Posted 4:38 AM by Paul
Shock and Awe

At some point I will get around to writing up the bare bones of the great holiday we had in Bilbao, San Sebastian, Les Landes and Biarritz. Holiday in Bilbao? Sounds like a contradiction in terms but we had a great night there during fiesta. It has certainly changed for the better since I spend a day there in 1982 queuing up for a temporary passport at the British Consulate. The bag containing my original documents had been destroyed up by a right wing Spanish splinter group who blew up a bar run by the Basque Nationalist Party. I had lost my bag at a fiesta when drunk and it had been handed in to the bar for safe keeping.

In Biarritz we met up with Ray and Melanie Mouton and had a great dinner down by the old fishing port. It was great to see them and share opinions and gossip. It also gave Ray and Mel the chance to get to know Alice and Emily much better. Ray despairs at what is happening in the US and send out an incendiary e-mail yesterday to a group of his contacts expressing his views. So over to you Ray.


My fellow travelers

You guys know I do not send collective mail to a group of you often and I assure you this E-mail will be brief as it only states the inexplicable obvious, I think. I am in "shock and awe" over all the stories supported by polling data that headline and contain evidence that Americans have totally tuned out the chaos, anarchy, rebellion (read: opposition to an invading army) in Iraq. Iraq is simply not on the radar screen of the average American (How can anyone ignore it?) Iraq obviously is not an important issue in the most important election in history.

Senator John Kerry is tongue tied on the issue, and the president stabs his finger in the air and pounds the podium with his fist, proclaiming Iraq to be America's finest hour in his Q.&A. sessions where those with vials of blood, proving their right wing DNA are admitted and in his outdoor rallies where protesters are swept away with the efficiency of a Gestapo operation. And I, one who ordinarily deplores the media role in the campaign, freely admit that the media is doing its job on Iraq. The lead stories in print and broadcasts daily bring Iraq to Americans and though the thing speaks for itself, the media buttresses the case by presenting the General who planned the invasion who explains Rumsfeld and company ignored the best available military advice regarding troop strength and tactics for occupation, and they bring the highest ranking Marine to the camera and print this week explaining the debacle created by the U.S. advance-retreat ploy at the outskirts of occupied cities. Do Americans only care about what happens within their borders? Do they view the people shooting at the army in Iraq as terrorists? Well, if there are terrorists in Iraq, they appeared after our arrival, after we plowed the political ground and made it a fertile place for such activity.

But, I don't think there are terrorists in Iraq, but rather Iraqis fighting >for their homeland. I hearken back to a conversation in July of '03 with Reuters photographer, Desmond Boylan, and three of his colleagues just after the four came out of Iraq. All of them had the same report, i.e., the units they were imbedded with encountered no real military opposition on the Baghdad (all the tanks they encountered were covered with canvas and had never been uncovered - - there was never any thought of using them in battles they would have lost). All of them said that everywhere they went - - Mosques, schools, hospitals, civic buildings etcetera - - there were stacks and stacks of weapons and ammunition of all kinds, and it was clear as one of them said, that the Iraqis intended to fight another day, another way. These photographers were waiting for the uprising that came later. If they knew it, obviously the U.S. military knew it.

I will sign off in shock and awe that Americans don't care about Iraq, that Bush is allowed to strike a Churchill-Patton like pose over Iraq and Kerry just >mumbles and mutters that "it's wrong."

The view from Les Pyrenees [ ed note: Top class restaurant in St. Jean Pied de Port where Ray lives ] is lovely if I just can discipline myself to be more American and tune out the greatest foreign policy/military blunder in the history of the western world.

Ray


So, I wote back to Ray and his American friends with the following


It is great to see that as old age approaches Ray is mellowing out and becoming more conservative. Handing down edicts from his mountain fastness. I am sure I spotted him on TV at the Republican Convention hanging out with Don King.

Or not.

For what it's worth my take on all of this is that Ray is right and below are a few obvious observations for you to ignore, read, be offeded by or whatever. I won't bore you all with any more of these ramblings.

Lack of Impact Iraq Disaster is Having in USA

Not really surprising when you think about it. It is so awful, so hopeless, that nobody wants to think about it. Iraq is the war equivalent of compassion fatigue when the screens are full of images of starvation from the Third World. You just want to turn off the TV and take the kids to see Shrek II.

It is a depressing fact that most of the poor US kids who are getting blown apart in Iraq (many are reservists or private contractors) are trailer park whites or urban blacks. They have very little political leverage. They are not swing voters. The whites will probably vote for Bush because they think that they have to rally round the flag. The blacks vote Democrat or do not vote or ,if they have a traffic violation, are banned from voting in Florida. That is why I doubt if

Bush will bring in the draft again. He cannot afford for eloquent white middle class kids to come back with terrible tales of incompetence and corruption. The political elite won't worry too much because their kids won't be going anywhere more dangerous than Tijuana. Gone are the days when powerful families like the Gores, the Bushs and the Kennedys expected the oldest boys to serve their country. The boys and girls of the new elite serve Mammon not Uncle Sam

The Resistance to Occupation

If you invade a country with whom you share no culture, religion or language a chunk of the population will resist with everything at their disposal. Nothing new in this. The rest will aid them or turn a blind eye. When the donkey cart with missiles under the straw arrives in front of your home you won't ask questions. You will just take the kids into the basement and pray. Every Iraqi knows that the Yanks and the Brits won't be there to protect them when the boys in hoods come knocking at the door. The "liberators" spend most of the time in their barracks - because they are ordered to do so. Things are bad. Tet offensive excepted - the Viet Kong did not get close to the centre of Saigon until the final stages of the war. The Iraqi insurgents already control whole swathes of the capital. US troops just don't go there. The next stage will be from the manual of Soviet resistance to the Germans. They will start siezing the arsenal of the enemy and turn it against them. Before anyone gets to angry at the analogy, we should remember that the Soviet Partisans were a ruthless bunch of killers. They executed thousands of collaborators and torched their villages.

