Ending the War in 2009

A speech at Betty and Stanley Sheinbaum's, Sept. 6, 2007

...Let me tell you what the supporters of endless occupation are worried about. A Washington think tank, the Center for a New American Security, whose board includes Madeline Albright, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon recently warned that

The transition from president bush is getting more and more problematic as the American people continue to lose confidence in the Iraq War and step up their pressure on creandidates from both parties. If no bipartisan consensus is reached before the Democratic and Republican primaries, the next president will likely be elected principally on a "get out of Iraq" platform. The political space to do otherwise is shrinking by the day."

Contrary to their worries, I thought: What a great prospect, that the American people through the democratic process can force the end of this war, can discredit the neo-conservatives agenda, can defeat the Bush-Cheney legacy, can rebuke hawkish mentality in both parties, and can drive the discussion of our future. I have written Ending the War in Iraq to hasten this possibility.

The conventional thinking that led us into quagmire is the same conventional thinking that says today that while it was a mistake to invade in 2003 it would be a bigger mistake to ever leave. These are not just White House flacks or Bush administration dead-enders, but friends we respect such as James Fallows has written -

I have come to this sobering conclusion. The United States can best train Iraqis, and therefore best help itself leave Iraq, only by making a long-term commitment to stay.

Too many are governed by the paradigm that we can never "stand down" until the Iraqis themselves "stand up", that we have to fight the insurgency to create space for the Iraqi government to become stable enough to secure itself, and only then can we leave.

The truth being denied is that we have funded, equipped, and trained a Frankenstein monster, and now multiple frankensteins, and they are indeed standing up. In any other conflict, the Iraqi regime and security forces would be called a police state. Yet we remain in denial because the truth would undermine the war's very rationale.. Even today, a prestigious military commission headed by General Jones reports that the Iraqi police force is hopelessly sectarian and should be scrapped. The media denial is evident in the coverage: the ninth paragraph on page 8 of the New York Times, the 25th paragraph on page 8 of the LA Times.

This is not new news. The Baker-Hamilton report last year said that the Iraqi police "routinely engage in sectarian violence, including the unnecessary detention, torture and targeted execution of Sunni Arab civilians."

The illusion is that the sectarian militias are outside the Iraqi state and must be reined in, when the reality is that the biggest militias are inside the interior ministry, inside the army, police and secret prisons, particularly the Badr Brigade which belongs to SCIRI, the dominant party in the ruling coalition we put in power. Nineteen billion of our tax dollars have been spent on building the Iraqi security system.

It gets worse. As encouraged by Gen. Petraeus a few years ago, at least 190,000 American-made AK-47s and 370,000 small arms sent Iraq are unaccounted for, most of them without serial numbers. This mass distribution of weapons was deliberate, not accidental, according to the GAO and Special Inspector General.

The illusion is that we are preventing a sectarian civil war when the reality is that, in the best British tradition, we have been fomenting and feeding a civil war which will fragment, subdivide and eliminate the basis of Arab nationalism in Iraq.

The intellectual proponent of this division is Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations, an on-the-ground adviser to Gen. Petraeus. Biddle writes that the US should support both sides in the civil war. We should arm the Sunnis to gain leverage against the very Shi'a we put in power, and we should increase the Shi'a ability to create mass violence as an incentive for the Sunnis to compromise on their demand to end the occupation. This was written in Foreign Affairs magazine in 2006.
The much-touted Petreaus plan to further divide Iraq by helping Sunnis fight other Sunnis in Anbar and Diyala provinces is little more than Kit Carson's plan to arm the Ute mercenaries against the Navajo over a century ago. I make the comparison because the Sunni fighters on the US payroll are even called the "Kit Carson Scouts."

All this is against current law, the Leahy Amendment of 1997 which expressly forbids US military assistance to governments or security forces that are known to be human rights violators. Why is this provision being ignored? Is it like the claim that violence is going down in parts of Baghdad, because there are fewer people for the death squads to kill. Will a day come when there will be no more human rights violations because there will be no more Iraqis with human rights to violate?

Fortunately, a few members of Congress - Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey - and one liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress, want to stop our taxes going for torture. Their HR 3134, just introduced, would require the end of all funding of the Iraqi army and police forces unless expressly approved by a vote of Congress. We need the media and groups like the clergy and the ACLU to pay attention to this developing issue. Americans may be uneasy about immediately cutting off funding for American troops in the field, but would be opposed to taxes going for secret torture chambers and ethnic cleansing.

