Frogmarch

Amazingly, America is once again pushing the world to war on the basis of lies and deceptions. This time, Iran is the target. But a recent Iranian offer that met all substantive American and European demands regarding Iran’s nuclear activity was dismissed as “nothing new” and ignored by European negotiators.

"...The immediate upshot of the rejection of Iran's offer is that the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted on Friday to refer Iran to the UN Security Council, although the council will take no action until an IAEA report on Iran is delivered in March. The council could possibly impose sanctions....

Given all the mountainous revelations about the cover-ups and disinformation on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, all indications are that we have not learned any meaningful lessons from the Iraq fiasco, such as the need for a more scrutinizing media....

Yet, incredibly, no one in the European or US media even examined the nature and content of the six-point Iranian proposal, confining themselves to the official pronouncements of the EU-3 diplomats who are more keen on satisfying the US's march toward the Security Council than in breaking the nuclear stalemate on their own.

These diplomats, so adept at "leaking" their own highly-publicized proposal to Iran last summer, kept a tight lid on Iran's proposal and, what is more, there is no evidence that any respected member of the Western media made any attempt to get their hands on Iran's proposal.

That aside, the following is the nub of Iran's six-point proposal:
(a) Iran pledges that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, not nuclear bombs. (b) Iran pledges that it will get the legislative approval in its majlis (parliament) of the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and will continue with IAEA inspections. (c) Iran pledges to stay within the NPT. (d) Iran pledges that it will not resume enrichment prior to the next IAEA meeting. (e) Iran pledges that its nuclear research will be under monitoring by the IAEA. (f) Iran will continue negotiating with the EU-3 regarding enrichment issues for two years, and after two years, if the negotiations fail, will resume enrichment activities.

Certainly, the last item was a novelty and the EU-3 diplomats have some explaining to do as to why they were not interested. The chronology of Iran-EU3 negotiations clearly shows the lie on the part of Sawers and his German and French colleagues, for this was the first time that Iran had offered to extend the freeze on enrichment activities for another two years to give negotiations more time, and it was quite duplicitous on their part to suggest otherwise.
The European path to the Security Council is strewn with lies and deceptions, with a systematic distortion aimed at denying Iran's right to nuclear technology at any price, even if that means reneging on their earlier pledges of respecting Iran's nuclear rights "without discrimination", as stipulated in the 2004 Paris Agreement.

Clearly, listening to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's anti-Iran stance, Europe's main priority is US appeasement, and not Iran. Merkel's Iran-bashing could have dire consequences for Berlin's Iran and Middle East policy, in light of Germany's status as Iran's No 1 European trading partner.

Merkel, a novice in foreign policy making, has set aside the nuanced approach of her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder by facilitating the United States' war-prone approach to Iran. Merkel's government appears to be doing for the US on Iran the kind of subservient role London played on Iraq. This is a sure recipe for disaster...."

And it’s working. Fubar at Needlenose reports a LA Times poll showing that 57% of Americans favor military intervention if Iran's Islamic government pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms. He notes:

"Even though Iraq is looking to become FUBAR on every political, military, and strategic level, a significant number of people think it's a good idea to send troops next door to a country several times the size, a proven capacity for turning its youth into cannon fodder for an ideological cause, and with a lot of friends nearby."

Fear sells. Even bad ideas look good when you are terrified. Can you even imagine how horrible war in Iran will be. The world might even get to see America use nuclear weapons for the first time ever. Israel will have an opportunity to become the second nation to use nuclear weapons.

AND THE IRANIANS ARE DOING EVERYTHING WE ASK!

The Long War

The Department of Defense presented the Quadrennial Defense Review to the nation this week. Mandated by Congress, the review assesses current and future military requirements based on experience and prediction. This years’ review introduces Americans to “the Long War” for which the Pentagon will require various personnel and weapons systems. The last review was issued just after the 9-11 attacks but largely reflected the world as the US military understood it prior to that event. This year’s review looks at the past four years and projects threats and forces for the next five, 10 and 20 years.

The military, being a practical and adaptive organization, will place more emphasis on non-state terrorism and assymetrical warfare. One of the two simultaneous big wars, a staples of US military doctrine for decades can now be against a non-state enemy. Each branch will field special units to find, track and defuse nuclear and catastrophic weapons. All good for the post 9-11 world. At the same time, our military must also dissuade China, India and Russia from becoming our adversaries. Good for the generals’ and admirals’ big weapons systems. Despite the somewhat changed focus, the review offers little change in military thinking; new programs call for new funding rather than rethinking how to use the existing $400 plus billion Defense budget (not including Iraq). Fred Kaplan at Slate calls the review “...a muddle at best, an assortment of interesting ideas with no scheme for translating them into reality.” Although 9-11 “changed everything” Kaplan notes that the allocation of military resources is little changed from the Cold War era.


