Why We Fight
Apparently for no reason at all, or at least no reason that has anything to do with what used to be euphemistically referred to as a national interest. One of the most astonishing articles to appear recently was featured in The WashPost’s outlook section today, Thomas E. Ricks’ “The War in Iraq isn’t over. The main events may not even have happened yet.” Link http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021301648.html?hpid=opinionsbox1 . Ricks is a professional cheerleader for Generals Petraeus and Odierno, whom he appears to regard as reincarnations of Napoleon and Hannibal all rolled together with a little Ulysses S. Grant. He also is the special military correspondent for the WashPost…need I say more?
The article in question tells us that the Generals expect the US to be in Iraq with a substantial force through 2014 or 2015, the election of Obama and his pledge to withdraw in 18 months notwithstanding. It also ignores the Iraqi demands that we should leave. When I saw Ricks name on the byline I didn’t even want to read the piece, but forced myself to do so. I fully expected a bullshit argument about how the US had to stay in Iraq to oppose terrorism or counter Iran, but was somewhat disappointed. In the course of 3,000 or so words Ricks did not provide a single reason why the United States should remain in Iraq apart from a comment that leaving Iraq would let “the genocidal chips fall where they may.” So the United States is in Iraq to stop genocide. If that is so, we should probably send troops to the Sudan, Sri Lanka, and the Congo just for starters. What we are really seeing is that the generals increasingly have their own agenda and it ain’t bringing the troops home. They provide good access and notable comments to a lot of enablers in the media like Ricks who like a robust story full of blood and guts and want to make sure the good old global war on terror goes on and on. It might be simplistic to ask “If Usama bin Laden is the enemy and he is located in Pakistan why have we been fighting wars for seven years in Iraq and Afghanistan?” Sometimes the simple questions are the only ones worth asking.
“If Usama bin Laden is the enemy and he is located in Pakistan why have we been fighting wars for seven years in Iraq and Afghanistan?”
I think it is the Great Game, war profiteering and a collective addiction to starting and continuing unnecessary violence for the purpose of being exhilarated with emotion and feel apart of something greater than oneself (War Mania Disorder).
Ricks knows his audience. He has to paint it as a human crisis that needs further humanitarian intervention because the Democrats are in power. I haven’t seen Obama really tackle the Iran problem yet so I wonder if that has anything to do with it. He hasn’t been banging the war drums much. I’m curious how the Democrat propaganda machine will deal with these issues.
Obama wasn’t going to withdraw from Iraq. He was going to leave what he calls “non-combat troops” in (unless I’m mistaken).
The crux of the problem here is the two essentially stateless areas created by British imperialism and international incompetence: Israel/Palestine and the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. Reluctance and inability on the part of the people in these areas to organize themselves and behave according to Western governmental and bureaucratic patterns has rendered their issues intractable for current national and international institutions and is the underlying issue about Iraq, Iran, whatever. The fact that extremists on all sides actually profit from this means that the disorganization could essentially continue indefinitely and eventually lead to a nuclear conflagration. This is certainly the path we are on.
It says here that what is needed in both cases is for the West, the UN, the US, NATO, and the concerned stable powers to realize that this is the issue, and to stop waiting for or trying to compel or seduce the people in these areas into adopting organized bureaucratic state behaviors. Instead what needs to happen is to impose an internationally acceptable solution that allows the stateless areas to organize themselves over time, but in a situation where their interface to the entire outside world is controlled and limited until such time as they do so.
In terms of Israel/Palestine it means that the grownups, the UN and the Arab League with the cooperation of regional neighbors, the US, Russia, NATO etc. negotiate FOR the Palestinians with the Israelis along the lines of the ‘67 borders and relevant UN resolutions, patrol the border between Israel and Palestine, guarantee the security of both sides, and allow the Palestinians to be more organized and bureaucratic and state-y at their leisure.
In the Afghan/Pakistani region it means having both of those countries admit that they cannot defend or control their current borders, and in conjunction with the international community come up with borders which they CAN assert state control over. This would very likely result in a ‘no-man’s-land’ between the two. On both sides, the national governments and international community would tightly control what goes in and what goes out, access to all sorts of trappings of civilization such as international travel, money, cell phones and the like. In essence the Pashtun mountain region would become a sort of reservation or experiment, forcibly excluded in a sort of Prime Directive way from what Barnett calls the Core, such that no terror attacks or training could happen from it. They would then have the choice to stay that way, or organize themselves in a way acceptable to the international community.
We can solve these issues… but the first thing we need to do is stop pretending.
Sounds like a big ghetto (or insane asylum). Good thing the grown ups will be in charge. The impression I’ve been getting is that interventionist (including containment) strategies as a first step in “closing the gap” are actually the source and justification for radical violence.
However, I imagine Mr Panfile’s recommendations are pretty close to the course that the internationalist Dem’s will take. So, I guess the “war” against mass murder– which was begun and escalated by the neocons– will be perpetuated by the grown ups.
Tom Ricks stopped being a WASHINGTON POST correspondent last year. He took a buyout and is now a Fellow of the neoliberal think tank Center for a New American Security and writes a blog for FOREIGN POLICY magazine.