The Enemy From Within - Part II
THE ENEMY FROM WITHIN
Part II of V
UNDER FALSE PRETENSE
SUMMER 2005 - AMERICA AWAKES
TO THE LIES OF A MADMAN
AND HIS ADMINISTRATION
BY TOM HAMILTON AND SCOTT EVANS
Even the most fanatical of United States president George W. Bush's supporters have to acknowledge that we went to war in Iraq under false pretenses. We were deliberately misled about weapons of mass destruction and secular dictator Saddam Hussein's support of radical Islamic terrorists in the Bush administrations rush to war.
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell's brief for war against Iraq, delivered to the United Nations Security Council, was a diplomatic charade laced with cynicism and deceit. The event was predicated on the colossal lie that the coming invasion was about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Baghdad's supposed threat to US security and world peace.
The Security Council meeting was staged on false pretences. The American media had promoted the event as a the pivotal moment when the man of the hour, Powell, would unveil secret intelligence to prove to skeptical allies and reluctant Arab regimes that Iraq was defying the UN and had to be "disarmed" by force and the sooner the better before a major US city was enveloped in a nuclear mushroom cloud.
Americans now recognize that they've been deceived and have embarked on a policy that cannot succeed. The days where the administration can decry all criticism as unpatriotic are over. Gone too are the days when we are told that if you were against the war in Iraq or the Patriot Act you were giving aid and comfort to the enemy for many now realize that the enemy is from within.
There was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al Quada and never was. There were no weapons of mass destruction and what is most disgusting is the latest argument of justification for war that we went to war for the sake of the Iraqi people and to bring them democracy.
The invasion has been about the "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emption and world dominance all along. This doctrine formerly known as the "Wolfowitz Doctrine" named for Paul Wolfowitz, the former No. 2 man at the Defense Department under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and a key Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld confidant, who coincidentally was recently appointed head of the World Bank by president Bush.
The Wolfowitz Doctrine argues that America's political and military mission should be to "ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge. With its focus on this concept of benevolent domination by one power, the Pentagon document articulates the clearest rejection to date of collective internationalism.
We were told by vice president Dick Cheney, before the war started that Iraqis would throw flowers at our feet as liberators, instead our brave soldiers have been met with roadside bombs.
We were told, "mission accomplished," by our president, but have found instead that over 1,800 of our bravest young men and women have died and another 14,000 have been seriously maimed and wounded with no end to the carnage in sight.
The U.S. involvement in Iraq has become a disastrous quagmire and one of the primary reasons is that our army is not trained for occupation duties. Ironically a policy that based itself on flexing military muscles has evolved into a new reality, which has resulted in a reduction of military might.
To preserve our own freedoms and best serve the rest of the world, our foreign policy should be noninterventionist, non-threatening and non-militaristic. With economic strength and a politics of fairness and nonintervention, we can prosper and keep our own freedom. America is simply incapable of any other consistent foreign policy. America should be a beacon for the world because we can't be a competent policeman as we are learning in Iraq.
Last December when Spec. Thomas Wilson of the Tennessee Army National Guard asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to the very vocal approval of 2,300 other soldiers:
"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?"
Rumsfeld's incredibly inadequate and offensive response was: "You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have."
Now we learn that because of mismanagement, the much needed tactical equipment was being stolen and sold to the highest bidder in of all places Ebay where the very enemies our troops are fighting could purchase them as long as they have a Paypal account and shipping address.
Indeed, Rumsfeld assured the troops who had been cobbling together their own armor, "It's interesting." In fact, "if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored humvee and it can be blown up." Good point Mr. Secretary. Indeed, why have armor at all? Especially when initial war estimates said U.S. forces might need as many as 800 heavily armored vehicles in Iraq, but current estimates call for as many as 6,000.
Perhaps Rumsfeld simply had a bad day. But then, what about his statement earlier that week, when asked about troop levels?
"The big debate about the number of troops is one of those things that's really out of my control." Really Mr. Secretary, out of your control? Rumsfeld also added this misleading statement, "the number of troops we had for the invasion was the number of troops that General Franks and General Abizaid wanted."
Leave aside the fact that the issue is not "the number of troops we had for the invasion" but rather the number of troops we have had for postwar stabilization.
Leave aside the fact that Gen. Tommy Franks had projected that he would need a quarter-million troops on the ground for that task -- and that his civilian superiors had mistakenly promised him that tens of thousands of international troops would be available.
Leave aside the fact that Rumsfeld has only grudgingly and belatedly been willing to adjust even a little bit to realities on the ground since April 2003.
Leave aside the fact that if our generals have been under pressure not to request more troops in Iraq for fear of stretching the military too thin, and this is all a consequence of Rumsfeld's refusal to increase the size of the military after Sept. 11.
And leave aside the fact that decisions on troop levels in the American system of government are not made by any general or set of generals but by the civilian leadership of the war effort which includes Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld himself.
Rumsfeld acknowledged this fact to an extent with his statement: "I mean, everyone likes to assign responsibility to the top person and I guess that's fine."
Except Secretary Rumsfeld fails to take responsibility and has readily passed the buck time after time.
Another soldier, from a logistical support unit based at Fort Bragg, N.C., complained that she was being kept in the Army against her wishes by a Pentagon "stop-loss" order.
Critics of the policy have rightly called it a "backdoor draft".
"My husband and myself both joined a volunteer Army," said the staff sergeant. "Currently, I'm serving under the stop-loss. I would like to know how much longer you foresee the military using this program."
"It is something you prefer not to have to use, obviously, in a perfect world," Rumsfeld responded "My guess is it will continue to be used as little as possible, but that it will continue to be used."
A group of soldiers have filed a lawsuit challenging the policy as about 7,000 U.S. soldiers have been affected by the stop-loss order according to Army officials.
With Military recruiting at all time lows one High School principal was recently shocked when she received a letter from military recruiters demanding a list of all her students, including names, addresses, and phone numbers. When questioned as to why the recruiters needed such information the recruiters cited of all things, the No Child Left Behind Act, president Bush's sweeping new education law.
There, buried deep within the law's 670 pages, is a provision requiring public secondary schools to provide military recruiters not only with access to facilities, but also with contact information for every student or face a cutoff of all federal aid.
"I was very surprised the requirement was attached to an education law," the principal stated. "I did not see the link."
Recruiters are up-front about their plans to use school lists to aggressively pursue students through mailings, phone calls, and personal visits even if parents object.
"The only thing that will get us to stop contacting the family is if they call their congressman," stated one U.S. Army recruiter. "Or maybe if the kid died, we'll take them off our list."
For the federal government to ignore or discount the concerns of the privacy rights of millions of high school students is not a good thing, and it's something we should all be concerned about.
The Army and Marines are having a particularly tough time meeting recruitment objectives, in part because of Americans' concern about the war in Iraq. When you dig deeper into the reason for this phenomenon, it turns out that parents of potential soldiers and sailors are becoming one of the biggest obstacles facing military recruiters. Even top military officials acknowledge this and unveiled a new series of ads this spring targeted at "influencers" such as parents, teachers and coaches.
It should now be very apparent that we are on a course of no return. What will be the conditions that we leave Iraq? Will it be another "Peace with Honor" as in Viet Nam, with little peace for Iraqis and even less honor for America? Will it be when all the so-called terrorists are dead? Unfortunately there isn't a finite number from which we can gauge the extent of terrorist as more and more become allied against us.
The Iraqi war hasn't made us safer, unfortunately it has done just the opposite, for the enemy is and has been from within all along.
