Let’s proceed from the assumption that there are winners
and losers in wars (although a case can certainly be made that wars create
nothing but losers).
Let’s further proceed from the assumption that every war is
fought for a purpose. And, let’s further proceed from the assumption (and,
sadly, it’s a big one) that the purpose of fighting a war is not to enrich the
people who inevitably get rich from fighting wars (in the case of Iraq, the
Blackwaters, Halliburtons, General Dynamics and Exxon Mobils of the world).
For a somewhat more contrarian thesis, read my article entitled
“Support the Troops?”
Given these assumptions, it is reasonable to assess the
success of a war by measuring it against its stated objectives. In Iraq, the
objective (supposedly) is not only to provide security and a stable, democratic
government in Iraq, but to prevail in what this administration likes to call the
“war on terror.”
And, since Iraq has been characterized by this administration
as the “central front” in that war, and since one of the stated purposes of
fighting on that “central front” is to “fight them over there so we don’t have
to fight them over here,” it is certainly valid to measure the success of all
those purposes and objectives against the results that have been achieved. That
measurement, and those standards, are sometimes referred to as “metrics.”
There is little question that the war in Iraq has, at least
thus far, failed to achieve the objectives the administration has set out for
it. Remember that, as a condition for implementing the “surge,” there were
“benchmarks” that were supposed to be achieved. Well, in September, the General
Accountability Office issued
its report saying that the majority of the benchmarks had not been achieved.
And it is generally acknowledged that the overarching objective of the war in
Iraq, namely political reconciliation, hasn’t been achieved, and, based on
statements made recently by Iraqi officials, isn’t likely to be achieved,
ever.
But there are other “metrics” by which the success of “war
on terror” may be measured. One of the standards by which that success must be
measured is the answer to the following question: is the U.S. being made safer
from terrorist attack by fighting in Iraq. If the “fight them there…fight them
here” slogan is to have any meaning, surely this is the first question that must
be answered.
Astonishingly, not even the folks who are in charge of
fighting the war, either on the battle front or on the intelligence front, can
answer that question. Who can forget General Petraeus’ startling admission,
during his
recent testimony before Congress, that he didn’t know whether the war was
making us safer.
Here is the man who is running this war, who is watching the
troops under his command be killed and maimed on a daily basis, and he can’t
even tell us whether their sacrifice is worth it. This is un-freaking
believable! Perhaps even more revealing was the recent interview conducted by
NBC’s Iraq correspondent, Richard Engel, with
the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Admiral Scott Redd.
This newly created agency is supposed to be, according to its mission statement,
leading the fight to “combat the terrorist threat to the U.S. and its interests”
When asked directly by Engel, “are we safer today,” and after a long,
uncomfortable pause (not unlike the one Petraeus exhibited in response to the
same question),
Redd replied: “tactically, probably not; strategically, we’ll wait and
see.”
What the hell does that mean? Wait for what, 3,800 more
American combat deaths? See what, al Quaeda continue to
use the war as a recruiting tool? Well, Admiral Redd won’t have to wait or
get to see anything (at least not at the NCTC): two days after he gave that
interview, he abruptly
announced his resignation from the NCTC.
Just another example of where
speaking truth to power gets you with this administration.
A
recent report issued by the American Security Project answers, with a resounding “no,” the question of whether we’re winning the war on terror. ASP is a
self-described “non-profit, bi-partisan public policy research and education
initiative dedicated to fostering knowledge and understanding of a range of
national security and foreign policy issues” (read: think tank) whose board of
directors includes Gary Hart (the former Senator), John Kerry (the former
presidential candidate), George Mitchell (also a former Senator) and General
Anthony Zinni (the former commander of CENTCOM, and long-time critic of the war
in Iraq).
It answers the question in cold, statistical fashion. Using ten
objective criteria for determining the results of the “war on terror,” the
report concludes, not surprisingly, that we are losing that war. From a
“massive and dramatic increase in Islamist terrorism since 2003” to “Al Qaeda’s
[expansion of] its reach globally,” to the increasing perception in the Muslim
world of the U.S. as an “aggressive, hostile and destabilizing force,” the
report paints a dismal picture of the effect of the war in Iraq on the “war on
terror.”
The report’s quantification of terrorist attacks is
startling. It finds that the number of such attacks, worldwide, has increased
exponentially. It does not suggest that just because the U.S. hasn’t been
attacked it is therefore safer, and therefore doesn’t need to worry about
terrorism elsewhere in the world, because those aren’t “American interests,” a
position espoused, either ignorantly or dishonestly (but most revealingly), by
the Vice President’s wife in a recent
interview with Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.”
As the NCTC’s mission
statement acknowledges, even our intelligence community recognizes that our
“interests” go beyond our borders. And, of course, there is now the depressing
fact that the war in Iraq has resulted in the death of
more Americans than were killed on September 11th.
The mantra of the Vietnam era, equally applicable to the
current era, was most poignantly revealed in a song by the group known as
Country Joe and the Fish. The chorus of their song “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To
Die” included the question “And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting
for…” My question is: Joe, where are you now that we need you?