There is a gaping hole in the major peace proposals from Baker-Hamilton to Feingold-Reid to Clinton and Obama. All the discussion is about withdrawing combat troops while leaving thousands of American troops as trainers and advisers to these feuding sectarian and dysfunctional Iraqi security forces. This is not a recipe for ending the war, but for turning it into a low-visibility, lower-casualty conflict like Afghanistan.

Partial troop reducaions may diminish public attention during the election year - that will be partly up to us - but are unlikely to alter the course of the war. It is hard to imagine fewer American troops, embedded as trainers and secret commandos, succeeding militarily where 162,000 could not.

So what's the answer? In the debate on Capitol Hill, I favor setting a withdrawal deadline, which is the only way to begin the shift away from a military model to a conflict resolution model. But a deadline is not enough. I interviewed former CIA director John Deutch about a rational exit plan, and he stressed two essentials: [1] that the US has to decide to withdraw, which it has not, and [2] he stressed diplomacy with Iran, which he called the only country that could cause trouble during our withdrawal. He was implying negotiations with Iran to obtain what Richard Nixon once called a "decent interval" for the US to leave Vietnam.

We should call for a shift from warmaking to peacemaking through a diplomatic offensive, declaring a firm intention to withdraw all American troops and bases on a one-year timetable, which would create an immediate incentive for engagement on the part of Iran, Syria, the Arab League, the Europeans, Russians and Chinese, the UN. No one has an interest in joining the US in the occupation; everyone has a interest in minimizing a power vacuum as we leave. The issues to be resolved will be humanitarian assistance to 3-4 million refugees, economic reconstruction, and protection of all Iraqis from unrestrained vendettas. America should offer to assist by appointing a peace envoy and offering billions in reconstruction. The horrific damage cannot be undone but can be contained and mitigated.

Of course our government is following the absolute opposite course from that proposed by Deutch, and even has drawn up contingency plans for a possible escalation to Iran. Many of the neo-conservatives continue to push, as in Vietnam, for escalation as the solution to quagmire.

It is here that the force of public opinion really matters in the coming year, and election year when public opinion becomes most important to decision-makers.

I find that the peace movement has been misunderstood and underestimated these past five years.

This is partly because we are governed by past image of peace movements as strictly outside protests in the streets as during Vietnam. But those were times of deep exclusion, when many could not vote and were structurally outside the institutions. The image of a defiant draft-card burner or bleeding demonstrator remains in our heads when in reality the typical resister today is an outraged blogger.

Not that we haven't been in the streets. On nine occasions, more than 100,000 people have assembled, several times in numbers closer to 500,000.

Nearly 200 city councils and legislatures have voted to oppose the war.

Public opinion came to view Iraq as a mistake more rapidly that the public did during Vietnam, according to Gallup surveys.

Cindy Sheehan and other military families have neutralized the old claims that the peace movement is against the troops.

Howard Dean shocked the Democratic Party when he became the Eugene McCarthy of 2003.

Michael Moore shocked everyone when his Farenheit set unprecedented box office records in 2004.

Robert Greeenwald's videos and YouTube spots reach hundreds of thousands of people.

Fifty thousand people listen to Amy Goodman's and Juan Gonzales "war and peace report" every morning in LA.

The Dixie Chicks stood their ground in Texas, defeated blacklisting, and still aren't ready to make nice.

Members of MoveOn.org contributed $180 million to candidates in 2003-2004.

The 2004 election was the first in our history when the American voters turned out a Congressional majority over a war in progress.

Whether impeachment happens or not, the Bush Administration is being impeached in installments - Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Libby, Gonzales - they have failed to make Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame the Daniel Ellsbergs of this war.

The peace movement is suffering from success, not failure. There can be an identity crisis when marginalized people suddenly find themselves in the majority, but that is where we are.

I can hear some of you asking, How can we consider ourselves successful when Iraqis and Americans are dying every minute, when the juggernaut continues, when, when the system that produced Iraq is gearing up for Iran? All I can ask is that you not let the suffering break you, not let the suffering push you down ineffective roads, but turn the pain into a controlled and strategic rage that creates ripple effects towards justice.

The year 2009 will be decisive. This week comes the debate over the surge. Next week the president's recommendations. Then the elusive search among the politicians for bipartisan consensus. Then the appropriations bill, then the new request for next year's war funding, then the presidential primaries, all of that in the next six months. Then in April, comes the projected breaking point for the armed forces, when some troop withdrawals will have to begin or tours of duty extended to intolerable lengths. Then the political conventions in the protest-friendly cities of Denver and Minneapolis, and then the campaign itself.

