Spring Break
Iraq: The twenty-year war
Robert Zaller
Issue date: 3/9/07 Section: Ed-Op
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The only thing worse than losing a war is not being able to surrender. That is our present position in Iraq. By all rational standards, we have been defeated in every one of our war aims, declared and undeclared: destroying Saddam's weapons of mass destruction (he had none), creating a model democracy in his wake that would serve as a model for the entire Middle East (we have sown chaos instead, and destabilized the region for the foreseeable future), creating a secure base of military operations (our giant fortresses in the desert will be someone else's bastion), and securing control of Iraq's oil wealth (we have crippled production, and taxed ourselves in doubled and tripled oil prices for the benefit of private corporations). Yet we cannot cut our losses and get ourselves out. Instead, we fight on hopelessly, grinding our army to powder.
It has happened before. In September 1918, Germany's generals informed the Emperor and his cabinet that the Great War was lost, even though German armies still occupied foreign territory from northern France to the Ukraine and not a single square foot of German territory had been lost. They were right, because a still-undefeated army no longer had any chance of victory, and could only be destroyed by more fighting. Now, it is our turn. As Colin Powell stated with equal bluntness recently, the American army in Iraq, though also undefeated in conventional terms, was already "broken."
It has taken us some time to acknowledge the magnitude of the war we have been fighting. It has now gone on longer than World War II, and cost us more casualties than the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War. The more than 3,000 dead we have suffered (more than 4,000, if American military contractors, an essential part of our war machine, are included) are only the tip of the iceberg. There are tens of thousands of wounded, many of them permanently maimed, and hundreds of thousands more severely traumatized, or poisoned by contact with depleted uranium weapons. And that's not the whole story, either.
It has happened before. In September 1918, Germany's generals informed the Emperor and his cabinet that the Great War was lost, even though German armies still occupied foreign territory from northern France to the Ukraine and not a single square foot of German territory had been lost. They were right, because a still-undefeated army no longer had any chance of victory, and could only be destroyed by more fighting. Now, it is our turn. As Colin Powell stated with equal bluntness recently, the American army in Iraq, though also undefeated in conventional terms, was already "broken."
It has taken us some time to acknowledge the magnitude of the war we have been fighting. It has now gone on longer than World War II, and cost us more casualties than the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War. The more than 3,000 dead we have suffered (more than 4,000, if American military contractors, an essential part of our war machine, are included) are only the tip of the iceberg. There are tens of thousands of wounded, many of them permanently maimed, and hundreds of thousands more severely traumatized, or poisoned by contact with depleted uranium weapons. And that's not the whole story, either.
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