Month: May 2004

The Donald Rumsfeld Job Security Advisory chart. See just how close Rumsfeld is to polishing up his resume.

Bush: did I say I needed $25 billion for Iraq? Sheesh, sorry guys, I meant $50 billion. A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.

The best way to tell the world your administration’s doing very well is to not tell your secretary of state what you’re doing! I feel bad for Powell, I really do… he could have done great things, but then he evidently got mixed up with the wrong crowd.

Evidently I was not the only one to be shocked and disgusted when learning about the shocking prisoner abuse photos coming out of Iraq’s already infamous “Abu Gharib” jail.

As a Canadian it was a rather grim and disturbing reminder of the Somalia incidents from 1993. Back then Canadian soldiers were part of the peace-keeping mission to Somalia. Rumors began to circulate about the abuse of prisoners at the Canadian camp following the death of a detainee who was arrested after breaking into the camp to steal some equipment. After the investigations had been complete it was found that the teen-aged detainee had in fact been beaten to death by members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment (CAR), and had taken quite a few shocking photos of the incident. As a result of this scandal one of the soldiers involved attempted to commit suicide, another was sent to military prison, and the entire CAR was disbanded. All in all it was probably the most shameful incident in Canada’s military history.

Indeed it seems that the release of the Abu Gharib pictures, along with the leaking of a secret Army report into the abuse allegations, are proving to be somewhat of a turning point for the administration, and could potentially be something which affects the outcome of the 2004 elections. Now one may wonder how some small number of incidents of this nature in the middle of a war which has already claimed several thousand Iraqi lives can have such an impact. There are in fact two reasons for this.

Domestic ramifications

The first has to do with American culture and is domestic in nature. By and large Americans tend to believe that they are better and more moral than the rest of the world simply by virtue of being Americans. I do not think that this is a unique phenomenon; indeed people from many countries feel this way. With Americans however this trait seems to be a good deal stronger than with others, and it is to this day used as a justification for being in Iraq (at least now that the issue of WMDs has proved to be invalid): they are there to liberate the Iraqi people, not invade. Unless one subscribes to that “we’re better than others” mentality the argument is risible from the start. By and large Americans, from the President on down, do seem to honestly believe this. Now I recognize that appearances may differ from reality sometimes, but frankly that public image has been cultivated so thoroughly that it is probably true of the general population simply by virtue of being communicated so often. The power of the media in the US is not to be “misunderestimated”, so to speak.

Given that mindset, and the undeniable fact that Americans did participate in these shameful acts — and not just incidentally, as the pictures of uniformed soldiers with their smiles and “thumbs up” poses clearly communicate — the public will be anxious to find a rationale for the actions of their citizens, and that rationale will probably be that they’re acting that way because they’ve been outside of America for so long. The logic is that if Americans are inherently better than others, but it is also true that Americans have committed these acts in Iraq, then their long presence in Iraq must somehow be the explanation of this behaviour. Americans will become rather horrified at what being in Iraq has caused them to become. This sort of reaction was also seen during the Vietnam war, chiefly when scandals (such as My Lai) began to receive press coverage. When the US is confronted with attacks from outside forces, that is one thing, but when griefs start arising from within that is another problem entirely. Inevitably Americans will start wondering exactly who it was that shipped the soldiers to Iraq, and that, I think, is when the Bush reelection campaign will be in real trouble.

Aware of this embarassing spot of trouble the US is now looking to the rest of the world to “share the burden” in Iraq, but frankly I can’t see that too many other nations will be all that keen to step into this mess just as it’s getting worse. Unfortunately Bush is stuck in what Powell, in Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack, is rumored to nickname the “Pottery Barn Rule” — “You break it, you own it.”

Foreign implications

The scandal, and especially the photos of Iraqis being humiliated, are also proving to be a major headache abroad, and put the US in the unique situation of having seriously offended pretty much everyone in Iraq, even — one might say especially — those Iraqis who convinced themselves that the US, despite being an invading army from very far away and whose language, custom and religion were different from their own, were in fact a force for liberation and for good.

