Iraq: The Prequel

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

There are so many topics that whisper my name these days, it’s difficult to select just one to write about. Things that would have grabbed my attention, animated my conversation just a decade ago slip away now, unnoticed except perhaps as an entry in my notes. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time — or emotional energy — to attend them all. Still, this week something happened that I need to address. The war that was, essentially, the flagship of the American empire’s final voyage has sailed into the sunset. Well, sort of.

American ground forces have left Iraq. Even if the press has little to add to that basic fact, I need to mark that juncture in some manner. In 2003, I joined Planet Waves as the moderator of an information list, sending news clips out to those interested. After my first couple of posts, Eric reminded me — quite pointedly, as I recall — that I wasn’t supposed to add commentary; well, you know how that worked out. In the next few years, I literally posted thousands of articles accompanied by what I came to think of as impassioned rants. The majority of them were about the war in Iraq, privateers that sought legitimacy as “contractors,” covert incidents of torture and brutality, the suspension of habeas corpus, the crippling financial burden of two unfunded wars, and the delusion of the party that led the merry chase called WOT: War on Terror.

Let’s quickly review the facts. Dubby’s vendetta against Saddam Hussein had all the trappings of an epic production. The pitch went on, month after month, after Bush climbed down from that pile of rubble where the Towers once stood. With zero understanding of the mid-eastern psyche, and even less respect for its religion and traditions, the majority of us nodded in solemn agreement as George the Lesser told us how jealous the attackers were of our freedoms.

Fear ruled the day. Good men and women got sucked into the trap of believing American exceptionalism demanded we pre-emptively punish those who might be a danger to us. A general we trusted took a vial of white powder to the UN and accused Saddam of being up to no good. Paul Wolfowitz, representing a prevailing neoconservative philosophy that most of us had never heard of, told us that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for a war projected to cost a few billion bucks, and Don Rumsfeld assured us that his intentionally small strike force would do the job quickly and cleanly.

It’s worthwhile to remember that the small progressive community that objected to all this sent up a sound as faint as the Who’s squeak heard by Horton. The handful of us screaming that this was all about the oil were ignored, if not attacked for our lack of patriotism. The entire congress was Republican and completely deaf to Democrats, much as the House is today. Speaker Tom DeLay took pleasure in ignoring the left as godless secularists, and it was all but impossible to cut through the jingoism that gripped the public consciousness. Too many Americans gladly put on flag pins and vowed to teach Sadaam a thing or two, even though he had nothing to do with 9/11. In fact, he was a despot with no tolerance for al Qaeda, having established a profoundly secular nation in a sea of religious extremists, but to this day, crusty old Dick Cheney still insists they were all in cahoots.

And so it was that, with press incestuously “imbedded” with invading troops, we watched Shock ‘n Awe play out across our television screens, tanks rolling into Baghdad. Only after the looting of Iraq’s interior as well as its revered museum of antiquities, only after multi-millions of American dollars had disappeared down hidey holes, only after the search for WMD failed miserably and the pledge of a quick turn-around became years of occupation, did we learn we’d actually gone to Iraq to liberate helpless Iraqis from the iron grasp of a loathsome dictator. While that was a far cry from the national threat we’d been sold, we’d been lied to and spun so often that this new wrinkle just disappeared into the landscape of our apathy.

The war was projected to last briefly — re: the codpiece speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln where Dubby’s banner declared “Mission Accomplished” — but instead turned into endless combat with outraged insurgents. Perhaps the public should have intuited as much, after hearing reports of military contractors building the largest embassy in the world and establishing over 500 military bases in the region. Truth is, we never planned to leave, and if you listen to John McCain, it’s cowardly and shameful for Obama to do so now, even if George W. himself agreed to the terms the Iraq government insisted upon.

And here’s where the “sort of” comes in. We’re “leaving Iraq” the way roaches leave a tenement when the lights are turned on: we’ve disappeared into the woodwork. Several thousand troops are staying behind to consult, as well as several thousand contractors engaged in gawd-only-knows-what. A skeleton crew will man the massive embassy, and meanwhile the option is open for us to return, should the government ask. Facts on the ground — American troops still being shot at by insurgents at the eleventh hour, and the return of deep religious polarization in large sections of the nation — are clues that Iraq’s internal struggle has a long way to go before it actually resolves. Meanwhile, U.S. “liberators” were treated to the site of Iraqis burning US flags in celebration of their departure.

