[Peace-discuss] What’s the Opposite of a Pyrrhic Victory?

[Morton K. Brussel]

A wonderfully terse, incisive, and insightful summary of Baker's half- 
baked prescriptions, and what must really be done about our Iraq  
adventure.

Published on Sunday, December 10, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
What’s the Opposite of a Pyrrhic Victory?
by Robert Shetterly

James Baker’s & Lee Hamilton’s report from the Iraq Study Group on  
the situation in Iraq and their recommendations on how to proceed  
avoids three of the most important aspects of this catastrophic  
situation. Thus, it does nothing to avert the mythic disaster that  
inevitably befalls a country -- like ours -- determined to ignore the  
strictures of reality.

1. The report never talks about the manner in which the U.S. Congress  
and people were manipulated into war by this administration. The lies  
and deceptions used to engineer this war were a betrayal of the  
Constitution and of our democratic Republic. Any solution must not  
just figure out how the U.S. can exit from the war, but, equally  
important, how such deception can be avoided in the future. To do  
this we all have to face the truth of what happened. The Study Group  
did not address this issue; it provided cover for the administration.  
By implication it took the administration to task for poor planning  
and incompetence, but that is not nearly enough. Crimes were  
committed. An essential ingredient of the success of a democracy is  
its willingness to demand accountability. Without people being held  
responsible, nothing lasting can be learned. We are indeed doomed to  
repeat our history if no one is held accountable for the mistakes and  
crimes of the past. I have heard it said that the Baker-Hamilton  
report was a devastating criticism of the administration’s handling  
of the war. But there is no way it could be devastating enough unless  
it included criminal indictment. In fact, then it would not be  
devastating. It would be liberating.

2. The report never disavows the actual goals of the invasion. We all  
know that the goals were neither self-protection from extraordinary  
weapons, nor the interdiction of Saddam’s phony connection with  
Osama, nor the building of democracy in Iraq. The goals involved the  
establishment of permanent U.S. military bases at a central location  
in the Mid-East, and the privatized control of a vast supply of oil,  
and, under the Bremer Rules, the privatization of all of Iraq’s  
essential business. The Baker-Hamilton report states that U.S. forces  
should stay in Iraq for an indefinite time to protect our “national  
interests.” What this “bi-partisan” committee is trying to do, in the  
inverse of a Pyrrhic victory, is find a way to lose the war but still  
win the war’s objectives. This duplicity will not be lost on Sunnis,  
Shiites, or anyone else in the region. There will be no peace until  
the U.S. leaves Iraq, turns over its bases to the Iraqis and forgoes  
all imperial ambitions, including the oil. Even then, of course, the  
violence may worsen. When you sow the whirlwind, it, not you, is in  
control. ( It’s important to note that James Baker has very close  
ties to the oil industry and has worked for the Carlyle Group, the  
international corporate entity made up primarily of former multi- 
national government officials, like George H.W. Bush, who have used  
their insider connections to make billions selling arms & oil.)

3. The best way to end the conflict is for the U.S forces to be  
withdrawn immediately. Much of the violence is in reaction to the  
presence of the U.S. occupying force. The Study Group admits this,  
but then ignores it. Much attention is given to the training of Iraqi  
forces, with the warning to the Iraqi government that it has to now  
take responsibility for the violence in Iraq --- as though it is  
their fault. Before they take responsibility, we have to. Who started  
this war? Who made the unprovoked attack? Who destroyed the  
infrastructure of the country and killed hundreds of thousands of  
civilians? Who whistled the tune for this particular “cake walk?” Who  
should pay for the reparations? Who created a situation so awful that  
there are no good solutions? The U.S. has to make it very clear that  
this is our fault and our mess to clean up ---- which brings me back  
to the beginning. We can’t take appropriate responsibility for the  
end of this affair if we don’t take responsibility for the beginning.  
It was not bungling. It was a crime against humanity. Implicit in the  
Iraq Study Group’s report is that they approved of a pre-emptive war  
sold to the American people by deception and that they approved of  
the neo-colonial goals. They’re pissed that the heist was handled so  
badly.

I am very fond of quoting James Baldwin who said, “People who shut  
their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction.” For  
nearly four years the Bush administration has shut its eyes to the  
reality of the situation in Iraq, and we can all see how close we are  
to destruction. They also employed every underhanded means they could  
to mask that reality from the American people. They have arrogantly  
claimed that they could create reality faster than anyone else could  
hold them accountable, that they could outrun the consequences of  
their acts. Oh, the hubris of power! Did Dick Cheney or Karl Rove  
never read a Greek tragedy? (They could have learned the same lesson  
from the Road Runner.) All of us who refuse now to see the larger  
realities and to hold people accountable for them will also face  
destruction. The Iraq Study Group’s proposals are not a good start  
toward a realistic solution. They seek both to ignore the initial  
betrayal of our republic and to hide the objectives which they are  
still hoping to achieve.

Our job, as citizens, is simply to speak reality to power. None of us  
wants to confront how bloody abominable this situation --- both in  
Iraq & in our duplicit government --- really is, but we must. It’s a  
fire we must walk through with no knowledge of what’s on the other  
side. It has nothing to do with partisanship. It has to do with  
salvaging the republic. And it’s a fire we must walk through so that  
we can have the opportunity to walk through the other conflagrations  
burning ahead --- global warming and energy depletion --- while there  
is still time.

Robert Shetterly [send him mail] is a writer and artist who lives in  
Brooksville, Maine. He is the author of Americans Who Tell the Truth.  
See his website.
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