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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Who Won the War?
Wednesday 03 December @ 14:49:44 |
 by Ed Felien
From the perspective of George W. Bush, the United States has had two spectacular victories over evil empires in the Middle East. The victories over the Taliban-controlled government in Afghanistan and over the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq demonstrated the United States’ superior military equipment and personnel and superior strategy in crushing the enemy like a bowling ball knocking down pins in a strike.
Or, did it?
Or, is it more like just before the bowling ball hits the pins, the pinsetter lifts the rack, and the ball goes through touching only air in the virtual strike zone.
Bush celebrated his victory over Saddam Hussein by flying a Navy jet onto an aircraft carrier docked off San Diego and proclaiming, “Victory.” [He probably didn’t pilot the jet, but the real pilot may have let him hold the controls for a few moments when they were up in the sky, between take-off and landing. Remind you of anything?]
It doesn’t look much like “Victory” today.
Wasn’t anyone suspicious that the fighting was over so quickly? In Afghanistan it was newly recruited volunteers that fought rear guard actions to delay the advance of Allied forces just long enough to allow the main force of the Taliban regular army time to melt into the landscape. In Iraq it was a few units placed around major cities that were only meant to delay the advance, once again, to allow the leadership the opportunity to disappear. It isn’t just that we haven’t been able to locate Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, we haven’t been able to locate the Taliban or Iraqi armies.
Both sides believed the war was “going according to plan.” It’s just that the U. S. military plan was obvious, and the Taliban and Iraqi plans were mysterious and inscrutable. They shouldn’t have been. The Taliban and Iraqi strategy is the same as the American colonists at Concord—hide behind trees and shoot at the soldiers marching in close formation. It’s the guerrilla strategy of any group trying to resist a foreign invader.
Strategic retreat is an essential part of guerrilla strategy. The Russian army retreated as Napoleon and Hitler marched into Russia. When they had marched too far in front of their supply lines, and when the Russian policy of scorched earth left them no prize of conquest, the invaders were forced to leave. They left whimpering with their tail between their legs, and at that point the Russian army began to attack.
When the U. S. invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban slipped over the borders into Pakistan (where many of the Pashtoon Taliban came from), into Iran (where there is a large Afghani refugee population in Eastern Iran), and into the mountainous former Soviet republics of Tadzhikistan and Kirghizistan. When the U. S. invaded Iraq, the military and Ba’ath Party officials melted into the general population. The common aphorism is, “The guerrilla fighter must live among the people like a fish in the sea.” So far, the sea hasn’t thrown Saddam Hussein back up on the shore.
Afghanistan has reverted to warlord feudalism. The U. S. backed Karzai government controls Kabul and little else. The warlords control their own separate little kingdoms, and opium production is back up to record levels after being almost eliminated by the Taliban.
The U. S. is having major problems trying to establish a civilian government in Iraq. The U. S. picked interim council is made up of unpopular exiles and CIA stooges. With little progress and mounting U. S. casualties, Bush has set a deadline of June, 2004, for a new civilian government to be in place. The timing is critical to his chances for re-election. A new CIA assessment, placing the insurgent strength at 50,000 and growing, has said, “We could lose this situation.” Expect the Bush team to cut their losses and bug out ASAP.
But getting out of Iraq won’t be enough. In order to satisfy Islamic fundamentalists, the U. S. will have to get out of Afghanistan and abandon military bases in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
The U. S. relationship with Egypt is especially interesting. Egypt has been considered the intellectual center of the Arab world probably before the establishment of the library in Alexandria in the third century B. C. Nasser became a hero to the Arab world when he took the Suez Canal and its territory back from the British, and he used that popularity to form the first modern Pan Arab coalition. The analysis of British colonialism and U. S. imperialism is fashioned and popularized in Cairo before it is spread through the Middle East. Jimmy Carter was able to get Israel and Egypt to agree to a peace treaty by agreeing to give Egypt the same amount of aid each year that the U. S. gives Israel. Most years that amount is around $3 billion. The money never gets to the impoverished Egyptians or the Palestinians. The majority is given to friends and relatives of Mubarak who run construction projects. The U. S. considers it hush money—to buy Egypt’s compliance with the U. S. policy toward Israel. Egyptian intellectuals consider it graft and corruption and a sell-out of the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians. It was the justification for a group of militants to leave a military parade, charge the viewing stand and assassinate Anwar Sadat. Mubarak, Sadat’s successor, has been able to keep a firm lid on dissent, but most terrorists are trained and educated in Egypt. If the U. S. withdrew military aid and stopped the cash flow, the common Middle Eastern assumption is that the regime would dry up like dust and blow away.
