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Another Attitude Bushies just as clueless 5 years later After five years of the Bushies' dreadful Iraqi quagmire, longtime British Middle East resident, observer and writer Robert Fisk offers an assessment at odds with the neoconservative sophomoric jingoism that so relentlessly characterizes the view from here. But with no exit in sight, nothing has been more consistent than the Bush administration's refusal to admit reality into its calculations.
Marking the beginning of the war's sixth year, Bush blathered about future generations studying the invasion's remarkable military display and effectiveness as though he were still strutting around on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in front of the infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner. The man is truly incapable of distinguishing reality from what he sees on Fox News, averring that this war has placed us on the brink of a great "strategic victory." American troops already suffer a backdoor draft with forced tour extensions and repeated redeployments to Iraq. Last week, behind closed doors, the Joint Chiefs were apparently revealing the severe long-term problems that the war in Iraq are creating for the U.S. military. The armchair warriors of the Bush administration know that reinstituting a draft — essential were this war to have adequate personnel — would end the war as well as the political careers of many of its sponsors. By some counts, there are more mercenaries fighting in Iraq, at extremely high cost, than U.S. military personnel. The Bushies have lied to avoid exposing the real costs of their war to those who could demand its end. The most noticeable effect of tying the "surge" to reduced violence in Baghdad has been that the war has slid off the front page. There've been more than 33,000 American casualties, including 4,000 dead and 13,000 wounded too severely to return to action. Last year was the deadliest of all. Informed estimates have pegged the cost for this fiasco at $3,000,000,000,000. That's trillions. Iraq is so broken and so devastated that estimates of the dead there now range up to 1 million. A fifth of the entire population are refugees — more than 5 million people. The American-supported government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki last week proved its attentiveness to its American neoconservative benefactors. Rejecting political or diplomatic solutions to the Iraqi civil war, the so-called Iraqi army launched a surprise attack on the city of Basra. The city has been in a heightened state of violence since the British pullout last year. But there's strong evidence the Maliki government even surprised the Bushies. All one need know is that southern Iraq is home to a fifth of the Middle East's oil. Iraqis see this as positioning for the upcoming elections. What the Bushies characterize as a strike against terrorism is in reality the Maliki faction taking on his rival, the powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia. The "Iraqi Army" under Maliki's command is really nothing more than three re-badged militias, two Shiite and one Kurdish. The United States is in reality funding one militia over another in Iraq's civil war. The United States backs separatists — Shiites who support partitioning Iraq, giving Dick Cheney's buddies the long-promised access to Iraqi oil and leaving American bases in the country. The nationalists, including Moqtada al-Sadr and much of the Iraqi Parliament, are having none of that and support a unified, sovereign Iraq. Three-quarters of Iraqis want the United States out immediately. Most Americans want the war over. Isn't it time that the lily-livered Democrats do what they were elected to do and cut off funding for this lunacy? Will the American public ever learn and stop being led down rat holes by a fear mongering, vainglorious and ignorant leader? Iran is next. William Seewald: Longtime Amarillo resident and columnist. E-mail
comments about this story Posted: April 3, 2008
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