Iraq Around the Clock, Part 2

In Part 1 of this essay series, I ventured a parallel between the U.S. invasion of Iraq and a theoretical situation I named the “Prison Yard” scenario. My goal in doing this was to posit what may (at least in part) be one of the undiscussed, yet very real reasons behind the Iraq War. I came up with this scenario because few justifications for this war we’ve been told since its beginning seem very plausible to me…

To recap for you, my Prison Yard scenario is a metaphor for what basically amounts to a retaliatory American terror campaign against the Islamic world. In this campaign, the U.S. steps outside of its historical box in which fairness, temperance, and the will of our people dictate policy and into a realm that militant Islamic fundamentalists can relate t one governed by force, violence, and fanaticism.

Or as George W. Bush might say: “We’re talkin’ their lingo.”

Of course, I expected a hearty response to Part 1 — and I definitely got it. What I didn’t expect was so many Whiskey & Gunpowder readers writing in over the past three weeks to ask me when the second installment was coming out. To those who’ve been patient: I didn’t mean to leave you in suspense, I just wanted to wait for the dust to settle after the election to see if any new developments might have occurred that changed or advanced the discussion. Sorry for the wait.

Before I get into the meat of this piece, I must tell you all that it jazzes me up to have such an engaged readership. Thanks to all who wrote in (for whatever reason — even to lambaste and ridicule me) for your feedback and attention…

One more thing: As you may remember, I expressly stated that this essay series is intended to raise questions and perhaps spur the debate about the Iraq War — NOT to either condemn or defend our invasion of that beleaguered nation. That’s why I was especially proud to get at least a few comments from readers who were irritated that I didn’t declare a personal position on the war. One guy in particular really laid into me for not taking a side and arguing its merits. This tells me that my first salvo on the Iraq conflict targeted the things I wanted it t

The WHY behind the war — not the right or wrong behind it.

And now, to take that exploration a step further…

“Politics have no relation to morals.”
— Niccolo Machiavelli

A few facts I want readers to keep in mind as you read this (these are things I wish the mainstream media would keep in mind, too):

Fact #1: The U.S. had fought the “war on terror” on two major military fronts — Iraq and Afghanistan — for approximately five years before our armed forces sustained as many deaths as our civilian population did in less than 1 1/2 hours as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks. It was just last month, in fact, when the number of American troops killed in the two offensives equaled the Sept. 11 tally.

Fact #2: Despite some of the most lax border security in the Western World, there have been NO CONFIRMED ISLAMIC TERROR ATTACKS on U.S. soil since Sept. 11.

These facts are related to my second theory about the real reasons for the Iraq war…

Although I pretty much stake personal claim to the Prison Yard scenario, I’m sure I’m not the first commentator to come up with the notion that one of the reasons our brave servicemen and women are fighting and dying in the Iraqi sand is to focus al-Qaida’s attention and resources away from the continental U.S.

However, since not long after Hans Blix and his cute little posse of weapons inspectors came up bust, the mainstream pundits have by and large attributed the Iraq invasion to Bush’s hubris, Bush’s daddy complex, Bush’s bloodlust, Bush’s “my-God-is-better-than-your-God” crusade, Bush’s allegiance to Big Oil, Bush’s cowboy mentality, or Bush’s plain old stupidity.

They may be right in whole or in part, but…

Few that I’ve ever heard or read have even entertained the simple notion that the invasion of Iraq was the most certain way to simultaneously concentrate, occupy, bankrupt, and begin to eradicate al-Qaida and its operatives — that it’s the closest thing to a stand-up fight we could mount against an adversary without a conventional army or national borders.

In other words: Perhaps the whole shootin’ match is nothing more than a way to give militant Islamics what’s supposedly their greatest wish: a way to commit suicide…

But far away from the U.S. — and on a massive and accelerated scale.

Let’s come at this with the same metaphorical thinking we used to talk about the Prison Yard Scenario. I’ve come up with another simple metaphor for what I believe is happening in Iraq: I call it the “Wasps-in-the-Shed” scenario…

Say you were being stung by a couple of wasps that appeared out of nowhere every time you went out into your shed. Of course, their attacks aren’t debilitating, just painful and vexing. Still, they’re keeping you from wanting to venture into a place where you keep a lot of important stuff. The wasps have gotten not only into your shed, but into your head. Because of them, your quality of life is diminished, and you live in a certain amount of fear of periodically being stung…

So how would you get rid of them if you couldn’t find their nests?

