CUT AND RUN NEOCONS: Scapegoating the Iraq War

When is the president going to start fighting back against the cut-and-run neocons who grabbed him by the ears back in Crawford, Texas, and hurled him into an imperial war of occupation in the Middle East at the first opportunity, no matter how unrelated or irrational?

Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Kenneth Adelman, Michael Rubin, David Frumm and their media collaborators are cutting and running from the catastrophe in Iraq faster than a Crow scout at the Little Bighorn.

The same anti-government brain banks that initiated the evisceration of public education on a platform of accountability deserve nothing less than to be crucified on their own cross. They spent a year basking in the glow of power, esteem and corporate profits, another year decrying media for not portraying the progress of war, a third year hedging their bets with complaints about strategic planning, and six months scouting scapegoats for the inevitable collapse of their defining project.

Do not be fooled (again). Former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld was their man. They wanted a lean, mean fighting machine. They knew they could rally the people to war with smoke, mirrors and a call to patriotism. They also knew that opposition to the war would grow exponentially with the reinstatement of military conscription. Moreover, had the draft been implemented, we would now be debating charges of treason against those responsible for misleading the nation into an unnecessary war.

Those who have called for more troops are either insincere (i.e., plotting their political escape route) or cowardly in their evasiveness. We know the military is desperately overextended yet not one of the advocates of escalation dares to suggest where the additional troops would come from. We know there is only one way to raise 100,000-200,000 troops yet no one dares whisper the word "draft." That, Senator McCain, is not a profile in political courage and it is certainly not "straight talk."

The warlords seemed devoid of ideas when the occupation began to falter but they have hit their creative stride in evading responsibility. Not only have they turned on their allies in the White House, they have turned on the very people they wished to liberate.

David Brooks of the New York Times and Ralph Peters of USA Today (see Robert Fisk’s "US Tanks will Roll out of Iraq on a Road Paved with Excuses," Seattle Post-Intelligencer 11/14/06) have trotted out the argument for a trial run: We gave the Iraqis a chance at freedom, enlightenment and the democratic way but they blew it. They were unable to rise above thousands of years of history, cultural and religious divisions, to see the light of American liberation.

The argument might carry water if not for the oil contracts we sealed in stone in the first hours of the occupation. It might have some semblance of validity if not for the nine military installations strategically place along the oil pipeline. It might bear some modicum of reason if not for the tragic history of America and her allies in the region, a history of betrayal, duplicity, deceit and exploitation.

We have long known there is no limit to the mendacity of the neocons but blaming the Iraqis for what we have wrought raises the bar.

Some have gone so far as to suggest that Iraqis are ungrateful for out sacrifice. Indeed, we have sacrificed dearly in blood and treasure but to blame the Iraqis for our losses is as immoral as the war itself.

We launched an invasion without rhyme or reason, deposed a dictator, dismantled a government, destroyed a nation’s infrastructure, disarmed an army, and set in motion a chain of events that inevitably led to civil war.

We have lost nearly three thousand of our fighting men and women. On top of an estimated one million civilian deaths from the sanctions preceding the invasion, a best estimate of 600,000 Iraqis have died during the course of the war and the occupation.

It is unconscionable.

We cannot blame Iraq. We cannot blame the Iraqi people. We cannot even blame Saddam Hussein for has transpired.

The blame is centered in the Oval Office and flows to every warmonger who filled our president’s head with visions of imperial grandeur.

There is one more "don’t blame me" argument making the rounds that is particularly egregious to those of us who lived through the Vietnam era. If you have not heard it yet, you will.

It holds that we could have "won" the war if only we had not been so soft. One spokesperson for the rightwing Washington Times stated that we should have shot down the looters in the streets of Baghdad after the fall of Saddam’s statue. (We need not wonder what she would have done in New Orleans.) When we allowed them to run wild, she argued, we sent a message to our enemies that we were not tough enough.

What sort of signal did we send in Abu Ghraib?

What sort of signal did we send in Fallujah, Ramadi, Tel Afar or any number of cities, towns and villages where atrocity, war crime and massacre are the only descriptors?

We targeted journalists, shot down civilians without cause or provocation, treated resisters fighting an occupation as if they were common terrorists, employed mercenary killers beyond the reach of law, and used torture as an implement of war.

Few in Iraqi society would deny our toughness or our brutality but nearly all would deny the sanctity of our cause.

We were supposed to be liberators.

Remember?

Jazz.

[This article first published by PEJ News.]

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE APPEARED ON DISSIDENT VOICE, THE ALBION MONITOR, PEACE-EARTH-JUSTICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, LEFTWARD AND COUNTERPUNCH. Random Voices