Welcome to America’s Brave New World. Defense officials spoke about the new military environment in the Long War. Defense SecretaryRumsfeld said in an address at the National Press Club:

"Compelled by a militant ideology that celebrates murder and suicide with no territory to defend, with little to lose, they will either succeed in changing our way of life, or we will succeed in changing theirs,"

Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England said in an address that Islamic extremists and terrorists are "profoundly more dangerous" than in the past because of technological advances that allow them to operate globally.

Both statements are distortions. Rumsfeld uses the specter of heathen fanatics terrorizing Americans into submission. In fact, the militant ideologues have relatively few suicidal followers and limited capability to attack. At their worst, these suicidal extremists have pulled off one spectacular attack. Beyond 9-11 their efforts have been minimal, with a kill count not totaling a thousand. Terrorism is no small problem but it hardly rises to the level of an endless war. Endless vigilance, perhaps, but not war. That’s why a Global War on Terrorism is such a bogus premise for national security policy. It exaggerates a real problem and distorts the thought process. In the process, however, the terrorists succeed in changing our way of life by providing an absolutist administration rationales to infringe on civil liberties. The America that is saved by BushCheney and Rumsfeld will be a diminished America.

Deputy Secretary England distorts his words by seeing only half of the technological capabilities available to terrorists. The other half is the fact that any technological advances that allow Islamic extremists and terrorists to operate globally are matched and exceeded by our own. We can outclass any technology that any potential enemy can access. Terrorists can operate globally because the world is now a global society in which peoples of all nationalities circulate. Communications link nations and individuals together in a world-wide network. That is the one technology that would-be terrorists can exploit to their advantage, as can we. The rest is simply cleverness on their part (box cutters and airplanes) and sloppiness (missing all the clues) on ours.

Neither official spoke directly of the potential state adversaries–China, Russia and India–but the defense review addresses these nations with a new fighter plane, carrier task forces and submarine launched conventional weapons. Here is where I question the premise and utility of military power at all. Our conflicts with these nations will be trade, resources and ideas, none of which are military in nature. The United States looking for the wrong tools to secure its future, a future that I believe is intimately bound up with the other peoples and nations with whom we share this planet. Our best defense in an increasingly interdependent and vulnerable world will be cooperation, understanding and reason, not guns and tanks and bombs.

My superbly rational arguments aside, the Defense budget will grow, creating policy and tools that are self-defining and ultimately self-defeating . America in 2006 is too scared to think straight.

More Iraq Voices

Chris Allbritton has returned to Iraq for a third tour and is posting on his weblog, Back to Iraq 3.0. In a recent post on the Saddam Hussein trial he reflected on the international support Hussein received from the international community, including the US. He concludes with these words:

“...why should Iraqis have to suffer under Saddam or endure watching their friends shredded by car bomb blast so that Americans can feel safe from Khomeni or from terrorists. Why should Saudi Arabians suffer a corrupt monarchy so we can enjoy SUV’s, for that matter?”

Riverbend offers her thoughts on the recent elections:

"...After nearly three years of a failing occupation, I personally believe that many Iraqis voted for religious groups because it was counted as a vote against America and the occupation itself. No matter what American policy makers say to their own public- and no matter how many pictures Rumsfeld and Condi take with our fawning politicians- most Iraqis do not trust Americans. America as a whole is viewed as a devilish country that is, at best, full of self-serving mischief towards lesser countries and, at worst, an implementer of sanctions, and a warmongering invader.

Even Iraqis who believe America is here to help (and they seem to have grown fewer in number these days), believe that it helps not out of love for Iraqis, but out of self-interest and greed...."

Rigging the Scale

Washington Post article on backlog of applications to approve generic equivalents of high cost brand name drugs:

“...As the backlog of generic applications has soared, the number of applications for new or reformulated drugs and biologics submitted by brand-name companies has remained consistently smaller than predicted. But while the Office of Generic Drugs had about 200 employees to process almost 800 new applications last year, the offices that review new drugs had more than 2,500 employees for about 150 applications in 2004.

The generics office's budget was about $26 million last year, a fraction of the more than $400 million spent to evaluate and monitor new drugs and biologics, according to FDA documents. In response to questions from Congress, the agency said the generics program would have to make cuts in 2006 to offset pay raises.

