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WORD COUNT
680
November 7, 2007
LIES MAKE THE WAR GO
ROUND – by Daniel M. Smith
Question: When is
truth relative?
Answer: In war –
especially counterinsurgency – always.
With photographers in
tow, armed helicopters overhead, and a heavily armed escort, generals
and politicians can stroll down selected streets without helmets or flak
vests, declaring that security has improved.
To one battalion of
the 1st Infantry Division assigned to Baghdad’s Sadiyah
neighborhood, this is a lie. “The higher-ups…only go to the safe places,
places with a little bit of gunfire” (Washington Post, October 27). The
administration hypes these snapshots of “progress” by trumpeting the
post-“ troop surge” fall-off in Iraqi and coalition fatalities – which
is real – but conveniently omitting the cost: some 40,000 (not 29,000)
additional troops.
The very dangerous
Baghdad that these 1st Division “grunts” see is a world – and
20 deaths – apart. When they arrived fourteen months ago, Sadiyah
bustled with business and traffic. Today, after continuous assaults on
Sunni residents by Shi’a militias and intimidation by a Shi’a police
brigade, street life is largely limited to starving dogs and American
patrols – reminiscent of Kipling’s refrain: “only mad dogs and
Englishmen go out in the noon-day sun.”
The irony is that the
Bush administration, like the British in World War I, did not have to
get mixed up in the maze of contradictions and civil unrest that are
rife in Iraq and the entire Gulf region. Introducing foreign occupation
forces into the mix simply compounds the opacity of motives and
alliances that, in turn, can tip the balance of power in contested areas
in unpredictable ways.
Conversely, the
existence of a UN mandate authorizing foreign troops as a “stabilizing
force” reduces some ambiguity as this implies a degree of
self-governance through which the Iraqi people’s voices can be heard.
And what the UN is hearing from more and more Iraqis and from Afghans
through their parliaments and presidents is frustration bordering on
outright hatred of western ground and – increasingly – air forces. The
reality seen by those people on the ground is the disproportionate if
not unaccountable and unregulated use of air power.
On October 28 – and
not for the first time –Afghan President Hamid Kharzai publicly
protested to the UN and U.S. the increasing use of coalition attack
planes. Unverified targeting has killed more than 300 Afghan
non-combatants so far this year – about the same number of
non-combatants killed by the Taliban – that is making 2007 the bloodiest
year of this war.
In Iraq the UN
Security Council resolution authorizing the coalition presence must be
renewed in December. The last time it was renewed, Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki requested an early vote by the Council to pre-empt plans by
Iraqi parliamentarians to attach conditionsl. This time parliament is
working on mandatory conditionality: e.g., geographic limits such as no
air operations in urban areas and restrictions on types of activity such
as training and border security. (Separately, the UN plans to look into
recent incidents in which U.S. aircraft struck supposed al-Qaeda and
Taliban “hideouts” but subsequent ground reports raised questions about
the accuracy of the military’s press release describing the incident.)
Governments,
especially governments at war, are adept at holding hearings and
developing policies that get to “the truth” – or their version of the
truth. Individuals, however, especially those in a battle zone, don’t
need “truth.” For them, truth has nothing to do with policy and politics
and everything to do with simply staying alive.
That is also the
“truth” that confronts soldiers – a most apt thought for Veterans Day.
No one wants to be the last one killed or injured in their unit, most
particularly when, as now, it is clear that a war was started and is
being continued on the basis of mistakes, errors, and lies by
politicians, many of whom have no experience of war. And that is how
Iraq (and Afghanistan) likely will end: with the lie that U.S.
objectives have been reached.
It is a lie that
Americans might embrace. The U.S. battalion in Sadiyah, with 20 dead and
a month to go, undoubtedly would. One soldier put it succinctly: “I
don’t think this place is worth another soldier’s life.”
--
Colonel Daniel M. Smith (Ret.), a West
Point graduate and Vietnam veteran is the Senior Fellow for Military
Affairs at the Friend Committee on National Legislation. FCNL is a
Quaker-based public interest lobby founded in 1943. FCNL is
headquartered in Washington DC.
www.fcnl.org -- A photo of Colonel Daniel M. Smith is available
CLICK HERE
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