Perpetual War for Perpetual War
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Get ready for a “lasting military presence” in Iraq
By Jeff Huber
U.S. Army Col. Timothy R. Reese says it’s time for the U.S. to “declare victory” in Iraq and “go home.” It was time to declare victory and go home in January 2007, when the Bush administration decided to ignore the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group and charged off on its cockamamie “surge” strategy.
The original stated objective of the surge was political reconciliation in Iraq. By September 2007, when it was clear that the political objective was not in sight, Gen. David Petraeus pulled a bait-and-switch and announced that the military objectives of the surge were being met. Petraeus hagiographer Thomas E. Ricks slipped Freudian in February 2009 when he confessed that Petraeus’s goal was never to end the Iraq conflict but to trick Congress and the American public into extending it indefinitely by achieving short-term results though bribing Iraq’s militias.
According to Colonel Reese, chief of the Baghdad Operations Command Advisory Team, the surge’s real objectives still haven’t been met and never will be. In a recent memorandum, Reese asserts that “the ineffectiveness and corruption” of Iraq’s government ministries is “the stuff of legend.” The government is “failing to take rational steps to improve its electrical infrastructure and to improve their oil exploration, production and exports.” There is “no progress towards resolving the Kirkuk situation,” transition the Sons of Iraq into the Iraqi Security Forces “is not happening” and “the Kurdish situation continues to fester.” Violent political intimidation is “rampant.” Iraq’s security forces are a disaster. The officer corps is corrupt. Enlisted men are neglected and mistreated. Cronyism and nepotism are rampant. Laziness, lack of initiative, and absence of basic military discipline are endemic. Iraq’s military leadership is incapable of leading; it can’t plan ahead, it can’t stand up to the Shiite political parties, it can’t stick to its agreements.
The U.S. military in Iraq has accomplished “all that can be expected,” Reese says.
Gen. Ray Odierno’s propaganda officer, Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberlem, told the New York Times that Reese’s memo “does not reflect the official stance of the U.S. military.” The memo “Reflects one person’s personal view at the time we were first implementing the Security Agreement post-30 June,” Abaelem said. “Since that time many of the initial issues have been resolved and our partnerships with Iraqi Security Forces and [government of Iraq] partners now are even stronger than before 30 June.”
Right. We shaved our monkey in Iraq for six years and change, but since June 30 everything’s gone hunky dory.
Oddly enough, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on July 29 that the relatively low levels of violence in Iraq might allow commanders to “moderately accelerate” troops reductions. He added, though, that Odierno would have to recommend speeding up the withdrawal before any decision is made. That pretty much tells you how things work in the Department of Defense. Gates isn’t in charge of his four-stars; they’re in charge of him.
Odie is on record as wanting to keep 35,000 U.S. troops in Iraq through 2015, so, predictably enough, on August 4 he rejected the idea of an accelerated pullout, saying that the surge hasn’t reached its goals yet and we need to “stay the course.” (Yes, he really used that moronic Bush-era mantra.) The Desert Ox doesn’t seem particularly concerned about the Status of Forces Agreement that requires all U.S. troops to leave Iraq by the end of 2011. Iraqi President Nuri al-Maliki doesn’t appear to be overly committed to the agreement either. In a July 23 appearance at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, Maliki opened the door for indefinite U.S. presence in his country, saying, “If Iraqi forces need more training and support, we will reexamine the agreement at that time, based on our own national needs.”
Even Reese isn’t all that committed about U.S. forces leaving Iraq. In his memo, he says that during the withdrawal period the U.S. and Iraqi governments “should develop a new strategic framework agreement that would include some lasting military presence at 1-3 large training bases, airbases, or key headquarters locations.”
Lasting military presence. That’s been the objective of the neoconservatives all along. In their September 2009 manifesto Rebuilding America’s Defenses Cheney’s pals at the infamous Project for the New American Century argued, “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” The neocons’ Pax Americana vision has translated into the Pentagon’s “long war,” a strategy that does not seek to win wars but rather to create a sequel to the Cold War in which Islamofacism substitutes for communism and puny Iran, whose defense budget is less than one percent of ours, replaces the Soviet juggernaut.
