| Losing the Peace |
30 June 2003
|
US Deaths Mount After Major Combat Ends
President Bush was careful in choosing his words when he declared the major fighting over in Iraq; he distinctly did not say that the war was over. He was correct. American and British forces were attacked and killed last week, and this will continue for the indefinite future. The reason is an ill-conceived occupation, which required the Anglo-American's to be cheered as liberators rather than tolerated as construction engineers.
The British have a long history of occupying other people's lands, and sometimes it was even a good thing. While there is no longer a Colonial Service, there are still people alive today who know how to run such a place. The British, though, must be let off the hook because they have been the junior partner in this sad affair from the beginning.
The Americans, too, have some understanding of occupying an defeated enemy, Germany and Japan to name but two. Those success stories stand in stark contrast to the bungled Iraqi occupation for one simple reason -- in the latter case, the American government never really believed it had a post-war role in Iraq, when in fact, it needed to prepare itself for a stay measured in decades. And a successful occupation of Iraq requires far more troops and a bit more brutality than Washington was prepared to commit.
America should have sent enough troops to disarm Iraq's population entirely (pace NRA), using overwhelming force if resisted, and no Iraqi should have been in charge of anything for at least a year. The US should have provided a currency (still printing dinar notes with Saddam's face on them is laughable), taken control of the airwaves with its own TV and radio (no indigenous broadcasters for a year at least), and written up a constitution.
Not many could have supported this agenda -- certainly not this journal -- but then, that was why the Kensington Review opposed the starting of the war. It was clear from the beginning that the Bush administration had no plan for the occupation, no guts for what that occupation would cost in public relations points, and no desire to admit that decades from now, US troops will still be in Iraq. Imperialism is a costly game, and the Bush White House appears to be full of penny-ante players.