Payoffs to the Saudi royal family take a more familiar route. They take the form of royalty payments for the export of Saudi oil. There are U. S. military bases in Saudi Arabia, and there is close cooperation between the Saudi and U. S. military. The Bush family is particularly close to the Saudis. When no one would invest in George W.’s oil schemes while he was a young wildcatter in Texas, he was able to find willing investors in the bin Laden family, the principal construction contractors in Saudi Arabia. Any threat to the stability of the regime in Saudi Arabia would have serious consequences for the West. Saudi Arabia controls 40 percent of the known petroleum reserves in the world. This oil literally fuels the economies of Europe and the U. S. Any political party or group that was anti-American would be considered a threat to our vital national interests, and we would pressure the Saudis to eliminate them. One perennial source of danger to these interests is the Hadj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia that is required of every devout Muslim once during his lifetime.
Every year Muslims pray in the Mosques in Mecca and hear the Immans preach about repelling the U. S. and Israeli invaders who are occupying Arab land. But, following the example of Mohammed, there can be no war in Mecca during Ramadan. All pilgrims must come in peace.
Any hope for lasting peace in the Middle East is, ultimately, dependent on Israel. As long as the Arab states believe the Palestinians are being denied justice and a legitimate homeland, they will believe there is justification for a terrorist war of attrition against Israel and the U. S. Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister of Israel as a hawk among hawks. He promised to get tough with the Palestinians. It was he who provoked the current Intafada by leading a gang of thugs onto the Temple Mount, one of the sacred shrines of Islam where Muslims believe the Prophet ascended to heaven.
Sharon knew his act would provoke a violent reaction from Palestinians who would try to protect their shrine from being defiled by non-believers.
What needs to be done to achieve peace in the Middle East?
The U. S. needs to withdraw troops and allow Afghanis to determine the fate of Afghanistan, Iraqis to determine the fate of Iraq. The United States needs to withdraw economic and military aid to corrupt dictatorships like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The United States should withdraw economic and military assistance to Israel until it agrees to negotiate a just peace with the Palestinians; at the very least, Israel must tear down the wall and agree to the 1967 borders as the basis for statehood for Palestine.
Will this happen?
Israel is beginning to anticipate a precipitous withdrawal of U. S. forces from Iraq and the Middle East. This is creating pressure on them to negotiate with the Palestinians. Sharon is still a bully, but it was a lot easier to be a bully with an even bigger bully standing behind you ready to back you up.
Sharon is looking over his shoulder today and all he sees are Arabs. Contrary to the conditions in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, it is possible to imagine a domino effect in the U. S. withdrawal in the Middle East.
Vietnam’s relationship to other countries in Southeast Asia was not nearly as close as the relations of Arab and Muslim countries to each other in the Middle East. The fighting force in Afghanistan and Iraq is international. After driving the U. S. and its allies out of Iraq, the fighters would have no hesitation to move to Afghanistan, and from there to Egypt and from there to Saudi Arabia, and from there to Palestine.
What will happen to George W. Bush and the election next year?
Karl Rowe will direct Bush to continue to urge the American people to “Rally ‘round the Flag.” During the congressional elections last year Rowe stepped up the war and sent Bush on a tour of the midwest to rally the party faithful, and it made a difference of two or three points. He sent him out again, and it brought out more Republicans to vote and kept home more Democrats. He sent him around a third time and it helped elect a Republican majority in Congress and sent Norm Coleman to serve in Paul Wellstone’s seat in the U. S. Senate. Whether Rowe can successfully rally the faithful while in full retreat remains to be seen. It would be a miraculous political achievement.
What needs to be pointed out now and for the next eleven months is that Bush’s foreign policies are a disaster. The world was solidly behind us after 9/11, and today they are almost as solidly opposed to our policies. They loved us, and now they hate and fear us.
He invaded Iraq with no idea as to what he would do with the country after he got it. His Vice President and his major campaign contributors are war profiteers who have made millions on this adventure, while our new national debt has mortgaged our children’s future to pay for it.
He deliberately lied to the American people about the real reasons for the war, and his friends made a fortune over the dead bodies of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of American G. I.’s. How much more will it take before the American people throw this cheap hustler out of the White House?
Will it take enough body bags to build another black marble memorial in Washington before the American people say, “Enough! This is enough! Stop the war! We want peace.”
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