The War on Terror

Iraq is not now nor has ever been part of the war on terror. It was entirely the vision of the neo conservatives: Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney. It was also a sidebar result of the Cheney Energy Commission. Iraq was to be the US puppet oil well in case the Saudi regime fell. With a fundamentalist controlled Saudi Arabia and a similar government in Iran, Saddam would have had too much leverage on the west. 9/11 and the false WMD intelligence from the Iraqi National Congress gave the Neocons the opening to invade Iraq. By linking Saddam to Bin Laden, President Bush had all he needed to shove this war of choice down the throats of Congress, the UN and the American people.

The war on terror is a war between the west, mainly America, and a warped version of Islam that preaches hatred and intolerance. After the US deployed to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, Osama Bin Laden was incensed at the idea of American soldiers on Islam's sacred soil. His Fatwah put us on a collision course with his new vision of the world. He teamed up with Dr. Zawahiri from Egypt and the rest is history. The highest levels of our government through two administrations did not heed the warnings from within the intelligence community to take Bin Laden as a serious threat.

There never was any connection between Bin Laden and Saddam. Iraq has always been a secular government. He despised the fundamentalists. He even had Muqtada al'sadr's father killed. He tolerated the Islamic clerics only to a point. He was our ally for most of the 80s and 90s, even nearly blowing up the USS Stark with and Exocet missile. His war against the fundamentalists was supported by the US. Even when he massacred the Kurds, we barely made a sound. He was the enemy of our enemy.

Once he was removed from power, Iraq became a vacuum. The only thing that held the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites together was Saddam. Once he was out of the picture, the borders opened wide to allow Iranian Shiites to infiltrate the south, Al Queda and Al Zarchawi joined forces with the insurgents to start a civil war and the Kurds began to work for total independence. With the army disbanded, the Baathists all fired, Iraq became a fertile ground for a deep rooted insurgency. With the growing sectarian violence, death squads, foreign suicide bombers, and American occupiers, it is no wonder that the Iraqi people began to blame the Americans for breaking up what was a functioning dictatorship.

There is nothing the US military can now do to solve the problems in Iraq. Contrary to what President Bush said in his news conference of the 25th of October, there is nothing to win. We are not fighting a war. We are not closing in on a defined force. The elected Iraqi government is impotent and infiltrated by the groups it is sworn to control, just as the army and police have been infiltrated. Only Iraqis can bring about peace in Iraq.

Whether peace comes about through a total all out civil war as a method of separating the different factions or whether a natural internal migration takes place, I can see not other alternative to a total break up of Iraq. T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) provided for these separate states back in the early part of the 1900s. He knew the history and deep mistrust and hatred between the three groups.

America must now begin the delicate and difficult task of leaving Iraq to Iraqis. There are times when parties must find their own path to a final equilibrium without any outside interference, even if that means pain and suffering along the way. Our own nation broke apart with nearly 500,000 dead before we found our final peace. We eventually came together as a stronger nation.

Iraq may do the same or simply break up and stay that way. Either way, we must leave and get out of the way. Our troops are simply caught in the crossfire and being killed because we are there. Dead Americans in Iraq are not saving lives back home, they are simply dying in Iraq. President Bush is either too stupid or has been brainwashed by the neocons to understand this. Pulling out now will put a little egg on our face, but will not endanger any more lives. The killing of Americans on foreign soil will simply and finally end and we will all be safer for it.