various repairs. He approached me and asked me for some batteries that I did not have. I asked since the phones did not seem to work what he needed batteries for. He replied that a ‘friend’ would have them working pretty soon. The way he said it made me think that something more than calling his girlfriend was on his mind. No, they are getting ready believe that. By the way those cell phones were thrown away by the Americans in the Green Zone if that kid was not lying, and I do not think he was. Shades of Vietnam all over again.
Markin: What do you mean?
Toertt: Well, the American army in Vietnam supplied, incidentally and unintentionally, a fair amount of material to the South Vietnamese Liberation forces that they turned around and used as ammo, etc. against the Americans. Also remember the Iraqis are smart people. Hell this area is the cradle of civilization and although they have lost a few steps over the centuries they are still smart. It never did anyone any good to underestimate a determined foe, although the Americans repeatedly do so.
Markin: Well, if the Bush strategy is a temporary success at least what about the other part of the puzzle- turning the war over to the Iraqi national army and police forces?
Toertt: That, Markin, is a whole different ball game. Let me take a couple of steps back on this. Saddam build a pretty good national army in his time. At least it looked like it could fight or be used, as is the usual case, for any internal disturbances. However, he squandered that army in the Iran wars in the 1980’s. Then the cream got decimated in the Kuwait fiasco in 1991. After that the thing was a bleeding hulk. By the time 2003 rolls around it is essentially human dust. Nothing since then has indicated that a national army, or for that matter police force, can be built that will do the job of defending the government or put a stop to foreign interventions. Look it is hard to create a real army. You need cadre. As I mentioned above that, for the most part, has been liquidated. So what you have now are a bunch of kids who have seen nothing but failure being forced usually out of economic necessity to take up the gun. Add in the sectarian aspect and the stigma of working with the occupiers and that does not present a very good picture. That is what the American generals scream into the night about.
Markin: That sounds like a recipe for a very long occupation
Toertt: Right, do not let anyone kid you, nobody I talked to realistically thought about being out of Iraq for five to ten years with the ten years being more likely. And they were not sure even then that the army they trained could do the job. Believe me when they invented the expression between a rock and a hard place they had something like Iraq in mind. More than that though I do not see a will to create an army. There are just a bunch of scared kids (justifiably so) in a place they do not want to be in. The proof of that are the exceedingly few operations the Iraqis do on their own. You made me laugh one time when you said in one of your commentaries that you would like to see the Iraqis do an operation without half the 82nd Airborne beside them. You hit the nail on the head on that one.
Markin: Well here is the ‘hard’ question. We have talked earlier today and at previous times about this. As you know for the last year or more I have been arguing for a change in orientation for the anti-war movement away from the futile parliamentary maneuvering and linking up with the rank and file troops in Iraq to end the war. I asked you before you left for Iraq this time to get a feel for this for me. What did you think?
Toertt: Markin, you have got to move away from your love of the Russian Revolution and all that happened there. It is starting to unbalance you. Sure the Russian troops then were ready to lead the fight against continuing the war and they did it with their feet. Hell, they tried to boil my grandfather the General in a barrel. But that was different. They were war weary, they had land hunger and mainly they were tired of the offensives that led nowhere except to death. Rather exceptional circumstances won’t you agree. And nothing like today.
Markin: I figured I would have to take a verbal beating from you on this but as I have pointed out before the whole point of making propaganda for this position was to change the axis away from reliance on essentially Democratic parliamentary maneuvering to bring about a troop withdrawal. Believe it or not I realize that conditions in Russia in 1917 and today are different but the task is the same.
Toertt: Okay, Okay we have been through that before but to answer your question I do not see any movement like that today. First, the ‘success’ of the surge has tended to solidify the rank and file back to at least neutrality about what they are doing there. Secondly these kids are a long way from home and want to get home fast. The shortest way seems to be to do their time and rotate. I also think that the effects of being a part of a professional force tend to militate against those kinds of actions. In Russia, and even in the late stages of the Vietnam War, these were actions of citizen-soldiers fed up with the way things were going. I got no sense of that. Sure there is some opposition to the war among the rank and file. And also some confusion about why they are there. And importantly, some resentment toward those who they perceive are not respectful of their mission. All those things are normal and to be expected.
Markin: Okay, that is a fair enough evaluation although it does not negate the need for a change in orientation. One last question for this round. Where does all this go? If parliamentary maneuvering is doomed, if the troops will not lead us out- then what?
Toertt: You like to call yourself a hard socialist realpolitik politician. I like to call myself a tough liberal realpolitik observer. Here is the hard reality. Korea and Germany. Yes, a long term occupation force smaller than today’s for a very long time, make that a very, very long time no matter what administration is in power, except if your guys take political power before. Ouch.
Markin: Thanks, I will take that under advisement.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
ON "POTEMKIN VILLAGES" IN IRAQ
COMMENTARY
IMMEDIATE UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS FROM IRAQ!!!
Amid all the furor and maneuvering, seemingly by every governmental agency that is even marginally connected with the conflict, over the long awaited upcoming reports by General Petreaus and Ambassador Crocker concerning the effects of the Bush ‘surge’ strategy in Iraq a little story about the real effects of the troop increases drew my attention recently (Weighing the Surge:putting troops among the people by Sudarsan Raghavan of the Washington Post, The Boston Globe, September 5, 2007). Honestly, with all the bureaucratic paper ‘infighting’ it is hard to tell what the real military situation is on the ground. However, just as a matter of military tactics if you add 30,000 fairly well-trained troops into a situation as nebulous as Iraq and as a result force a lesser trained enemy either to drop away or lurk in hiding until the coast is clear then yes, the security situation would almost have to be better-ON THE SURFACE. And that contradiction is the real point of this commentary.