One thing I hear these days in reaction to the photos is, “so what, are they going to hate us more?”. And indeed, touche for this brilliant observation. The people who have been shooting at US troops, the former Baath party members, and the terrorists who have poured into Iraq since the American occupation are not personally affected at all by the humiliating pictures of, say, the MP apparently dragging a naked prisoner around at the end of a leash. If anything this might lead a few Baathists to conclude that the US does in fact have the mettle to rule Iraq after all.

And yes, Saddam had much, much worse things done in the very same prison as recently as two years ago, no one is contesting that. But then, as Keith Olberman pointed out in Countdown earlier, “So we’re not as bad as Saddam… thanks! Glad we cleared THAT up!” Saddam’s behaviour has always been appalling, and that is (as I mentioned earlier) the current chief reason for why the US invaded (mysterious WMDs notwithstanding). Having said that, is it really a good idea for Americans to make the effort of effectively comparing themselves with Saddam?

All that is besides the point, however. The big problem with this prison fiasco is that it has managed to offend and humiliate those very people who had come to think that the US occupation might not be so bad. Those were the people who looked forward to being able to decide their own government, and who have long dreamed of an Iraq free of the trappings of domestic terror. What kind of message do photos of piles of naked, hooded Iraqis, with smiling American MPs giving the “thumbs up” in the background, send to those people who had made their peace with the already-humiliating situation of having been conquered by a foreign power?

Unfortunately, that message is the old chestnut “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Obviously this does not reflect reality as has been communicated to the American people, but the fact that this sort of thing is happening in the very prison where Saddam used to deal with his political enemies sends a chilling perception to people who had come to accept the Americans as people who would bring them something different; it certainly gives a lot of credence to the anti-American factions in the Middle East who have been clamoring that the foreign troops are there to do basically the same thing as Saddam, and to steal Iraq’s oil on top of that. The widespread impression, extending to a great number of Americans even, that the White House is being run by proxy on behalf of a large oil services company (Halliburton, which also owns the Kellogg, Brown & Root company which is handling most, if not all of the non-oil construction contracts in Iraq right now) is definitely most unhelpful in that respect.

So, the US had many enemies to start with in the Middle East, and now even those who weren’t enemies are getting a very negative image of the Americans. It’s sad, and it’s regrettable, but it’s also true.

The prognostic

Things do look pretty grim, especially for the Administration. It has become very clear over time that the stated reasons for going to war were simply not existent; whether this was the result of faulty intelligence or something more nefarious is outside the scope of this article. It’s also clear that the war plan, at least according to Plan of Attack, which has received the White House’s blessing, made no allowance for any opposition other than a monolithic Saddam-led opposition — a little strange, considering that the Administration claimed that Iraq was a staging ground for decentralized, al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist groups who simply don’t fight as a single, coherent unit.

The abuse photos are having a very negative effect on people’s perception of the war effort in the US, and I don’t even want to think about what kind of reaction they are fostering in the rest of the world. It has already shifted US public opinion to the point where more disapprove of the war than approve of it. This is an election year, and we will see in a few months whether Iraq will be to George W. Bush what Vietname became for Lyndon B. Johnson.

Bush’s practice State of the Union speech. (Warning: funny as hell) He’s got a receptive audience!

Bush’s TV appearance leaves Arabs unimpressed. Really? I’m so shocked!

The President’s reelection team knows where to go for a solid and reliable campaign bus! That place turns out to be Canada. “Yes, America can”?

Stephen King’s The Shining… reenacted by animated bunnies. All work and no play…

Lack of capacity is driving US gas costs skywards. Can’t afford to fill up your SUV anymore? cry me a river… America’s hunger for SUVs and inefficient vehicles is its own Achilles’ heel.