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Changing the Course in Iraq
How the US can extract itself
As coalition policy reaches a crisis, may I resurrect an idea? It offers a way out of the current debate whether to "stay the course" (as President George W. Bush has long advocated) or to withdraw troops on a short timetable (as his critics demand).
My solution splits the difference, "Stay the course – but change the course." I suggest pulling coalition forces out of the inhabited areas of Iraq and redeploying them to the desert. This way, the troops remain indefinitely in Iraq, but remote from the urban carnage. It permits the American-led troops to carry out essential tasks (protecting borders, keeping the oil and gas flowing, ensuring that no Saddam-like monster takes power) while ending their non-essential work (maintaining street-level order, guarding their own barracks).
Beyond these specifics, such a troop redeployment would imply a profound and improved change of course. It means:
· Letting Iraqis run Iraq: Wish the Iraqis well but recognize that they are responsible for their own country. Or, in the words of a Times of London headline, "Bush to Iraqis: you take over." The coalition can help but Iraqis are adults, not wards, and need to assume responsibility for their country, from internal security to writing their constitution, with all due urgency.
· Seeing violence in Iraq as an Iraqi problem: The now-constant violence verging on civil war is a humanitarian tragedy but not a strategic one, an Iraqi problem, not a coalition one. The coalition should realize it has no more responsibility for keeping the peace between Iraqis than it does among Liberians or Somalis.
· Terminating the mammoth U.S. embassy in Baghdad: The American-created "Green Zone" in Baghdad is too high profile already, but work now underway to build the biggest embassy in the history of mankind, a 4,000-employee fortress in the heart of Baghdad, will make matters significantly worse. Its looming centrality will antagonize Iraqis for years or decades to come, even as it offers a vulnerable target for rocket-wielding enemies. Scheduled to open in June 2007, this gargantuan complex should be handed back to Iraqis, the over US$1 billion spent on it written off as a mistake of war, and a new, normal-sized, embassy built in its stead.
· Ending the coddle: The inept, corrupt, and Islamist leadership in Baghdad discredits the Bush administration's integrity; conversely, Washington's embrace makes it look like a stooge. Other Iraqi institutions – my pet peeve is the National Symphony Orchestra in Baghdad – also suffer from the patronizing embrace of American politicians. Muslim sensitivities about rule by non-Muslims makes these rankling offenses.
· Reducing coalition ambitions for Iraq: From the start, "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was too ambitious and too remote from American interests ("Operation Coalition Security" would have been a better moniker). Give up on the unattainable goal of a democratic, free, and prosperous Iraq, a beacon to the region, and instead accept a stable and decent Iraq, one where conditions are comparable to Egypt or Tunisia.
The situation in Iraq has become a source of deep domestic antagonism in the coalition countries, especially the United States and Great Britain, but it can be finessed by noting that the stakes there are actually quite minor, then adjusting means and goals on this basis. Do you, dear non-Iraqi reader, have strong feelings about the future of Iraq? I strongly suspect not.
Iraqis want possession of their country; and peoples in countries providing troops serving in Iraq have wearied of the hopeless effort to transform it into something better than it is. Both aspirations can be satisfied by redeploying coalition troops to the desert, where they can focus on the essential tasks of maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity, keeping the fossil fuels flowing, and preventing humanitarian disasters.
The idea has developed since World War II that when the United States protects its interests by invading a country, it then has a moral obligation to rehabilitate it. This "mouse that roared" or "Pottery Barn rule" assumption is wrong and needs to be re-evaluated. Yes, there are times and places where rehabilitation is appropriate, but this needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis, keeping feasibility and American interests strictly in mind. Iraq – an endemically violent country – fails on both counts.
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international |
anti-war / imperialism |
opinion/analysis
Wednesday October 25, 2006 17:09
by Dan
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Comments (8 of 8)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8The 'public' , the ones who buy into the electoral college/pregnant chad sytemisation
don't like the 'We'll Stay the Course' agenda- so the PR Lackeys dropped it.
Maybe 'Bush' should run on re-building New Orleans after RIta- but poverty and
Marginalisation never filled the elite's belly. The great god of the Nuremburg
style rallies of New Creationism has nothing to do with New Orleans and the
problemds there- because the agenda is greed/fear and interference in
the freign Policies of European/mexican/gulf States.
Get a life-
The voters want a white elite US of college educated, SUV drivers and damn Hell
they're gonna get it- even if millions die.
So this is YOUR plan is it “Dan”?
To lower the profile of U.S. troops by withdrawing from cities to the safety of fortified concrete bases in the desert? Considering their largest bases have been either destroyed or severely damaged this may not be a plan but their only option. In fact, according to Maj. Lee English of the U.S. command’s Base Working Group, they have already pulled out of 34 of the 110 bases they were holding last March and withdrawn into the desert areas where they believe they may be safer. They may be safe for now but insurgents will develop plans to deal with them there too.
This is not a plan but a reaction to defeat by a superior fighting force.
The US military have already started to implement “Your” plan “Dan”
Permanent bases are being built like Al-Asad which is 19sq miles surrounded by a 10 mile no-mans-land. They are building an airstrip, air traffic control and upgrading to link into Iraqi Electrical grid, further to prove the permanence of such bases and put a lie to their propaganda that they are planning to leave in the next 18 months. Al-Talil base is to get similar upgrades with even a moat to act as a “vehicle entrapment ditch with berm.”
Bush in talking about a change of plan in Iraq is simply putting forward “your” plan “Dan”. Withdraw from the cities and occupy remote bases where they can run the oil theft racket from more safety.
