Letters to the Editor
susan sunflower
Published Letters: 1374 Editor's Choice: 29
-
don't get me wrong -- regime change does not work, hardly ever, and even then it doesn't' work well ...
[Read the article: Operation Iraq betrayal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]let's look at Kosovo and Bosnia ... or any of the dozens of other countries around the world where we've "intervened" or "rescued" ... look at most of Africa for god's sake.
And we still have our geopolitical thumbs in the pies of dozens of countries -- most of the nations of the middle east -- where overtly, covertly we have "assets" and multinationals working hard tipping the balance one way or another ...some we buy, some we seduce, some we subvert...
People will be arguing for decades about why we "really" invaded Iraq ... but I doubt there's some smoking gun proof of any one or two motives ... I think it became a cornucopia of fervered righteous "doing well by doing good" ..,. remember how it was going to be that beacon, practically a shining city of the hill ... like Oz.
But TeamBush has no follow through and even less stick-to-it-tive-ness ... they've been changing the "plan" in Iraq about every 3 weeks for years now ... and recently they've been changing the purported tactics and goals of the "surge" almost weekly if you've been paying attention.
These guys couldn't manage a 7-11.
-
actually, the first betrayal was, of course, to the Iraqi people and that betrayal continues ...
[Read the article: Operation Iraq betrayal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]there was a wire story a few days ago to the effect that the monthly food basket program (started under Saddam and continued since the invasion) was in deep trouble.
This program is what has kept many Iraqis from utter destitution, not to mention malnutrition ... Saddam made sure that EVERY CITIZEN (probably each family unit or some such) received a monthly food basket the items of which were to be used as it, bartered, sold, traded ... and they were ... people could get CASH MONEY they otherwise might not have access to by selling parts of their baskets. We tried to stop this remnant of Saddam's "socialist" regieme early on and got no where, but apparently between current mismanagement and the awful security situation, people aren't getting their baskets.
The Geneva Conventions includes rules regarding the responsibilities of an occupying force -- these were part of why we forced and "blessed" those bastardized elections which led of course to that bastardized constitution and the current bastardized parliament -- who, if truth be told, are "waiting us out" as much as anyone else. The Sunni and Al-Sadr's forces reject "our" petroleum revenue sharing bill ....
I heard Robert Fisk a month or two ago on TV talking about how he was surprised, talking with Iraqis, how EARLY ON we began to lose "hearts and minds" ... that messy freedom looting appalled most Iraqis... that we allowed it, spoke volumes as to our real priorities and what the future might hold. The rapidly deterioration of quality of life and our obsession with heavy handed "security" (primarily for our own forces) convinces many Iraqis that we were by no means "liberators," but occupiers of the worst kind -- we did not care about the hardships they faced which were -- in explicably worse than life under Saddam. Most unfathomable was our inability to get the power flowing and to get goods and services up and running -- as the richest nation on earth, our failure was attributed to a lack of will rather than a lack of means.
Juan Cole reports today -- citing the LA Times -- that electrical power is down to about 2 hours daily in Baghdad ....
The LA Times reports that Baghdadis are down to one or two hours of electricity a day, but that the Bush administration will no longer be measuring or reporting on that sort of local data. It will give Congress only the general statistic for the entire country
I don't think the surge is doing much for the average Iraqi ... particularly when they are experiencing declining electriticy (in the heat of summer), the inability to leave their stiffling houses, food insecurity ... I don't even want to ask about the potable water supple or garbage collection.
-
That we assume the "right" to use airstrikes in a guerilla conflict in which the other side is so crudely armed speaks volumes ....
[Read the article: When is an accidental civilian death not an accident?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The weaponry of our "enemies" in Iraq and Afghanistan can -- for the most part -- be carried on their backs, though small pickup trucks probably are employed as well.
They have no tanks, no helicopters, no airplanes ... this list goes on.
We could easily genuinely minimize civilian casualties -- as apparently NATO has done -- by virtually eliminating air strikes. Spending considerably more time on the ground, nation-building might be a good place to start .... y'know improving our human-intel, y'know working smarter not harder .. particularly as civilian casualties are probably the most effective "recruiting tool" we hand the "enemy".
How native rivals became "our enemy" is worth a re-think too, imho, along with the pernicious blurring of the Taliban, the salafi, the mujahadeen and jihadis with Al-Qaeda, Bin Laden and "international terrorism." It's rather like the cold war/red scare, while everyone is a potential "pinko," the number of traitorous bolsheviks was negligible and not much of a genuine threat.
-
trying to make war, "more civilized" -- compared to what, when and where? and for whom?
[Read the article: When is an accidental civilian death not an accident?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think there's an underlying contradiction of terms here ... perhaps fallacy ... but it's still largely "how many angels can dance on the head of pin" territory ... and like the freedom fighter versus terrorist conundrum, it depends who wrote the dictionary/rule book.
-
One of the mysteries is why our forces so often find themselve in these fire fights "requiring" air support -- for which, it should be remembered, those careful deliberation standards are not applicable ...
[Read the article: When is an accidental civilian death not an accident?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]it seems there is a problem when our vastly superior surveillance and on-the-ground equipment is deemed so woefully inadequate ... it appears either the planning for these forays is in poor or the threshold for calling in airstrikes is quite low -- in real life.
In Baghdad, we seem to go into Sadr City fairly regularly, get "stuck" and call in air strikes ... there's a pattern here worthy of scrutiny.
It can be argued that these "careful deliberation" policies -- which apply only in "not emergent" situations -- are there to make US -- YOU, ME AND OUR PERSONNEL -- all "feel better" and provide an "only following protocol" defense, i.e. like the torture "standards" ... such policies keep the pilots flying and the bombs falling ...