Step by step, we all need to ensure that ending the war is the issue on which the elections turn.

Activists need to apply people pressure to the pillars of the policy: the pillars of public opinion, the pillar of budget funding, the pillar of military recruitment, the pillar of international support. The keys are simple.. Build the memberships of our local campaigns. Persuade more voters to demand rapid withdrawal as a condition of their support. Meet and confront military recruiters before they take more of our children. Reach our and form coalitions for a progressive budget. Whatever the candidates say, the war in Iraq cannot be sustained as these pillars - voter support, infinite funding, ample troops and reserves - continue to crumble and fall. As the costs, including the costs of protest and a persistent public opinion, finally outweigh the perceived benefits, I believe the cold and rational elements of the establishment will decide to cut their losses.

Big donors - those who contribute many millions to the so-called 527 independent issue committees - can make a huge difference in ending the war this time instead of avoiding the issue as they did in 2004. This year the independent committees can fund television, radio, and grass-roots campaigns to force the issue in targeted precincts all across the country. There is the potential of having the best-funded peace movement in our history.

A peace movement that can make a real difference by door-knocking and phone calls to impact close elections, protests against recruiters trying to take our children, and building coalitions with all the groups like teachers and health care workers whose needs are ignored by the $200 million per day that goes to war.

A peace movement that not only demands but deserves an alliance with environmentalists because the center of the fight against global warming is the war over the oil fields of the Middle East.

A peace movement that demands and deserves an alliance with labor and consumers because the center of the fight for fair trade and against corporate privatization is Iraq where all government protections are being stripped away before the coming of the US and British oil companies.

A peace movement that demands and deserves the support of all believers in democracy because the makers of war and the National Security State are the greatest threat to our civil liberties today.

And finally, a peace movement that encourages the lessons of this war in order to prevent future undemocratic aggressions whether in the Middle East or Venezuela.

Iraq is the focal point for confronting the great issues of our future. The fight is on. As Bobby Sands, the Irish hunger striker used to say, everyone has a part to play, and our reward will be seen in the smiles of the children.

Comments

[NABNYC]

Any old timers remember a place called the Soviet Union? It no longer exists. Once a mighty and powerful country, now a footnote in the history books.

And why is that? Because the Soviet Union invaded a country in the middle east, Afghanistan, got bogged down in a war being bought and financed, and staffed, by many others, ended up in the quagmire unable to win without killing every person, unable to withdraw without losing its military strength and reputation. Finally they left, went home, and watched their "union" fall apart.

So it was for them, so it will be for us.

All this time and effort put into finding the "solution" to this problem. And by "solution," we all mean some actions which will result in the U.S. coming out a "winner."

Is it possible that there is no solution. That whether we leave now or later, this war at this time, with the ballooning national debt, balance of trade, job loss, trade-secrets sent to other countries, deteriorating infrastructure, fewer citizens able to afford higher education, the government completely corrupt and politicians all on the take, increased crime, and breakdown of all national borders, will bring about the end of the U.S. as an international superpower? Is that so hard to consider?

Maybe instead of wasting time trying to save face, we should get real and start talking about how we, as a nation, can survive. Maybe it has come to that. And I would say the first step is to throw Bush and Cheney out of office, put a levy on all their assets, get the hell of Iraq, increase taxes on the rich, and pass laws making it illegal to take jobs, technology, or trade secrets out of this country.

[FogBelter]

Mr Hayden, while I was slumming on the PNAC website I came across an interesting piece from November 2003 entitled "US Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Lessons From the Philippine War" by Donnelly and Serchuk.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/defense-20031103.htm

This quote struck me: "Rather than imagine Iraq as postwar Germany or Japan, military planners and policymakers would do well to study the lessons of the Philippine War (1899-1902), perhaps the most successful counterinsurgency campaign waged by a Western army in the past 200 years."

If General Petraeus is using the "success" of the Counterinsurgency in the Philippines as the template for success in Iraq the American people should anticipate remaining in Iraq until 2050 at least. The best the US managed in the Philippines was a stalemate with insurgents. True, the US held Manila, the seat of American Colonial power, as well as some outposts throughout the islands, but the provinces remained more or less a wild west environment controlled by local Warlords throughout the occupation.

