Powell, Petraeus: The general’s tales
By
Max J. Castro
One
of them gave the speech that made the Iraq war possible. The other
delivered the testimony that made its indefinite prolongation
probable.
To
invoke the honor of generals, to evoke fear: these are tricks the
Bush administration has used before.
Powell
and Petraeus are men of integrity and good soldiers. That is why an
administration that never had much credibility on Iraq, and which has
virtually none now, has deployed them as political weapons.
Why
Powell and Petraeus, despite their personal qualities, became
enablers for George W. Bush and his disastrous war is another
question, one that deserves a deeper analysis than can be provided
here. But enablers they did become, and in so doing they also became
entangled in this administration’s web of mendacity and
manipulation.
We
now know that that the case for war that General Colin Powell (at the
time the Secretary of State of the United States) presented before
the United Nations in 2003 was based on false information. It was
entirely bogus.
By
Max J. Castro Read Spanish Version
majcastro@gmail.com
One
of them gave the speech that made the Iraq war possible. The other
delivered the testimony that made its indefinite prolongation
probable.
To
invoke the honor of generals, to evoke fear: these are tricks the
Bush administration has used before.
Powell
and Petraeus are men of integrity and good soldiers. That is why an
administration that never had much credibility on Iraq, and which has
virtually none now, has deployed them as political weapons.
Why
Powell and Petraeus, despite their personal qualities, became
enablers for George W. Bush and his disastrous war is another
question, one that deserves a deeper analysis than can be provided
here. But enablers they did become, and in so doing they also became
entangled in this administration’s web of mendacity and
manipulation.
We
now know that that the case for war that General Colin Powell (at the
time the Secretary of State of the United States) presented before
the United Nations in 2003 was based on false information. It was
entirely bogus.
Is
the argument for continuing the war that General David Petraeus, the
top U.S. commander in Iraq, has just made before the U.S. Congress
any more credible?
There
is every reason to doubt it, for Petraeus’s optimistic scenario is
contradicted by a plethora of official and unofficial studies,
intelligence reports, journalists’ accounts, and the opinions of
the Iraqi people themselves.
Back
in 2003 Powell raised the specter of (non-existent) weapons of mass
destruction as the reason the United States should go to war.
Petraeus now talks about the prospect of dire human consequences as
the reason this country must stay in the war. Both arguments are
based on flimsy evidence and rely on fear and speculation.
General
Petraeus said that most of the military objectives of the U.S.
escalation — the so-called surge — are being met. Yet, what is
clear is this: More American troops have died in Iraq during this
summer’s surge than last summer, before the escalation. To
reinforce that point, the death of nine more Americans in Iraq was
announced the very day that General Petraeus delivered his testimony
in the House of Representatives. This is meeting military objectives?
Ryan
Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq who testified alongside General
Petraeus, said that political reconciliation in that country is now a
light visible at the end of a tunnel. The reality is that more than
four years after the invasion the Iraqi government is broken and, so
far, sectarian divisions have proved too deep for it to be fixed.
This is movement toward the light of political reconciliation?
Both
Petraeus and Crocker claimed progress. The truth is that the Iraqi
people see the opposite. A new ABC/BBC/NHK survey of public opinion
found that Iraqis are more pessimistic than ever. About 70 percent
believe that the surge has made things worse. While two years
ago 64 percent of Iraqis thought things would get better during the
next year, today only 29 percent believe that. Attacks on American
soldiers are justified by 93 percent of Iraqi Sunnis and 50 percent
of Shia. This is progress?
The
American misadventure in Iraq is a disaster that has gotten worse the
longer the United States has stayed in that country. The endless
occupation continues to be colossally costly and counterproductive.
Why continue it?
It’s
not out of concern for the fate of the Iraqi people. The U.S. war and
occupation have created more than two million refugees. Here is an
area where the Bush administration could show its humanitarian
concern and compassion. Yet, the United States has welcomed only a
few thousand Iraqi refugees. The reasons for staying on in Iraq must
be sought elsewhere than the Bush administration’s love for the
Iraqi people.
In
an interview just published in GQ magazine, the now retired Colin
Powell asks:
"Are
there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of
life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building?
Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we
can change ourselves. So what is the greatest threat we are facing?”
Powell
then answers his own question: "The only thing that can really
destroy us is us. We shouldn’t do it ourselves, and we shouldn’t use
fear for political purposes — scaring people to death so they will
vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a
terror-industrial complex."
Powell’s
statement suggests why the Bush administration is utterly unable to
accept the reality of defeat in Iraq. The Bush administration has
been all about “scaring people to death so they will vote for you
and scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial
complex.” Defeat in Iraq would mean the collapse of a political
project — the right-wing project embodied in the current
administration — aimed at the establishment of permanent Republican
rule on the basis of the very ideas Powell decries: the manipulation
of fear, a national security state.
The
stakes are very high. The Bush administration had gone a long way in
accomplishing its goal of political and ideological dominance before
Iraq began to erode its support and undermine the credibility of the
neoconservative ideology. Now, in order to ensure the survival of his
crusade, Bush is determined to spare nothing — including the
reputation and the lives of more than a few good soldiers — in a
last gasp attempt to wrest some semblance of victory from the
wreckage of Iraq.
