No Exit
NO EXIT
(from the Bush War in Iraq)
By Dr. Leonard Carrier, DW In-House Historian and Philosopher (Followed by an affirming retrospective comment by Dusty Schoch, DW Foreign Policy Editor.)
So now President Bush has unveiled his latest plan for “victory in Iraq.” He will insert 20,000 more troops into that war-ravaged country. These forces are designed to help Iraqi forces stabilize Baghdad so that the beleaguered Maliki government will have the semblance of being in control of the country. How is this supposed to translate into victory, especially when it promises further bloodshed and increased resentment in the Iraqi people?
To understand the thinking of the Bush administration, you first have to understand the goal. To understand what the goal was, it helps to understand what …..
the goal was not…
1.
Forget about all the flimsy rationalizations that were used, first to invade, and then to occupy Iraq.
2.
We did not invade to prevent Iraq from attacking us with atomic weapons.
3.
We did not invade to bring the fight to terrorists so they would not bring terrorism to the United States.
4.
We did not invade to bring democracy to a benighted people.
5.
We did not occupy in order to keep sectarian violence from exploding.
6.
We did not occupy in order to train the Iraqi army to be able to protect its own country, and we do not continue to occupy to help Iraq’s government serve the needs of its people.
Forget the fancy rhetoric.
The goal in fact was . . .
We invaded Iraq to effect regime change of a leadership that no longer served our interests. Our interests were to control the natural resources of the Middle East and to construct permanent military bases to protect those resources and provide a bulwark against Syria and Iran. Saudi Arabia would continue to supply us with oil, but its government could no longer stand up to its clerics in allowing U.S. bases there. What better place to redeploy than in Iraq, a country with a history of secular government and one with large oil reserves?
The only fly in the ointment was Saddam Hussein, who had turned from ally to troublesome meddler with his invasion of Kuwait. Get rid of Saddam, install a friendly government, and get them to sign a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) so that we could keep military bases in Iraq. The attack on the World Trade Center provided the perfect excuse to execute this plan. The American public would be fed a line of “feel good” propaganda, and the United States would emerge as the savior of democracy, as well as the dominant power in the Middle East.
So the invasion and occupation didn’t go as planned. That didn’t change the goal. The deaths of more than 3,000 American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis made the public relations effort of the Bush administration more difficult; but, as Lenin said, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.
Saddam has been removed—violently and for all the world to see—and there is an elected government of sorts in Iraq. The only thing left is the SOFA, but that can’t be seen as legitimate unless there is a modicum of stability in Baghdad. So this is what the “surge” strategy is supposed to produce.
Quiet the violence in Baghdad. Let the world see that the Iraqi government and its army are apparently in control. Then the agreement can be signed, and we can move our troops from the danger of Iraqi streets and into their protected fortresses. That is why there has been no exit strategy planned for Iraq. There was never supposed to be an exit.
What will happen when we retreat to our bases is predictable—more killing of Iraqis by the Iraqi army and by other Iraqis settling old scores. When the country finally destroys itself and a war-weary population sinks into despair, we can rebuild it in our own image—a model client state. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to go.
The 2006 election did not change a thing. There is nothing Congress can do short of cutting off funds for the occupation that can make the Bush administration deviate from its plan. Dennis Kucinich has made this proposal, but it will go nowhere. This is because Congress has already bought into Bush’s argument that we must support the troops. When Barack Obama says he cannot cut off funding for troops already in Iraq, we know that Bush can do anything he wants in Iraq for the next two years. So there will be hearings and investigations on Capitol Hill, supposedly to educate the American public on the costs of the war, but it will all be for the sake of political maneuvering as the 2008 election approaches. The sad fact is that the American public has already been educated, but they cannot seem to educate their elected representatives.
This (the preceding) article was created on January 12th by Dr. Carrier.
On August 3, 2005, DW Editor, Dusty Schoch wrote an article on this website (http://democratswrite.com/articles_by_democrats/page27.htm) PREDICTING essentially the same thing Len Carrier has just so commandingly capsulized as having come to pass. Dusty’s article was also an analysis of Bush’s purported “EXIT STRATEGY” in Iraq, and was entitled ….
“THE BIGGEST LIE OF ALL”
(Excerpts…)
Wake up people. We were lied to. The biggest lie of all is Bush’s claim that the duration of our occupation has come as an unforeseeable surprise. It’s the biggest and the subtlest of the entire pack of neo-con lies told about the war in Iraq. Bush and the authors of the original plan of war planned from the start never to leave Iraq…at least so long as the oil holds out. We’re already back to 80 percent pre-war production levels. “No Exit” was the plan from the go-street intersection of “Shock and Awe”. Make no mistake about it(!)
Iraq was simply the first conquest named in the joint Israeli/U.S. plan to establish a new Middle Eastern order. Read about it in “A Clean Break“–the 1997 plan co-authored by David and Meyrev Wurmser, (Hudson Institute operatives, PNAC and A.E.I. and Pentagon insiders instrumental in executing the neo-con coup of the Pentagon detailed in Sam Tannenhaus’s July 2003, Vanity Fair expose’) incorporated in the PNAC manifesto (so-called “Statement of Principles” on the PNAC website).
We entered Iraq without an exit strategy not because we were stupid or our intelligence was bad. All we NEED do is read the Downing Street memo and “A Clean Break” (research them! Google them!) to see the intelligence Bush had was clear and certain: no Iraq/9/11 connections, no WMD’s , and there COULD NEVER BE AN EXIT FROM IRAQ. Ike knew it; Bush’s father SAID it; and GW Bush certainly knew it because his father, among many others, told him. The very non-existence of an exit strategy guarantees America 20 percent of Arabian reserves forever… or at least until Halliburton freezes over.
