Dennis Perrin wrote:
>
>
> The immediate goals of GW Part 1 may have been limited, but the state of war
> remained (sanctions, bombing), and it was inevitable that the US would
> follow-up with an invasion and occupation. Once Saddam showed that he would
> no longer play his appointed role, it was only a matter of time. 9/11 gave
> BushCo the opening they needed to scare the American public into backing
> what was on the table for years. Indeed, al-Q was very helpful in this
> matter, as they continue to be.
>
The essential point about the first Gulf War, it seemed to me at the time, was that it necessitated an endless u.s. military presence 'on the ground' in the middle east. After that war the future of Iraq was reduced to an either/or (not third option) of either (a) a militantly anti-u.s. state or (b) continuous u.s. military presence. Thus I agree with Dennis that in some form or other the current u.s. military occupation of Iraq was about as inevitable as anything is in human practice. That, incidentally, is also why a U.N. managed Iraq is a pipedream: such an Iraq would in practice continue the either/or established by the first Bush. Either the U.N. presence would be 'backed' by overwhelming u.s. military force, and hence not be a change at all, or it would soon succumb to anti-u.s. forces.
There really is no alternative to u.s. defeat (however disguised as something else) or endless torture/slaughter of the Iraqi people.
And this brings us back again to the sheer amateurish silliness of any other slogan for the anti-war movement than "U.S. Out of Iraq, Now. No Conditions." (The U.S. government can invent the pseudo-conditions which will allow it to tuck its tail between its legs and run with as much dignity as possible.) Something analogous to the exit from Vietnam, in which the u.s. nominally continued to support a South Vietnam puppet regime, while the reality was that it was a mere provision for a "decent interval" between u.s. exit and the collapse of that puppet regime.
And only that slogan, of course, will enable us, eventually, to declare our victory and (possibly) build on that victory as we were unable to do in the case of Vietnam.
Carrol
> DP
>
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