Ron Jacobs: Back to 1965 ... Further Along the Dead-End Road of Iraq
[Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's new collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net]
If there was ever any doubt about who is really running the war in Iraq, George Bush erased it last Wednesday night. Subsequent testimony before Congress by administration spokespeople and various news reports make it clear that the White House and the Pentagon are firmly in control of making policy and military decisions regarding that debacle. Indeed, hints have been dropped by Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates that if the current regime in Baghdad drags its feet in helping the US military institute its raids and lockdowns of the city it could find itself no longer in power....
I am reminded of Vietnam once again. Although Washington was always firmly in control of that mission, it often pretended early on that it was merely a partner of the Saigon regime and its army. There was a point, however, when Washington took over for good. If I were to pinpoint that time, it would be the late winter of 1965. In February Lyndon Johnson ordered the aerial bombardment of northern Vietnam in an operation called Operation Rolling Thunder. The following month, the first two battalions of US combat troops arrived in country. By the end of 1965, there were 180,000 US troops in southern Vietnam. The US military had taken over the war and would continue to run it as it saw fit until its end in May 1975, despite the myths of Vietnamization.
An interesting article appeared in the U K's Guardian newspaper on January 13, 2007. The essence of the article was that the Sunni insurgency seems to be split between attacking the US troops or concentrating on the Shia. In the article, the reporter pieces together anecdotal evidence describing an overall sense by the insurgents that they were used by al-Qaida forces to fight for its agenda, not against the occupation. This became clear when the targets became Shia and not US soldiers. Now, the article continues, the general rule is not to attack US troops unless they are accompanying the Iraqi military, whom the insurgents see as Shia death squads. This brings up an interesting and relevant question. If the US military begins its attacks to "quell the violence" in Sunni neighborhoods as it apparently intends to do (the recent attack on Haifa Street in Baghdad being the most recent such incident), isn't it inviting the Sunni-led resistance to make them their primary targets once again?
The purpose of the minor escalation in Iraq is difficult to decipher right now. Nominally there to end the sectarian violence and the insurgency, the question that no one has asked is will there be more if that mission fails or will Bush and company accept the loss and pull the troops back? Given the administration's prior history, it's unlikely that Mr. Bush will pull back at all no matter what the outcome of his most recent plan. In addition, as I outlined in an earlier piece (Coalition of the Lunatics, January 10, 2007), Mr. Bush is using a plan put forth by the American Enterprise Institute technocrat Fred Kagan which calls for a total increase of around 30,000 US troops by the fall of 2007. This seems to point, then, to the introduction of more and more troops as long as the Pentagon can find them. Furthermore, Secretary of Defense Gates went on record stating that there is no plan to withdraw US troops even if the Bush escalation fails. It's clear that most US residents and a good number of our legislators disagree with the Bush escalation; the question is can we mobilize enough resistance to make a troop withdrawal a reality? ...
Read entire article at Counterpunch
If there was ever any doubt about who is really running the war in Iraq, George Bush erased it last Wednesday night. Subsequent testimony before Congress by administration spokespeople and various news reports make it clear that the White House and the Pentagon are firmly in control of making policy and military decisions regarding that debacle. Indeed, hints have been dropped by Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates that if the current regime in Baghdad drags its feet in helping the US military institute its raids and lockdowns of the city it could find itself no longer in power....
I am reminded of Vietnam once again. Although Washington was always firmly in control of that mission, it often pretended early on that it was merely a partner of the Saigon regime and its army. There was a point, however, when Washington took over for good. If I were to pinpoint that time, it would be the late winter of 1965. In February Lyndon Johnson ordered the aerial bombardment of northern Vietnam in an operation called Operation Rolling Thunder. The following month, the first two battalions of US combat troops arrived in country. By the end of 1965, there were 180,000 US troops in southern Vietnam. The US military had taken over the war and would continue to run it as it saw fit until its end in May 1975, despite the myths of Vietnamization.
An interesting article appeared in the U K's Guardian newspaper on January 13, 2007. The essence of the article was that the Sunni insurgency seems to be split between attacking the US troops or concentrating on the Shia. In the article, the reporter pieces together anecdotal evidence describing an overall sense by the insurgents that they were used by al-Qaida forces to fight for its agenda, not against the occupation. This became clear when the targets became Shia and not US soldiers. Now, the article continues, the general rule is not to attack US troops unless they are accompanying the Iraqi military, whom the insurgents see as Shia death squads. This brings up an interesting and relevant question. If the US military begins its attacks to "quell the violence" in Sunni neighborhoods as it apparently intends to do (the recent attack on Haifa Street in Baghdad being the most recent such incident), isn't it inviting the Sunni-led resistance to make them their primary targets once again?
The purpose of the minor escalation in Iraq is difficult to decipher right now. Nominally there to end the sectarian violence and the insurgency, the question that no one has asked is will there be more if that mission fails or will Bush and company accept the loss and pull the troops back? Given the administration's prior history, it's unlikely that Mr. Bush will pull back at all no matter what the outcome of his most recent plan. In addition, as I outlined in an earlier piece (Coalition of the Lunatics, January 10, 2007), Mr. Bush is using a plan put forth by the American Enterprise Institute technocrat Fred Kagan which calls for a total increase of around 30,000 US troops by the fall of 2007. This seems to point, then, to the introduction of more and more troops as long as the Pentagon can find them. Furthermore, Secretary of Defense Gates went on record stating that there is no plan to withdraw US troops even if the Bush escalation fails. It's clear that most US residents and a good number of our legislators disagree with the Bush escalation; the question is can we mobilize enough resistance to make a troop withdrawal a reality? ...