Last February, former President Jimmy Carter said on the Larry King show, “Some of our top leaders never intend to withdraw military forces from Iraq and they are looking for [staying] ten, 20, 50 years.” He continued, “I have never heard our leaders say that …ten years from now there will be no military bases of the United States in Iraq.”
Since the bombing of the golden-domed Askariya Shi’a mosque in Samarra on February 22, Iraq has been close to the outbreak of open civil war. While Iraqi leaders tried to bring calm it was clear that the masses behind them were not marching in step. As in the case of the nationalist Shi’ite leader Moqtadah al-Sadr’s movement, elites and militants pulled in opposite directions: while some of the most violent reprisals were apparently undertaken by his followers, al-Sadr and his top leaders sought to defuse tensions with the Sunnis throughout the conflict. Similarly, the legal political parties of the Sunnis and Shi’ites tried to limit the conflict while their followers were in the streets. The only thing common on all sides was placing blame on the American occupiers.
Amid all the talk of training Iraqi soldiers, heading off a civil war, and protecting a fledging democracy, one overriding agenda has been ignored in the debate over the timetable for bringing U.S. troops home. President George W. Bush will not withdraw our forces until U.S. oil companies have secure access to Iraq’s resources.
Cindy Sheehan and Beverly Young’s arrests at the State of the Union for wearing opposing “protest” T-shirts is the latest illustration of how the Iraq War is the nation’s most provocative issue. The attack on free speech for both sides was in fact outrageous. But lost in the T-shirt battle is what really matters: President George W. Bush’s failure to tell the nation about the true costs of the war.
Last year, 5,736 Iraqis died and 845 U.S. soldiers died in the Iraq War, many at the hands of the estimated 2,000 foreign terrorist fighters based in the U.S.-occupied country. If this conflict is part of a larger war on terrorism as President George W. Bush claims, it’s clear the U.S. is losing the so-called “global war on terror.”
Reprinted from Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures
While the nation mourns the 2,000th U.S. combat death in Iraq, instead of looking for ways to plan an exit strategy, Congress is finalizing another payment of $50 billion to continue fighting the war.
Bolivians turned out to the polls in record numbers in mid-December to elect Evo Morales, their country’s first indigenous president. With this victory, another Latin American country has joined the ranks of the region’s nations with elected leaders who are challenging the status quo.
After nearly three years devoid of serious discussion in Washington about Iraq, the floodgates opened when Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. — a conservative Democrat who originally supported the war — called for withdrawing U.S. troops at the earliest “practicable date.”
The MO–method of operation or, more formally, modus operandi–is clear from even the most cursory look at the externals. Put Commander-in-Chief George Bush in front of an audience that is sure to be friendly (like military cadets), test the themes, wait for the inevitable applause, and depart right after the speech. Progressively move on to fora less hand-picked but sure to contain a number of individuals sympathetic to the White House line. Above all, sound resolute (like Churchill), stand tall, and be assured that there’s no such thing as too much repetition.