The BIG Question

It’s been over three-and-a-half years since George W. Bush announced the start of the war in Iraq. From March 19, 2003 to now, things have gone from terrible to worse-than-terrible. And yet the Bush administration says the US is doing just fine and that we are winning in Iraq. The big question is: What has been the Bush administration objective in Iraq? Remember that great scene in the movie “The Candidate” (1972)? Robert Redford’s campaign manager Peter Boyle sits Redford down to tell him the facts of life about why he was chosen to run for the US Senate. “You lose,” Boyle says. And that had been the plan all the way along. The campaign mavens had decided Redford was “Too Handsome. Too Young. Too Liberal. Doesn't have a chance. He's PERFECT!” In the case of the Candidate, there were cogent reasons why the party believed that Redford’s losing would be better for the party than his winning. And if I’m making an analogy that the neocons in the White House actually have wanted to lose the war in Iraq all the way along, I have to admit, it makes no sense. And yet, when events go in a certain direction over a long period of time, one has to conclude that the people involved like it that way. At any point since the Gulf War the US could have rooted out the nest of vipers in Kuwait and in Iraq by using the formidable US military force in a final and conclusive way, and yet the US chose not to do so. Why not? Since the US first attacked Iraq, it has never deployed a sufficient number of soldiers to Iraq to decisively win the war. Why not? Could it be that losing is better for the GOP, big business, arms manufacturers, and politicians than winning? And now that we have positively and with certainty lost the war in Iraq, a story in the New York Times this morning shows that the US security forces are positively and with certainty failing to train an Iraqi police force. The NYT reported that head of the police transition team in Iraq Capt. Alexander Shaw said, “How can we expect ordinary Iraqis to trust the police when we don't even trust them not to kill our own men?" The police transition team is a Washington-based unit that is overseeing training of all Iraqi police in western Baghdad. "To be perfectly honest,” Shaw said. “I'm not sure we're ever going to have police here that are free of the militia influence." The NYT continued, “The trainers agree that Ani, the new police chief for western Baghdad, is an honest cop who is trying to get the police force in order. But Ani acknowledged in a meeting with U.S. officials that he does not plan to root out and fire militia members. "I don't have that power," he said. "There are people higher than me that control that." Deputy team chief Jon Moore estimated it would take 30 to 40 years before the Iraqi police could function properly, perhaps longer if the militia infiltration and corruption continue to increase. "It's very, very slow-moving," a former head of the police transition team said. "No. It's moving in reverse," another member of the team said. And I say, if this is what is happening, and if this is what the Bush administration calls winning and progressing, then this is exactly the way the Bush administration wants it. Why? I never said it made sense. And I certainly never said the fascists in the White House are sane. I only say that it’s the way it is and the Bush administration calls it winning.