By: Ali Al-Ebadi

After the American Republican Party has lost the Congress elections (House of Representatives) for the Democratic Party on November 07, 2006, and the report of the Iraq Study Group (ISG), also known as the Baker-Hamilton Commission, was published on December 6, 2006; the rhetoric debate between senators from both parties became increasingly heated.

The main issue remains the U.S. occupation in Iraq: whether or not to increase U.S. troops in Iraq – as the President George W. Bush proposed. The discussion is focusing further on style rather than substance such as to call the plan “surge”, “escalation”, or “augmentation”.

Currently, the frontrunners for the USA presidential election of November 4, 2008 are senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama from the Democratic Party, and John McCain and Rudy Giuliani from the Republican Party. However, all senators follow the footsteps of the Bush administration when they talk about Iraq: They avoid the words “civil war” and “occupation” and use instead “sectarian violence” and “Iraq War” respectively for known reasons related to local elections politics and international legal responsibilities.

But it does not stop here. Most importantly is that both parties, and with it of course all American media, fell into the same old trap. Bush team successfully used a simple and yet incredibly efficient collective misleading method before the US-led invasion in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003, to get the astronomical military budgets approved by the Congress, and to ensure the support of Security Council of the United Nations Organization, and NATO countries.

The “trick” Bush and his aides implemented is to push the people into one corner and offer them, while yelling, two options that are terribly bad but would work to the government’s advantage, and people would persistently be obliged to “choose” the least evil solution – or so they believe. This would give the public an ostensible satisfaction that it did the best choice, and enthusiastically stood behind its leader in hard times. In the case of US-led Afghanistan invasion, Bush and his aides profited from the enormous emotional momentum due to September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

They prepared public opinion, lawmakers, and foreign countries for the war by repeating the exact message over and over again in different forms: “our values are under attack, we have to go after them…and so you are either with us or against us”. In this way they secured a cart blanch from the Congress, UN, and NATO to invade and occupy Afghanistan, to get rid of Taliban government and dismantle al-Qaeda training camps.

Before the Americans finished the job in Afghanistan they turned to Iraq. Coordinated with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and some loyalists of Iraqi birthplace, Bush's government has led an intensive media campaign in 2002 that stated: “we have solid evidence from reliable sources that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction (WMD), capable of using them within 45 minutes of any attack unless we stop him, and he may provide some of these WMD to al-Qaeda”. The campaign went perfectly unchallenged among most American and British people.

Once again, the Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress and members of the House of Commons in Britain approved Iraq occupation plan. To the amazement of the world community, no lawmakers or parliamentarian committees ever asked Bush and Blair to produce clear evidence for the presence of alleged WMD in Iraq, and the connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

They were totally satisfied with the justification of Bush and Blair governments, “we cannot reveal our sources because we fear for their safety and the information is highly sensitive.” In all cases, another complementary trick was, and is still, used by Bush and Republicans that those who oppose Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are “unpatriotic… they would undermine our troops and embolden our enemy” – a notion that kept most American war opponents shut up.

The Baker-Hamilton Commission report was prepared by a ten-person bipartisan panel from Republicans and Democrats and offered 79 recommendations for policymakers on various issues including the increase of military power in Iraq especially in Baghdad. Nevertheless, Bush succeeded again to manipulate the results of the report and drew the attention of both parties into one single statement with two bad options, “you either agree or disagree to boost our military presence in Iraq with 21,500 soldiers to stabilize Baghdad and Anbar. We cannot fail in Iraq”. In fact, either one of the two options would work for Bush. Although Bush himself flip-flopped many times on this issue he is now settled to increase the number of troops in Iraq.

Should the “new security plan” for Baghdad succeed he would say, “We told you this is a good plan”, but if it failed he would blame Iraq, Iran, Syria, and others for that.

Realistically, this “new security plan” is programmed to fail since it relies on the military power to regain Baghdad security. What would most probably happen is that all fractions of "insurgents" would temporarily escape Baghdad and start to spread violence in other Iraqi cities that were until now relatively quiet. In this way, the civil war would no more remain restricted to Baghdad. Almost similar situation already happened in Afghanistan, when Taliban fighters escaped to the mountainous borders with Pakistan, regrouped themselves, and started attacking NATO soldiers and Afghani civilians alike. Also al-Qaeda reorganized itself and expanded its violent operations to Iraq after U.S.-led invasion.

Unless American Democratic and Republican politicians, lawmakers, and intellectual elite get involved in direct coordination with all members of Security Council of United Nations and Iraq neighbors within the frame of global comprehensive plan to deal with the disastrous situation in Iraq, none of them would ever witness any political or military success in the near future.

For the Americans, to allow themselves to be pushed into the corner and bullied by Bush's government to choose the less evil from two bad options is not an indication of intelligence or patriotism. In this particular case of Iraq there's always more than two options.

and....what would that "other" option be?

Originally Posted by Keltoi

and....what would that "other" option be?

Why...the singing of spiritual songs and the joining of hands in a big circle of friendship, of course.

Originally Posted by Cognescenti

Why...the singing of spiritual songs and the joining of hands in a big circle of friendship, of course.

Wait, what?

Originally Posted by IzakHalevas

Wait, what?

It was a joke, Izak.


Cool picture you have. Is that natural?

Salaam,

It is simple..

Their talk ,,our blood.