That might be justified if military applications overseas were making us safer from terrorism, but they are not. In 2008 the highly respected national security analysts at Rand Corporation released a report titled How Terrorist Groups End. The study involved a comprehensive analysis of terror organizations that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006. 83 percent of the groups ended as a result of policing and political action. Military force accounted for a mere 7 percent of success against terrorists. Rand analysts recommend that the best course of counterterrorism actions should involve “a light U.S. military footprint or none at all.” We’re almost certainly, as Donald Rumsfeld suspected in 2004, making multiple new terrorists for every one we capture or kill. We have discovered a new style of warfare: reverse attrition. The more enemy we attrite the more enemy we have.
All the talk about withdrawing from Iraq is an Orwellian card trick. Reese says our “lasting military presence” should not “include the presence of any combat forces save those for force protection needs or the occasional exercise.” Why would we need to leave noncombat forces behind? So they can cook and clean for the combat forces that provide them force protection? The exercises we might do with the Iraqis would involve practicing for the invasions of Iran and Syria, which is the real reason the warmongery wants to keep an enduring base of operations in Iraq. There’s no need to conduct defensive exercises. None of Iraq’s neighbors is capable of invading and occupying it or crazy enough to try.
President Obama’s promise to remove all U.S combat troops from Iraq by August 2010 was also a see-through canard. As Gareth Porter revealed in March, the “advisory and assistance brigades” that will remain after that date will in fact be combat brigades augmented by a handful of advisers and assistants. The Cold War justified defense spending for a half-century. Now, the Pentagon is trying to validate its existence with another long war in the Middle East.
Sun Tzu famously said, “No nation ever profited from a long war.” The 27- year Peloponnesian War ended Athens’ reign as a superpower. The Thirty Years’ War Balkanized the Holy Roman Empire, dividing German power among multiple smaller states. The 46-year Cold War forced the Soviet Union to change its name back to Russia.
Don’t expect us to withdraw from Iraq or the Bananastans any time soon. The American warmongery, a confluence of Big War, Big Energy, Big Jesus, Big Israel, Big Brainwash, and Big Brother, is trying to entangle us in a state of constant armed conflict that will carry on into the next American century. There’s no need for anyone to challenge our hegemony; all they have to do is sit back and watch us collapse under the weight of our own stupidity.
Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes at Pen and Sword. Jeff’s novel Bathtub Admirals
Hear hear!
Nice try there Jeff.
Cut and paste, link and twist. You do it SO well.
Sad really, one would’ve thought you’d see farther.
Apparently not.
DS,
I see you’re off your medications again. Are you special Navy LDO adviser to McChrystal now?
Who benefits more than Israel from a lasting US military presence in Iraq? Petraeus, Odierno, the whole ‘forever war’ crowd in D.C. are joined at the hip with Israel’s Likudites. If we want to get out of Iraq, we have to separate US interest from Israel’s ambitions. I would start with some plain talk regarding the USS Liberty incident. You hear this US Navy?
I forget which US Admiral said it, but he was dead on about the upcoming American empire(and its apologists), “We have met the enemy, and he is us!” Imperial fantasies never die, they just get rudely crushed by hubris and obstinacy.
Desert Sailor–you are all washed up with too much sand between the ears. Just as the USA term-Marines–nothing about water but killings on land.
FYI: Jeff’s article is the best, I have read this year on the issue. Over 1,500,000 innocent people dead and still Americans are too stupid to know–”who actually blown up WTC. America is in the dumpsters,while Israel is living off the hog.
Wakeup fool :^/
The comment of Desert Sailor runs aground.
Kudos there Sailor - it’s you, actually, who can’t see beyond his (rather long)crooked nose….
As I have come to expect, Jeff Huber manages to seperate reality from the pervasive bovine skatology (BS) tirelessly emanating from the Bush/Evangelical/Military Industrial Complex/Israel First/American Exceptionalism camp.
Between the religious freaks, Israel Firsters and the militarized corporate culture, this great nation is in danger of replicating the slide into insolvency as befell the Roman,Ottoman, British and Soviet Empires.
“one would’ve thought you’d see farther.”
How far? A thousand yards?
Desert Sailor,
Evidently you think imperial overreach and national bankruptcy is a sound strategy. I think it’s stupid. Not only stupid, but obvious. What other possible conclusion can you draw from America’s spectacularly failed foreign policy?
