Does Bush plan to escalate war in Iraq?

Is the White House going to order a massive escalation of the Iraq war? It all depends on how you interpret the meaning of the word “surge.” This word is used 12 times in an article in the Dec. 16 New York Times on U.S. plans to increase troops stationed in Baghdad.

Take away the smoke and mirrors and a surge is an escalation, one disguised as a momentary blip on the EKG monitor of the collapsing occupation. Pentagon generals must pay attention to some realities. They know that there are not enough troops available at present for a sustained escalation.

Sen. John McCain has called for 35,000 combat troops or 10 combat brigades, but he hasn’t explained where they will come from, how they will be equipped or whether they will be willing to fight.

As more U.S. troops die or are maimed, a victory for Washington seems impossible, and the war gets more cruel and ugly, the fewer the young people who find joining the Army and Marines an attractive choice, even with many financial incentives. So at present no one doing the planning dares suggest the kind of massive escalation that Gen. Colin Powell, then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pushed in the first Gulf War.

That was 16 years ago. Powell now says the U.S. Army is overextended and “about broken.”

Fearing the impact of a massive escalation, the war hawks instead have developed another stop-gap measure: Some troops are supposed to come home from Iraq, but they will stay another three months. Some others are supposed to arrive in Iraq in three months, but they will deploy now. By sleight of hand—and an extra three months of horror for the troops—the Pentagon can double the deployment in Baghdad for three to six months by bringing in 15,000 to 30,000 forces.

Then, with Robert Gates heading the Pentagon instead of Donald Rumsfeld, they might be able to develop a bigger Army and Marines. A Dec. 18 AP article said it all: “Rumsfeld had resisted increasing the size of the Army or the Marine Corps; Gates’ view is unknown.”

Their first step is to increase the number of U.S. trainers of the Iraqi Army. Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, who heads the training contingent there, said Dec. 17 that this number would triple from 5,000 to 15,000 soon, and it would come from troops already in the region.

The incoming Senate majority leader, Harry Reid (D-Nev.), has already demonstrated how useless the Democratic Party victory is to the anti-war movement. He has approved a three-month increase, a “surge”: “If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we’ll go along with that.”

Bush hasn’t formally announced any changes in his plan for the Iraq occupation. But he has insisted the U.S. will not leave Iraq without a “victory.”

What the generals and war-happy politicians avoided discussing was whether the stress on the Army would lead to a significant change in the morale of the troops, that is, if the troops, who have already given up on the war, will gain the courage to confront their oppressors in the Pentagon. There are already signs that the resistance inside the military, which has developed slowly over the first 44 months of the war, is beginning to accelerate.

The first resistance came from individual refusers who are guided by conscience. This has continued and was brought into the New York area on Dec. 7-11 by Carolyn Ho, Lt. Ehren Watada’s mother. Ho spoke at four meetings, including one at New York University on Dec. 7 that stuffed a ground-floor meeting hall.

Like Watada himself, Ho is articulate and capable of winning anyone neutral or sympathetic. She explains how the former Eagle Scout had joined the Army out of patriotism following 9/11, how he won honors and commendations in officer training school. He was an “ideal soldier” until his highly demanding colonel in South Korea instilled in Watada a drive to learn everything about anyplace he would be sent.

“The colonel never expected that Ehren would study it and come to the conclusion that he did: that the war was unjustified; it was sold by lies, and that the U.S. had no business being in Iraq.” Once he convinced himself that the war and occupation of Iraq were unconstitutional, Watada stayed firm in his refusal to deploy, despite the threat to his career and his freedom.

Watada, who is of Asian-Pacific Islander background, is charged with missing movement, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and contempt toward officials. He faces a possible eight years in prison. (www.thankyoult.org)

Along with individual refusers of conscience like Watada, a new movement has begun to draw broader participation from troops who are ready to take legal steps to demonstrate their opposition to the war.

A petition entitled an “Appeal for Redress,” calling for a prompt withdrawal, has attracted the signatures of troops of all services, ranks and of varied political viewpoints who are willing to take a stand against the war.

The organizers say the petition has 1,000 valid signatures now and they’re hoping to double that by Jan. 15, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when these legal military resisters plan a news conference at a Unitarian Church in Norfolk, Va. (www.appealforredress.org)

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