‘We have a kind of crazy situation now where the FDA's generic reviews -- which are supposed to be quicker because they're less complicated -- on average take longer than the new drug reviews,’ said Kathleen Jaeger, president of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association. ‘The flood of applications is coming in generics, but the review resources mostly go to new drugs.’ [snip]

‘The branded industry has to be delighted by this backlog,’ said Jake Hansen, vice president for government affairs for Barr Laboratories Inc., a maker of generic drugs. ‘If they can't stop competition in the courts, stopping it as applications go through the regulatory process is just as effective. For consumers, to flatline or cut funding makes absolutely no sense.’..."

Corporate welfare at its subtle best.

Flashback to the Present

Thirty five years after drawing down American forces in Vietnam, America looks well on its way to doing the same in Iraq. Plans are in the works to reduce US troops from165,000 to100,000 by the end of 2006. BushCheney has long claimed that American policy would follow facts on the ground. And it appears that a compliant military with little understanding of Iraqi society and culture is creating the facts needed to reduce the number of ground forces, according to a recent article in the Financial Times. Just in time for the November elections. Who says BushCheney isn’t listening? The growing concern about War Without End is forcing his hand.

Of course, that does not mean an end to the war. BushCheney is dug well into Iraq. A massive bunker-like embassy combined with unrelenting aerial bombing will allow the US to continue the war in a different form without all the messy American body parts (we can largely ignore Iraqi bodies) that have undermined the support for the war created by the Republican Noise Machine back in 2003. BushCheney knows he needs to show “success” so he will make it up. Hell, lying and dissembling have worked well for him all these years, why stop now?

This sounds like Vietnam where we drew down ground forces in favor of massive bombing, substantial logisitical assistance, financial support and backstage influence to continue fighting. War by different means. What sounds even more like Vietnam to me are the Financial Times quotes from American soldiers about living in the “United States of Iraq” and their hopes for drawdown and less risky duty. The “United States of Vietnam” would pretty accurately describe my experience in that country; I never left American culture although I knew for sure that I was in a wholly different place (and did get to see that beautiful jungle, mountain and forest) . The US military created its own environment in Vietnam that was largely cut off from the country we were saving. American isolation in Iraq sounds even more complete.

But the hope for salvation, for reprieve from this tedious duty is what really captures my attention.

“...There is a sense that with the final lap of the political handover completed with December's election and, even more importantly, with the forthcoming US congressional elections in November, a substantial part of the army is on its way home - for good.
One staff major in a combat unit, who is about to head home after completing his second tour in Iraq, is pretty certain he will not have to come back. ‘By 2007, when we are up for the next rotation, we will not be here any more, at least not as extensively,’ he says....”

In 1971, American troop strength dropped by half–from about 200,000 to100,000. I came in-country in December 1970 hearing that my tour would be cut short as the US withdrew forces. The 101st Airborne Division went home in March. So did two-thirds of my unit, the 1st Cavalry Division. But The Cav left me behind in a brigade that absorbed troops too new in-country to rotate back to The World with their units. Nothing changed for us; we stayed in the field, built firebases, patrolled and took casualties. But possibilities still existed. Rumor was that my unit would pull back to the big base at Bien Hoa, which was a veritable Oz of possibilities for safety, comfort and entertainment compared to infantry patrol. It never happened; I made it to Bien Hoa as company clerk but my unit was still in the field when I left in December 1971. Even as I refused to believe that early rumor, though, I welcomed the hope. I can empathize with soldiers hoping to forgo another round of combat. Hope was my final refuge in combat.

In1965 Vermont Senator George Aiken recommended that the US declare victory in Vietnam and bring our troops home. Neither Lyndon Johnson nor Richard Nixon paid attention to that idea. BushCheney declared victory in May 2003 but missed the chance to bring the troops home. Now he is declaring victory in slow motion, hoping that fewer boots on the ground will mean fewer body bags to remind Americans of what their government is doing in a foreign country. The death and destruction will continue, adding to the moral and ethical debt we owe Iraq even as it destroy’s our credibility to pay that debt. BushCheney’s promises to the Iraqi people were as false as their promises to their countrymen.

While BushCheney distracts Americans with “Mission Accomplished, the Sequel”, war by other means goes on. Americans who care about this nation’s honor and credibility should not believe that lower troop numbers and fewer casualties mean we are doing anything different in Iraq or that we have somehow satisfied our obligation to that nation. Only the means will change.

Don’t get your hopes up.

