Occupation Pre-Occupies

1 September 2003


Combat Deaths -- 138; Occupation Deaths: 139

The occupation of Iraq has now cost more American lives than its conquest. On August 26, 2003, Spc. Darryl Dent, 21, of the National Guard's 547th Transportation Company, became the 139th US warrior to die since President Bush announced the end of "major combat operations." American dead during those operations numbered 138. The fact that the occupation was going to be harder than the conquest was foreseeable and foreseen -- just not by the White House, whose policy is adrift.

Many who support the war against Fascislam are worried that the Bush administration is fighting it poorly. When it comes to blowing things up from a distance, the US has no difficulties. When it comes to governing, though, the occupied territories are being treated more like Bagdad in Jackson County, Tennessee rather than Baghdad, Iraq. This reliance on the locals has been premature, and the reliance on exiles excessive.

American forces walked into Baghdad, and Kabul, thanks to greater mobility, greater communications, and greater firepower than the opposition. Those factors count for almost nothing when it comes to occupying a country. What matters then is how many 19-year-olds with automatic weapons are available on the ground. They cannot be bound by things like sensitivity to local customs and proclivities. The occupiers make the rules, and the occupied do as they are told on pain of death. It is an ugly fact that no one has wanted to admit, and it is for this reason, this corrosion that threatens the Americans, that Mr. Bush's war was ill-advised. Either it fails, or it creates an American monstrosity. That is what occupation means.

America's two most successful occupations, of German and Japan, succeeded precisely because America made it clear that the old order was gone and that if the indigenous populations obeyed, things would be fine. This is not being done in Iraq (not in Afghanistan). Mr. Bush wanted a quick, easy war (which he got) followed by the quick installation of a friendly Iraqi regime (which was probably impossible from the beginning). Having botched the initial stages of the occupation, he must now find a way out of the mess. Good luck to him -- sitting on bayonets is uncomfortable, but such is the seat he chose.

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