Chaos in Iraq

The New York Times has published a leaked briefing from the United States Central Command in charge of operations in Iraq, which characterizes the situation there as "edging toward chaos." The briefing, which was prepared by Brig. General John M. Custer, includes a PowerPoint slide with "a color-coded bar chart that is used to illustrate an 'Index of Civil Conflict'" in Iraq. This chart, with extremes at "Peace" and "Chaos", shows the current situation as standing within the "red", less than 1/4 of the chart length from "Chaos."

This briefing reveals not only that the Bush administration has been willfully misrepresenting the situation in Iraq (as when Cheney remarked 2 weeks ago that things were going "remarkably well"), but also that opponents of the war who have been smeared as "defeatist" for their negative assessments of the war are supported by the facts.

Unwilling to address the reality presented by this report -- that their pet war is devolving into chaos and probable civil war -- Republican supporters of the war have predictably turned on the Times, accusing it of treason and sedition for publishing the leaked briefing. Far-right Republican commentator Michelle Malkin, along with others, has called for the Times to be charged with (and presumably convicted of) treason, which carries a sentence of death.

Blogger Glenn Greenwald, in response to this rabid attack on the Times, commented on how revealing such responses are:

This is what the ideal world of the Bush follower looks like: If the Government is waging a war and things are going horribly, the Government has the right to lie to its citizens and claim that things are going remarkably well. If a newspaper is furnished with documents prepared by the military that shows that the Government is lying and that things are actually going very poorly, the newspaper should then be barred from informing their readers about that truth — and ought to [be] criminally prosecuted, perhaps even executed, if they do so. It truly takes an authoritarian mind of the most irredeemable proportions to watch our political leaders have their lies exposed about a war and have as their first reaction the desire that those who exposed the lies be prosecuted and imprisoned.

It truly is astounding to see the lengths to which defenders of the Bush administration are willing to go to stifle any truth that challenges their carefully constructed fantasy world. Most telling is the fact that not one of these commentators has even attempted to rebut or minimize the conclusions of this briefing, and have instead just flat-out ignored its contents. Since the Republican right holds military authority to be sacrosanct, these unthinking pundits are unable to launch their standard smear-and-spin attacks, and so are sadly forced to try to deflect attention from the issue with frothing attacks on the Times as "traitorous" and as revealing "important secrets" to the enemy (of course this briefing contained no information the insurgents in Iraq didn't already have).

The findings of this briefing may surprise many Americans, who have grown accustomed to the optimistic lies of the Bush administration and their propaganda, however the disconnect between American conceptions of the war in Iraq and the reality on the ground might also stem from another source. Throughout the war, the American media has consistently portrayed the Iraqi insurgency as disorganized and incompetent, and has failed to place insurgent actions in any kind proper context.

Contrary to the characterization by the media of insurgent actions as random acts of wanton violence, the insurgency has operated in an organized manner according to clear objectives (the destruction of infrastructure, destabilization of the political climate in Iraq, incitement of sectarian conflict, producing heavy casualties among Iraqi collaborators and American military, etc) and has achieved remarkable success. In the tradition of guerrilla and asymmetric warfare, what the insurgents lacked in raw military power they more than made up for in political savvy and careful application of force. The mosque bombing in Samarra, for example, was a major turning point in the war as it mobilized the Shiites to take action against Sunnis, vastly increasing the severity of sectarian conflict, destabilizing the political process, undermining the legitimacy of the Shiite-dominated government, and drawing U.S. forces into the midst of raging sectarian conflict. This bombing was presented in the West, almost without exception, as an atrocity (which it certainly was) with no wider strategic or political implications (which it certainly wasn't).

The media, whether because of a dearth of information or through intentional biases, has failed to present the challenge to the American military in an accurate way. The result of this is a widespread failure among Americans to realize the seriousness of the insurgency and their success in fomenting widespread conflict. Although this misrepresentation, if intentional, was probably justified by the media as beneficial to the American war effort, it has had serious negative consequences for the ability of the American public to understand the situation in Iraq. The leaking of this briefing, though not revealing any new information, may provide an impetus for more serious and honest assessments of the enemy being fought in Iraq.

The assessment presented in this briefing should also be recognized in a historical context. The record of occupying powers against native insurgencies throughout the world has been consistently one of defeat and humiliation, with few if any exceptions. Despite this, in the tradition of blind American exceptionalism, the Bush administration promised a short and easy victory in Iraq. Even once this illusion had been shattered with the emergence of insurgent groups, it was promised that American military might and nation-building skill would prevail over the enemy. As things are going now, it seems more and more likely that as Iraq devolves into chaotic conflict and civil war, American military forces there will be forced to leave, having failed to establish any semblance of infrastructure or order. When politicians and pundits on the right warn of the humiliation and loss of prestige that would come with a planned, chosen withdrawal, they certainly do not envision such chaos as the alternative -- maybe it is now time for them to consider the possibility of such an ending, before Americans are forced to flee from Iraq, clinging to the skids on the last helicopter.