A
Very Expensive Quagmire
By Mary Shaw
02 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Last
week, the White House sent Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Capitol
Hill to lobby for increased funding to keep the killing going on in
Iraq for another year. The updated price tag: over $190 billion. For
one year. And for what?
The situation in Iraq has
been called a quagmire.
I like to keep my facts straight.
So, looking up the word "quagmire" at Dictionary.com, I find
that the official meaning, per the Random House Unabridged Dictionary,
is "a situation from which extrication is very difficult."
Yes, Iraq is a quagmire indeed,
on so many levels. A very expensive quagmire.
The first level, and the
most obvious one, thanks to the mainstream media, is the ongoing political
stalemate in Washington over troop withdrawal. Bush wants to keep the
war going through the remainder of his presidency and beyond. Let it
be the next president's problem. No diplomacy, no compromise. Just some
good ol' Texas-style ass whoopin'. Bring 'em on.
Meantime, Congress won't
stop funding Bush's war, so it's their war, too. The Democrats say they
don't have enough votes, but that is not an excuse to stop trying. In
fact, the entire Congress is shirking its mandate - a mandate that seemed
so clear in the wake of the 2006 elections.
A quagmire indeed. A very
expensive quagmire.
But what if Congress finally
came to its senses and voted to end the war, or at least to cut off
funding for anything other than a troop withdrawal? Here we face another
side of the quagmire.
If we pulled out now, what
would become of civilian life in Iraq? It's bad enough today. We bombed
that country to bits four and a half years ago, and we haven't bothered
to rebuild it. A recent British survey estimates that the civilian death
toll from this war and occupation may have topped 1.2 million. The Iraqis
who have managed to survive still have no security and no drinkable
water. Electricity and medical care are rare luxuries. Imagine living
like that for four and a half years, and with no end in sight!
This plight of Iraq's innocent
civilians will not be magically resolved if we leave now. On the other
hand, we have no reason to believe that it would improve if we stayed.
Damned if we do, and damned if we don't. Either way, the Iraqi people
will continue to suffer. And for no good reason (although Bush's oil
company buddies and Cheney's war profiteers might disagree).
A quagmire indeed. A very
expensive quagmire.
So what is the solution?
I wish I knew. More importantly, I wish Washington knew. But, whatever
the answer, it will not be simple.
I suspect that our best chance
lies in engaging international support for a post-occupation peacekeeping
and rebuilding effort, perhaps spearheaded by the United Nations. We
pull out, and an international peacekeeping force pulls in.
But Bush will never allow
it. And his arrogant version of foreign policy has squandered the good
will of the rest of the world that was ours in the days and weeks following
the 9/11 attacks.
A quagmire indeed. A very
expensive quagmire.
I believe that our only hope
right now is for Congress to grow up and stand up, cut off funding for
the war, force a troop withdrawal, and thereby demonstrate to the world
that America has woken up and might be worth helping.
Bypass the lame duck in the
Oval Office. Do what's right for Iraq, what's right for America, and
what's right for the world.
But I shall not hold my breath.
Mary Shaw is
a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. She is a former Philadelphia
Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty
International, and her views on politics, human rights, and social justice
issues have appeared in numerous online forums and in newspapers and
magazines worldwide. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's
own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International
or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail:
[email protected]
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