This Week’s Right-Wing Sitcom

The latest right-wing smear to make the crawl on FOX news is a rhetorical question of sorts: “Do Democrats Want to Lose the War in Iraq?” This newest campaign – brought to you by the same folks who question the validity of human evolution and global warming – represents another freshly minted non-issue conservatives can repeat to one another loud enough to drown out the reality of the Iraqi debacle, and further distract American minds already so benumbed by the antics of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan that they couldn’t find Iraq on a map if their lives depended upon it.

The discussion is typically launched with a familiar before-and-after graph that shows violence down in Iraq since the famous “surge,” which has already been marketed like a weight-loss drug by spokes-model General Petraeus and pronounced a smashing success. You’ll recall the nauseating ooh-ing and the ahh-ing by the parade of brainless and brainwashed during the previously scheduled Petraeus spectacle before a Congress too pusillanimous to stand up in unison and yell bullshit in front of the matador. Well, here comes the sequel!
In this episode, the plotline informs us that terror is in retreat and the sun is just on the verge of shining, but those darn Dems are so upset that their warped ideology will be discredited that they will throw themselves under the treads of the tanks of victory rather than let peace, freedom and democracy settle in an Iraq born under a new dawn. And who says neo-cons don’t do drugs?
The truth is – and there is a truth here – that Iraq before the US invasion was a perfectly good country headed up by a brutal dictator. It was weak, contained and secular, which also made it a useful buffer state in a volatile region. Since that invasion -- through the arrogance, stupidity and incompetence that has been the hallmark of this administration’s leadership – we have seen Iraq fracture into a failed state that is unlikely to recover.
Editorialists who speak of "winning" in Iraq are either ignorant or are deliberately misleading their audience. There are perhaps twenty-four concomitant insurgencies occurring. How do you define "win"? The graph they use in their dog-and-pony show reveals only that attack trends and casualties have dropped to the already horrific levels of 2004 -- should we celebrate this?
And there is some doubt to even these statistics.
It seems that attacks are measured differently today than they were a year ago: some killings are vicariously assigned to the “criminal” rather than the “political” category, which I’m certain is a comfort to the families of the dead. Moreover, pacified regions are often ones that have been ethnically cleansed. If there are no more Sunnis, and Shia militias have taken over their neighborhoods, casualties tend to drop. Sunnis who have temporarily allied themselves with the US seem to be taking this step only as a last ditch attempt at survival from the ethnic cleansing or refugee status that would otherwise be their lot. And let’s not forget that this remains the deadliest year for US casualties: 852 so far this year, but over 800 Americans have died there each year for the last several years. Remind me again how we define winning?
Thousands of Iraqis have died -- we have no idea how many. Thousands more have fled or are fleeing every day. The educated secular elite -- the most critical element of the demographic -- comprise the most significant portion of the population decline. The country is hemorrhaging at a rate that cannot sustain it as a viable nation with an educated, moderate ruling class. We have seen this in Africa and elsewhere in the third world before. Chaos and a series of blood baths typically make up the subsequent events, and we are at that precipice.
There’s another precipice too, and it is far more worrisome. The President used the words World War III and Iran in the same sentence, in an almost off-hand way that made me take him very seriously. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan. NATO ally Turkey seems on the verge of a border war with Kurds in northern Iraq. Nuclear-armed Pakistan just declared martial law and is teetering on the brink of violent instability. A resurgent and less democratic Russia is publicly aligning itself with the interests of Iran. A handful of former Soviet Central Asian Republics with uncertain political cultures add to this potentially explosive mix. Meanwhile, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more dangerously fluid and unpredictable than it has been in some thirty years. And al-Qaeda remains an influential hearts-and-minds enemy we have failed to successfully confront. Less than this ignited World War I, and it could take just the tiniest spark to blow it all up this time.
What’s worse, the United States is weaker and less capable diplomatically than at any time since the end of World War II. A right-wing regime guided by ideologues who lack any sense of history or common sense have captured the highest levels of our government. They are inspired and driven by Christian fundamentalists who have their sights set on the second-coming and the rapture that will follow. They see a global conflagration centered in the Middle East as scripture revealed. These guys are looking forward to Armageddon! Unfortunately, the rest of us will also perish amid their malevolent supernatural fantasies.
I am not a pacifist. I believe in a muscular US foreign policy. I believe in fighting al-Qaeda. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan to that end. Yet, I do believe the so-called “War on Terror” is a contrived vehicle for a right-wing bent on global power politics it is either too ignorant or too naive to properly manage. Iraq has been a terrible detour from our appropriate mission as a superpower in an unstable region. I have no doubt that the Bush administration planned at the outset to utilize a pacified Iraq dominated by US interests, along with an occupied Afghanistan and a secure, allied Pakistan to make war on Iran.
The situation has changed, but I don’t believe their plans have. There is a dangerous single-mindedness at the heart of this administration that defines standing firm – even in the path of an oncoming truck – as virtuous rather than idiotic. The stage is being set for open war with Iran, and I have little doubt that a weak Congress headed by timid Democrats – including their presidential hopefuls -- will go along. Clueless American consumers blissfully wandering our shopping malls will pay scant attention to the Fox news pundits branding unpatriotic anyone who objects.
It could be the last show of our season – forever.