Ending the failed Iraq Occupation

Simple Protest

I'd like to encourage you to cut and paste this piece of text into any webpages you control. (And send me and your friends the URL for any pages you add it to - let's get some viral marketing going here). It counts off, day by day, the time we have wasted occupying Iraq.

<font size=4 color=red face="Verdana, arial, helvetica">
<script type="text/javascript">
// Please put this in web pages.  iraqdisaster@gmail.com   http://afu.com   Peter van der Linden.  Sept 11 2006
var today=new Date()
var IraqAttack=new Date(2003, 2, 20) // month is 0-11 in JavaScript
var one_day=1000*60*60*24   // 1 day in milliseconds
// Calculate difference btw the two dates, and convert to days
var DiffDays = Math.ceil((today.getTime() - IraqAttack.getTime())/(one_day))
document.write( "Today is " + (today.getMonth()+1) +"/" + today.getDate()+ "/" + today.getFullYear() +
                 ", day " + DiffDays + " of the Bush Iraq disaster")
</script>
</font>
<br>
<a href=http://afu.com/add.html>(add this to your webpage)</a>

When you put that script into a webpage, it displays the daily count of our Iraq occupation. The figures update automatically. The next two lines are the output:

(add this to your webpage)

Some Background for President Bush

World War II, from Pearl Harbor to VJ Day (Aug 15, 1945) lasted 1347 days.
During that time, the US fought two of the greatest military juggernauts on the planet (Germany and Japan), beat them to a standstill, overcame them, and fostered peaceful democratic governments in both countries. Today, Germany and Japan are allies, and two of our greatest trading partners.

The US occupation of Iraq has lasted days to today's date
During that time, the Bush administration attacked, and is still fighting in, Iraq - a country which had no WMDs, had no connection whatever to 9/11, and which posed us no threat. The US Army is seen by almost all Iraqis as an oppressive army of occupation. An impotent Iraqi government lives and talks in the fortified Green Zone, but it has essentially no effect on the country outside. The Iraq army is a partisan Shiite army, deeply distrusted by Sunni muslims. An average of two American soldiers lose their life in Iraq every day, as the region sinks deeper into gangsterism and anarchy.

Here's what is unpatriotic

Conditions in Iraq worsen every month. The President keeps repeating "stay the course". The Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, and Joe Lieberman keep saying that it is unpatriotic to criticize the President in a time of war. Lately, they compared Americans who speak out, to Nazi appeasers. The Republican-dominated Congress has not held a single hearing on the course of the Iraq war and occupation, nor on political misuse of intelligence, nor on war profiteering. That lack of oversight is in stark contrast to past wars.

Actually, it is unAmerican to keep silent about a foolish, failed, costly venture, which endangers our troops, and has zero prospect of success for the US. It is unAmerican for the US government to spy on Americans without a court warrant. Torture is not an American value. Secret gulag prisons are not an American value. Rendition is not an American value. Fear-mongering is not an American value. (What do you think fear-mongering does to kids?) Most of us don't have access to the President. He only addresses "public" meetings where every person present has signed a loyalty pledge. Most of us don't own newspapers or tv stations. But we do have webpages.

It takes a draft

A U.S. military report in August 2006 states that Anbar province (west Iraq) is now under the control of al Qaeda. Al Qaeda fighters weren't even in Iraq before President Bush attacked. (There were reports of one Al Qaeda leader receiving medical treatment, in a part of Iraq that Saddam did not control). The US assessment states "there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there." How many insurgencies have been successfully suppressed by a foreign army in the last 50 years? Some say the British did this in Malaysia in the 1950s. There are no other examples at all. The British did this by removing the population from their homes and confining them in internment camps for years.

To "win" in Iraq would take an army five or ten times the size of the 147,000 men we currently have in Iraq. President Bush can't raise an army that large without instituting the draft. President Bush can't institute the draft without being dragged out of the White House by an angry mob holding torches and pitchforks. So he blunders on with his failed "stay the course". He cannot fix the quagmire that he created. All he can do is mislead and spin about what's happening, to stall for time and stick the next president with the problem George Bush Jr. created.

But everything quantifiable shows we are losing: American taxpayers money spent, the lives of our soldiers, the lengthy time, the lack of accomplishments. The very best case end scenario for Iraq is a US withdrawal without further loss. National Security Advisor Richard Clarke was right; going into Iraq halted the effort to bring Bin Laden to justice.

The main winner of the Iraq war is Iran. With the destruction of its main rival (Iraq), Iran is now a regional super power. President Bush's misjudgments have destabilized the Middle East and greatly strengthened the nation that called the US "the Great Satan". President Bush is not "the war President", he is the "failure President". Our troops have achieved everything that can be achieved militarily. How much longer do they have to endure a meat grinder as a hated army of occupation? It's been days so far. Tomorrow it will be one more. Free our troops now.

Why did President Bush attack Iraq?

There wasn't one overriding reason why the Bush Administration manipulated Americans into attacking Iraq. Different neo-conservatives had different goals. Wolfowitz and Feith wanted to aid and strengthen Israel; Cheney was in it for the oil; Rice (a lightweight in a room full of heavyweights) went along to get along.

Overall, it was hubris. The President recklessly misjudged that he could try something very dangerous and win. The President was motivated by the prospect of securing preferred access to oil, against the Chinese, decades from now. Hence the 14 huge, strategically-located permanent US military bases in Iraq. The point isn't this or that despot in command. The point isn't this or that form of government. The point is to station US troops in the 2nd oil richest country in the world, for 50 years until the oil runs dry. We aren't staying the course so the troops can finish the mission. Staying in Iraq is the mission. That's what "stay the course" really means.

Withdrawing now gives up the future spoils of the attempted grab. This is why President Bush says "It's a problem for future presidents". But it's not. We are a long way down a ruinously expensive and wrong road. And that's a problem for you and me, right now.

Cost of the War in Iraq

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To see more details, click here.