The ultimate cost of this misadventure has been projected into the trillions. And what did we buy with all that money? A bit of awareness, for one thing. For eight long years, America occupied Iraq, and because of that, we now know what “occupation” means. We have a sense of what “empire” is and why it is resented, worldwide. Most all of us can now quote Eisenhower on the evils of the military-industrial complex, and only the most deluded among us any longer thinks might makes right. The myth of “war with honor” was broken when the Abu Ghraib pictures went viral. We no longer trust the military to be truthful, now that we’ve heard the stories of Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. We can no longer trust the profiteers who work overseas, now that we’ve heard the testimony of gang-raped employees and witnessed contractors gone murderous. And no, we cannot forgive Colin Powell for playing his small part in the fleecing of the American public.

Glaring fallout continues in Iraq, where hundreds of thousands are dead, millions displaced, and religious conflicts newly energized. In a culture proud of its modesty and virtue, more than 50,000 Iraqi women have been reduced to sexual slavery in Syria and Jordan, as reported by Alternet, and a growing sex industry in Iraq met the demands of American GIs. As for the human price America paid, according to the Pentagon, 4,487 flag-draped coffins came home. 32,226 soldiers flew home to hospitals, rehabs and inadequate veterans’ benefits. For the second year in a row, there have been more suicides of returned Iraq vets than active-duty combat deaths. Our nation has been traumatized by a ruthless and needless war, and it will not soon recover.

I could go on and on and yes, I know, I said I was going to be brief and I’ve gone long. But what has sucked eight long years of American blood and treasure into a black hole, broken the back of the Constitution and made way for a level of delusion the likes of which I hope never to see again, deserves a last long look, if only as a cautionary tale. Those thousands of posts I wrote represented five years of constant attention and investment, and if we read them today it would feel as though we hadn’t made much political progress.

Illegal and unconstitutional activity from a deeply cynical Bush administration broke open the can of worms we’re still trying to corral today. This war theatre was the place where our nation began to question not only the moral authority of our elected leaders but their veracity. We are still in search of our ethical true north. We are yet to stop liars in their tracks or refuse to participate with the corporations that make profit the object of geopolitical misadventure, both abroad and, politically, here at home.

I wish I could tell you this war is over, that we’ve learned the lesson of this kind of hubristic aggression. But you know I can’t, any more than I can announce that we’re leaving behind our expensive and useless effort to stem institutionalized corruption in Afghanistan or that Obama will eschew the goals of American imperialism by vetoing indefinite detention. The worms are still crawling and the battle is still joined. But this time, we’re all in it.

Think of the last ten years as the prequel to the 2012 energy. Think of all we’ve suffered as the disillusionment that snapped us out of our self-absorption and shallowness. Consider that the notion of a “clean” war is well behind us, with only fanatics still able to entertain the notion of a “moral” one. Think of the tsunamis and oil spills, the radiation leaks and broken levees, the financial collapse and government inadequacy that came rushing through the gateway George Bush opened in the first years of this new century, and count it an exercise in awakening.

Now we know what the run-up to war looks, sounds, feels like. What does the run-up to evolution look, sound, feel like? This. It looks, sounds and feels like this. It looks like letting go of what was in order for some new understanding to overtake it. Pluto’s entry into Capricorn — transformation working into the brittle bones of structure — requires a trip through the dark side of government and corporate power. If life were dandy as is, we would not need to grow into a new iteration of consciousness.

The war was the prequel. Dubby was the guru. Our counted sorrows were for a purpose, and now we have reason to let go of old social and political programming, to embrace the incoming Uranian impulse to revolt against what no longer works. Our government is still playing games with us, telling us that the Iraq war brought democracy to the region, that it was something to be proud of. Neither thing is true. And none of those who broke faith with the American public, and the world, have been brought to justice for their crimes against humanity.

Now it’s up to us to decide what tomorrow will be about. In each of our lives, we may feel powerless to effect change, but it’s the very way we THINK about these things that makes this moment different from yesterday. All we’ve endured has informed us, and our ability to witness what is happening around us with a heightened awareness came at a high price. On the eve of 2012 then, when it feels darkest before the dawn, let’s remember that none of this is about succumbing to victimization; it’s about gaining empowerment. It’s the great adventure of our lifetime, and we’ve only just begun.