[Peace-discuss] Another strong anti-war statement...

[C. G. Estabrook]

[...from the Right.  Have we any conventional liberals saying as much?
Of course the serious Left is (e.g., Cockburn and Chomsky, who shared a
platform in Boston last night), but where are the Good Liberals saying
unequivocally anti-war/troops-out sort of stuff? --CGE] 

	They've Come Unglued
	On the Brink of Defeat in Iraq
	By WILLIAM S. LIND

As America's civilian and military high command comes unglued, American
actions in Iraq grow more inchoate. The Marines did what needed to be done
in Fallujah, turning the place over to one of Saddam's generals who might
be able to run it, mainly because he comes from the tribe that has always
run it. The pathetic CPA, aka the Emerald City, bleated that they had not
"vetted" him and named another Iraqi general in his place, forgetting that
anyone the Americans "vet" is thereby labeled "collaborator." We continue
to encircle Najaf, which is dumb, and the Iraqi resistance has again cut
the road from Baghdad to the airport, which is dangerous. One suspects
that a fly on the wall in meetings in the White House or in Baghdad's
Green Zone thinks it has wandered into a low-budget production of
Marat-Sade.

But what of the world beyond Iraq? That is where one sees the full effect
of Iraq's factory of WMDs--Wars of Mass Destruction. The State Department
has just told all Americans to leave Saudi Arabia, while they can still
get out alive. Over a hundred people are dead in Thailand, where local
Islamics are waging a new jihad. Moslems and Christians are going at it
again in Indonesia and Nigeria. The Israelis, beaten in Gaza as they were
beaten in Lebanon, find it impossible to move either forward or back.
Pakistan, whose army got it's a-- handed to it by tribesmen on the old
Northwest Frontier, is turning a deaf ear to increasingly desperate
demands from America's generals in Afghanistan for "tough action."
President Mubarak of Egypt warns from his tottering throne that America
has never been so hated in the Middle East as it is now.

Each day's newspapers make the same point: in the misnamed "War on
Terrorism," America is losing and losing badly. Osama & Company are having
a banner year. The reason is not any brilliance on their part, but gross
buffoonery on ours. Specifically, the invasion and occupation of Iraq by
America have created the greatest recruiting drive in history--for the
other side.

Not content with so modest an achievement, the Bush administration has
tossed its (expensive) cigar into the powder magazine by embracing Israel
the way Russia once embraced Serbia. Not only did Bush endorse Mr.
Sharon's de facto annexation of much of the West Bank, when Sharon's own
party voted against him on Gaza and thus gave Bush a way out, he
reiterated his support of Likud and its policies. Apparently, not even the
gods' rarest gift, a golden bridge across which to retreat from a blunder,
is of interest to an administration that has sealed itself off from
reality.

It is however, somewhat unfair to blame the whole bloody mess on George
II. The entire Establishment is in this together. All Mr. Kerry can do is
say "stay the course;" Congress is silent on the whole business; few in
the media have the courage to state the obvious, which is that we need to
bring the troops home, now. Only old Ralph Nader, playing the crocodile to
Kerry's Captain Hook, has the guts to call for an American withdrawal from
Iraq. In an election where the choice may be between Tweedledumb and
Tweedlephony, Ralph is starting to look pretty good, even to Russell Kirk
conservatives like myself.

When the full scope of America's defeat in the Wars of Mass Destruction
ignited by Iraq becomes apparent, the political result is likely to go far
beyond any election, especially an election in America's one-party
Republicrat state (you get two candidates, but they both represent the
same thing.) We are likely to see that interesting time known by
historians as "change of dynasty," where a defective and corrupt
Establishment is all swept away.

Now that could be fun to watch.

William S. Lind is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for
the Free Congress Foundation.

	***