{"id":2462,"date":"2007-04-01T09:56:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-01T14:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/altmuslim\/?p=2462"},"modified":"2007-04-01T09:56:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-01T14:56:00","slug":"iraq_at_four_its_not_just_about_the_troops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/altmuslim\/2007\/04\/iraq_at_four_its_not_just_about_the_troops\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq at four: It’s not just about the troops"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n
And then what?<\/div>\n

<\/p><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Perhaps the most unremarked-upon aspect of the much-noted fourth anniversary of the Iraq debacle is the deeply confused way Americans talk about it. Most egregious is the constant refrain from all sides that whatever they want is first and foremost about \u201csupporting the troops\u201d \u2013 whether keeping them there forever, or bringing them home immediately. While concern for American forces serving in Iraq is certainly well-intentioned, the rhetorical focus on \u201cthe troops\u201d is not just irrelevant, but dangerously misleading.<\/p>\n

The most significant reason \u201cthe troops\u201d are not the central issue in Iraq is that they\u2019re all volunteers. This is radically different from Vietnam, where almost all the soldiers, and certainly the grunts, were there because of a socio-economically unjust draft that allowed Bush and Cheney, for example, to avoid serving in a war they \u201csupported.\u201d As a result, the demand at that time to \u201cbring the troops home\u201d had substance in both foreign and domestic realms, since the vast majority had not signed up for the armed forces, let alone guerrilla war in a tropical jungle. <\/p>\n

But when applied to an all-volunteer military, the same slogan means almost nothing \u2013 which is why both Bush and his most determined opponents are able to invoke \u201cthe troops\u201d as their chief motivation with, at least seemingly, straight faces. And the fact that \u201cthe troops\u201d can be used to justify completely contradictory positions indicates precisely why American discourse about Iraq is so radically off-course. <\/p>\n

For Bush, \u201csupporting the troops\u201d justifies the same policies he has promoted since 2002, whose chief beneficiaries have been political Islamists like Sunni Osama bin Laden and Shiite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the one hand, and, on the other, extortionate no-bid contractors like oil-logistical-services Halliburton and high-tech mercenaries Blackwater. <\/p>\n

From this perspective, \u201csupporting the troops\u201d means:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Congress has to approve any and all Iraq appropriations, because failing to do so is prima facie evidence of, you know, not \u201csupporting the troops\u201d; and<\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  2. the US has the right to go after anyone \u2013 Iran\/Sunni insurgents\/Moktada al-Sadr\/whoever \u2013 it claims is \u201churting\u201d the troops, because not to do so would mean failing to, you know, \u201csupport the troops\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    At the same time, the focus of the \u201canti-war\u201d movement on \u201cbringing the troops home\u201d is as wrong-headed as the Bush\/Cheney\/Rove mantra \u2013 completely unchallenged by intimidated Washington Democrats \u2013 of \u201csupporting the troops\u201d.<\/p>\n

    To be sure, the reasons are different \u2013 but equally problematic. <\/p>\n

    A main one is nostalgia for the simplicities of anti-Vietnam war days, which you can see baby-boomers happily re-living and channeling into their own \u2013 and, by this point, grand \u2013 children. But contrary to both domino and conspiracy theorists of the day, South East Asia in the 50s\/60s\/70s was just not very important either economically or strategically during the Cold War era. That\u2019s why the US could just pack up and leave, albeit in undignified retreat, without any discernible adverse effects, at least for Americans. <\/p>\n

    Iraq, by contrast, lies at the heart of both the key oil-producing region of the world political economy and the volatile Arab\/Islamic world. Consequently, \u201cbring the troops home\u201d is a visibly inadequate response to a highly complex and strategically crucial situation that cannot safely be abandoned, unlike mid-1970s South East Asia. In this sense, \u201cbring the troops home\u201d is an attempt to avoid the deeply unsettling fact that Iraq has destroyed \u201cpolitics as usual\u201d \u2013 not just domestically, but, even more importantly, in America\u2019s now structurally disturbed relations with the rest of the world. <\/p>\n

    Put bluntly, no one is going to help the US clean up the disaster it unilaterally created in Iraq \u2013 over the objections of the entire world \u2013 without fundamental change in the entire American mind-set that \u201csupported\u201d this insanity in the first place.<\/p>\n

    That\u2019s why the obsession with \u201cthe troops\u201d is not just irrelevant and \u2013 in view of the shocking medical neglect of the wounded \u2013 unseemly, but a major impediment to any possibility of fixing the catastrophe in which major American elites \u2013 political\/media\/business\/academic \u2013 have responsibility. <\/p>\n

    As a result, anyone who wants to do something constructive about Iraq should immediately stop talking about \u201cthe troops\u201d and start thinking about how to begin the profound house-cleaning the US must undertake if it is going to have a prayer of getting anyone in the world to co-operate with it \u2013 about anything \u2013 ever again.<\/p>\n

    <\/i><\/p>\n

    Grok Your World<\/a> blogger David Caploe writes and speaks about global affairs in the San Francisco Bay Area.\n<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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