Unjust Iraq war raises painful question: Why? BY ANDREW GREELEY

Unjust Iraq war raises painful question: Why? BY ANDREW GREELEY
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
January 12, 2007


TUCSON -- I become angry every time I see a spread in a local newspaper of the recent military casualties. They are mostly young, their lives still ahead of them, victims of a stupid, unjust, criminal war. Many more have been maimed for life. I think of the suffering families, parents, spouses, children whose lives will be forever blighted by the pain of the death of someone they love.

I ask myself why, and the answer is always a new cliche: to protect America from weapons of mass destruction, to punish al-Qaida, to change the balance of power in the Middle East, to defend democracy in Iraq, to protect the honor of those who have already died, to achieve victory.

I thought of these ever-changing justifications and became angry again as I flew out here. There were a dozen or so young people on the plane -- all in their from-another-planet fatigues. They were bound for Fort Huachuca, where they would learn the skills of military intelligence and then return to their airborne division and thence to Iraq. They would be part of the ''surge'' President Bush is planning to win the war in Iraq. They would be targets for roadside bombs, for snipers, for suicide bombers, for kidnappers who would behead them. Most of them were young -- in their teens or just barely beyond. They were quiet, polite, innocent. Some of them would die, others would be maimed.

Again I asked why. The answer is that after the election and the report of the Iraq Study Group, our swaggering, smirking president had the choice of withdrawal or escalation. Since he is an almost pathologically stubborn man, he chose escalation. He chose to listen not to the wise men of the Iraqi Study Group, but to the last remnant of the neo-cons, William Kristol, and the always-con, Henry Kissinger. The president is the commander in chief, the Decider, the leader who does not make mistakes. If he sticks to his principles, is true to the will of God whom he encounters in his prayers, and stays the course, then he will achieve victory. He may face intense criticism, but like Harry Truman and Gerald Ford, history will vindicate him.

And young men and women will die.

The long period of alleged reflection is the same game the president played before he announced that he had decided that there was no choice but to invade Iraq. We now know that the time for decision-making was window dressing. He had decided on the invasion months before.

The military and civil leaders on the ground did not endorse the ''surge'' enthusiastically enough, so they were replaced by those who would hitch their kites to the president's comet. You agree with the Decider or you are recalled. And you had better be loyal like Gen. Colin Powell was, or you will not be a good soldier.

How many troops will eventually ''surge''? The answer seems to be more than 20,000. (Powell, finally showing some courage, has said that all the American military would not be enough). How long will the ''surge'' last? Anywhere, one hears, from one to three years. Will it really work?

Will the Sunnis and the Shiites really stop killing each other? The lesson from previous ''surges'' seems to be that as long as the American military occupies a neighborhood in force, the killing slows down. When they withdraw, the ''bad guys'' return.

How long will young Americans, untrained for the work, have to play cops and robbers in Baghdad to ''pacify'' the city? How many centuries have these two tribal religious factions been fighting one another? Whenever the Americans leave, presumably in the next administration, they will begin their internecine murders once again.

Through the whole Iraq fiasco, the United States has messed up -- from "shock and awe" through the failure to stop the looting (''Stuff happens,'' as then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called it), the elimination of the Iraqi Army, the various pitched battles, the poor body armor and unprotected Humvees to the bungled execution of Saddam Hussein. Can the American military finally do something right? The wise person -- or even the person with a memory -- will remain skeptical.