American forces dealt with scirmishes, and took casualties during the 40 year occupation, though the losses were attributed to "banditry".

The US Military never had confidence in the loyalty of the Filipinos to the US so attempts at building an Army in the Philippines languished even after General MacArthur was hired by Philippine President Quezon, himself a former insurgent, to build one.

The American troops who surrendered at Bataan in 1942 to the Japanese didn't have a chance to defend the Philippines from outside invasion ... that was not their mission. The mission of the US Military in the Philippines in 1941 was to protect the American Community in Manila, as well as the American Business interests throughout the islands, from the Filipinos.

I hope that Patraeus is not working towards a "success" strategy in Iraq like the one pursued in the Philippines. The Philippine strategy was one of prolonged stalemate.

I add, ominously, that the Philippine "Success" strategy was embraced by both Democratic and Republican Administrations from 1899 to December 1941 ... when the Japanese redefined "success" for the Americans there.

[researcher]

if the dems lose they have no one to blame but themselves. they are playing politics with this war as much as george jr is.

serves them right if they lose.

needed third party the two party system has become a one party system.

[ECJLA]

Some further recent historical perspective:

In 1984 Gary Hart won the New Hampshire primary by a 10% point landslide. The man had a bead on how to be a historical change agent. Basically through a forceful critique of both parties' lassitude and (differing) special interest driven inertia. It was very refreshing and energizing to the public, who rallied to him en masse after 4 years of Carter malaise followed by 4 years of Reagan's dangerous brinkmanship and authoritarianism. Hart "hit a gusher”.

Times change and what was refreshing in '84 is no longer much of a basis for candidacy. Obama is trying to sell a lukewarm version of it in '07-'08, and will get nowhere most likely, hullabaloo re Oprah, etc. aside. Hillary is the Mondale of 2008.

What is called for in '07-'08 and in two terms beyond is an equal but opposite “public interest” version of the Bush “private interest” presidency, using most if not all the tools the right will bequeath via their crackpot unitary presidency precedents to UNDO ALL OF THE DAMAGE of the Reagan revolution, and resume progress on enlightenment ideals.

Had anyone run on this platform he or she would have won both the 2008 Democratic nomination and the general election in a landslide.

Alas, elite Democrats believe that lockstep regimentation is only for Republicans, and that Dems shouldn't emulate Republicans in this respect.

Had they been more open to the ideas of the activist community, such as Tom's, they could have brainstormed their way to just such an exciting progressive Dem campaign appropriate to the times. Elite Dems must think deep down, that most of their ardent activist liberal supporters are inappropriate close confidants. (Whereas it would never occur to Bush to reject his core conservative cadres.)

While it is too late for 2008, following the Dems likely defeat in the November 2008 presidential election, there is always the possibility Hart, Gore, Dean or someone new can run a well planned militant victorious Democratic presidential campaign in 2012.

Eric C. Jacobson
Public Interest Lawyer
Culver City, California

[Qbear]

I am fed up to the teeth with the SAME experts who got everything WRONG about going into Iraq, and managing Iraq, now telling us they KNOW what leaving Iraq will bring.

When did these IDIOTS raise their IQs, when I blinked?

[Guitarsandmore]

Consider this:

The surge is 25,000 additional troops focused on a tiny part of Baghdad. A high concentration of military power on such a small area should reap incredible results and be a great success story, no matter how small of an area. (Kinda like our victory over Grenada). But the GAO report squashed any hopes of a victory by the surge with 11 out of 18 benchmarks not met.

The conclusion we all should draw from that story is that there is no military victory possible in Iraq. We waste our time without a political surge.

The Iraqi people must step up and man the local police force themselves. The Iraqi people must learn to be Iraqi citizens first and Sunni, Shia, and Kurd, second. United they will stand. They don’t need us, they need themselves.

[dadw5boys]

The only way to change the Washington mind set and the Military Indurtial Machine is to push the lobbist, right and left wing think tanks, and stop FREE MEALS AND TRAVEL ON BUSINEES PLANES.
Today the RIGHT WING can't even write laws anymore like the Democrates do.
The RIGHT WING is totally dependent on the THINK TANKS to wrtie laws for them. The people who voted for the RIGHT WINGERS are not being served. They did not elect a think tank or the Heritage Foundation to write laws.
Get back to basic repersentation.
If law makers are writting the laws themselves there will be fewer pork demands and less waste and nothing hidden because their names will be on the bills and laws.

