Mission creep summer

On May 1, the last day of reading period, Tufts' students' thoughts were focused on final exams. Meanwhile, President Bush staged a Wagnerian bit of theater, by descending, Valkyrie-like, in the navigator's seat of an S-3B Viking jet. The result was a tax-subsidized tailhook landing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.

A huge banner, 'Mission Accomplished,' dangled from the aircraft carrier. There the flight-suited Commander-in-Chief, surrounded by cheering legionnaires fresh from the Persian Gulf, announced, "The tyrant has fallen and Iraq is free." Contributing to the surrealism, in his 22-minute speech, he repeatedly linked Al-Qaeda with Iraq, as though the invasion of the latter was payback for Sept. 11.

"We have removed an ally of Al-Qaeda," he bellowed. Terrorists had declared war on Sept. 11, "and war is what they got."

Preparing for another semester, we must reflect: what a long strange summer it's been! "Mission Accomplished" became 'Mission Creep' from day one. 138 U.S. troops died in Iraq in the six weeks of aggression before May 1. Since then, 141 people have died -- 65 in combat -- in an intensifying guerrilla war. No sign of Saddam. The real 'mission accomplished' is the alienation of the world from the U.S.

The world said: "There is just no reason for you to attack Iraq." Even in the few countries led by governments joining the "coalition," popular opinion was overwhelmingly opposed to war. The UN rejected Washington's key charge: that Baghdad threatened the world with WMDs.

No WMDs have been found in months of feverish searches, and now everyone paying attention (including sizeable majorities in Britain and Australia) recognizes that their governments lied about this issue. They tried to obtain some degree of popular support for a war that Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle & Co. salivated to undertake from Sept. 12. They told the world in March: "We don't care what you think. We were attacked, dammit, so in our pain and rage, we're gonna lash out at whoever the hell we want."

The Niger uranium scandal is only the tip of the iceberg: virtually all the "intelligence" adduced to terrify us about the Iraqi "threat" has been discredited. So too the al-Qaeda link. Former intelligence operatives have made that clear. The neocons have stated their real long-term objectives in readily available position papers. They seek to establish (through whatever duplicity it takes) a chain of pro-U.S. states from Pakistan to the Mediterranean, hosting U.S. military bases, welcoming U.S. capital.

As hegemon in this region, the U.S. will be able to dictate for decades to its increasingly nervous European and Japanese allies, who are far more dependent on Persian Gulf oil than the U.S. If the project works.

But the project isn't working. It's a mess. Its true nature is increasingly exposed, even in the compliant mainstream media. There is no "liberation," only an occupation that produces an attack on the invaders on average every two hours. The military attributes the growing resistance to pro-Saddam die-hards, or Al-Qaeda linked foreigners. (In fact it involves a wide range of "insurgents:" Sunnis and Shiites, religious and secular, people enraged at the continued denial of electricity, water and security, at humiliating house-to-house searches, at some 8000 collaterally terminated civilian lives.) The invaders have the audacity to protest that foreigners are interfering in Iraq (imagine that!), most of these being Arabs who see themselves as part of a single nation artificially divided by western imperialism.

Meanwhile they suddenly want to befriend the world that denied their war support. They plea with India, Germany, France, any friendly foreigners at all, to help them out of the quagmire they've created (while insisting on U.S. domination of any "peacekeeping" operation). Most amusingly, they've asked the Arab League to contribute troops, prompting one delegate to ask: "to defend whom from who?"

Remember how the War Party predicted that the conquest of Iraq would be a cakewalk. How they were predicting that by this time U.S. troop strength would be down to just 30,000? It's 140,000 now, the forces hopelessly overextended. Those who a few months ago showed utter contempt for governments rejecting the war are now going, cup in hand, urging these erstwhile opponents to fork over some 30,000 troops. "We're trying to get other people to fill in for us," Paul Wolfowitz honestly told Congress.

Gotta admire that Wolfowitz, one of the geniuses behind the juggernaut's impasse. "Iraq," says he, "now is the central battle in the war on terrorism." (Next: Syria or Iran.) Never mind that many regard the Iraq invasion as a diversion from the war on al-Qaeda (which, repeat, has no connection with Iraq) and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. The "war on terrorism" is whatever people can be terrified into believing it is. Wolfowitz is a careful student of Machiavelli, who once wrote: "It is necessary...to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men are so simple...that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived."

Recent polls show more Americans than not support withdrawal from Iraq. Excellent; people are waking up. What can you do but feel outraged and demand: "Bring the troops home! End the occupation!"