[Peace-discuss] The Last War and the Next One

[Morton K. Brussel]

An extract from a long and useful analysis of our wars by Tom  
Engelhardt.  --mkb

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/05/8714/

…Here’s how military spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Stover put it recently:

     “‘The sole burden of responsibility lies on the shoulders of the  
militants who care nothing for the Iraqi people…’ He said the  
militiamen purposely attack from buildings and alleyways in densely  
populated areas, hoping to protect themselves by hiding among  
civilians. ‘What does that say about the enemy?… He is heartless and  
evil.’”

Mind you, this comes from the representative of a military that now  
claims to grasp the true nature of counterinsurgency warfare (and so  
of a guerrilla war); and you’re talking about a militia largely from  
Sadr City, fighting “a war of survival” for its own families, its own  
people, against foreign soldiers who have hopped continents to attack  
them. The Sadrist militiamen are defending their homes and, of  
course, with Predator drones and American helicopters constantly over  
their neighborhoods, it’s quite obvious what would happen to them if  
they “came out and fought” like typical good-hearted types. They  
would simply be blown away. (Out of curiosity, what descriptive  
adjectives would Lt. Col. Stover use to capture the style of fighting  
of the Predator pilots who “fly” their drones from an air base  
outside of Las Vegas?)

By the way, the last time such street fighting was seen, in the first  
six months of 2007, the U.S. military was clearing insurgents (”al- 
Qaeda”) out of Sunni neighborhoods of the capital, which were then  
being further cleansed by Shiite militias (including the Sadrists).

So, to sum up, let me see if I have this straight: The Bush  
administration liberated Iraq in order to send U.S. troops against a  
ragtag militia that has nothing whatsoever to do with Saddam  
Hussein’s former government (and many of whose members were, in fact,  
oppressed by it, as were its leaders) in the name of another group of  
Iraqis, who have long been backed by Iran, and… uh…

Hmmm, let’s try that again… or, like the Bush administration, let’s  
not and pretend we did.

In the meantime, the U.S. military has tried to partially “seal off”  
Sadr City and, in the neighborhoods that they have partially occupied  
with their attendant Iraqi troops, they are building the usual vast,  
concrete walls, cordoning off the area. This is being done, so  
American spokespeople say, to keep the Sadrist militia fighters out  
and to clear the way for government hearts-and-minds “reconstruction”  
projects that everyone knows are unlikely to happen.

Soon enough, if the previous pattern in Sunni neighborhoods is  
applied, they and/or their Iraqi cohorts will start going door to  
door doing weapons searches. As a result, the American and Iraqi  
prisons now supposedly being substantially emptied — part of a  
program of “national reconciliation” — of many of the tens of  
thousands of Sunni prisoners swept up in raids in Sunni  
neighborhoods, are likely to be refilled with Shiite prisoners swept  
up in a similar way. Call it grim irony — or call it a meaningless  
nightmare from which no one can awaken. Just don’t claim it makes  
much sense.

As in Vietnam, so four decades later, we are observing a full-scale  
descent into madness and, undoubtedly, into atrocity. At least in  
2003, American troops were heading for Baghdad. They thought they had  
a goal, a city to take. Now, they are heading for nowhere, for the  
heart of a slum city which they cannot hold in a guerrilla war where  
the taking of territory and the occupying of neighborhoods is  
essentially beside the point. They are heading for oblivion, while  
trying to win hearts and minds by shooting missiles into homes and  
enclosing people in giant walls which break families and communities  
apart, while destroying livelihoods.

Oh, and while we’re at it, welcome to “the next war,” the war in the  
slum cities of the planet.…

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