[Doofus]

Ok, should the Demos win next year, you've got
the basis for 'peace with honor', as you wrote...

'So what's the answer? In the debate on Capitol Hill, I favor setting a withdrawal deadline, which is the only way to begin the shift away from a military model to a conflict resolution model. But a deadline is not enough. I interviewed former CIA director John Deutch about a rational exit plan, and he stressed two essentials: [1] that the US has to decide to withdraw, which it has not, and [2] he stressed diplomacy with Iran, which he called the only country that could cause trouble during our withdrawal. He was implying negotiations with Iran to obtain what Richard Nixon once called a "decent interval" for the US to leave Vietnam.'

Or, if the Repos win next year, we'll just have to win the war too, for the Gipper!


'And the last thing he said to me, "Rock," he said, "sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper.' - the famous line
from 'Knute Rockne: All American'

[batondor]

First and foremost, let it be agreed that Tom Hayden is an eloquent and compelling commentator on these matters...

However, speaking to his critique of James Fallows, the object of Hayden's friendly rebuke just posted this:

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/since_i_dont_know_how_to_conta.php

People like Fallows and Jim Webb tried to warn us all of the folly of intervening in Iraq without an adequately sized and fully mandated international force... and even then they and others warned that the enterprise was very risky under any circumstances. Others in the Senate like Senator Kerry tried to make these points part of the public record when they voted for the IWR, but their efforts were completely discounted as too complex or misguided ("They should have known, or looked deeper, etc."... and yet we now have learned that the White House withheld significant and accurate intel from the Senate, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Tony Blair!)

I disagree with Tom Hayden on only one point: that we can wait until January 2009 to definitively pin the tail of shame on the Bush-led elephant before its role is forgotten by the electorate (sorry for the mixed metaphors...). Here's a way that I recently discovered:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dddbckfg_1c47g6j&pli=1

- Why couldn't the Dems get a convincing majority, veto-proof or not, to endorse this proposition?

- Does anyone believe that the Bush/Cheney would not resist this to The End?

[leftLibertarian]

No more Arm Chair General BS. Bring the troops home NOW and impeach the criminals Bush and Cheney!

[Guitarsandmore]

If your friend stumbles and breaks the china in the china store over and over again you don’t have him move in and occupy the china store for years. Rather the best thing to do is to immediately get your friend out of the China store and council him to stay away from China stores.

If your friend insists on staying in the China store anyway to thrash about and destroy more China, then you have to conclude you are dealing with a madman who needs to be forcibly removed, and detained, through due process of law.

By the way, no matter what he says, this person is not your friend.

[Scarabus]

You know what I'd like to understand? Way back when, we were told that the Iraqi army and police were so tough that our defeating them was a major accomplishment. You know, codpiece, aircraft carrier, "Mission Accomplished"?

But now? We're told that the Iraqi army and police are so wussy that it may take decades for us to bring them up to snuff. This doesn't cut it, folks. The Bushies were lying then or they're lying now or they have totally mis-framed the whole issue...another lie, of course.

Yes, I know about the grand faux pas of deBaathification. But the guys we're accusing of incompetence kicked British patootie, and they're killing more and more Americans every month.

There's no problem with Iraqi competence. The problem is with Iraqi values and allegiances. Ask any foot-slogger. She or he will tell you that frequently the policeman or soldier you are training today will be using that training tomorrow to kill either sectarian enemies or you yourself.

This whole occupation and escalation is insane and self-destructive.

[rich1107]

As usual follow the money...do you realize how much money is being made of this 'war'? The people who are getting their pockets lined are many and varied and they will say and do anything to save this cash cow.

You want the war ended? Draft the children of the rich...it will take about five minutes for them to decide that the wisest course would be for us to get out.

[LizM]

Sadly, you have offered up the same old, tired false choices that the Bush administration has made a bloody doctrine out of...pun intended.

There is another option and it is known as the Biden strategy for Iraq...formerly known as the Biden-Gelb plan for Iraq...in any, case, you really ought to do yourself a big favor and check it out!

Senator Biden's Iraq strategy offers the only real hope there is of initiating a muscular diplomatic offensive to facilitate a process that would seek to bring together all Iraqi factions, along with the regional and international powers, in an effort to reach a sustainable political settlement.

[larry278]

2009 is too late Tom. Get real. Iraq has been torn by a civil war since 2004. The USA has been a party to genocide & has provided a cover for ethnic cleansing, the partition of Iraq & de facto anarchy too.