Iraq Study Group: A Skillfull Deception

Rarely has there been a greater disappointment than the over-hyped report of the Iraq Study Group, chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton. If not for the leaks and rumors, the disappointment would be palpable. If anything, the report confirms what anyone who has ever suffered through bureaucratic deliberations already knew: If you want nothing to be done, appoint a committee.

Normally, commissions are appointed to bury inconvenient truths like the convoluted circumstance of a presidential assassination or an orchestrated terrorist attack on the three pillars of our society. Expecting the truth from a politically appointed commission recalls Samuel Beckett’s existential masterpiece: Waiting for Godot.

Expecting wisdom from the Baker-Hamilton commission is like looking for the seed of creation in a toilet bowl.

In fairness, the ISG produced a skillful report, skillfully executed to provide political cover to both dominant parties and, should he possess the talent and tact to play along, especially the president.

Prefaced by what has been characterized as a scathing attack on past war policy, it allows an interpretation of honorable intentions gone awry.

The ISG report, however, is not what it pretends to be. Namely, it does not chart the path of American withdrawal. Rather, it guides us on a circuitous route that leads nowhere slowly. It is a devious plot to disarm opposition, defer debate, postpone hard decisions and prolong a catastrophic occupation. Far from ending the war, this plan is designed to affect a holding pattern until events overtake us or the next president takes office.

The great shame, compounded by an illegal invasion and criminal occupation, is the lives that will be lost sustaining the illusion of a winning hand long past the decree of history: This war is an unmitigated disaster that must be ended.

What history demanded and what this report failed to deliver was not bipartisan consensus but nonpartisan wisdom.

Listening to mainstream media, one would assume that the only mandate received from the midterm election was a renewed mandate to deceive, distort and nullify the will of the people.

It is as if we have fallen into a time warp: back to square one. If not for Keith Olbermann and the Internet, we would not even know that an antiwar movement exists. Not only are the antiwar voices absent from the media round tables and government appointed commissions, we are now informed that the only voices qualified to lead us out of the war are the same voices who fed us the deceptions that got us in.

We cannot be fooled again.

After three and a half years denying the ongoing bloodbath, the promoters of prolonged engagement warn of the bloodbath that will follow early withdrawal but why should we believe them when did not have the foresight to oppose the war before it was launched? Why should we believe those who failed to warn us of the bloodbath that would follow invasion?

Here is a sounder set of predictions: We will not withdraw in six months and there will be a bloodbath. It will only get worse. If we increase our troops, there will be a bloodbath and it will get worse. If we go on the offensive, there will be a bloodbath and it will get worse. The pattern will repeat itself ad infinitum until we get out because it cannot get better until we withdraw.

The dire forecast of the warmongers presumes we are peacekeepers in Iraq when in fact we are occupiers who have lost any shred of faith we once might have possessed.

Withdrawal is not without risk of renewed violence but the far greater fear is that one more year will turn into two and two into four, as the death toll mounts and still we are told: More time is needed.

We have been here before. It is "the light at the end of the tunnel" and "the last throes" of the insurgency and "the war to end all wars." The cry of "one more year" will become a revolving door until the entire region is engulfed in flames, until the streets of America and the streets of Arabia are filled with rage, and until the bridges we have burned can no longer be repaired.

The most telling element in the ISG report, lost to media commentators, is the recommendation that the president should "make it clear that the U.S. does not seek permanent military bases or control of Iraq’s oil." (New York Times, 12/7/06)

What might have been sound advice at the inception of the war lives on as a damning indictment of our "honorable" intentions three years and eight months later.

If the newly elected congress fails to give voice to the clearly expressed will of the people, even as the Iraqi government fails to embrace the will of its own people, we will confront a danger every bit as dire as the "grave and deteriorating" situation in Iraq: the collapse of American democracy.

The people will be compelled to accept that our two-party system of government has betrayed them. Every American who still believes in democracy will be called upon to drastic measures. Every new member of congress who embraces this new policy of prolongation in the name of an exit strategy must meet the same fate as the member he or she has replaced.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe the Democrats will rise to this occasion. Senators Feingold, Levin and Obama have staked their ground, demanding a withdrawal in 4-6 months. They must hold to it and the party must rally to their leadership. If they do not, the Democrats will have failed.

If they cower under the Baker-Hamilton threat of a post-withdrawal bloodbath, they have failed.

Shall we return to Republican rule? No! Emphatically no! We must finally turn to those who have not sold their souls to the corporate overlords. As a moral imperative, we must elect independents united on a clear and simple platform:

1. End the war.
2. A Marshall Plan for clean and renewable energy.
3. Fair trade.
4. Remember New Orleans.
5. Remember Afghanistan.

Can we win back our government? Only if we realize that it is the only way. Only if we understand that a change in party is not a change in government. Only if we accept the responsibility of our own government for ourselves and our posterity. Only if we realize that the spiral descent ripping Iraq apart has the power to pull us under.

Which is more likely? The Democrats awakening to the will of the people or the people awakening to a third option?

I’ll put my wager on the people.

Jazz.

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