The Fallujah Fallacy

--2004 cartoon on what went unseen 

It is a popular delusion that the government
wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth.
Enormous effort and elaborate planning
are required to waste this much money
-- P.J. O'Rourke
___________________

Fallujah was neither won, nor lost, despite the shocked news headlines. The violence in Fallujah was not warfare then, nor is it now. It is sectarian violence packaged as warfare to serve the cynical needs of a invading nation. This godforsaken city served the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) template well, and according to the mainstream media, it's the gift that keeps on giving (for the puppeteers behind the scenes.)

Fallujah is a symbolic terrain, a body over which the warring tribes of Sunnis and Shias continue to fight for governmental power. It is not a rogue band of al Qaeda fighters causing mayhem but the citizens themselves. The Sunnis may be "al Qaeda affiliates", but if they do affiliate with this terrorist group it is out of sheer pragmatism and necessity as their goals do not extend beyond securing their city.

No democracy, liberty, freedom or women's rights are being sought; it is just a 1,300-year power struggle played out now with U.S. taxpayer dollars supplying both sides of the fight. What did the killing achieve at any level, and did we ever have a realistic policy in Iraq? The obvious conclusion (from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, et. al.) is that U.S. combat power does not build nations.

Saddam had controlled the violence in Iraq and The U.S. invasion unleashed unbridled violence, and the killing today is simply a continuance of the U.S. set-up. The U.S. gave much to Iraq, but the upshot is a continuing spiral of violence.

When Fallujah was recently wrested from Iraqi Shia control, this was not an al Qaeda success -- this was the Fallujans voting with their guns. The money has run out to bribe the "Sunni Awakening", and so all parties return to their tribal status quo.

As one Marine who fought there wrote in the Guardian (UK) last week:

The Iraqi government's recent actions in Falluja turned the non-violent movement violent. When the protest camp in Falluja was cleared, many of the protestors picked up arms and began fighting to expel the state security forces from their city. It was local, tribal people - people not affiliated with transnational jihadist movements - who have taken the lead in this fight against the Iraqi government (I Helped Destroy Falluja in 2004. I Won't Be Complicit Again.)

In addition, the press is loathe to recognize the role of Saudi Arabia in providing weapons, training and fighters to stoke the instability in Iraq. "Saudi Arabia" may be fungible with "al Qaeda fighters", but our "friendship" disallows such considerations.

Fallujah's fall is no surprise. It's "securing" was smoke and mirrors.

To RangerAgainstWar's mantra: Killing people in a war on terror is foolish if they can be replaced the next day. That is not warfare, but a simple cycle of violence.