The Look of Victory and Defeat in Iraq

Mother Davis looks at her left hand, then her right hand, then looks you in the eye and says,

Cut through the propaganda surrounding the war in Iraq, and it all comes down to a simple question: Do we choose victory or do we choose defeat?

Victory was defined yesterday by President George W. Bush, “The objective, I repeat, is a government which can sustain, govern, and defend itself.” The government of Saddam Hussein could sustain, govern and defend itself. The Soviet Union was, for decades, capable of sustaining, governing, and defending itself. The government of North Korea can sustain, govern, and defend itself. So, victory in Iraq, as the Commander in Chief defines it, can be achieved by helping a new dictatorship gain control over the country. The current Iraqi government is moving quickly toward establishing the credentials of a dictatorship, outlawing freedom of the press, instituting radical Islamic systems of theocracy, establishing torture chambers and sending death squads out into the streets to instill fear in the population.

What would defeat in Iraq look like? We’re told that if we are defeated, Iraq would be consumed by violence, and would become a safe haven in which terrorists could train and prepare for attacks against Americans. Of course, that’s already happening, as a result of the American invasion and occupation.

At the beginning of the war, we were told by the Bush White House that the consequences of defeat in Iraq would be the development of an arsenal of nuclear weapons controlled by the government in Baghdad. Of course, Iraq under Saddam Hussein turned out not to be developing nuclear weapons at all. However, the invasion and occupation has transformed Iraq into an ally of Iran, a country that is believed to be attempting the development of nuclear weapons. The American plan for victory in Iraq is to help the pro-Iranian new Iraqi government. The introduction of nuclear weapons into Iraq, which was the feared result of American defeat in Iraq, will thus be made more likely by a American victory in Iraq.

The essential question of the Iraq War is: Do we want victory or defeat? The answer to that question is that there is no answer to that question. The terms victory and defeat have become so twisted by the propaganda of the Iraq War that they have become practically meaningless. The goals of the Iraq War have been nonsense from the start.

A war of nonsense cannot be won. A war of nonsense can only be lost for as long as it is fought. The war to end a war of nonsense is to end the nonsense. The only way to achieve victory and avoid defeat in Iraq is to stop trying to achieve victory and avoid defeat in Iraq.

Clapping her hands shut together,
Mother Davis