Perhaps Saddam
Read Tolstoy
And Bushs People Didnt
By Ben Bagdikian
Znet
04 December, 2003
There
is an eerie similarity between Leo Tolstoys novel, "War and
Peace", which describes with considerable accuracy Napoleons
1812 invasion of Russia and George Bushs 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Napoleon, after
quick victories throughout Europe, decided to take on his former ally,
Russia. Napoleon had the most powerful army in Europe. He liked to use
small, fast units for surprise and speed. When he entered the borders
of Russia, he expected a ferocious the battle for Moscow in which he
would destroy, once and for all, the Russian military machine. But to
his surprise, his invasion of Moscow was a cakewalk. There was no big
battle with the Russian military machine. Napoleons troops quickly
entered Moscow and dug in.
George Bush, commander-in-chief
of the most powerful military machine in history, had a Secretary of
Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who preferred to use small, fast units for
surprise and speed. He had at his command high technology, an Air Force
and tanks unmatched in the world. After Bush had enjoyed a quick victory
over the Taliban in Afghanistan, he decided to invade the former ally
of the United States, Saddam Husseins Iraq.
The troops of Bush
the Younger, like Napoleon entering Moscow, had a cakewalk into Iraq.
There were token shots here and there, but no big earth works to slow
vehicles in ambushes. No tank traps to paralyze the fearsome Abrams
tanks. No massive mine fields to make every American move a dance of
death that would delay the advancing troops. Most surprising was no
Republican Guard, Husseins most effective army. The quick-moving
U.S. special forces quickly enveloped Baghdad where they waited for
the big battle. But there was no huge battle. There was no visible Republican
Guard. And there was no Saddam Hussein. . Like Napoleon waiting to polish
off the Czarist army, Bush also waited to finish off the Republican
Guard. But no Republican Guard was in sight. Saddam Hussein was nowhere
to be found.
President Bush assumed
it was all over. It was time to put the formidable White House public
relations into high gear. In the now famous photo op, the President
dressed in fighter-pilot uniform made a landing on the aircraft carrier,
Abraham Lincoln. Nearby, the city of San Diego was clearly visible ---
but not to the American public because the TV cameras on the carrier
were placed by White House operatives to point only toward the other
side of the ship in the direction of the open seas.
As millions of American
watched on television, President Bush, now re-uniformed in a Presidential
black suit and, by precise pre-arrangement, made his famous victory
swagger across the open deck toward the carefully focussed TV cameras.
Pre-arranged was a huge sign on the carriers superstructure: MISSION
ACCOMPLISHED. At a microphone, Bush told the American people the invasion
was complete and combat ended.
Napoleon and Bush
both were surprised by a speedy, un-opposed easy victory. The massed
Czarist troops of General Mikhail Kutuzov seemed to have evaporated.
Saddam Husseins Republican Guard also seemed to have evaporated.
In the War of 1812,
Kutuzovs army had not, of course, evaporated. They had simply
moved beyond Moscow, out of sight, and waited for the penalty of time
and a vicious winter to decimate Napoleons Grand Army.
At this writing,
there is no definitive word on what happened to Husseins Republican
Guard. But after the invasion there were unexpected huge explosions,
expert booby traps for the Abrams tanks, and a steady toll of American
soldiers killed and wounded by hidden sharpshooters. Shoulder-fired
missiles destroyed U.S. army helicopters and their occupants, and a
series of ambushes killed more United States soldiers. It all had the
earmarks of planned and skilled guerrilla warfare.
It is possible that
Husseins elite Republican Guard had shed their uniforms and were
behind the mounting American casualties. Once the small, beleaguered
U.S. troops were shown to be vulnerable, it loosed the anger of Iraqi
civilians who, without water, electricity, or food, demanded that the
American occupiers who ruined the country by precision bombing do something
about it.
There was no American
plan to do something about it. The invasion and reduction
of cities and infrastructure to rubble has been precisely planned. But
no plan for what came afterward. How could this have happened? In the
elaborate war games that precedes every invasion, didnt anyone
ask, OK, after the bombing and our troops control Iraq, what do
we do next?Apparently, no one in charge asked what do we
do next?.
It seems inexplicable.
But perhaps it is explainable.
Among neo-conservatives,
there has been a basic long-term plan for the United States and for
the rest of the world. In the United States the plan is open and even
given a name: Starve the Beast. The Beast is
the United States government. The starvation is to have the government
so loaded with debt or other limiting obligations that it makes it easier
to cancel a wide range of government programs, or so cripple them they
will not work. These are programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid
and other fixtures that mainly benefit the middle-class Americans, environmental
protections, anti-pollution laws, and the entire range of programs the
neo-conservatives wish to privatize or cancel. The 2003 Republican White
House and Congress already are engaged in the plan.
But this is not
limited to the United States. It is a plan that the neo-con group foresees
implanting in all the newly developing countries and in as much of the
rest of the world as possible. This includes Iraq.
