December 15, 2005
Since
Rep. John Murtha’s declarations expressing the need to reconsider the
presence of US troops in Iraq, we have seen a considerable increase in
the volume of print-n-bytes dedicated to talk of
withdrawing/redeploying US troops in Iraq. It is therefore necessary to
focus on exactly what kind of withdrawal is being talked about.
It
is also extremely important for the Left to not lose its renewed
resolve and momentum, since a corollary function of the talk of
withdrawing/redeploying troops is to demobilize the antiwar activists
in particular (and to allay the worries of the general public) by
spreading the idea that the official representatives have heard
people’s opinions as well as the voices of the military commanders and
bigwigs on the ground. By implication, people should stop worrying now,
the end of the war is near and the activists need not bother raise
their blood pressures any longer, implying, "We’ll take it from here!"
We must assume that the invasion and the occupation of Iraq (as much as
that of Palestine) is a strategic move (I personally do worry when
Condi, for example, utters the intention of 're-designing’ the Middle
East, as if we were an automobile or a washing machine). And gaining
strategic goals requires knowing how to cut down on losses at crucial
turning points when losses start to undermine the entire operation,
while maintaining overall control over the most important essentials.
A
significant part of Iraqi reality is the fact that no people like to be
enslaved (not to mention not liking losing privileges) and will
therefore resist foreign occupiers using all necessary means. The
increase in public discussions about withdrawal/redeployment of US
military forces in Iraq is a signal that the Iraqi resistance,
particularly by the Sunnis, has been successful to force the situation
and bring about a speedier proceeding to the next phase of the
strategic development.
The
so-called withdrawal can take several forms and modes. Though the US
armed forces are suffering tactically — in that they did not plan for,
since they did not expect, the speed and the ferocity with which the
resistance in Iraq attacked back — the US strategic planners still
operate with the assumption that the game is not lost at all. Only the
shape of the struggle will change, if they play their cards right.
It seems that what the US is pursuing is to train enough Iraqi security
personnel so as to be able to take the brunt of a protracted, low
intensity civil war. Once that force is even half ready, the US can
pull most of its forces out, while keeping a good-sized, agile military
presence in strategically located (mostly out of the way) bases in
Iraq. They need not leave completely; they merely need to be less
visible.
In this form (that can be more easily justified to the US citizens),
coupled with control of airspace, coupled with the Shiite and Kurdish
manpower, the US can maintain an actual (be it reduced) military
presence for a good while in the medium term.
The
so-called 'Salvadoran Option’ (death squad warfare) seems to be well in
place, as well, and it can be expanded (even literally outsourced to
private security companies with hired mercenaries). What can be called
a 'Colombian Option’ (low-intensity, protracted civil war) can be added
to the mix, and especially with the help of the hardened Kurdish peshmarga forces
well into the idea of cooperating with the Americans (not to mention
the Israelis) a protracted low-intensity civil war can work
strategically for the US (and Israel).
And that is only the military side of the political life. The economic
side of the political life in Iraq is rarely even taken into account
qualitatively by the antiwar movement, on a mass scale. Bremer’s '100
Orders’ changed the entire legal structure of Iraq, not only as a state
but also as a society; most significantly fundamentally changing the
conditions for economic activities to the utter detriment of ordinary
Iraqis.
In an article entitled, The Endless Looting of Iraq, explaining how the changed legal system has affected Iraq’s economic picture, Ghali Hassan writes, "For
example, Order 39 allows for the following: (1) privatization of Iraq’s
non-oil-related economy which [was] dominated by 200 state-owned
enterprises; (2) 100 percent foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses; (3)
'national treatment’ of foreign firms; (4) unrestricted, tax-free
remittance of all profits and other funds; and (5) 40-year ownership
licenses. Thus, it allows the U.S. corporations operating in Iraq to
own every business, do all of the work, and send all their money home.
