Dems dodge demands to bring troops home

There will be no neat end to the bloody mess in Iraq. That’s the message from Washington these days—from both sides of the aisle.

President George W. Bush on Nov. 17 took the occasion of a visit to Vietnam to draw this incredible “lesson” from that earlier imperialist bloodbath and debacle: “We’ll succeed unless we quit.”

Despite daily proof that the resistance in Iraq can run circles around the regime set up by the U.S. and Britain, the politicians are talking about sending more troops there.

It all began with the arrogant ambitions of the Bush clique to seize the time and win undisputed world domination in the post-Soviet era. The neocons around the president convinced the U.S. foreign policy establishment in both parties that the risk of unleashing the dogs of war was well worth it. The prize was the Middle East—full of oil and a steppingstone to Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent.

Those in Congress and the military/intelligence structure who had to give their blessings to aggression didn’t resist. They accepted all the lying justifications for the invasion of Iraq, even when they knew better. Their training, as enthusiastic promoters of the right of U.S. corporations to go anywhere in the world to suck out the wealth, trumped whatever doubts they might have had about the Iraqi people accepting a neocolonial regime.

Now, 44 months later, all but a handful of diehards—like Bush—are admitting that the occupation is a disaster. Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s main adviser on Vietnam and a long-time Rockefeller protégé, finally said in an interview broadcast Nov. 19 on BBC that a U.S. military victory in Iraq is “no longer possible.” He had earlier told journalist Bob Woodward, “Victory is the only viable exit strategy.”

Resistance to U.S. and British troops keeps growing and the pain of those in the middle of the firestorm is unbearable.

Sitting at their kitchen tables or tossing at night, millions of people in the U.S. and Iraq are wondering the same thing: When will the troops go home? Which will come first—news about a change in Washington’s policy, or the dreaded notification that a friend or relative has become a casualty?

Their hopes were raised before the U.S. midterm elections, when the media made it seem that the vote would decide this question. It was often referred to as a referendum on the war.

The anti-war vote happened. The Republicans lost their majority in both houses of Congress. Bush quickly fired Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—which he had planned to do since summer, according to insiders.

As further proof that the war is what sunk the Republican Party in the election, the neocons began blaming Bush for the Iraq disaster.

Kenneth Adelman, once a Bush team insider who predicted that the conquest of Iraq would be a “cakewalk,” now disavows the war. Paul Wolfowitz, formerly Rumsfeld’s top assistant and co-author of the original document laying out the neocons’ vision of a “New American Century,” recently told an audience at the National Press Club, when asked about Iraq, “That’s not my problem.” Wolfowitz now heads the World Bank, to the dismay of the world.

But with all this, no commitment has come from the Democratic Party leaders to press for an end to the occupation and the withdrawal of troops.

Suddenly, the talk from both capitalist parties is about how to strengthen the Iraqi regime created by the U.S. occupation, so that at some unspecified later date U.S. troop levels can be drawn down.

On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain and now Kissinger may admit that Iraq has become a quagmire, but they oppose a withdrawal. Kissinger hopes to get Syria and Iran to join Iraq in a regional conference that would supposedly bring “stability” to the region.

Democratic Party leaders like Sen. Harry Reid, Sen. Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Steny Hoyer say the U.S. can’t just “cut and run.” They champion the view that the U.S.—meaning the ruling class—has the right to construct a regime in Iraq friendly to its interests.

This is nothing but unvarnished imperialism and doesn’t sound much different from what Bush has been saying.

The Democratic Party leaders prevented John Murtha, a long-time militarist who nevertheless proposed setting a timetable for withdrawal, from becoming the new House majority leader.

Even retired military figures like Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, appointed by Ronald Reagan to be director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988 and now an analyst with the conservative Hudson Institute, are doves compared to the Democratic leaders. Odom calls openly for total withdrawal with no preconditions and says, “Cut and run must be the first step in Iraq.”

On the ground, destruction and defeat

Meanwhile, as the paralysis continues in Washington, popular anger against the war continues around the world.

Even with Bush standing by his side, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia on Nov. 20 called for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. He had to. Tens of thousands of angry Indonesians across the vast archipelago had been demonstrating against Bush’s visit for days.

The news from the fighting in Iraq was infuriating, tragic and revealing.

News began getting out about a U.S. Army tank attack on Nov. 13 that had killed scores of civilians in Ramadi, capital of Al-Anbar province. Doctors, eyewitnesses and local police told reporters for Inter Press Service that 35 people were buried the following day after “a funeral procession which closely resembled an angry demonstration.”

“We heard the bombing and we thought it was the usual fighting between resistance fighters and the Americans, but we soon realized it was bombing by large cannons,” 60-year-old Haji Jassim explained to IPS at the burial. “We weren’t allowed by the Americans to reach the destroyed houses to try to rescue those who were buried, so certainly many of them bled to death.”

Ramadi “has often been the scene of large-scale U.S. military operations and their inherent forms of collective punishment,” explained IPS. “Last June, thousands of residents were forced from their homes due to military operations.”

The article added that: “The scene at the hospital was tragic as doctors confirmed the reason of death for many as severe bleeding that had gone on for several hours. Most of the doctors were unwilling to discuss too many details for fear of U.S. military reprisals.”

A few days later, however, the fears in the U.S. military command that it has lost control of the situation on the ground were realized when a large supply convoy of 25 trucks crossed into southern Iraq from Kuwait and stopped at what appeared to be an Iraqi government checkpoint. It wasn’t.

Armed men dressed in police uniforms seized 19 of the trucks and a security vehicle. Four U.S. contractors and one Austrian were taken hostage. Nine Asian drivers in the seized trucks were later released.

An Iraqi resistance group took credit for the spectacular heist, the largest since the war began.

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