Anti-war hopes: Height of naiveté

February 3, 2007


Anti-war hopes: Height of naiveté



TO criticise and oppose US President George W Bush's new plan for Iraq is treason in the US because it means undercutting the US military and help enemies of the country. To advocate any other course in Iraq is also treason because it means inviting international jihadists to wage a war terror inside the US.
This is the prevailing argument in Washington today. Bush himself, Vice-President Dick Cheney and their trusted aides and spokesman do not waste any opportunity to hammer home this theories when the Iraq crisis draws criticism.
Surprisingly, the ploy is working. Senior Democrat leaders are slowly backtracking from their threats of cutting off funds for the war. They have switched to a track where the US Congress would pass non-binding resolution criticising the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war but not calling for cutting off funds.
House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had talked about how the Democrats were determined to see an end to the war, signalled the shift last week upon her return from a trip to Iraq. She skirted a question about her opposition to the war and particularly the administration's plan to increase the number of US troops in Iraq, and said there was a possibility that the US would succeed in Iraq. There was a "last chance" for US victory in Iraq, she stated.
Earlier, Pelosi had indicated that she had seen through the administration's approach when she said: "The president knows that because the troops are in harm's way that we won't cut off the resources. That's why he's moving so quickly to put them in harm's way" by sending more of them to Iraq.
Several other Democrat leaders also have indicated that they have shifted postures. Most of them are now saying that they would only be favouring a bipartisan, symbolic resolution opposing the so-called "troop surge."
Bush, Cheney and others in the administration have already said that they would not be bound by such resolutions.
A compromise resolution being planned says that while the US legislature "disagrees with the 'plan' to augment" US troops, it should not cut off or reduce funding for the US military in Iraq.
The shift in Democrats' approach comes ahead of on a request Bush is likely to submit to Congress for an estimated $100 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The request will be presented in the form of a non-budgetary bill that excludes the mandatory requirements linked to the national budget. An earlier Democratic demand was that the US Congress make it mandatory for the administration to present funding requirements for the war through the regular budget, and this would have deprived the White House of the option of easy funding that it enjoyed with the Republican majority in both chambers of the legislature.
It is not as if the US soldiers would be denied food or arms and ammunition the day after the US Congress votes to cut funding for the war. The military has already been allocated funds to sustain itself in Iraq for several months more. Therefore the impact of suspending funding would be felt several months down the line during which the administration and military could plan an orderly withdrawal from Iraq.
As such, the argument becomes hollow that any member of congress voting to cut off funding for the war is abandoning US soldiers in a foreign land.
Hollow indeed is also the contention that "cutting and running" from Iraq means inviting international jihadist (like Al Qaeda and others) to wage a war of terrorism in the US. It sounds as if there is a breed in Iraq which churns out "terrorists" by the hundreds every day ready to wage a war of terror against Americans living in their homes and working in their offices in the US mainland.
The paradox is that the US is breeding anti-US extremism and militancy in Iraq by virtue of its military occupation of Iraq and high-handed action against the people of Iraq.
It should not take politicians who make it to the US Congress much to realise that they are being held hostage to their patriotism and political imperatives by the administration. When then are they not waking up?
The answer to the question is in the US media. Here are some of the typical comments that appeared in US newspapers in recent days:
"It's irresponsible in the extreme to reject Bush's last ditch attempt to stabilize Iraq out of hand without suggesting a better way to win."
Democratic legislators are "favouring defeat over victory in the Iraqi theater."
"The Democrats do not wish to win in Iraq and will do nothing to further the cause of victory."
Congressional resolutions of disapproval as intended "to undercut the war, endanger the troops and weaken the presidency."
Clearly, it was a wrong notion the US mainstream media that had championed the invasion and occupation of Iraq had mellowed in the wake of the collapse of the US approach to post-war Iraq.
The morale of the story: Those who pull the real strings in Washington are still powerful and influential enough to swing things their way no matter what, and anyone who expected otherwise was basing those expectations at the height of naiveté.