If the Situation Gets Worse, I Won't Hesitate to Ask for More

by Mark Dankof for Uncensored News and Views and The Balochistan Post

Re-post permission granted worldwide with attribution



General Abizaid finally came clean with what all of us who opposed Mr. Bush's war for Oil, Empire, Neo-Cons, and Israel knew before it started--that the United States is now embroiled in a guerrilla war in Iraq without a coherent exit strategy, a ghost of an idea as to how to create a legitimate Iraqi political infrastructure in the midst of armed tribalisms, and with new calls from Abizaid and other members of the American military establishment for fresh American troops to dive headfirst into the quicksand. One assumes he has already issued an exemption for the Texas Air National Guard.

Abizaid's most ominous statement at yesterday's internationally televised press conference, duly reported in today's New York Times, was "If the situation gets worse, I won't hesitate to ask for more [American troops]." Don't worry, General. We know it will get worse, and that you'll fulfill your stated promise. That Abizaid, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Wurmser, and the rest of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) crowd fronting for Halliburton Oil and the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC), find the General's performance on CNN to be reassuring to any thinking member of the American public is as inherently terrifying as it is absurd. This is 1968 and the Tet Offensive, Redux. Abizaid and Rumsfeld have begun resembling Westmoreland and McNamara. The water level is rising over their heads, the President's--and ours.

Here is the scorecard before the front nine is even completed: A doubling of the admitted cost of this preemptive military action and occupation from 2 billion to 4 billion a month with further increases guaranteed; a total aggregate expenditure for Bush II in Iraq thus far of almost $100 billion dollars (and counting) ; an American death toll that will surpass the Desert Storm totals in spades as time progresses; an untold number of innocent Iraqi civilian dead and wounded; the well-earned animosity of scores of Arabs and Persians both in the Middle East and in the United States; and the development of an American national security state set to embark on new interventionist military schemes abroad and further restrictions on personal liberties domestically, with no end in sight. And the so-called "road map" for peace between Israel and the Palestinians? Surely no one can seriously believe that in the months leading up to another Presidential election cycle, the Israeli lobby in the United States and Sharon's pals in the Administration and both parties on the Hill, have any intention of negotiating with even a semblance or hint of good faith. And this lock on both the Middle Eastern peace process and the integrity of the American political process, guarantees more violence and additional shedding of innocent blood worldwide.

What is the next move for Bush and the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)? American military intervention in Liberia? A combination of covert action against the IRI regime accompanied by American troops in Iran? Committing our young men and women to a "peacekeeping" role on the West Bank and Gaza strip? How many more deaths do Abizaid and Rumsfeld believe will occur in Iraq before the tribalisms of Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds are magically solved with a credible central government and the cessation of violence? What really is going on in Afghanistan in terms of American casualties and the destablization of the Karzai regime? Will we further involve American men and women in the quagmire of Colombia's war between drug lords, the ELN, the FALN, and the central government of that country? And what happens if Communist China decides to move on Taiwan?

There is one thing we do know. The New York Times reminds us that of 33 active duty Army brigades, 21 are already deployed, with 16 of those in Iraq. The combat force and logistical infrastructure of the Navy and Air Force tell a similar story. And with these overcommitted American military resources comes a thinning of the patience of the people--for restrictions on civil liberties, endless foreign entanglements, rising taxes for Empire, untold numbers of deaths of Americans and non-Americans alike, and ongoing lies from political leadership as contemptuous of the interests of the average citizen as they are of Washington's Farewell Address foreign policy and Jeffersonian democracy as expressed in the Constitution's limitations on the legitimate authority of the Federal government and its Chief Executive.

And the American media? They receive failing marks as well for their acquiescence in the machinations of Bush, Sharon, and the PNAC cabal in the expenditure of American lives and resources for the New World Order and its accompanying causes repellant to the Founding Fathers of America. But then again, who should be surprised? Their paychecks are secured, for services rendered to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Trilateral Commission, and the Office of Special Policy (OSP).

Yes, General, the situation will worsen. You, George, Don, Richard, and the PNAC Boys will then ask for more. But after so much blood and money has seeped into the sands of Iraq, the Middle East, and dozens of other distant locales, the American people will reclaim their heritage, their government, their respect for the sanctity of human life and fair play, their Constitution, and the Biblical faith of their fathers. And as part of the reclamation project, all of you will be out of a job as Belshazzar was on the night of Daniel's interpretation of the king's vision (Daniel, chapter 5), when the prophet of Judah proclaimed to the Babylonian king, and all the tyrants of history that God's verdict was Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin.

Translated Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.

(Mark Dankof is an ordained Lutheran pastor and an occasional correspondent for the Internet news service Uncensored News and Views. A past candidate of the Constitution Party for the United States Senate in Delaware and part time consultant to the Conservative Caucus in Washington, he continues to pursue post-graduate theological study at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. His web site, Mark Dankof's America, may be found at www.MarkDankof.com)

>\----------------------------------------------------------/ > >U.S. Commander in Iraq Says Yearlong Tours Are Option to Combat 'Guerrilla' War > >July 17, 2003 > By THOM SHANKER > > > > >The new commander of allied forces warned that U.S. troops >are under attack from "a classical guerrilla-type >campaign." > > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/17/international/worldspecial/17MILI.html?ex=1059452819&ei=1&en=4fafe241d070a00e > > >---------------------------------