reed writes

….THE FOLLY OF WAR?

Last week British troops finally pulled out of Northern Ireland a fter 38 years. It was the longest military operation in UK history. During the many visits I have made over the years to Northern Ireland, the main thing I observed was that the British military was never very effective at dealing with IRA terror.

In the end, after thousands of deaths and many more maimed, the conflict was brought to a conclusion- not by military means at all- but by diplomacy. Hard, long, diplomatic slogging, led by an American intermediary by the name of George Mitchell.

It took more than 2 years of enterprising and persistent diplomatic work by Senator Mitchell to end almost 40 years of military failure.

It also took a little humility on the part of some of the fiercest partisans in that nasty little conflict. Those included the former IRA man Gerry Adams and the Protestant religious extremist Ian Paisley. In fact it was Paisley’s toxic religious fanaticism that had as much to do with prolonging the conflict as the terrorist violence perpetrated by the IRA.

Nevertheless, the military action solved nothing.

Northern Ireland ought to serve as an enduring model and example of why attempts at military solutions to nationalist conflicts almost always fail. They are especially useless in situations where the "enemy" lives amongst the people and often enjoys their support and protection.

Military action as a means of defeating an enemy failed miserably in Vietnam, where the United States machine was sent packing by small men and women wearing pajamas.

Similarly it is failing in Iraq, where it has, for all intents and purposes, destroyed that country.

And it is failing in Afghanistan where the Americans and NATO forces are killing far too many civilians and turning the population against the invaders.

It’s difficult to say when our political leaders will recognize the stupidity of using military tools to build a country out of the Afghan chaos. It simply will not work. In fact, it is detstroying not just the lives of Afghani’s, it is destroying the lives of our own people in more ways than one.

As you read this, NATO soldiers are able to buy whatever drug of choice they wish…the poppies are growing at a greater rate than ever. Heroin production is expanding exponentially. We are losing on all fronts. It’s not the fault of our soldiers, though. The fault lies at the feet of the misguided men who sent them.

When will our political leaders come to their senses? (the film at the link was made in 2004, thousands of lives ago – it’s worth watching)

Agencies of the United States are beginning to behave as  the agencies of the old Soviet Union behaved. They are destroying evidence.

Americans are learning about torture. Employees of official United States agencies are descending to the level of the autocratic and dictatorial regimes they publicly abhor.

You can read more about very sad decline in American morals here…in The New Yorker. 

TROUBLING TIMES

We live in times that hearken back to the Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church sought to control the world through Papal Decrees.

That’s why today, Brazil speaks Portuguese and Venezuela speaks Spanish.

In our own time we want…or at least the American administration wants the world to speak American. That’s why U.S. troops are dying in Iraq.

It won’t work.

The rest of the world will rebel big time. It’s happening now – and Canada under Harper – is siding with the criminal element. The Harper/Martin war in Afghanistan is a hoax and Canadians are  suckers if they choose to support it.

In Afghanistan the people we are fighting have now gained the upper hand and we are standing back a bit. As we should. The gung ho rhetoric of General Hillier is now on the back burner.  The  South Koreans will negotiate with the Taliban over the Korean hostage crisis .

A senior British commander in southern Afghanistan said in recent weeks
that he had asked that American Special Forces leave his area of
operations because the high level of civilian casualties they had
caused was making it difficult to win over local people.

The message that the American forces are out of control in Afghanistan is coming though loud and clear.

As long as NATO continues to allow the Americans to behave as if they were in their own wild west of the 19th century, the so-called "mission" in Afghanistan will fail.

Over and over again we have called on the political leaders to get hold of the strategy in the Afghanistan war. None has showed th slightest interest. All of them, from the Canadians to the Danes to the Dutch, have turned a blind eye to reality.

In fact the situation has become so bad, that now military leaders are beginning to speak out.

A distinguished U.S. General explains why Iraq is a mirror image of Vietnam, when it comes to asking the military to implement a flawed political idea.

General Volney Warner (now retired), was interviewed by a McClatchey Newspapers reporter.

INTELLECTUAL CASUISTRY

Michael Ignatieff is the deputy leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. He has written a piece in The New York Times, admitting – 4 years later – that he was wrong to support the American invasion of Iraq.

Mr. Ignatieff’s mea culpa would have been much more credible had it been much shorter, limited to say, the title of his article by itself "Wrong About Iraq" and then making a straightforward admission that he had completely mis-judged the consequences of the attack. 

It would have been more credible had it been less suffused with academic rambling. Credulity is strained by the admission of this political leader and political scientist, no less, who apparently ignored history in his unwavering support for a military invasion. The entire exercise was a defiance of history from the get-go.

Mr. Ignatieff makes much of his belief that politicians must have a "sense of reality" about decisions they make. Well, attacking a distant country, with a different culture, in the heart of a region that had an historic distrust of the west, never made sense, either real or imagined. It was particularly senseless in light of the obvious fact that there existed no provocation for the preemptive strike.

If only Ignatieff had taken the time to look – the historic precedents were there – including Vietnam for the Americans and Algeria for the French. The idea that the invaders would be embraced as liberators and occupiers bespeaks an almost boundless arrogance. Even more arrogant was the idea that it was America’s divine duty to impose a new political system on Iraq and thus transform the Middle East.What nonsense! Mr. Ignatieff would do well to read Cecil Woodham-Smith’s book, "The Reason Why". That’s the appalling story of  why the "light Brigade" marched so foolishly into the so-called "Valley of Death". It is an indictment of the very kind of imperial ambition the Bush people demonstrated with their assault on Iraq.

Furthermore,at the time of Ignatieffs eager push for the war, there was an effective and legitimate process underway. An international arms inspection was in full swing and accomplishing a great deal. Rockets were being cut up and U.N. helicopters were scouring the countryside with ground-penetrating radar. Bush cut that process short and Ignatieff dutifully applauded.

Nor did he seem to care about the consequences for the people of Iraq…the inevitable collateral damge to innocent civilian life and the complete disruption of civilian routine that a strike would bring. It was obvious to anyone with "a sense of reality" that a high tech military invasion would bring chaos to the society and severe damage to an already fragile infrastructure.

When a senior American General suggested that a half million troops would be required to secure and rebuild Iraq, he was fired. The fact is that Ignatieff bought the Bush/Cheney propaganda hook line and sinker. Only now is he choking on it.

Mr. Ignatieff writes that, "The attribute that underpins good judgment in politicians is having "a sense of reality". The Bush administration showed none of that in its rush to war.

Naturally, he blames George Bush  for the fiasco, saying that the president "did not take care to understand Iraq". He says in effect that Bush made the wrong decision because he led a "charmed life" and goes on to say that "…in charmed lives warning bells do not sound".

Mr. Ignatieff would be more credible had he simply written a letter saying that he was wrong because he himself had led a "charmed life"; he could then have explained why no alarm bells sounded in his own head.

His roundabout way of admitting that he was wrong about Iraq, does not inspire confidence in his ability to make the sound judgements required of an effective political leader. Although, as he himself says, it is always possible to learn.

However in the meantime, Ignatieff’s deputy leadership role with the Liberal Party is just one more reason why it’s unlikely that we will ever again see a majority government in this country.

And that may be a good thing.