Sisyphus and Iraq
Last weekend brought the news of a U.S. led military assault in the western provinces of Iraq that resulted in the death of 40 “heavily armed insurgents”, just in time for the Sunday talk shows. That turned out to be hyperbole at best or an outright lie at worst. This weekend we have Operation Spear and Operation Dagger. Operation Spear is claiming,
“Approximately 50 insurgents have been killed since the operation began,” Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool said from Ramadi, the provincial capital. A second campaign of about the same size, Operation Dagger, was launched Saturday — this one targeting the marshy shores of a remote lake north of Baghdad. About 1,000 U.S. Marines and Iraqi troops, backed by fighter jets and tanks, were participating.
Saturday seems to be a great day to launch these offensives, especially with the White House gearing up for a refurbishing of Operation Iraqi Freedom’s image. Unfortunately, even the stories that play up these impotent facts have the subtext of peripheral events such as:
A suicide car bomber slammed into an Iraqi army convoy in the Yarmouk neighborhood, killing two soldiers and wounding six near a dangerous highway — also known as the Street of Death — leading from downtown to the airport, police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.
and
An Iraqi reporter working for the Saudi-owned television network Al-Arabiya was shot in the neck while leaving a Baghdad restaurant, the station said. Jawad Khadim, believed to be in his mid-30s, was seriously wounded.
and
The body of a Sunni tribal leader also was found Saturday outside Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Sheikh Arkan Shaalan Jassim al-Edwan, who had been shot, was sprawled on a roadside portrait of Saddam Hussein, police Lt. Adnan Abdullah said.
and, most tragic of all
10-year-old girl slain, Iraqi journalist injured In other violence Saturday, insurgents killed at least four people in Baghdad, including two Iraqi soldiers and a 10-year-old girl, hospital and police officials said. Twenty people — including an Iraqi journalist — were wounded. The girl was killed and two people were wounded when a roadside bomb missed a passing American military convoy, said Dr. Muhand Jawad of Baghdad’s Al-Yarmouk hospital.
Nine coalition troops killed in Iraq and Some 14 Iraqi soldiers killed in bomb blast in Fallujah.
Nevertheless, our pet goat, President George W. Bush, via his weekly radio address has told us we will not withdraw from Iraq because the war is a "vital test" for American security. He continues here:
"The mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight," Mr Bush said in his weekly radio address. Coming under renewed attack for his rationale for invading Iraq in March 2003, Mr Bush described the conflict as part of the broader US war on terrorism. He said stabilising Iraq and quelling the insurgency were important for American interests. "Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but all of us can agree that the world's terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror," Mr Bush said. "By making their stand in Iraq, the terrorists have made Iraq a vital test for the future security of our country and the free world," he added.
So let me see if I understand this. We did NOT go to Iraq to secure and destroy the nuclear and other WMD that were extant in the Hussein regime. We went in for regime change and to make Iraq a terrorist flytrap battleground where we could fight them indefinitely, regardless of the cost of Iraqi and American lives. The “democracy in Iraq” afterthought to the war was also held up as a pastel pipedream:
"The terrorists and insurgents are trying to get us to retreat. Their goal is to get us to leave before Iraqis have had a chance to show the region what a government that is elected and truly accountable to its citizens can do for its people," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "We will settle for nothing less than victory" over terrorists there, he said later.
Evidentally the definition of “victory” is a defeat of the “insurgency”. Of course there was no insurgency before we got there. According to Wikepedia: An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority, by any irregular armed force that rises up against an enforced or established authority, government, or administration. Those carrying out an insurgency are "insurgents." Insurgents conduct sabotage and harassment. Insurgents usually are in opposition to a civil authority or government primarily in the hope of improving their condition.
Does Bush actually believe that when U.S. troops leave the country another one or group of insurgents will not appear to oppose the Bushian imposed model government? Evidently not:
The administration insists no timetable can be set for bringing U.S. forces home from Iraq until enough Iraqi forces have been sufficiently trained to take over the fight against the insurgency. Anything else, the administration argues, would only embolden the insurgency.
And, Bush is still using 9/11 to justify his Iraq wet dream. “We went to war because we were attacked,” he said in this same radio address. Yeah, that was in Afghanistan!
Meanwhile, back in Afghanistan,
Al-Qaeda has ferried about half a dozen Arab agents into Afghanistan in the past three weeks, two of whom detonated themselves in suicide bombings in the south targeting a packed mosque and a convoy of U.S. troops, Afghanistan's defense minister said Friday. Rahim Wardak told The Associated Press he received intelligence that Osama bin Laden's terror group is regrouping and intends to bring Iraq-style bloodshed to Afghanistan. He also warned that the country could be in for several months of intense violence ahead of key legislative elections.
The invasion of Iraq was an internationally criminal act for which Bush will eventually have to answer. Moreover, all the unanswered questions about the 9/11 attacks, and his administrations culpability, will inevitably come to serious scrutiny.
By the way, Armando at DKos asks this question regarding all these insurgents we claim to be killing.
Finally, the Light of Reason has this story gleaned from the writings of Zachary Scott-Singley @ A Soldier’s Thoughts.
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