IRAN: WHY CAN'T WE JUST LEAVE?

That's what the majority of Iraqis want, and it's
what the majority of us want as well. We can't,
of course, because all hell would break loose.
So we aren't winning, are we? We are treading
water without getting anywhere. The war suppor-
ters are bragging the we only had 15 of ours killed
in May, vs. the 30 or 40 per month last year.
But 15 KIA each month means 180 in the next
year, and so on. That's way too many! No one has
yet given us an achievable goal in Iraq that is worth
the life of one G. I.

The Brits tried this in Iraq in the '20s and '30s. They
forced upon the Iraqis the same kind of status of
forces agreement that we are attempting to black-
mail the Iraqis into accepting now. Yes, I said "black-
mail." We are holding $50 billion of Iraq's money
in our Federal Reserve. It was held up under
Saddam's rule. Instead of quickly turning it over to
the new "sovereign" government there, without
strings, we are using it as a carrot to bend Iraq to
our will.

So yes, Bush is trying, before his term ends, to coax and
push the Iraqis into a multi-year "security agreement"
that allows us to retain the use of 58 bases there. We
are insisting on immunity from Iraqi law for U. S.
troops and contractors, as well as a free hand to carry
out military activities without Iraqi permission, and
to arrest Iraqi citizens without warrants, and hold
them at will.

Actually, if we were really winning, as McBush claim,
why would there be a need for us to stay? Why would
we even want to stay? We need to stay to continue
to try to maintain order, and prevent a total break-
down of the same. We want to stay because we are
determined to gain and maintain hegemony in the
area at any cost!

Our continuing failure in Iraq was predestined (and
predicted) due to culture and demographics there.
We are up against the identical situation faced by the
British there following WW I. They were, at the time,
the reigning colonial power in the world.

Here's the situation I'm talking about: We've spent
five years and mega-bucks training and equipping
500,000 Iraqi national police. When they are ready
able and willing to maintain order in the country, we
can leave. Don't hold your breath! (Actually, in
addition to the 500,000 police, we've trained an army
or 300,000, and we have 150,000 of our troops there,
plus we have another 150,000 contractors from the
U. S. and other countries.)

All together then, that's one million, one hundred
thousand people legally under arms there. So what's
the problem? The problem is that Iraqi police are
notorious for corruption, brutality, death squads,
sectarian fighting, and mafia-like protection rackets,
kidnapping, and ethnic cleansing. Far from enfor-
cing the law and maintaining order, these guys are
crime, inc. Those deficiencies were recognized and
acknowledged by the Iraq Study Group in it's report.
So they are hardly news. The ISG also said that
the national police are heavily infiltrated by members
of the various militias. That raises the question:
whose orders do they follow? Not ours, for sure!

The Ottomans governed "Mesopotamia" for 1.000
years. They handled the sectarian divisions by
administering the area in three separate provinces:
Sunni, Shia, and Kurd. Within those provinces,
government was by tribal sheiks who fought for
supremacy in a Darwinian struggle. This is how
Saddam came to power after the British failure to
establish democracy. It's what will happen again,
eventually, when we are gone. And we will go!
It's a matter of time, lives, and lots of money! It's
Viet Nam all over again. As Gen. Petraeus has
said, echoing each commanding general ahead of
him, "there's no military solution possible."
What is it about that that we can't get? Nor is
there, realistically, a political solution, short of
splitting the country back into its original three
provinces. The Ottomans had it right; the Brits
got it wrong! Guess whom we chose to follow.