Dear Mr. Galbraith:

If you think the US is really in Iraq to 'win the war' against terrorism, or quell the insurgency, or to set up a stable democracy in Iraq, then the conclusion that this fight has been lost has been evident for many years -- based on all the poor strategic and tactical choices made, you could see failure coming.

The question is: are you -- and the rest of us -- asking the right question? Until we do, we won't get the right answer, and we'll waste our energy on a straw man argument (in this case, the straw man argument goes something like this: a military solution can't succeed in creating a stable democracy in Iraq, so we should cut our losses and get out).

I think the right question is, why are we really there -- and why would Bush want us to stay there? Given that BushCo has offered 22 different reasons for us being there, it's worth being very skeptical and searching before we settle on an answer.

I think most of us have fallen for the BushCo propaganda on one level or another. It's as if those 22 reasons offered are a deliberate shotgun approach -- what's happening in Iraq is so horrific, we each need to find some explanation for it to be at peace within ourselves, and each person will tend to settle on one or more of those 22 offered justifications as the reason we're there. In this sense, the seemingly random and transparent Bush psy-ops strategy suceeds, in that one or more of those reasons 'satisfy' most everyone's need for an answer on the matter of 'why?'

Then, most of us conclude that Bush is failing according to the 'reason' we've accepted. We assume this failure is due to Bush administration incompetence, stubbornness, the lack of sufficient military force, or whatever. Our focus shifts to railing against this incompetence. President Bush is an easy target, and his stupidity and arrogance deflect attention away from Cheney and the real thing going on. [The recent Washington Post series establishes more clearly than ever who the REAL President is.]

This raises another important question: are Bush & Cheney really incompetent, and are we safe assuming so? If you look at the Bush/Cheney domestic agenda, they have been STUNNINGLY successful in dismantling programs they dislike in a broad range of federal agencies, championing religious beliefs and trumping them over facts and science; politicizing all of the branches of the federal government including the judiciary, and all with the deep underlying theme of changing priorities to support a unitary presidency.

My suggestion is this: let go of your assumptions for a moment, and work the question backwards: what kind of Bush/Cheney goals for Iraq make sense based on what they are DOING (vs. what they are SAYING)? Assume for a moment that Bush and Cheney are succeeding at what they want (not at what they TELL us they are trying to do).

This takes a little work, given the virtual media blackout and the lack of real news from Iraq. But Dahr Jamail, Robert Dreyfuss, Democracy Now, Salon, and Juan Cole give us valuable insights into the truth on the ground.

The Bush/Cheney/Bremer/Rumsfeld tactics have been secretive, ruthless, violent, and consistent. These tactics don't support an agenda of creating Iraqi democracy, they are not respectful of Iraqis, but they ARE succeeding at creating chaos, destroying the country's physical, health care, education and economic infrastructure, leveling entire cities, demoralizing the population, causing ethnic divisions, creating a huge refugee population, and promoting ethnic cleansing.

One overall trend you can see over the last 15 years of US presence in Iraq is the slow depopulation of Iraq by many means. The land is continuously being made less habitable in many ways; for example, the lack of electricity, and thus lack of pumped water, lead to the inability to grow food and thus the need to import expensive food, and causes disease due to lack of clean water and poor sanitation. Birth defects are rising exponentially from the use of Depleted Uranium bombs. The list goes on and on.

This very brief recap of the human tragedy of Iraq portrays the utter and total failure of an agenda of supporting a viable democracy for Iraqis....so in what way does it succeed?

All the while the US and Britain are pushing, pushing to get the Iraqi puppet government to officially sanction foreign control over their oil through long-term Production Sharing Agreements favorable to foreign oil companies -- which are mainly US and British. The Iraqi officials must feel desperate for their people and their country. Will they be forced to say 'uncle' in order to save what is left? Will they submit to being a US colony in order to simply survive?

Don't forget that this administration is largely made up of former executives of big oil and the military-industrial complex. Our 'leaders' are not-so-subtle front men for these interests.

Based on this, the US goals for the Iraq occupation seem to be: control over massive oil resources, destruction of a potential enemy of Israel, opening up access for US multinationals to 'new markets,' and establishing permament military bases in Iraq to replace those lost in Saudi Arabia. Their strategy: divide Iraq into separate ethnic interests and even territories (the old 'divide and conquer' routine). In that, they may be slowly, brutally, succeeding. Cynical yes, but these are cynical, ruthless people who brook no opposition.

Can anyone effectively oppose the war agenda of this administration without accurately identifying, and organizing against, their true agenda? Hard to say. I do think that if we aren't careful about who defines the questions, and thus who frames the terms of the discussion, we may get caught up tilting at windmills.