L'Irak n'est pas le Vietnam

Vietnam is a constant undercurrent to the Iraq War. No one wants to repeat the THAT mistake. Vietnam is not the model anyone wants to follow. BushCheney says Iraq is different. It’s much the same say many critics. Both sides can claim some verity but, even with the differences, Iraq is enough like Vietnam to cause worry. The American Occupation and Sunni resistance is a classic insurgency against a foreign occupier. America and the world have seen this drama before with the same results: the foreign occupier departs. Sometimes they leave in a somewhat orderly manner, like the French in Algeria or Britain (usually after a certain amount of unpleasantness and bloodshed). Other times departure is hasty and a bit more dramatic. Either way, the locals win.

Iraq is a varient on a familiar theme, leavened with the political machinations of the newly emergent Shi’a majority and Kurdish nationalists. The Iraq War will not end for a while, during which a motivated opposition will attack Americans and their allies and the US military, a highly lethal force on hair-trigger alert (US troops just shot up some Canadian diplomats who, like many Iraqis were near an American convoy) will respond with massive violence. We can expect much more bloodshed and destruction as these forces play themselves out. Assuming that Americans don’t soon recognize the futility of our presence Iraq and how it works against our national interests. That is much the same as Vietnam

Unlike Vietnam where both sides drafted soldiers into service, Iraq is not a conscript war. The Iraqi insurgents are volunteers as f I ar ascan tell. Many are Iraqi nationalists, others are seeking revenge for American assaults on their homes, family and honor. Some are Jihadists, fighting a holy war in Iraq just as they did in Afghanistan with US support. American forces in Iraq are not conscripts; they started out as volunteers who willingly joined the military, although many were not aware how much of their lives they were putting at the military’s disposal. These volunteers signed up for fixed enlistments. Reserve or National Guard volunteers expected to serve their enlistments in their communities. For these soldiers, war was, at best, a vague possibility. So imagine their surprise when called to war duty. Imagine, too, their surprise, along with Regulars, when they learned that their enlistment was indefinite.

Most soldiers who served in Vietnam served a single year-long tour. Career soldiers could expect to return one or more times. (A first sergeant in my company was serving his fourth tour; he was not at all happy about it). But for most, once you left Vietnam, you were done. Not so in Iraq, where the US military not only rotates units back to combat multiple times, but it also extends enlistments so that “volunteers” cannot leave the service. The consequence is that this war’s burden of war falls heavily on a certain group of people. Even the most enthusiastic soldier may be frustrated to once again be at risk in an environment that is little different and perhaps worse from the one he left a year ago. It’s wearing. And deadly.

America has a “backdoor draft”. During Vietnam, the burden was (theoretically) spread among all draft age males, the Iraq war is the burden of a relatively few, although this time around women get to participate. I now see reports of soldiers on their second and third tours (while most Americans hardly even notice the war). As long as Americans are stationed in Iraq–right now the term is indefinite–they will be at risk. This burden falls on the few who had the misfortune to be in the military when BushCheney decided to launch a war rather than think.

I think the burden is particularly difficult for the Reserves and Guard. Regular forces–Army and Marine–know that combat is always a possibility. That’s why they exist. They train for it. But hte Guard and Reserves have traditionally been community based rather than combat. Now they are serving in a deadly combat environment with minimal training and out dated equipment. In Iraq; like Vietnam, the enemy is everywhere and everyone. This is a far cry from reinforcing levees or rebuilding after a disaster. It breeds fear, paranoia callousness and brutality in a person.

Like combat veterans before them these Regular, National Guard and Reserve soldiers will bring the war home with them when they return. They will be very different from the men and women who left to serve. Most will get on with their lives even as their experience and memories stay with them. Some will never be at peace, either on constant alert for the fatal attack or wrestling with the moral dilemmas of killing. Those few veterans will bear these heavy costs. The rest of us can ignore them, much as we have ignored the war, explaining its death and destruction in national security generalities and rationalizations.

Vietnam’s burden wasn’t widespread but it was more so than now. About 2.5 million Americans served in Vietnam. That’s less than three percent of a population that was around 200 million. Although more were at risk of military service then due to the draft, many eligible males (Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, my brother) avoided conscription, so relatively few saw service and even fewer, maybe 250,000 actually saw combat. The burden of this war is even less. At best Iraq war veterans are only 1.5 percent of our population. Knowing that soldiers do, in fact, serve multiple tours, the burden is even more concentrated on a small number of Americans.

In the end, America must be able to say that we asked for this sacrifice honestly in the best interest of our nation and, as far as I am concerned, the world. Three years on it is obvious to me, as it was when BushCheney rushed to war, that Iraq is not in anyone’s best interest–except, perhaps, Shi’a fundamentalists, oil companies and large contractors.

Iraq is not Vietnam. But it is close enough to know that whatever result the United States achieves in Iraq will be forever tainted by the unnecessary sacrifice of so few.

[Note: Title with homage to Rene’ Magritte].