As part of the justification for his troop increase last January President Bush cited an increased need for on-going security (essentially implementation of the Petreaus Plan) especially in sectarian–torn Baghdad. Well, what the President saith, the military giveth. The recent article mentioned above , however, pointed to the soft underbelly of what the ‘real’ increased security looks like on the ground. Those familiar with the military, and even those not familiar with that organization but who know the expression “covering your ass”, know that military commanders are famous for their little pet projects that serve to rationale all their actions. Well, head honcho Petreaus and his subalterns are not a different breed in that respect.
One of the gauges of the effectiveness of the increased security ploy has been the well-published attempt ‘reopen’ the various marketplaces key to Iraqi daily life, and a favorite target of sectarian suicide bombers and others, in and around Baghdad. The story I am recounting highlighted the famous Dora market. Well, yes it is open. Before the war started in 2003 there were some 800 plus stalls and shops there. At a low point in recent times there were less than 300 open. With the heightened security of the 'surge' that number has jumped to over three hundred and plans to have over five hundred on line in the near future are in progress. By many definitions that qualifies as a success. But here is the catch. In order for a shop to qualify as open, basically, an open door is all that is necessary. If your business has no or few things to sell that does not matter the military ‘counts’ that business as ‘open’. Moreover, call me jaded but by American norms one would think that a major market, as here, would be open early and close late. Not so. A couple of hours a day qualifies for a good day. Furthermore, as an inducement to open- come hell or high water- ‘cash grants’ are generously supplied. A little suspect, but not that unusual coming from this administration.
But here is the real kicker. Those whose work in the market, own the shops and, most importantly, those American soldiers who guard the highly fortified market quoted in the story know and have expressed their opinions that this ‘success’ is less than meets the eye. This, however, does not divert the military from bringing every congressional delegation, governmental agency or NGO tourist to this showcase. The air these days is filled with the comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam. If one thinks back to that era and another project nicknamed the ‘strategic hamlet’ program (in its various guises, depending on authorship and administration in power) one will not be surprised to see that these guys are up to their old tricks. But remember in the end all those “Potemkin Villages" turned to dust when the real situation became apparent after the withdrawal of American troops. That said, we better take the advise of an unnamed soldier guarding the Dora market and ‘skedaddle’. Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal from Iraq.
IMMEDIATE UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS FROM IRAQ!!!
Amid all the furor and maneuvering, seemingly by every governmental agency that is even marginally connected with the conflict, over the long awaited upcoming reports by General Petreaus and Ambassador Crocker concerning the effects of the Bush ‘surge’ strategy in Iraq a little story about the real effects of the troop increases drew my attention recently (Weighing the Surge:putting troops among the people by Sudarsan Raghavan of the Washington Post, The Boston Globe, September 5, 2007). Honestly, with all the bureaucratic paper ‘infighting’ it is hard to tell what the real military situation is on the ground. However, just as a matter of military tactics if you add 30,000 fairly well-trained troops into a situation as nebulous as Iraq and as a result force a lesser trained enemy either to drop away or lurk in hiding until the coast is clear then yes, the security situation would almost have to be better-ON THE SURFACE. And that contradiction is the real point of this commentary.
As part of the justification for his troop increase last January President Bush cited an increased need for on-going security (essentially implementation of the Petreaus Plan) especially in sectarian–torn Baghdad. Well, what the President saith, the military giveth. The recent article mentioned above , however, pointed to the soft underbelly of what the ‘real’ increased security looks like on the ground. Those familiar with the military, and even those not familiar with that organization but who know the expression “covering your ass”, know that military commanders are famous for their little pet projects that serve to rationale all their actions. Well, head honcho Petreaus and his subalterns are not a different breed in that respect.
One of the gauges of the effectiveness of the increased security ploy has been the well-published attempt ‘reopen’ the various marketplaces key to Iraqi daily life, and a favorite target of sectarian suicide bombers and others, in and around Baghdad. The story I am recounting highlighted the famous Dora market. Well, yes it is open. Before the war started in 2003 there were some 800 plus stalls and shops there. At a low point in recent times there were less than 300 open. With the heightened security of the 'surge' that number has jumped to over three hundred and plans to have over five hundred on line in the near future are in progress. By many definitions that qualifies as a success. But here is the catch. In order for a shop to qualify as open, basically, an open door is all that is necessary. If your business has no or few things to sell that does not matter the military ‘counts’ that business as ‘open’. Moreover, call me jaded but by American norms one would think that a major market, as here, would be open early and close late. Not so. A couple of hours a day qualifies for a good day. Furthermore, as an inducement to open- come hell or high water- ‘cash grants’ are generously supplied. A little suspect, but not that unusual coming from this administration.
But here is the real kicker. Those whose work in the market, own the shops and, most importantly, those American soldiers who guard the highly fortified market quoted in the story know and have expressed their opinions that this ‘success’ is less than meets the eye. This, however, does not divert the military from bringing every congressional delegation, governmental agency or NGO tourist to this showcase. The air these days is filled with the comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam. If one thinks back to that era and another project nicknamed the ‘strategic hamlet’ program (in its various guises, depending on authorship and administration in power) one will not be surprised to see that these guys are up to their old tricks. But remember in the end all those “Potemkin Villages" turned to dust when the real situation became apparent after the withdrawal of American troops. That said, we better take the advise of an unnamed soldier guarding the Dora market and ‘skedaddle’. Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal from Iraq.
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