Two aspects of building these permanent bases in the desert is that it gives support to Osama bin Ladens argument against a US presence in the Middle East and also gives lie to the US claim that they invaded Iraq as Liberators and not Occupiers.
If they are there to help Iraqis have “democracy” and not to permanently occupy then why are they not spending the billions these new bases will cost on providing Iraqis with electricity and water? But of course a permanent military presence in Iraq always made more sense to explain their illegal invasion than capturing weapons of mass destruction!
What do you mean “Dan” by “the Bush administration's integrity”? I hesitate to ask as the last person to post a comment to that effect was removed. They did suggest you look for a job at the Pentagon. Maybe that was their offence under the terms of publishing here? But seriously “Dan”, do you work for the US government or one of it’s agencies?
Largest bases destroyed?
an NBC reporter this week is broadcasting from Camp Stryker next to Camp Victory(BIAP). Since I spent some time there I think I can say your full of shit. an ASP explosion cant destroy 50 abrams tanks, not possible. your insane boyo
Here is a video showing the explosion of a Tactical Nuclear Device at Falcon Base Baghdad after the arsenal there was hit by mortar fire . The base suffered over one billion dollars worth of damage. The mortars cost €300.
Nuclear blast and mushroom cloud destroy Falson base
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps0v1bIFup4
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=135590757080092...clear
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-86683403029205...uster
The weapons being stored on the base which cooked off and exploded were GBU-28 Tactical Nuclear Missiles.
http://www.ausairpower.net/GBU-28.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-28
Reports
http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?artic...e.php
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061011/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq...PUCUl
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/11/184954/46
http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2006/10/15/ammo-dump-investi...tion/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6038990.stm
http://www.iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/105198
http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/105534
Here is a video showing the explosion of a Tactical Nuclear Device at Falcon Base Baghdad after the arsenal there was hit by mortar fire
ERRR sorry to blow your bubble but the GBU-28 is not a nuclear weapon
it is a bunker busting 4000 pound conventional bomb that is CAPABLE of carryiing nuclear weapons but with 4000 pounds of conventional explosive, i would seriously doubt they would ever need to attach a nuke to it do you?
also the stuff about the base is incorrect---if 1 of these exploded in open air (they actually bury themselves deep in the ground --hence bunker buster) the explosion would be absolutely massive---you are seriously demented if you think a random mortar blew 1 up---because they would have been a lot more than one and the explosion of many would have wiped out everything in the vicinity for about 5 miles, the images are bogus that much is a fact.
if you knew anything about military hardware you would realise this straight away
Acollection of Al Jazera,youtube,and other pro islamofascist sites and reports.
NOT ONE creditable[ excluding maybe the BBC] mentions nuke bombs or corroborate any of the hundreds of dead and fifty tanks etc destroyed.
Federation of Amerian Scientists report on Low-Yield Earth-Penetrating Nuclear Weapons
http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/weapons.htm
I enjoy your effort to deny, discredit and cause confusion at every step around reports of the defeat of the US army in Iraq posted on this site. Name calling and insults only make you look as rediculous and impotent as your army in Iraq looks, while the fact remains that they are being handed defeat after defeat each day and the only place they can run now inside Iraq, as the author of this piece and the Pentagon agree, is into the desert. Run my cowardly Americans, run!
Some suspect the desert bases surrounded by double fences and moats are permanent structures and show the intention of the US Criminal regime to remain in Iraq long-term. I am inclined to believe this is the start of their withdrawal from Iraq. The one difficulty that faces US commanders planning a retreat from Iraq is how to get the entire force out safely without the last few thousand being massacred.
By building large, heavily fortified bases in the desert with many airstrips, the US army hope to rush into them at a precise hour and begin the mass extraction. They hope they can achieve this before the Iraqi Resistance groups realise they are running. Some perimiter protection could be afforded by the puny Iraqi Police and Army but they will betray the Americans in return for their won lives. The Resistance already has plans for the Americans retreat and all that will happen is that the US army will be trapped in cut-off bases deep in the desert, without food, water, electricity or airstrips where "their bellies will burn".
Be sure that the US army and people are bleeding their soldiers blood and the countries money and prestige every day they remain in Iraq. Look at how you trolls on this site must crawl to fight a pathetic rear-guard action against the truth emerging in the media? It just goes to show the depth of the defeat your heroes are suffering in Iraq.
I like this clip of US Marines laughing as their base explodes, but prhaps you will ask us to believe they are "Islamofascist" members ot that great Islamic conspiracy "Youtube". Good luck with your retreat to the desert and may Iraqi Resistance follow you all the way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIO3xk5-tXM
Run to the desert cowardly Americans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MFt_yk7sxg
Even the older model B61-Y4 tactical nuclear weapon has yields of 170KT. A 5 KT blast, buried 400 meters below the ground, STILL results in mushroom clouds of radioactive particles. If there had been nuclear weapons stored and exploded above ground in Baghdad, there would no longer be a Baghdad. You wouldn't see this idiot on a video filmed 20-30 blocks away.
There's a link provided to a photo of Nagasaki, Japan showing before and after photos. This bomb was only 21KT.
Furthermore, as someone pointed out; having the capability of carrying a nuclear weapon does not mean that a delivery system ALWAYS has a nuclear weapon. For example, humans can carry satchel-sized tactical nuclear weapons; does that mean that all humans are always carrying them? Let's not be any more ridiculous than necessary.
Pointing to television stations such as Ahmadiyya or Al Jazeerah as sources of unbiased news is like asking a thief if he would guard your wallet. You cannot expect the truth.