Both Clinton and Obama get big aplause from Democratic audiences pledging to withdraw combat troops from Iraq. But do either of them intend to end the unjust, illegal and genocidal war in which more than a million have perished? The questions Obama and Clinton asked, and failed to ask of Crocker and Petreaus, America's civilian and military satraps in Iraq, as well as the published statements of their advisors illuminate their actual intention --- to continue the war and occupation under a Democratic administration in 2009.
Petreaus & Crocker, Obama & Clinton: No Matter Who Wins, the War Goes On
by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon
"Neither Clinton nor Obama mentioned the more than one million Iraqis who have died since the beginning of the current war "
For some time, a majority of US military personnel have favored complete withdrawal from Iraq, as have more than 60% of the US public and a whopping 80% of Democrats. Thus the few minutes apiece that Democratic candidates Obama and Clinton got on April 9 to directly question the empire's top functionaries in Iraq should have been golden opportunities to lay bare the webs of deceit and delusion at the heart of America's genocidal war for oil, and a chance to reassure the world that a real change is about to come.
Crocker and Petreaus absurdly claimed that the war and occupation of Iraq were successful at least for the moment, and that withdrawing troops would be throwing victory away. All that Clinton and Obama, graduates of Yale and Harvard law schools, respectively, would have needed was the will to ask a few clear and unambiguous questions, preceded or followed by a brief statement about what their real “changes” ought to look like.
That didn't happen. Hillary Clinton spent the first four minutes of her question time with Crokcer bemoaning that the war and occupation of Iraq diverted military resources away from the war and occupation of Afghanistan. At four and a half minutes she asked the ambassador an obscure question on the Iraqi parliament, the US Congress and the Status of Forces agreement in Iraq. Her time questioning General Petreaus was wasted on a rambling monologue followed by another forgettable question.
Front runner Barack Obama may have done even worse, appearing to embrace the Bush line that “the surge worked”, and asking Crocker if “the present gains” could be secured by say, 30,000 troops, in his next statement calling that number “an endpoint”.
In symmetry with the existing Pentagon policy of deliberately ignoring Iraqi casualties, neither Clinton nor Obama mentioned the more than one million Iraqis who have died since the beginning of the current war. Neither saw fit to ask Petreaus or Crocker whether the proliferation of sectarian Iraqi death squads and the constant massacres they commit are in fact outcomes of the “Salvador Option”, a duplication of Reagan-era tactics employed during the wars in Central America. Neither candidate saw fit to repeat public pledges to withdraw from Iraq in 16 or 18 months, or two years, or four. Or ever.
How do Clinton's and Obama's public campaign pledges to withdraw troops from Iraq stack up against what their advisers are saying, against the fine print of statements on their campaign web sites, and against what they say and fail to say at public opportunities like the questioning of Petreaus and Crocker last week?
"The problem is that the aims of Clinton and Obama in Iraq do not differ greatly from those of George Bush"
Both Clinton and Obama have said that while they intend to withdraw “combat troops” or “combat brigades” from Iraq on what Clinton calls an orderly basis, and Obama calls a measured pace. Both Clinton and Obama agree that tens of thousands of US military personnel and a like number of US contractors and armed mercenaries will remain in Iraq after their “withdrawal” plans for the indefinite future to conduct “counterinsurgency missions”, to train Iraqi units, to guard the Baghdad airport, the largest embassy in the history of the world and the walled town of the Green Zone surrounding it and to look after “US interests” in general, which presumably include propping up the puppet government which privatizes and allows the speedy extraction of Iraqi oil, which the war was about in the first place. Advisors to both Clinton and Obama, are on the public record estimating that doing all these things will take somewhere between 30,000 and 70,000 US troops, and an undetermined but similar number of civilian contractors and mercenaries remaining in Iraq for the forseeable future.
The problem is that the aims of Clinton and Obama in Iraq do not differ greatly from those of George Bush, except that Obama and Clinton believe they can be accomplished with a fraction of the number of US forces, at the same time that conditional and partial withdrawals is underway. This is absurd on its face. If Iraqis won't let George Bush to occupy their country and hijack its resources with 140,000 troops and a like number of mercenaries, how will Clinton and Obama do the same with half, or a third or a quarter that number? If large numbers of ordinary voters are fooled, military contractors and campaign contributors are not. For the first time in several election cycles, the majority of campaign contributions from military contractors are going to Democrats.
The same establishment media that uncritically relayed hundreds of Bush-Cheney lies, from connections between Saddam and 9-11 to allegations of Iraqi nukes, to the current stories blaming Iran for resistance to US occupation in Iraq, have sold Obama and Clinton to the American public as opponents of the war and occupation in Iraq. The sales job is likely to last long enough to get one of them, most likely Obama, into the White House in 2009
Four decades ago last week, Dr. Martin Luther King pronounced the war in Vietnam “a demonic destructive suction tube” through which resources that should have lifted millions of Americans out of poverty were diverted and murderously squandered. When Democratic candidates riding a wave of revulsion against Bush's war and occupation embrace the suction tube, what's left?
Independent political campaigns for president, such as those of Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney do exist. But corporate media is determined to not allow their messages to reach large audiences. Former Georgia representative McKinney was the target of one of the most vicious campaigns of racist defamation in recent memory, just for asking questions about 9-11. Corrupt election laws also operate to deny candidates other than Republicans or Democrats a place on the ballot. In 2000 and 2004, the Nader campaigns were forced to spend millions in court defending their right to be on the ballot, despite having received tens of thousands of signatures of registered voters.
Democracy is possible only when media keep the public informed. When media are subservient to militarism and empire, complicit in the lies the powerful tell to maintain their power, the political landscape is difficult. Barring a combination of grand theft and gross incompetence that throws the election away, much like in 2000 and 2004, a Democrat will occupy the White House in 2009. But the war will go on and the death tolls will mount. The million dead Iraqis and 4000 dead Americans so far will not be the last, and the bill for the three trillion dollar wars of Iraq and Afghanistan will continue to mount.
Bruce Dixon is based in Atlanta, and can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com
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