In Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Uzbekistan– indeed, just about everywhere they lay its hands– the Bush administration is showing us that it seems to understand only one faulty “logic”: the logic of a dehumanized military.
Have you read the kinds of reporting that the US mainstream media have been providing about Iraq recently? Long gone are all the slick little reports about anything to do with rebuilding civilian livelihoods in the country. Long past (now) is reporting about the “democratic process” in Iraq– most of which has turned into an impotent quagmire. No, now, the reporting– and more importanyly, the focus of the US officials who dominate it– is almost completely about technical military matters.
Like this piece by Brad Graham in today’s WaPo. It’s all about how rapidly the US military can train a replacement Iraqi army.
Yes, I guess an independent Iraq will want to have some kind of a military (though in an ideal “Europeanized” world, maybe not.) But people who want to counter the current insurgencies in Iraq would do far better to focus on providing decent civilian livelihoods for the great mass of Iraqis rather than on honing– in a terribly uncertain political situation– the military skills of as many tens of thousands of them as it can.
Then there’s this about the adminsitration’s policy toward the atrocity-perpetrating government of Uzbekistan (also from the WaPo):
- The U.S. government has sometimes spoken to Uzbekistan with more than one voice. Last summer, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell refused to certify that Uzbekistan had improved its human rights record, cutting off $18 million for military training. Weeks later, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Tashkent and criticized that decision as “very shortsighted”; he announced that the United States would be giving $21 million for bioterrorism defense. And the State Department later restored $7 million of the suspended aid, arguing that it was for priorities such as health care and nuclear security.
The result, according to critics, is that Uzbek officials shrug off U.S. complaints about repression. “They don’t take the State Department seriously,” said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. “They think the Pentagon and CIA will protect them. So the Uzbeks are not inclined to listen to American diplomats when they get lectured on democracy.”
The U.S. anti-terrorism program has conducted 41 training exercises for Uzbek soldiers since 1999, most of them since 2001, and also trained 807 civilian police and security officers over that period. “The focus is on engagement, to develop a professional officer corps for the Uzbek military, and improving counterterrorism and border capabilities,” said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman.
There is, I guess, a certain mindset that believes that military technology can resolve human problems. In normal countries that mindset may bemore or less limited to people in the professional military hierarchy– though goodness knows, military people are often the ones who understand the real human costs of war better than their civilian counterparts.
But in a “normal” democratic country, the professional military come under the command of the elected political leadership, which places the military dimesnion of things within a broader human context of diplomacy, national interest, etc etc.
What is scary about the Bush administration is how far it has departed from this norm– since the civilian leadership itself, in the form of Rumsfeld and Cheney, has the mindset of a bunch of little boys excitedly playing with war-toys on the kitchen floor.
Except that these aren’t “toys” they’re playing with, and it ain’t the kitchen floor. It’s our whole world– or at least as much of it as they can lay their hands on… And everywhere they go, the direct and indirect fallout from their “games” is that thousands– or scores of thousands– of people die, and millions more have their lives and livlihoods wrecked…
There is no reason to believe that the Iraqi insurgents are motivated by a lack of prosperity, or the problems with electricity. “We’re poor, so bomb the economy!”. The insurgency visibly holds back the economy. The Jihadists are motivated by religion, the Baathists by power, and some others by inter-ethnic hostility between the Sunni and the Shiite.
If it bleeds it leads
This is a weakness of the media industry and the people who watch it. It is nothing new. It is true of al-Jazeera, the US MSM, and the bloggers. It is true of justworldnews.org.
Whether the US could have created or maintained an effective Iraqi army at some point, or rebuilt the infrastructure at some point is now moot. Those opportunities were wasted and will not return.
The US can do nothing in Iraq except destroy things.
This is true whether you think the insurgents are heroic patriots, religious martyrs, murderous scum, or some combination.
The US has made itself impotent in the Middle East, if being powerful means building up anything.
