Tonight, as I was trying my best to avoid Bush on TV giving his "surge" speech, and while browsing various progressive blogs, I realized once more why I get so frustrated with the debate on the Iraq war. It's sort of gratifying to see a majority of people (slowly) come around to opposing the war, and that includes centrists, conservatives, and progressives (although it's gratifying only in a soulless and nausea-inducing way). And the reasons for opposing the war are many, mostly focused on the loss of US lives to the incompetence of the Bush people. But I think mostly it comes down to this: the war is going badly. The US is losing. The media is full of awful images of bombs going off and gruesome violence, all of which convey to Americans that things are going horribly wrong in Iraq. So they want to end the whole thing and bring the US troops home. But in all of this, no one - not even the best of progressives - gets the central fact about this war: that this thing going on in Iraq is colonialism redux.
It frustrates me no end that no one says publicly why the US can never "win" in Iraq - because this is a colonial effort, and because no one will ever remain content to be colonized. Yes, the British were successful for a very long time, but even then we brown people kicked out their sorry ass (and if we did it, anyone can do it). The Americans will never succeed in Iraq because the Iraqis know an occupation when they see (and suffer one), and they'll never brook it. That's why we have an "insurgency," folks - because imperialism will always generate resistance.
And now the US is sending in 21,500 more troops to "calm" Iraq (yes, that is actually what they are calling it). So here's how this will work. The American troops become even more amped up on adrenaline and fear and paranoia, go into the Iraqi population without any training in culture or language or anything else, and attempt to identify "insurgents" in their midst in order to "clean" (read: kill) them up. And what will they do? They'll read every Iraqi man, and many Iraqi women, as threats and potential "insurgents." It will be like identifying "terrorists": if you're brown and Muslim (or "seem" Muslim), and... well, that's about it, really. So "insurgent"=Iraqi. I don't think it will be - or can be - much more precise than that.
So of course this latest effort will fail to achieve a US "victory," but still no one will say what needs to be said - that this is a massacre by a colonial power and can never be successful.
It frustrates me no end that no one says publicly why the US can never "win" in Iraq - because this is a colonial effort, and because no one will ever remain content to be colonized. Yes, the British were successful for a very long time, but even then we brown people kicked out their sorry ass (and if we did it, anyone can do it). The Americans will never succeed in Iraq because the Iraqis know an occupation when they see (and suffer one), and they'll never brook it. That's why we have an "insurgency," folks - because imperialism will always generate resistance.
And now the US is sending in 21,500 more troops to "calm" Iraq (yes, that is actually what they are calling it). So here's how this will work. The American troops become even more amped up on adrenaline and fear and paranoia, go into the Iraqi population without any training in culture or language or anything else, and attempt to identify "insurgents" in their midst in order to "clean" (read: kill) them up. And what will they do? They'll read every Iraqi man, and many Iraqi women, as threats and potential "insurgents." It will be like identifying "terrorists": if you're brown and Muslim (or "seem" Muslim), and... well, that's about it, really. So "insurgent"=Iraqi. I don't think it will be - or can be - much more precise than that.
So of course this latest effort will fail to achieve a US "victory," but still no one will say what needs to be said - that this is a massacre by a colonial power and can never be successful.
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