Iraq: Five years and counting
By Max J. Castro Read Spanish Version
majcatro@gmail.com
As the Iraq war entered its sixth year, it was clear that the more things have changed the more they have remained the same, especially the stark contrast between the harsh realities on the ground and the illusions of the war’s cheerleaders.
On the ground, the toll of American casualties in Iraq is on the cusp of reaching 4,000 dead.
In the parallel world of George W. Bush, Iraq is on the verge of amounting to a strategic U.S. victory in the global war on terrorism.
On the ground, the new week was greeted with a series of attacks Sunday on Mosul, the Green Zone, and other targets in Baghdad. They left at least 55 dead and 117 wounded. These were the latest attacks in a new spate of violence under way for the last month.
In the parallel universe of John McCain and other war advocates, the surge is working.
On the ground, at home, the American people are sick of this endless war; over two thirds believe Iraq was a mistake.
In the undisclosed mental location that Dick Cheney occupies, the answer to the war’s unpopularity is: So what? For the VP, it doesn’t matter what the American people think, only he and the neoconservatives believe.
The Vice-President’s statement is not just another expression of this administration’s arrogance, although it is that. More importantly, it is a reflection of the extent to which this war is beyond the democratic control of the American people.
In abolishing the draft and instituting the voluntary force during the 1970s, Richard Nixon was not displaying a streak of liberalism. Instead, his purpose was to take the wind out of the sails of the movement against the Vietnam War. In that he largely succeeded. The consequences of Nixon’s decision have gone far beyond the Vietnam War.
The war in Iraq is the perfect example of how the national security elites have managed to insulate war from democratic control. The majority of Americans do not have children at risk of being sent into harm’s way in Iraq, unlike earlier wars. Unlike Vietnam, this war is being waged on credit instead of taxes; the economic cost and pain is being deferred to a later time when it will be too late to mobilize opposition in response to the ruinous nature of the conflict. And, although Bush began the war began in his first term, it was in his second term, too late for accountability at the ballot box, that its disastrous results became clear to most of the American people.
Combine the absence of a draft, a war paid for by borrowing, a president that does not have to run for reelection, and an administration characterized by obstinacy, self-righteousness, and ideological ferocity, and you have the current scenario, one in which the majority of the American people oppose a war that nevertheless continues with no end in sight.
Beyond throwing out the rascals that brought us the Iraq war, and refraining from electing those like John McCain who promise to continue it indefinitely, the American people need to wrest control of the war power from the warmongering elite who have brought us such grief and disaster.