Easy. You’d bait them with something irresistible out in the open, wait until they congregated around it, and then spray them with Raid all at once. Then you’d do it again and again until there were no more wasps left…

This is exactly what’s happening in Iraq with foreign Islamic insurgents (meaning those who aren’t native Iraqis). These come in many stripes, of course — but since al-Qaida has been named the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and seems to be our most oft-named enemy in the war on terror, let’s focus on it. If you can read between the lines in the bulk of the mainstream media’s slanted reporting on the war, you can see the evidence that America’s plan to lure al-Qaida out into the open in Iraq is working. Consider:

• By its own admission, al-Qaida has lost more than 4,000 operatives inside Iraq’s borders since the onset of the U.S. invasion. If it’s copping to this number, the real number is likely double this (or more)…
• Al-Qaida bigwig Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian native who was reportedly recruited by Osama bin Laden after the U.S. invasion to funnel foreign insurgents into Iraq via Syria, was killed in Iraq by a U.S. air strike on June 7 of this year…
• A single U.S. Special Operations force assembled to target al-Qaida leadership in Iraq (called Task Force 145), killed approximately 100 al-Qaida commanders and personnel in the months leading up to Zarqawi’s death — and have killed or captured at least 200 more since…

Bottom line: Even if al-Qaida was not present in Iraq under Saddam Hussein (it likely wasn’t), it is now in a big way. That means al-Qaida’s people came out from whatever desert rocks they’ve been hiding under throughout the Middle East to engage our brave, well-equipped, and well-trained soldiers — for a chance at victory or martyrdom, or both.

For the most part, what they’ve been getting for it is KILLED.

“There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.”
— Machiavelli again

From where I’m sitting, the Wasps-in-the-Shed scenario seems pretty plausible. And since there have been no al-Qaida attacks on the U.S. since Sept. 11, this strongly suggests only one conclusion:

That al-Qaida is so busy hiding out, funneling dwindling numbers of foreign insurgents into Iraq, or replacing members of its own leadership hierarchy that we’re mowing down with hot lead and smart bombs that it literally CAN’T organize another major attack against the U.S…

Or even a minor one, apparently.

Think about this for a minute. Just five years ago, al-Qaida was powerful, organized, and well financed enough to plan, fund, train for, and execute an elaborate scheme of multiple simultaneous terrorist attacks on U.S. soil — causing massive loss of life and major (but temporary) cultural and economic paralysis.

Nowadays, it would seem, it can’t smuggle a single suicide bomber with a knapsack of TNT over our virtually unguarded U.S. borders.

Of course, I’m not discounting the role that ramped-up domestic security efforts have played in preventing terrorist attacks — I’m just making the point that if al-Qaida weren’t fighting for its own existence in the American-led “wasp trap” in Iraq, it’d surely have the time, money, energy, and ability to take a few more (maybe thousands more) American lives on U.S. soil. It’s already shown it is willing…

And as cold as this must seem to say (I don’t mean it to be — I have the utmost respect and admiration for our soldiers), it’s the JOB of the American military to protect the American people. If this means they must to a certain degree be decoys that draw the fire of the enemy away from our homeland, then that’s what it means. And in the case of the Iraq war, I believe that’s exactly what’s happening.

We’ve set the trap, and they’ve taken the bait. Now they’re getting the Raid.

The REAL question of the day is this: If the U.S. pulls out of Iraq before all the “wasps” are killed, will they regroup, recruit, and follow us into our own houses? Will they once again sting us in the United States of America?

The “B-side” question: If we keep up the fight, how long will it be — and how many more U.S. servicemen and women will die — before there are no more disaffected, gullible Islamists who are willing to buy into the al-Qaida siren song and martyr themselves on American lead?

Especially if we show them another way…

“Is it Vietnam yet?”
— The media

One of the funniest political cartoons I’ve ever seen came out in March 2003 (I think), the month the U.S. invasion of Iraq commenced. It depicts a frazzled Donald Rumsfeld as the “dad” and driver in what’s obviously a long road trip by car. In the back seat, the “kids” (clearly the media — they all have microphones and such) are all screaming, “Is it Vietnam yet?” instead of, “Are we there yet?” It’s hilarious.

What’s not so hilarious is the way the media really are aggressively characterizing Iraq as the new Vietnam. In its no-doubt-coincidentally timed Nov. 6 issue, Newsweek proclaimed on its cover: “We’re Losing, but All Isn’t Lost: The Road out of Iraq.” If this doesn’t echo the prevailing sentiments about the Vietnam conflict, I don’t know what would. And it’s just one example…

This is at once tragic, ironic, and prophetic — since it was an erosion of public and congressional support (fueled in no small degree by the media) that caused the Vietnam conflict to stall, and arguably to ultimately fail. The fact that the media are once again muscling public opinion — which ultimately shapes congressional opinions — is about the only way in which the modern situation in Iraq resembles Vietnam, in my opinion.

Other than the fact that they are both viewed as military quagmires and used to make political hay by both parties, Vietnam and Iraq couldn’t be more different — except in the general sense that they’re both fights against forces bent on our destruction. Vietnam was a proxy war against an experimental political ideology. Iraq is one component of a broader war against an ancient theology.

Vietnam was in defense of a distant ally, Iraq in response to a direct, vicious, and unprovoked attack on our people. I think anyone could confidently say that barring an attack on Israel, it’s inconceivable that the U.S. would be engaged in a military action in the Middle East today were it not for the Sept. 11 attacks.

The only other possible similarity between the two unofficially declared “wars” could be that they’re both somewhat “pre-emptive” actions: Vietnam to thwart the spread of communism and Iraq (supposedly) to thwart the spread of terrorism. That’s the bill of goods we were sold, anyway…

Of course, I think the Iraq War is really about the Prison Yard and Wasps-in-the-Shed scenarios — but our politicians could never level with us about these motives, could they? The American public would NEVER support either a terror campaign OR using troops as live bait…

Hence the bloated ballyhoo over WMDs, Saddam/al-Qaida links, etc.