Hunkering Down

A phrase used by several US and British apologists for this mess. As in " we have to just stick this out, hunker down and let the new Iraqi forces get bedded in so the re-construction can continue". Russia tried the same in Afghanistan. Whoops. The re-construction of Iraq has not even started. Electricity supplies in Baghdad are worse now that 6 months after the first Gulf War. We are making Saddam look good.

The forces of the new Iraq are a PR stunt. No serious commentator believes they are anything more than a token force. They don't even have the kid of hardware given to the short lived South Vietnamese Army. This is exactly where Osama Bin Laden wants the US. Presenting a target of opportunity without the political will to engage and protect Iraqis. This is what Al Quaida guessed would happen. Neither the President nor the Prime Minister can afford to pay the political price for the kind of military casualties that would flow from a real engagement on the ground with the enemy. A "clean" air war cannot deliver the political objectives. Every time a Black Hawk or a British jet blows up a house and decapitates a child another family joins the war against the foreigners.. The war has so far has gone strictly to plan for Osama and the Boys. Straight from the terrorist play book. They must be really happy. They attack the USA and murder 3,000 people with a bunch of Saudis and Egyptians and Bush and Blair attack the Iraqis - their principle enemy in the region. Perfect.

International Co-operation

This is the new buzz phrase. We are told that the French, Germans and Russians should "not fight yesterday's battles" and that we all need to "move on". Roughly translated this means, "Look the whole street is on fire can you help us put it out because errrr it's got a bit out of control. We didn't think it would turn out like this and we are kind of broke" Naturally most of Europe with Spain in the front rank is saying.

" Sorry guys, it's your problem. Check the UK Charter for details of the responsibilities of occupying powers."

EU support of an open ended expensive occupation would also cause a run against the Euro on the money markets. Financiers hate risks which cannot be predicted.

Money

Bush needed to occupy Iraq because he could not go to the polls in 2004 with Saddam in power and 9-11 un-avenged. But he needed someone to pick up a big share of the tab because of the historically huge deficits created by the tax cuts for Dick Cheney and the Frat Pack. Added to this is the little matter of OPECs suggestion that they may move to selling oil in Euros not dollars. Saddam thought this was an excellent idea and like a fool said so. If this ever happens the Federal Reserve could no longer just print more dollars to meet US energy needs. They would have to buy Euros and if the dollar fell , inflation and unemployment could rise sharply in the US. Who said Herbert Hoover?

The Co-alition of the Willin'

More like a co-alition of the 'illin' dude. This is a US War supported by Blair. In times gone by, the foreign policy of Turkey was written in Washington. Two days ago the Turks announced that if the US did not stop bombing ethic Turkmen in Northern Iraq they would cease all co-operation with the US. Newt Gingrich (remember him?) was on TV live from the Green Zone that Republicans established in New York for the purposes of scaring their allies shitless. Newt was in full on BIG LIE mode. Two whoppers

1. " We have many allies in the region. Only Iran and Syria oppose us and that is to be expected."

OK name them! Israel and…..? The Republicans are fixated by French opposition but Belgium, Germany, Ireland and Russia also opposed the war. I mean, even Mexico and Chile opposed a 2nd resolution to authorise for war. At one time these were client states.

2. " There were far bigger demonstrations against Ronald Regan in Europe than against George Bush

Sorry Newt. I was there. Not true The people who opposed Regan were the usual suspects of long haired shabby radicals and socialists. People like me. I was on the anti-Reagan demonstrations (organised by the Labour Party - Blair was a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament at the time.) in the early 80s. These were huge demos of up to 150,000 people but we were booed by builders and Conservative hecklers as we marched. Police jeered and shouted "Get Back to Moscow". Nearly all the press was pro-Reagan / Thatcher. Twenty years later, older fatter and dressed in a suit I joined the anti-Bush / Blair demos. It took over 6 hours to pass down the broadest streets in London. 2 million people at least. No heckling from dissenters and the police were helpful. They even called me "Sir" and let me through the crowd barrier so that I did not have to walk around the House of Commons. Girls dressed for what looked like a shopping exhibition with nice hand bags and immaculate hair and nails chanting "Drop Blair Not Bombs". To give you an impression of the size of the demonstration consider this. My wife Heather joined the demo at 11.00 a.m. marched for 2 hours and came home. I then left the house half an hour away from the demo and marched for another 3 hours.
Right wing commentators like Max Hastings who are still fiercely pro-Thatcher are going into print in the Times and the London Evening Standard under headlines like " We Were Misled" and " It pains me to say it but…the French were right"

Things are certainly changing this side of the Atlantic. I think Bush will just win, possibly with a minority of the popular vote but even if he does stay the White House there will be no rapproachment. Europe is set on a different course and Blair is heading for the dumper. As for Kerry, he not making much of an impression over here but even many Conservatives want him to win. The poll rating of the Conservative leader rose as soon as he started criticising the White House. The fact is that if Europe were voting for a US President the Democrats would sweep the board even if Charles Manson and OJ Simpson were on their ticket

Solution to this Mess

Yes…. that's two chili dogs, nachos with extra cheese, 3 large sodas and a family ticket for Garfield the Movie please.