Nothing needs to be reinvested locally to service the Iraqi economy, no
Iraqi need be hired, no public services need be guaranteed, and
workers’ rights can easily be ignored. Foreign corporations can
withdraw their investments at any time. Order 81 is designed to
reengineer Iraq’s traditional agriculture system into a U.S.-style
corporate agribusiness, and in the process enslave Iraqi farmers and
undermine Iraq’s food security. All these imposed by military
means — in contravention of the WTO regulations and international law —
and disguised as U.S. "reconstruction efforts" to rebuild Iraq," (Online Journal, December 14, 2005).
So, even if and when the US armed forces are reduced or eliminated all
together, the real goals and reasons for which the invasion took place
are almost completely untouched, meaning that the US would still walk
away with the economic gains it intended to achieve!
In
the face of the intensity and ferocity of the Iraqi resistance, the US
military presence in Iraq is now the subject of competing
withdrawal/redeployment plans. Some plans would have them leave
completely today, some plans would have them leave tomorrow, and some
plans pin some vague future date, either 'next year’ or 'as soon as the
security situation allows it’.
Almost completely missing from all those plans, both as offered by
officials and as presented in the corporate media, are all the
questions to do with 'how and what’: What is the content of this
'withdrawal’? Is it a real and complete and total withdrawal from Iraq,
and all of the Middle East or is it an act of merely moving the
soldiers around in the same general area? How will the withdrawal
happen and what will it affect? What about the legal system? Can the
Iraqis start suing Americans in their courts? What about the legalities
that pertain to the economic life? Will the legal clock go back to the
pre-invasion constitution? What particular means/materiel will this
process provide to address all the facts that in the process of this
'war on terror’ were forcefully and violently changed (for worse) on
the ground, both in Iraq and in the US?
Any withdrawal plan that does not address the following listed items
is, I believe, therefore a sham, or a carefully designed distraction,
and should be taken as a means for bringing about a strategic victory
for imperialism both abroad and at home. The list is of course
incomplete, may be taken as both a guideline and a list of demands, and
is a minimum:
In Iraq:
1) The US armed forces must leave Iraq and return home now, completely and unconditionally.
2)
Some thousands of tons of uranium-enriched munitions have pierced all
manner of life in Iraq and must therefore be cleaned up as much as
possible, and specialized medical care must be provided for the
affected population, and reparations paid accordingly.
3) All displaced families must be compensated and reparations paid to them.
4) All the families of the killed Iraqis must be compensated and reparations paid to them.
5) All the laws passed by the occupation authorities must be automatically reversed.
6) The US must not have any authority, sanction or say-so over any Iraqi sphere of life.
7)
Full reparations must be paid by the US and the UK for a bombing
campaign that lasted from 1991 till today, destroying civilian
infrastructure from sewage systems to roads, bridges, factories,
schools and hospitals.
In the US:
1) PATRIOT Act must be annulled.
2) Habeas corpus must be restored fully and unconditionally for all.
3)
All veterans (and their families) from both Iraq wars must be fully
compensated for exposure to uranium-enriched munitions, whose use
constitutes a war crime.
4) The authority of a single individual
(the President) to declare war must be revoked completely and
unconditionally and irrevocably.
5) The sole authority of the
Congress (i.e., people’s democratically elected representatives) to
activate the armed forces for purely defensive purposes must be
re-invoked.
6) Bush and his entire administration, as well as some
leading Congressional members must be brought to trial for crimes
against humanity.
As long as the above demands are not addressed, we will still have work
to do. For as long as we are stuck with these most recently added
inequities crammed into the fabric of our already-miserable lives both
in Iraq and the US as a result of this invasion, and as a result of the
political atmosphere created in the US in the guise of the 'war on
terror’, we will remain behind the conceptual eight ball; forever
reactive, forever trying to keep up with the twists and turns thrown
our way by the ruling powers that be, and therefore forever at their
mercy, begging for crumbs. It is our resources that they plunder, so it is only natural that we insist on demanding justice and accountability.