by Tangerine
lifted from a comment
(and slightly editied)
It is understandable but disquieting that calling the Iraq debacle a war, seems somehow to make it (partially) acceptable to the US people. Of
course they have been snowed over with the stereotype – an enemy,
national defense, islamo-fascisms, cells and secret armies, und so
weiter, to make it fit legendary history.
Note that Obama uses the word
as well.
However, nobody is using the word peace which
usually means the cessation or absence of war. This in contrast to the
Israelis, who use and abuse that concept. I suppose that reflects the
fact that Israel has managed to convince or show that is has enemies
and that it is attacked.
In contrast everyone implicitly agrees that the US
is not in that position, either because Iraqis are seen as helpless, or
because the very idea of the US being attacked seriously in any way is
an unacceptable concept. The ‘attack on America’ of 9/11 had some echo
and effects, but was never taken seriously, in that no cause or agents
beyond nebulous ‘islamic terror’ were ever identified. La-la-land in
defense terms, which at the very least requires the enemy to be
identified.
Opponents call the Iraq venture an occupation. Presidential
candidates don’t use that dirty word, but act as if it was apt.
Hillary
would withdraw troops she says (Bush did too, etc.) and presumably soften
or minimize the guns/goons aspect, replacing them with Iraqi arms and
other more robust structures of government and economic control, international
involvement (see Afghanistan for example) etc. A question of method of
managing an occupation, smoothing it over, making it politically
correct, etc. (Fat hope.)
McCain prefers the discourse of what power of
ten years (I have forgotten) the war shall continue. He prefers to call a spade a
machine gun. No doubt Rep-Dem discourse-required differences play a role.
(Gritty realism is doomed to failure both on the ground and politically.)
Yet, the term occupation doesn’t really fit either.
What is the US occupying?
The ground?
No. The infrastructure, a viable, working territory: destroyed. It is one thing to have lily pads in Germany or Kosova,
another to hold postage stamps in a devastated desert and ‘badlands’.
The economic apparatus?
No. No ‘viable’ modern capitalist
economy can exist lacking the material infrastructure (eg. some roads,
water, electricity) without some agreed-on law and order, such as
contract law, reasonable courts, and even dull stuff like traffic laws.
Import-export, to mention only the obvious, has to be smooth: and for
that, the ‘country’ has to have some kind of status and stability.
Guam, Porto Rico, Afghanistan, aren’t US states, don’t suffer in the
same way (to mention very diverse examples.) Vichy France is a counter
example. Iraq has no status.
Hearts and minds? Opinion? Cyber space? Teen aspirations?
Cultural kinks, core values?
No. For the US, the only only aim of
capting these is to control other aspects, and clumsy propaganda
efforts are tireless but passing strange and self defeating. (See link below.)
Extractive or ‘productive’ ground based business? Such as
agriculture, mining, land manipulations (eg. dams) energy (fossil
fuels), sustainable, so called, such as wind, dates, fish farms etc?
No – (see above, which is the easy part.) So that shoe doesn’t fit
either.
So what is it?
—
link:
DoD Strategic Communication Plan for Afghanistan (pdf, slow to load properly but worth a read)
via MountainRunner (On public diplomacy and strategic communications in the 21st century)