[News] The Surge and the Stench of "Victory"

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/blum10032008.html

October 3 - 5, 2008


The Surge and the Stench of "Victory"


When is a Holocaust Not a Holocaust?

By WILLIAM BLUM

When is a holocaust not a holocaust?

When the perpetrators call it a victory.

Although the "surge" has failed as policy, it appears to be 
succeeding as propaganda. It seems to be the only thing that 
supporters of the war have to point to, and so they point, and they 
point, and they point. Allow me to point out that while there has 
been a reduction in violence in Iraq -- now down to a level that 
virtually any other society in the world would find horrible and 
intolerable, including Iraqi society before the US invasion and 
occupation -- we must keep in mind that thanks to this lovely little 
war more than half the population of Iraq is either dead, crippled, 
traumatized, confined in overflowing American and Iraqi prisons, 
internally displaced, or in foreign exile.

Thus, the number of people available for being killers or victims is 
markedly reduced. Moreover, extensive ethnic cleansing has taken 
place in the country (another good indication of progress, n'est-ce 
pas?). Sunnis and Shiites are now living more in their own special 
enclaves than before, none of those stinking mixed communities with 
their unholy mixed marriages, so violence of the sectarian type has 
also gone down; and the powerful movement of Shiite leader Muqtada 
al-Sadr has had a cease-fire in effect for many months, unconnected 
to the surge. On top of all this, US soldiers, in the face of 
numerous "improvised explosive devices" on the roads, have been 
venturing out a lot less (for fear of things like ... well, dying), 
so the violence against our noble lads is also down. Remember that 
insurgent attacks on American forces is how the Iraqi violence all 
began in the first place.

Just imagine -- If the entire Iraqi population over the age of 10 is 
killed, disabled, imprisoned or forced into exile there will probably 
be no violence at all. Now that would really be victory.

No American should be allowed to forget that Iraqi society has been 
destroyed. The people of that unhappy land have lost everything -- 
their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their 
jobs, their careers, their professionals, their health care, their 
legal system, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their 
security, their past, their present, their future, their lives. But 
they do have their surge.

William Blum is the author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567512526/counterpunchmaga>Killing 
Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567511945/counterpunchmaga>Rogue 
State: a guide to the World's Only Super Power. and 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1887128727/counterpunchmaga>West-Bloc 
Dissident: a Cold War Political 
Memoir<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567511945/counterpunchmaga>.

He can be reached at: <mailto:BBlum6 at aol.com>BBlum6 at aol.com




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