The Failing Escalation

Orwellian half truths and distortions from the Regime in Washington

By PraetorOne and  ReasonOne

You really have to give the Bush Administration credit–when it decides to engage in Orwellian Doublespeak it doesn’t go half way. On March 19th, the fifth anniversary of our invasion of Iraq we kept hearing about all the wonderful things that “the surge” had accomplished, but at no time did we hear the term “escalation,” which is a more accurate and more descriptive term than the term “surge” ever could be. In this sense the word “Surge” is no different than the titles this administration gives to various forms of legislation. Think about “No Child Left Behind” which might better have been described as the “Loss of Local Control Act” or “No Child Left Unrecruited” and various pollutant-friendly environmental bills which do little to clean the environment but actually help corporate polluters. In a similar vein, the term “Surge” not only describes an escalation and prolongation of our presence in Iraq, it also tends to distract from some truly horrific policies which border on ethnic cleansing. In early 2007 the Bush Regime struck a horrific deal with Iraq leader Nouri al-Malaki which went something like this. In essence we promised al-Malaki that we would disarm Sunni Arab Guerrillas in Baghdad before we asked Shi’tes to disarm. We then promised Muuqtada al-Sadr that we would destroy some of his (Sunni) enemies for him if he stopped the paramilitary activities of his Mahdi Army Militia. As if that weren’t sweet enough American military leaders in Iraq began to pay Sunni Arab Iraqi guerrillas to turn on foreign insurgents. At the same time American forces began a counterinsurgency in Sunni neighborhoods. This involved clearing out armed insurgents and then replacing them with American troops who essentially took control of those neighborhoods, playing the part of an over-glorified police force.

On the surface it all seemed very logical. Clear out the Sunni insurgency and you might stand a better chance of reducing the level of hostility. And to a certain degree it worked. There had been a slight lowering in the amount of violence in Iraq but (or so Bush and his sycophantic generals tell us), but what the Bush Regime fails to mention is that it was achieved through a policy of revenge, a policy of ethnic cleansing by an angry Shi’ite majority which suffered horribly under Saddam Hussein. By disarming the Sunnis before the Shi’ites the Bush Regime again opened the gates of hell and set the stage for the ethnic cleansing of the Sunni minority by the Shi’ite majority.

What happened was perfectly predictable to everyone except the deluded conspirators which compose the Bush Regime. Shi’ite Militias, eager for revenge,took advantage of the fact that the Sunnis had been disarmed and proceeded to invade Sunni neighborhoods during the night, killing some Sunnis as examples and then forcing thousands of Sunni Arab Iraqis out of their own neighborhoods. Throughout the year 2007 hundreds of thousands of Sunnis were ethnically cleansed while US forces patrolled the streets. No small task when you consider the fact that in 2003 Sunnis composed approximately half the population of Baghdad.

To make the situation even worse the escalation has not stopped Iraqi Sunnis and Shi’ites from exterminating one another whole sale. Granted,the number of bombings decreased in January, 2008 but in February and March the number rose again, creeping up to 39 deaths per day in March. In February there were 29 such political deaths each day while in January the figure stood at 20 per day. Moreover the bombings became more accurate and deadlier. Especially in Sunni areas such as Baquba, Samarra, and Mosul and in the Kirkuk area in the north. Indeed, on Monday March 17, 2008,the city of Karbala saw the bombing of a sacred shrine which took the lives of 52 people and wounded 75 more.

In addition, a roadside bomb in Baghdad killed three American troops today bringing the number of U.S. dead to 3996. So much for the effectiveness of the Surge, the escalation, when it transforms American troops into over-glorified police but does little to stop another rising tide of violence. So how many Iraqis have died as a result of our invasion? That’s a difficult question because the Powers that be keep fudging the manner in which the data are counted. In 2007, the same year in which we escalated the war with the Bush Regime’s “Surge,” the Multi National Force and Iraq defined ethnic-sectarian violence as violence “conducted by an ethnic/religious group against another ethnic religious group where the primary motivation for the event is based on ethnic or religious reasons,” which sounds reasonable on the surface, but when examined more closely it becomes all too apparent that this definition is so narrowly defined that it fails to fully count the number of Iraqi dead who have been killed as a result of our invasion. For example,the above definition does not count deaths which take place when an ethnic-religious group inflicts deaths upon civilians of the same ethnic-religious group. So if Sunnis kill Sunni civilians or if Shi’ites kill civilian Shi’ites those deaths are not counted as ethno-sectarian deaths. In a similar vein attacks against American troops, against the Iraqi government, or Iraqi security forces are not counted as ethnic-sectarian deaths, creating a situation in which deaths sustained Sunni extremists against the now Shi’ite controlled government are not counted as ethnic-sectarian violence. On the other hand the use of suicide vests, car bombs, and IEDs are indicative of Sunni extremists. When these techniques are used against mosques, shrines, religious gatherings, medical centers, market places, stores, restaurants and housing they usually suggest sectarian violence because these types of events and locations are usually used by one ethnic-sectarian group or another. In those cases the Administration in Washington, the Multi National Force and the Iraqi government will openly admit that Sunnis were killed or injured and will count these events as sectarian attacks/deaths.

In those cases where ethnic-sectarianism may be difficult to determine (e.g. executions, murders, and kidnappings) the Powers That Be use reports from the home nation. This is problematic because the Iraqi ministries may well be issuing statistics which, if not accurate, tend to be misleading, even contradicting, and serve the interests of the Iraqi government and the Bush Regime in Washington So how many Iraqis have died? That’s difficult to determine because everyone seems to have their own take on the situation. In August 2007 an Iraqi Interior Ministry official claimed that 1,654 Iraqi Civilians had died The British group, Iraq Body Count, claimed that 1,280 civilians had died. Reuters claimed that 884 civilians had died while the Health Ministry of Iraq told the Washington Post that 827 civilians had been lost. Complicating the situation even further, the Pentagon has its own criteria for counting the deaths of Iraq civilians, so when the Administration claims that there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of civilian deaths those claims are best taken with a grain of salt because we don’t know what factors were considered when the civilian death count was determined. But we can determine this much: it is in the (political) best interests of the Bush Administration, the Republican Party, and the Iraqi government to underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who were killed in sectarian violence, thus lowering (read fudging) the overall death count.

So again the question must be asked. How many Iraqi Civilians have died? Only the Powers that be appear to know and they apparently are not prepared to give a straight answer. Indeed, it would appear that the Bush Regime in Washington would rather play fast and lose with the numbers. Instead of straight, honest answers we get Orwellian Doublespeak which doesn’t tell us a damned thing. Indeed, the only thing we do know is that the Bush Regime and the Republican Party will continue to play fast and loose with the facts because it serves their very reactionary political agenda both here and abroad. And if that means the sacrifice of little things like the truth and hundreds of thousands Iraqi civilians then it appears to be a price that the Republicans are willing to pay if it keeps them in power.

SOURCES:

SOURCE WATCH
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Last modified 23 September 2008

washingtonpost.com
“Experts Doubt Drop in Violence in Iraq”
By Karen DeYoung
September 6,2007

The New York Times: Opinion
“The Reality in Iraq: Depends on Who’s Counting”
By Clark Hoyt
October 7, 2007