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Whose side are we on?
By Ron Fullwood
02/26/06 "ICH"
-- -- he AP has
reported that the number of Iraqi army units that are able to
stand alone, without our soldier's help, has dropped from one to
zero.
But, the report states, the number of Iraqi battalions capable of
leading the battle, with U.S. troops in a support role, has grown by
nearly 50%, from 36 to 53, and the number engaged in combat has
increased 11%, from 88 to 98.
Our soldiers now stand with the Shiite-dominated authority that they
helped to achieve power with the force of our nation's military. We
know that our troops are still being sent out on search and destroy
missions and all sorts of 'anti-insurgent' raids. Most of these
missions and raids are almost certainly directed at Iraqis opposed
to the government our troops are propping up.
At this point our soldiers are just muckraking along with the
Shiite-dominated militias we have funded, equipped, and supported.
This same band of armed government loyalists, Shiite Kurdish and
Sunni combatants, is the force that many, in and out of government,
both republicans and Democrats, say they rely on to take over
'security' of Iraq so our soldiers can withdrawal.
The reality is, the Iraqi militias are using our assistance as a
wedge against their political opponents. That's not democracy
forming, it's a junta, a recipe for perpetual resistance to the
existing authority, and we're on tyranny's side.
Bush
called the leaders of the major parties in Iraq to buck them up
as he darted around the world to keep out of harm's way: Prime
Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite; the head of Iraq's largest
Shiite political party, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim; President Jalal
Talabani, a Kurd; and parliament speaker Hajim al-Hassani, a Sunni.
Bush ``encouraged them to continue to work together to thwart the
efforts of the perpetrators of the violence to sow discord among
Iraq's communities.''
However, the AP had another
report that signaled the Iraqi leader's impatience with
Washington's 'protection' racket . . . the country's top Shiite
cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was hinting, as was Vice
President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, that their religious armies could get
the security job done if the government couldn't defend the holy
shrines.
There are reports of police finding dozens of bodies, cuffed and
shot execution-style since Wednesday. The bodies of 14 Iraqi police
were found burned inside their vehicles near a Sunni mosque. The
deaths
included three journalists working for Al-Arabiya television.
There will never come a point where the U.S. military will be able
to bring any reasonable political balance there and they shouldn't
be expected to. They are designed to fight wars and defend our
homeland against invasion or disaster, not iron out the intricacies
of Iraqi politics and sectarian rivalry. Those are for Iraqi's to
resolve themselves. The sectarian divisions can only be deepened and
exaggerated by the heavy hand of our military occupation.
They want us to believe that the forces they are training (the ones
that the politicians want to 'take control' of Iraq if we ever
withdraw), will be some sort of beacon of democracy, but the reality
is that there will always be a sect in Iraq who will be locked out
of power and they will always be at the mercy of the ruling party's
forces.
Our soldiers are now mercenaries of a supposedly independent
government - Bush crowed the other day that Iraq's now a sovereign
nation. "In less than three years," Bush
claimed, the nation of Iraq has gone from living under the boot
of a brutal tyrant to liberation, to sovereignty . . ."
"Our strategy in Iraq is, as the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down."
he said. Troop levels on the ground will be decided by commanders on
the ground -- not by politicians in Washington, D.C." (Applause.)
Yet, these soldiers, and the Iraqis under their guns, are clearly at
the point of Washington's politics. They were likely optimistic and
hopeful that the elections signaled a turning point in the
occupation. They probably expected, and may have seen for a time,
that optimism and hope in the faces and attitudes of the folks
around them.
Unfortunately, there will be more political and military meddling,
fueling more violence directed at the symbols of the sponsors of the
ruling authority, our soldiers. Until Bush can find his way into his
next brawl with Iran or Syria, Iraq will remain the deliberate,
jingoistic symbol of Bush's paranoid fear.
Bush's cohort, Blair, admitted that the assault on Baghdad was
essentially a muscle-flexing exercise. They thought Iraq would be a
cakewalk (the hunt for bin Laden was a bust) so they loaded up our
national pride and covered all of us with Iraqi blood to go with the
blood of innocent Afghans caught in our swaggering reprisal. Tens of
thousands of innocents, in Iraq and Afghanistan have been killed by
our cluster bombs, our search and destroy missions, and by the
misguided hands of our nervous soldiers so that Blair and Bush could
"draw a line in the sand" like bullies in front of a crowd.
So the numbers of bystanders slaughtered by our aggression quickly
outpaced the numbers killed in the 9-11 attack, but that wasn't
enough to satiate the fear of Blair and Bush. And they seem shocked
(as bullies often are) at the lack of fear from those they sought to
dominate with their violence. And their enemies multiplied. More
shock. And their critics multiplied. More shock.
Yet, Bush pushed on, mesmerized by his own hypocritical rhetoric
about freedom and democracy. It's more than clear to all in the
Middle East that his rhetoric masks the bloody reality that the
U.S., under Bush's leadership, has become the type of oppressor that
all the suffering people around the world fear. According to our own
military and intelligence operatives, our presence in Iraq is having
the effect of creating more enemies and resistance to the U.S. than
can be countered by any new recruits or any new Iraqi government
intuitive sponsored or propped up by our heavy-handed military
forces and their war of aggression against all who would resist our
occupying army.
A military force, our military force is designed primarily to fight
and win wars. Not that they don't do peacekeeping well. American
compassion and generosity are reflected in many of the actions of
our soldiers, most noticeably in their dedication to humanitarian
pursuits like medical care, rebuilding schools, providing food and
housing, and other instigations of the representatives of a
prosperous nation.
But, there is great resentment among many in the Iraqi population
that won't be assuaged by chocolates, bandages, or raising roofs.
Bush has pulled the plug on those projects anyway. Our soldiers
shouldn't be put at the point of such a murky policy of intentions
in Iraq. Our military is the inevitable arm of an authority engaged
in active armed conflict with Iraqis in opposition to their propped
up regime. Americans don't know who our soldiers are being asked to
kill and who they are dying for. That shouldn't be a secret anymore.
Bush shouldn't be allowed to escape accountability by labeling
everyone who gets slaughtered with our soldier's help and support,
evil insurgents.
We know that Bush wants to use the troops for anything that keeps
them in place for future meddling They're his protection racket for
the oil that we're 'holding for the Iraqis. They're his personal
prop for victory speeches. They're his hired muscle in hell's
kitchen, waiting for a new contract.
But, they are also our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers,
waiting for some rationality to their mission . . . and a ticket
home. Our leaders should spell out just what they expect our
soldiers to do in Iraq that is in tune with our own values and
democratic principles. To ask them to defend anything less is a
tyranny of our nation's leadership in Washington and in Foggy Bottom
Ron Fullwood,
bigtree_75@msn.com is an activist from Columbia, Md. and
the author of the book 'Power of Mischief :
Military Industry Executives are Making Bush Policy and the Country
is Paying the Price'
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