In previous months there were problems in arranging for a “constitutional congress” to actually become a U.S.-appointed caucus. Next month there’ll be further delays in drafting the constitution these non-elected delegates will forge as straw-men for their neo-con U.S. partners in oil. After that, there will be delays in U.S. military departure because, somehow, things just won’t be getting peaceful over there–while an Islamic people are held captive by Western infidels in their holy land–Go figure. The foreign-policy math here is not challenging. The insurgency will continue as long is there is a marketable flow of oil, because, as long as there is a marketable flow of oil, we (Halliburton and Halliburton customers- you and I) will be there pumping it.
Hello! If you think we keep troops in Iraq to save lives from “insurgents”, ask yourself why Bush said no when the Senate asked for troops to fight genocidal terrorism in Sudan (mounting death toll 400,000). “No Exit” was flashing over Baghdad’s door the day we entered. We knew that American/English occupation of Iraq would be bloody and protracted. Bush and Rumsfeld’s principal miscalculation was in underestimating the quantity of troops it takes to maintain the bloody standoff with the insurgents we’d certainly muster in retaliation for our invasion. If we could have sustained the occupation of Iraq with 50,000 troops instead of three times that, we’d already be taking over Syria and/or Iran,*****which are certainly next in line-at least if the neo-con Christian and pro-Israeli Zionists intent on waging their combined Herrenvolk wars of “End-Time Rapture” and Zionist Armageddon have their way.
Back to the present…and President…
Read his speech to the Nation again…more carefully. Bush says he’s going to call on Syria and Iran to assist our “peaceful” resolution in Iraq. But couched in the same words (or as Len might say…tossed on the same SOFA) is the aggressive and Clean-Break- inspired Bush Doctrine simply warmed over.
As Bush is soliciting Syria’s and Iran’s “cooperation” , he is also ( with Machiavellian stealth) stating quite clearly that new battle lines are being drawn in the sands of Iraq and the Middle East. He has threatened Iran and Syria both that the United States is going to retaliate against any further supplying of arms and other support to the insurgents in Iraq on part of Iran and Syria. Both countries have expressed their outrage at this–Bush’s latest extrapolation of his “Bush Doctrine” (to the effect that any country that harbors and gives aid to terrorists is an enemy of the U.S. in Bush’s declared war against terrorism).
To the present day, Bush has drawn no diplomatic distinction between “insurgent” and “terrorist”. The very vagary of that foreign policy gives Iran and Syria every right and reason to suspect—and expect—that Bush’s plan was and still is to serially attack, conquer and occupy Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria (and eventually North Korea as the final target in the neo-con’s plan to exterminate Bush’s declared “Axis of Evil”).
This is more than saber rattling. This is a contingent declaration of war. How will Americans ever know the truth when Bush declares open war on Iran and Syria and tells us it’s because they are “defiantly aiding Iraqi insurgents”? He lied about WMD’s in Iraq blatantly and we have every reason to suspect that he will do the same in regard to Iran and Syria whenever the situation and his covert plans for re-structuring the Middle East afford the opportunity.
FINAL QUERY…
We now know that, before the attack on Iraq was even mentioned to, much less discussed with Congress, Bush’s military was mustering and re-staging U.S. forces in Afghanistan to launch the attack on Iraq. This is now documented military history.
As Len Carrier has pointed out, Bush now has what he and Halliburton came to Iraq for—the SOFA through which the American oil supplies will be protected and governed for the indefinite future.
Which leaves us more than ample reason, given Bush’s covert and prevaricating foreign- policy past, to conjecture intelligently just this: Is Bush actually attempting to accomplish with 20,000 more troops what the consensus of military authorities say would actually call for 200,000? Or is he, as he was in Afghanistan, simply making initial moves to stage an on-coming war with Iran and Syria, in alliance with Israel, England and possibly Saudi Arabia?
I submit to you there is no (honest and forthcoming) person alive who can or will supply us with the answer to this question. Our country has been , quite covertly, being run by a cabal of ultra (“neo-con”) conservative pro-zionist elements (please review Sam Tannenhaus’s article in July, 2003 Vanity Fair…and if you can’t find a copy, write to me personally through the contract link on this website and I will send you an electronic copy by e-mail…with Vanity Fair’s permission) since 9/11/01, and nothing has changed. Bush and his Halliburton V/P and his A.E.I. and PNAC New-World Order cabalists have been in charge since the downing of the Twin Towers of NY, and despite the numerical changing of the political guard in our legislative branch, the house of Bush, the house of Saud, the Zionist house of Israel are still in charge of the U.S. Pentagon and Armed Forces.
Until we have a pat answer to the query just posed, let’s simply and sanely assume that Bush, the biggest liar and fascist fear-mongering demagogue since Hitler, is planning to foment war with Iran and Syria, and do everything humanly possible to make his plan a “mission impossible”.
Just (exactly) as Adolph Hitler, this present U.S. President is demented. If you want just some of the details of his dementia, click onhttp://democratswrite.com/the_democratic_opinion/page198.htm
Forewarned is forearmed.
War is the only enemy.
But ignorance is war’s greatest weapon, for out of ignorance is fashioned indifference.
And what do Len and I propose a viable option to “indifference” in the case of this lying demented fascist president of ours? There is really only a single effective option: If the world must see us fail in our now majority-mandated desire to EXIT Iraq, AT LEAST LET THE WORLD SEE US DO THE BEST (AND PERHAPS AT THIS POINT, THE ONLY) THING WE CAN DO FOR PEACE IN IRAQ AND IN THE WORLD TODAY…
IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH!
How?
Just go to http://www.impeachbush.org/site/PageServer
Articles by Dr. Carrier and Dusty Schoch were collated Jan. 12, 2007.
The views expressed in this article represent the opinion of the writers.
