One Man's Journey

______________

Seldom does one get to read an article that is more than words slapped to paper. Fellow blogger and journalist Phil Carter's recent article in Slate is the real deal. Carter is obviously dedicated, insightful, intelligent and brave, possessing qualities that are the best of America. So how did he get it wrong?

How did America get it wrong? And what can we do to minimize the damage to America and collaterally to Iraq.

". . .I think we made a difference by training the police, equipping them, mentoring their leaders, and doing what we could to promote the rule of law."

Have we and do we support the rule of law in this endeavor? The rule of law cannot flow from an illegal, aggressive invasion and war that toppled an onerous regime, though the efforts of most of the troops like Mr. Carter are performed in the very best spirit of everything America stands for.

From the inception, the question hangs like a damoclean sword: what rule of law allows for the complete removal of one government to be replaced by another totally funded and directed by the invading power? Not an auspicious carpet on which to roll out democracy.

Counterinsurgency is a fine strategy, but why is there fighting in the first place? What America calls the rule of law is actually a veneer of U.S. dominance overlaid upon a non-unified country in name only.

We all got it wrong when we accepted the lie that Iraq was a threat to the security and safety of America. Building a new, modern Iraq in our image was a fool's errand, doomed to failure before the first troop set foot into Iraq.

The question was never about Iraq, but America. The violence being unleashed in the area is born in America, but is played out in the streets and back alleys of Iraq.

At bottom: If you were an Iraqi of Sunni affiliation, would you support a Shite government? If you were a Shia, would you want the U.S. to leave your country? The Kurds alone have an intrinsic reason to support the U.S., and only because they seek the formation of a separate Kurdish entity.

Until the U.S. leaves the invasion and occupation business, there can be no long-term peace in the region.

What happens in Iraq should stay in Iraq, and among the Iraqis. America is what is wrong.

You're Free if We Say You Are

Every war when it comes, or before it comes,
is represented not as a war but as
an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred,
comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
--George Orwell

They put a parking lot on a piece of land
When the supermarket used to stand.
Before that they put up a bowling alley
On the site that used to be the local palais
--Come Dancing, The Kinks

____________

We here at Ranger took the liberty of exercising our online liberties to avail ourself of the Free Dictionary online to come up with a meaning for the word "liberty." We figured if that is part of what we're fighting for, we ought to know precisely what it means in order to know if we are accomplishing it.

The French motto is liberty, equality, fraternity, and our nation was founded on the blessings of liberty, to ourselves and our posterity. The federal government is using their liberty to cover their posteriors, acting more in the posture of libertines. So is liberty absolute, a natural right inherent in democracies? If so, are liberties being bestowed upon the citizens of the newly elected democratic republic of Iraq?

We need to define liberty before we can decide if we have it, or if we can give it, and where its limitations lie. First:

• The condition of being free from restriction or control.

There are approximately 350,000 American troops and armed contractors roaming freely around Iraq that are controlling actions of Iraqis at the neighborhood level. What the definition calls freedom from restriction or controls the U.S. military calls successful COIN.

In fact 28,500 Iraqi citizens, none of whom invited the U.S. to enter their country as armed guests are in U.S.-controlled prisons. These people have not been charged or tried in a civil court of law. They are enjoying liberty, Texas-style.

• The right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one's own choosing.

"Of one's own choosing" implies an internally-generated volition, not an external, state-imposed one. The entire Iraqi endeavor is not of the choosing of the indigenous citizenry. Everything that happens in Iraq is imposed at the whim and discretion of a foreign invading army.

This army is called the Coalition of the Willing, even though it is imposing its will upon the unwilling populous of another country. This willing has a separate meaning from un-coerced and intentional willing, one uprising from the within the population of Iraq itself. It is rather the imposed will of a superior external force upon that of a subjugated one.

My Army has no legitimate right to invade and impose its will upon any country unless that country aggressed upon the U.S. first. The U.S. has historically eschewed the first strike. If we are the only superpower in the world as we are led to believe, why do we need to transgress upon our own policy? Our might should be employed legally only.

• The condition of being physically and legally free from confinement, servitude, or forced labor.

Obviously the aforementioned 28,500 Iraqis imprisoned by U.S. forces are not free, but what about the number of citizens held by the Iraqi national government itself? Iraq has become another dirty little third world prison state financed by hard-earned U.S. tax dollars.

How "physically free" are the two million+ Iraqis forced into physical exile status? These people are living marginalized lives so that George W. Bush can say that he saved them from Saddam. Good deal for the al-Qaeda recruiters; better deal for U.S. military companies and contractors.

• Freedom from unjust or undue governmental control.

Iraqis cannot move without passing through armed checkpoints, subject to being flex-cuffed, hooded and photographed and iris-scanned. The Sunnis fear the government-controlled army and police, and the Shiite government fears the newly armed Sunnis allied with U.S. forces.

The new liberty is based upon paranoia, fear and sectarian violence -- all against all, and all to U.S. benefit, for the governmental control exercised is imposed by the foreign army of occupation.

• A right or immunity to engage in certain actions without control or interference.

What actions of the Iraqi government are out of the control of U.S. forces? Iraq is not a sovereign nation as long as a foreign army occupies its terrain.

You get the idea.