But you know better, so dazzle us with your wisdom and foresight.
Bush “ignored the Iraq Study Group”?
Nice try.
Apparently you never read the ISG Report. Recommendations 63 and 64 are the veritable beating heart of “Operation: Iraqi Freedom.” Read them and then tell me how Bush didn’t follow the ISG recommendations.
When someone plays at partisan ideologue, and ignores inconvenient facts, he becomes an unreliable narrator/observer.
Which is precisely what Mr Huber’s essay renders him as being — unreliable.
The “war” in Iraq has always been about 3 things:
1) long-term wresting of control over Iraqi oil reserves
2) creating a base for future military operations in the region
3) rewarding numerous contractors of various types, to enrich the friends of Bush, Cheney, Obama, Biden, Clinton, Gore, Bush, Quayle.
Jeff Huber seems to think this is all about politics. It is not about politics at all. It is about greed, nothing more. By paying attention to the political theatre, and ignoring the things that really matter (ISG Rec 63 & 64), Huber shows his unreliability.
Maybe he will get some people thinking — and that would be a good thing. But his road map is so flawed, I’m afraid people will be thinking the wrong things.
Sorry, but this essay is weak. Erroneous. And ultimately, pretty well useless.
Didn’t know that Walt Kelley’s Pogo was an American Admiral.
It was Pogo who said “we have met the enemy and he is us…” and the context had to do with rising levels of garbage in the Okeefenokee swamp.
But…when it comes to our Navy and its response to the Liberty incident, the quote is right on the money. Remember that it was McCain’s father who covered it up.
These wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) can’t be ended for the same reason the medical care mess in this country can’t be fixed, and that is because vast profits are being reaped by those who are in a position to make sure things keep on going just as they are.
@minemule
Good show m. One sentence tells it all. Fine. Now, having demonstrated your (reality-based) competence, please, tell us more. I am NOT being a wise-ass here. I’m completely sincere. Can you offer up solutions, or approaches to solutions? Solutions to US economic problems? Solutions to the sepsis in US politics (the political equivalent of a bowel obstruction)? Solutions to maybe the Arab/Israeli puzzle?
I have some thoughts re these problems, but I’d like to hear your thoughts.
[...] http://www.amconmag.com/blog/perpetual/ [...]
Mr. Huber says it all with his title, Perpetual War for Perpetual War and backs it up with his analysis.
As our country languishes in in an apparent endless fog of war with our professional army and thousands of mercenaries fighting an enemy with no fixed ground to defend, whose financial costs are minuscule compared to our billions and trillions of dollars, fighting on their home ground, what is the outcome of such a conflict?
It appears that to undo the errors and mistakes of the Bush/Cheney government is a monumental task lasting an indefinite time and trillions of deficit dollars, unfortunately, the American people will bear the brunt of these costs.
A measure of justice would be gained if the pensions and incomes of Bush/Cheney were garnished for malfeasance and incompetence, but alas there is no Congressional stomach for such a precedent that would begin to level the distance between public servant and citizen.
Charles,
You actually think there’s a difference between war and politics and greed? You should study Machiavelli.
Jeff
[...] Perpetual War for Perpetual War by Jeff Huber [...]
Thank you for a great article. Rummy’s strategy of 2004 is meant to ensure continuous war. The USA is a failed empire by definition. A successful empire is when the wealth of the colonies is exploited to enhance the wealth of the colonizer by transferring the wealth to the colonizer. A failed empire is when the wealth of the colonizer is used to prop up the colonies such as was the case in the USSR where the wealth of Russia was used to prop up the other Soviet Republics. The USA is following the model of the failed USSR. There is a proverb which states that “you will become what you fear the most, so be careful how and what you think about”. The irrational and made up fears about the USSR fits the proverb and the USA has become they, the USSR which is now extinct except in the minds of Rummy, Cheney all the Bush gang that was reared on the cold war and continued their fears into posterity.
War is a racket, and those who foment, promote, and incite them are racketeers, and the ONLY people who profit from them. The rest of us get to suffer or die.
Politicians have gone the way of preachers, who over generations have set themselves up as direct pipelines to imaginary friends in the sky, and therefore above scrutiny or criticism.