This is another way in which Vietnam and Iraq are opposite: The stated reason for going to war in Vietnam (stopping the Reds) was almost certainly the actual reason — the stated justifications for the Iraq invasion (upholding U.N. resolutions, pre-empting terrorism) likely aren’t the real reasons why we’re there. Not exactly, anyway…

And speaking of “real” reasons for the Iraq war, let’s talk about one that has seen limited mention in the mainstream, but which has not been discussed or explored nearly enough, in my opinion — one that if Americans were constantly reminded of by the politicians or pundits, the prosecution of this war might have a very different face…

Democracy vs. Theocracy, Capitalism vs. Fanaticism

I don’t know all the ins and outs of militant Islamic fundamentalism, but I do know this much: They’ve hated Christians since more or less the beginning, and have shown no hesitancy to kill them in huge numbers since around the seventh century. As unfathomable as this may seem, the Sept. 11 attacks are simply the most recent offensive of that 1,300-year-old conflict. Like it or not, Islamic extremists view the U.S. as a nation of Christian infidels…

It’s just that now, in the age of aircraft, bombs, nukes, and weaponized chemical and biological agents, the technology to bring their holy war against the “Christian” West to new and terrifying heights is very real. Killing Americans is no longer just something they pray for Allah to do — it’s something that militant Islamists bent on martyrdom can do themselves, and relatively easily.

The question is: How do you defeat an enemy with a 13-century blood grudge and not only the willingness, but also the determination, to die in his quest to kill you?

We in Western democracies aren’t used to this kind of thinking or fighting — we can barely conceive of this level of hatred. That’s why we can’t hold a blood grudge for more than five years before we lose our stomach for war! But I digress…

One of the stated reasons we’ve invaded Iraq is to “democratize” it. To ultimately establish an outpost of relative freedom and prosperity as a model for the people of an impoverished, corrupt, and disenfranchised Middle East. I believe this was NOT to expand an American Empire, as so many of the pundits like to claim (after all, we gave back Germany and Japan after conquering them), but to offer the Islamic world an example of an alternative to abject poverty, despotic tyranny, or bloody death and martyrdom in senseless religious conflicts…

Which ultimately could:

• Make America safer from terrorist attacks
• Establish a new democratic trading partner in the world market
• Add a buffer zone of protection to ultimate American ally Israel
• Stabilize the Middle East, allowing for greater growth and development.

I honestly think that if the Bush administration had been trumpeting THIS justification for the Iraq War from the beginning and throughout (instead of stretching truths about WMDs and pre-war al-Qaida ties), the American people would still be behind the effort — and would stay behind it until the task is complete. The transformation into a healthy and prosperous democracy didn’t happen for Germany and Japan overnight in the aftermath of World War II, and it won’t happen in Iraq…

Done properly, Iraq could be tomorrow’s Qatar or United Arab Emirates — but on a mammoth scale that even the most zealous Islamic fundamentalists would be forced to take notice of.

But this transformation might NEVER happen if we pull out now, or even if we begin to scale back our involvement in the modern evolution of Iraq.

“Yee-ha! is not a foreign policy.”
— Bumper sticker

“Jihad! is not one, either.” — Jim Amrhein

I want to reiterate right now that even though this article may read as a statement of support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it isn’t. I don’t know whether we should have invaded Iraq or not — I’m not an analyst for the NSA, and I don’t have access to a thousandth of the hard “intel” on the matter…

And neither do the mainstream media.

So to accept hook, line, and sinker what THEY say about the Iraq war is folly. That’s why, in this essay series, I’ve tried to focus on unspoken (or little-spoken) reasons that may not fully justify the action — but may at least give those who are willing to think about it objectively some new food for thought.

As for pulling out now that we are in Iraq, I have no qualms at all about rendering a position on that: We should see the matter through, no matter what the cost.

If that means a radical change in plans and tactics (clearly, it does), then so be it. If it means more troops and an all-out war effort, so be it. If it means the coldblooded extermination of anyone with a 1,300-year-old grudge against us, so be it. If it means an extended engagement and more casualties on both sides, then so be that, too.

But if NOT finishing what we’ve started means freeing what’s left of our enemies to plan and execute another Sept. 11 — even far in the future — then I say no cost is too great to bear to avoid living with that constant dread. Imagine it: You go the mall, to the post office, to the movies, to a hotel or airport, to your child’s school, and all the time you’re wondering…

Is this the day the terrorists we left alive in Iraq come to my town? Is this the day I pay the price for my government’s lack of resolve? Is this the day I become a headline myself because of the media’s shameless manipulation of public opinion?

Bottom line: Clearly, the war in Iraq has drawn al-Qaida out and left it crippled, but not crushed…

And as any hunter knows, the most dangerous beast is a mortally wounded one.

In support of “baiting” — and debating,

Jim Amrhein,
Contributing editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder
November 17, 2006