History erased before our eyes

The war is well into its third year and interest wanes even while major offensives rage

by Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>

In any other war, it would be noted as a major offensive. But despite harrowing numbers coming out of Iraq the last few weeks, there are only reports of “escalating trouble.” Much else of what has been written about this most serious of modern wars has been similarly downplayed, forgotten, or fabricated. With unavoidable and significant consequences still on the way for all of us directly because of this war, it might be useful to record what is otherwise disappearing from the record—if for no other reason than to understand, in coming months and years, why things have begun to go so terribly bad for us.

Prior to sham US-rigged elections at the end of January 2005, Iraqi military, police, and civilian deaths attributable to the war amounted to about 14 per week on average. Between the elections and the establishment of a new government near the end of April, that figure rose to 41 per week. In the two or so weeks since then, the number has exploded to 125 per week.

This bold offensive is by any account an impressive display of power and nerve. The Mehdi Army of Moqtada al Sadr, meanwhile, earlier noted for an even more impressive offensive last year, has not even yet responded to the mostly anti-Shia waves of attacks. When his forces do, the numbers of affected innocents will explode upward again. The weak Iraqi puppet regime will then be fighting a two-front war alongside an American force increasingly loath to leave their well-defended camps.

From January to early May 2004, there were 14 reported insurgent attacks on oil installations in Iraq, enough to seriously cripple all Iraqi rebuilding plans. This year, over the same period, that number has jumped to 42 attacks. All oil exports out of northern Iraqi oil fields have been stopped completely for several months due to constant sabotage. Exports out of southern oil fields have fallen to below 1.5 million barrels per day. Total Iraqi oil production is estimated by industry analysts to now be lingering around 1.8 mbd. This compares to exports of 2.5 mbd and production of 2.8 mbd prior to the US attack.

There is no question the US military focus has been on Iraqi oil production and pipeline facilities. The Iraqi oil ministry building was reportedly the only government building sufficiently guarded by US troops when the previous regime collapsed and looters stormed. US officials have repeatedly emphasized the critical role expanded Iraqi oil exports are expected to play in rebuilding the country and stabilizing it. Despite this focus, the momentum in the oil war has been all in favour of the insurgency. Production is declining month to month.

Even if inflated oil prices stay above US $50 per barrel, the revenue from oil exports by Iraq, such as they are, are falling far below what is required to maintain, let alone rebuild, infrastructure throughout the country severely damaged in the ongoing war. In lieu of oil export revenues, the US government has been forced to spend US $192 billion of its own money so far in Iraq—about US $7.7 billion each month on average since the attack. Part of the problem with oil production in the south is reportedly a deterioration of water injection pipes necessary to sustain underground pressure to help wells produce oil. It is the oil infrastructure itself, it is important to notice, that is now collapsing.

It did not receive very much coverage in the Western media, but other international press is reporting that US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Iraq in April and paid a secret visit to imprisoned Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. During the meeting, it is reported in London’s Telegraph that Rumsfeld offered Hussein his freedom and even a re-entry into public life in exchange for a televised plea with insurgents to call a ceasefire. Hussein reportedly counter-offered to call a ceasefire in exchange for an immediate and complete US withdrawal, and an appropriate schedule of war reparations payments. Negotiations are presumably continuing.

Given current Western media coverage of the war, the story sounds fabricated. But in the light of the numbers reported above, the story sounds more plausible. Iraqi security forces are either abandoning their posts at the first sign of trouble, deserting the army with their US-supplied equipment and guns, or being blown up in their stations, shot and killed in drive-by shootings, or kidnapped and executed. Scores of new recruits are seemingly blown up en masse every day in line-ups before they even sign up. A staggering body count of civilians are flooding the morgues and increasing ethnic tensions. Oil export revenues have fallen further back of what is required for security costs and infrastructure rebuilding, even to the point of the oil industry itself crumbling under lack of funds. Given all this bad news, it is no longer so implausible to imagine the US is probing the possibilities for cutting and running, and making deals to save what they can salvage of their far flung personnel and equipment.

It is a terrible situation the Americans find themselves in, one anyone familiar with the historical precedents of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow or the British retreat from Afghanistan, or the Russian retreat from the same country, can readily sympathize with. America’s situation is compounded by the fact that a great deal of the world, including substantial populations inside America’s traditional allies, are not particularly discomfited to see America’s much-vaunted military eviscerated in the Arabian desert. A poor attitude among leading American figures toward advice and caution offered by friends, wild lies fabricated by them to justify an illegal attack upon Iraq, revelations of systemic (and particularly disgusting) torture of innocent and guilty alike in US war prison camps, and an apparent inability to learn anything from subsequent results of this shameful behaviour, may account for what fellow travelers in the large corporate media euphemistically downplay as “rising anti-Americanism.”

The anarchists of Spain mid-last-century vowed that their country could never be free until the last priest had been strangled with the entrails of the last capitalist. American apologists should bear that in mind before they next moan about how hard it is they have it. So far, Iraqi leaders seem willing to let the Americans off the hook with a withdrawal and payments for damages; nobody is talking about entrails and stranglings yet. But the meter is running and the situation is worsening. They’re getting off awfully easy if withdrawal and cash is all they will be made to pay.

What Americans mistake for blind hatred is only in fact worry and concern about severe and costly mistakes being made, mistakes a lot of Canadians are beginning to perceive will cost us dearly as well. The surprisingly irresponsible neglect of the US economy, rushing headlong over a current accounts deficit cliff, the unchecked explosion in the cost of all sources of conventional energy and the total lack of regard for conservation measures, the utter blindness to the plainly collapsing ecology and the open encouragement of jingoistic religious and insular nationalistic responses to mounting crises, threaten not just the sinking of America but all those countries tied close to her.

Lest we forget, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Hussein was not an immediate threat to any neighbour, and there was a UN-designated demilitarized zone between Kuwait and Iraq through which an aggressive US army crossed without permission—the very definition of the most serious of war crimes. This was a war of choice.

It is not anti-American to recite these truths; it is in fact pro-humanity to do so, and urgently so in the face of this remarkably fast disappearing history.

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