You’re right, Helena. The Bush administration’s preoccupation with military power as evinced by its National Security Strategy is highly dangerous on many levels. The rest of the world certainly sees it that way.
It’s not just the fact that a consulting firm has suggested that the US may soon be spending more on “defence” than the rest of the world combined. It’s that we are constructing a national security state in which Democratic politicians don’t question the Republican call for more and more military spending, and the media, at their best, are dormant. There are no mainstream dissenting voices.
Commenting on a WaPo article, Helena wrote:
“It’s all about how rapidly the US military can train a replacement Iraqi army. … Yes, I guess an independent Iraq will want to have some kind of a military (though in an ideal “Europeanized” world, maybe not.)”
An important distinction has to be made here. The Iraqi army currently being trained is meant for internal security purposes. The US wants them, not its soldiers, to fight the ‘insurgency’ or ‘resistance’, whatever you want to call them. (In the past, the US organized South American militaries along similar lines, to deal with the internal threat, and it’s one of the reasons for the long history of state terrorism there.)
What about potential external threats to Iraq’s security? The US plans to take care of that itself with a permanent military presence.
Here is how John Pike, well respect analyst at GlobalSecurity.org, put it “How many fighter jets does the new Iraqi army have? None. How many tanks? None. What do you call a country with no jets and no fighter planes. It’s called a protectorate.”
And that is essentially what the US is after, a compliant Iraqi protectorate. I would say this is a formula for endless conflict because it’s bound to be resisted by Iraq’s nationalists.
“The US defence budget reached US$417.4 billion in 2003 – 46 per cent of the global total.”(Janes.Com)
Which is plainly and patently absurd, for a single country, with less than 10% of the global population, to be so heavily armed – especially since its share of world economic activity is nowhere near that percentage.
“No Preference” above makes the key point, I think, when he says there are no mainstream dissenting voices. This situation has not developed overnight, it has evolved under several Administrations since the end of the Cold War, and Helena can
Yes, we’re basically responsible.
I don’t think that as a group the Democrats are nearly as bad as the Republicans in promoting militarism. The Democrats have tended more to the out-to-lunch end of the spectrum, while the Republicans have really heavily promoted the military and the use of force, often to the exclusion of other modalities.
It was George Bush who promulgated the current “National Security Strategy of the United States” with its proclamation of the goal of permanent US global military supremacy, and legitimization of preemptive war.
The problem is that the Democrats and the media have not pointed out the very obvious serious problems with this doctrine. This has encouraged the public to go along with the superpatriotic bullshit.
I saw pictures today of tanks that belong to the Kurdish milita (I think PKK, but I’m not sure). So Iraq does have some tanks – or the Kurds do.
I got a long and passionate email today from someone who truly believes that the war we are having in Iraq has prevented any further attacks here in the USA like the one on 9/11. I told her there were 8 years between the first and the second attack on the WTC, and neither attack was done by Iraqis.
What is going on right now in Uzbekistan really underlines the hypocrisy of the Bush administration.
And that military-industrial complex in the USA sure does influence our members of congress to a great extent. And I think that is the real reason we spend so much on the military, and of course, we have to have wars to get rid/try out all that hardware.
I think it makes us more unsafe, but the lady who emailed me today would argue otherwise.
No Preference says, “Yes, we’re basically responsible” for what I called America
Therefore despite the likes of Susan and Helena, it would appear that the women of America consent to, agree with, support its militarism just as much as the men. Right?
No, it obviously doesn’t follow. There probably is some difference in attitude on the war between men and women. I’m not sure what it is. The question is not germane to the topic.
Well, I’m sorry. It seemed to me quite germane to Susan’s post. Her e-mail correspondent was after all a woman.
Without disagreeing with John’s point in the slightest, I did want to point out (re ‘less that 10% of the world’s population) that there are some 280 million people in the US. As a planet, we’re not back down to 2.8 billion, are we? Of course, at the rate we’re going …
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