Both politicians and preachers have allied themselves with pathologically greedy criminals, who, in a sane world, would be shut up in asylums for the criminally insane.
In other words, the loonies are running the asylum
Jeff,
Instead of studying Machiavelli, how about my pal Smedley Butler?
War is, indeed, a racket.
http://www.objector.org/War_is_a_Racket.html
We don’t have a real plan. No one in the military can tell us what we’re still doing over there, especially when we don’t have any money to do it. They don’t think beyond the numbers from power point briefs. It’s all one self-licking ice cream cone. After all, it’s only 4,000+ US troops dead, and we can just print more money.
As soon our wars become “President Obama’s Wars” completely and not “President Bush’s Wars,” there will arise some significant opposition, and that will begin our reversal of this whole neocon disaster.
As more and more of our young soldiers come home with crippling wounds or in body bags, the military-industrial complex smiles.
Economic recession be damned , the American Empire rolls on,
Willy,
Butler is another excellent source of wisdom on the subject of war.
Sully,
I hope the reversal comes sooner than later.
Jeff
All of those who support the 2010-11 Defense Authorization bill of $636 billion are complicit in these ongoing wars.
You can’t have overseas wars without the money from Congress.
I do too, Jeff. The “saving face” and “we have to at least fix the mess” sentiments are pretty powerful, though.
“…all they have to do is sit back and watch us collapse under the weight of our own stupidity.” You’re damn right, and it’ll be fun for the rest of the world to watch how the arrogant, ignorant and criminal US becomes a second-class power. Then, don’t expect sympathy.
[...] Jeff Huber | The American Conservative, Aug 8, [...]
As a liberal (can’t afford Birkenstock sandals but I’m saving up…) I’m pleasantly surprised how often I agree with The A.C. Maybe this is what real conservatism is all about.
It is amazing at the number of people who seem unaware of the perpetual war machine that is the United States Government, aided and abetted by Congress and whatever administration that is at the helm. The military is part of that machine, maybe too robotic in its part in the perpetuation of war in all its forms…overt and covert of which their are many variations. This has been gone on far too long in its benefits to the Military-Industrial-Complex. Is the foreign policy of the United States necessarky to keep the M-I-C in business and people at work and the many bases and other military installation in perpetuity.
Very nice piece, Mr. Huber. Thanks.
I’m surprised, but pleased to see American Conservative reflecting true conservative values, in the tradition of Edmund Burke, Prince Metternich, De Tocqueville, Mark Twain, Reinhold Niebuhr, Russell Kirk and Peter Viereck. Unfortunately, the term “conservative” has in recent decades been mostly associated with various forms of rightwing radicalism: laissez-faire, libertarianism, neo-conservatism, neo-imperialism, anti-scientism, etc.
To get back to Mr. Huber: I agree that we should go about, in a methodical and disciplined way, pulling our troops out of Iraq –but with one exception: The one major region where our military is actually welcome is the Northeastern area populated by Kurds. We owe it to them, and to ourselves, to maintain a strong military presence there, to prevent the region from becoming a dangerous battleground for neighboring, hostile forces among Sunni and Shiite Iraqis, Iranians, and, quite possibly, our Turkish allies, who have been waging a protracted war against their own Kurdish nationalists. In all of Iraq, it is only here that we have a good chance of maintaining, through military & economic involvement, some regional stability and progress.
By the way, when I use the term “Iraq,” I do so guardedly: Iraq as a sovereign state ceased to exist the moment we overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003. What we have is at least three incompatible entities –Shiite, Sunni Arab, and Kurdish– pursuing their separate (and mostly conflicting) interests, cobbled together into a semblance of nationhood only by the strong hand of our military occupation (much as in the past Iraq was held together from Baghdad by other forms of arbitrary rule, including that of Saddam himself). The chances of Iraq again becoming a viable state are about as good as those of Yugoslavia.
Interesting idea about staying in the north, David. I’ll have to mull that one over. Thanks for the stimulating suggestion.
Best,
Jeff
[...] Source: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m56815&hd=&size=1&l=e http://www.amconmag.com/blog/perpetual/ [...]
[...] the anarchy of lawless armed conflicts, with militarized empires involved in prolonged wars, if not perpetual wars, with colonial and imperial military occupations. If the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991 has [...]