It is important
to remember that the invasion of Iraq came out of the blue, suddenly
depicted as a country with imminent danger to the United States with
weapons of mass destruction and nuclear capacity. It was, as we now
know, a false alarm that should have been known by the neo-con planners
like Rumsfeld to be a false alarm. If the group did not know it was
a false alarm, it is even more alarming. If they believed it was not
a false alarm, it would mean that the planners have become so obsessed
with their own goals, that they are capable of profound self-deception.
After the Taliban
had been bombed in Afghanistan, Iraq seemed a convenient country with
which to extend the neo-con program. The word convenient
is not mine. It was used by one of the inner group who planned the whole
thing, Paul Wolfowitz, in an article in Vanity. In that article, Wolfowitz
said a number of countries were considered as targets but Iraq was decided
as the most convenient. One assumes that it was convenient
because politically Hussein is properly despised as a monster who does
monstrous things to his own dissenters (though he was our monster in
1980).
That the war hawks
had no plans for what to do after bombing Iraq into rubble and putting
our troops in occupation seems like idiocy. But the war hawks do not
have the usual characteristics of ignoramuses. They are well-educated
and have considerable intellectual skills.
Wolfowitz, Deputy
Secretary of Defense, had been Dean and Professor of the Nitze School
of Advanced International Relations at Johns Hopkins University. Condoleeza
Rice, President Bushs National Security Advisor, had been Provost
and a Dean at Stanford University, professor of political science, and
author of three books on European and Soviet History. Richard Perle
(known by his opponents as the Prince of Darkness), was chair of the
Defense Policy Board, has a BA and Masters from Princeton. Rumsfeld
is a Princeton man.
How does one explain
the blindness of these defense intellectuals, even with the dream of
their own kind of world., knowing something was wrong about the celebrated
United States initial cakewalk into Iraq with only token resistance.
They knew that Husseins most effective army was his Republican
Guard, yet the Guard were never in evidence to resist the invasion.
In all their education at prestigious universities, were they never
acquainted with Leo Tolstoys great novel, War and Peace about
the War of 1812?
It is a huge tome
with more than 3 million-plus words, but it is also on any list of the
worlds great literature. And any course in European history will
have dealt with Napoleon and the War of 1812. More important, it provides
a striking warning of precisely what seems to have happened in the aftermath
of the invasion of Iraq.
Tolstoy describes
with historical accuracy how Napoleons terrifying
500,000-man Grand Army, approached Moscow ready for a great battle with
the Czarist troops under command of the aging, sleepy-eyed General Mikhail
Kutuzov. Napoleon had his cakewalk into the city of Moscow with no hindrance
from Kutuzovs big army. Kutuzov had merely withdrawn his army
well east of Moscow and let Napoleon take over Moscow and then waited
patiently for time and winter to destabilize Napoleons control
of Russia.
Bush accepted the
Iraq war plan and quickly savored the glory of a quick and successful
invasion. It is possible that Bush, not known as an insatiable reader
of books, might not remember much about Napoleon, Moscow and Kutuzov.
But Bushs generals did because one thing the Pentagon does well
is to make sure every person who reaches the rank of a senior General
has been to graduate school and studied in detail every important war
from classical times to the present.
The War of 1812
is certainly in the curriculum. Perhaps that is why so many of Bushs
generals insisted the American invasion army was too small and not sufficiently
prepared. And why senior people in the CIA expressed doubt about the
intelligence about Iraq.
The problem, of
course, is that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Perle, were known to feel they
understood military matters better than his generals and the intelligence
they collected was distinct from the CIA They selected whatever information
they could that supported their plans and dismissed the rest as bureaucratic
incompetence. The Iraqi mess that followed the invasion has become a
monument of those who have impenetrable self-confidence in their own
superiority.
The President hung
up a Keep Out sign for the United Nations, made derogatory
remarks about the countrys most powerful allies Germany
and France and boasted of his support from some lesser Eastern
European countries like Slovakia and Slovenia who were delighted with
sudden recognition as military allies of the United States.
Rumsfeld and company
must have felt that they could simply order the Air Force to reduce
Iraq to rubble, move in the small American special forces and then let
lesser people worry about petty details --- details like what happens
after the troops are in and there is no water, electricity, or food,
and a population hat will become desperate and hostile. There were far
more casualties after Mission Accomplished than occurred
during the invasion itself.
It may demonstrate
something related not to the military but to the human race. Every one
of Bushs war hawks undoubtedly has a I.Q. But a high I.Q. has
never been a reliable defense against arrogance or lack of wisdom. Most
of all, a high I.Q. is vulnerable to hubris, which the dictionary defines
as overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance. The penalties
of hubris in high places, as readers of the classics and careful observers
of human experience realize, are too chilling as a fate for the innocent
citizens and soldiers of the United States and for the rest of the world.
Ben H. Bagdikian
is the author of the forthcoming book, The New Media Monopoly.