9-19-07, 9:43 am

The journalist George Packer has an article ('Planning for Defeat') about the situation in Iraq in the September 17, 2007 issue of The New Yorker. It is very informative, but unfortunately, veers from reportage into advocacy, and not just any advocacy, but advocacy of placing Iraq under semi-permanent military occupation by the US-- in fact making it an economic colony of American capitalism. As long as we are in the 'we want' mode the killing will go on. Kilcullen also participated in a 'strategic-assessment team' (these people have no idea what they are doing) that at least put the lie to Bush's version of what is going on in Iraq (democracy and freedom). The team decided that we should work, over the next two years, on attaining 'sustainable security' but it also appears that most of the team 'believed that it was too late to achieve this goal.' Nice.

We must work for 'core American interests' in Iraq. Kilcullen lists six which he gave to the State Department and White House. We are really in a bad way if they hadn't figured these out on their own. They are all either outrageous and/or ridiculous and are unattainable because of the war not attainable as a result of it. Here they are, with suitable comments of my own.

1. Keep the oil and gas flowing. The real purpose of the war-- to steal the Iraqi oil, as even Greenspan now tacitly admits. It will flow after we leave.

2. No safe haven for Al Qaeda. The evidence is that Iraqis will get rid of Al Qaeda on their own. Al Qaeda gets more powerful because we are in Iraq.

3. Contain Iranian influence. Forget it.

4. Prevent a Rwanda scale humanitarian catastrophe. He's got to be Kidding. We have already caused a humanitarian catastrophe that is greater that Rwanda.

5. Restore American credibility. Get out of Iraq, stop threatening Iran, and put the screws on Israel until it makes an honest deal with the Palestinians, gets out the West Bank, and returns the Golan Heights. Otherwise, forget it.

At this point in his article Packer ceases to be a reporter and becomes an advocate for the failed imperialist policies of US monopoly capitalism. He also, if he really believes what he says, shows he has learned nothing about the causes and consequences of US policy.

'The notion,' he writes, 'that Iraq and the Middle East will be more stable without an American occupation, as the Center for American Progress claims, misunderstands the role that America has come to play in Iraq: as a brake on the violent forces let loose by the war.'

Let me get this right. The US starts the war, it becomes violent, and the US is the brake to stop the violence. Mr. Packer should be a contestant on 'Do You Know More than a Fifth Grader.' But he better not take the Middle East as one of his subjects. This is the argument the Germans gave after taking over Poland and other areas of Europe. Gott in Himmel, we can't leave now, look at the violence that would breakout.

If we don't remain an occupier, Packer says, 'Iraq's predatory neighbors will take advantage of the power vacuum to pursue their own interests.' Well, all the neighbors have said, and it is objectively true, that their best interests would be a free, independent and stable Iraq free of a foreign occupation. The only predator is the US who has invaded and taken over (or is still trying to) a country in a, lets hope, vain attempt to control its oil and set up a government to its liking regardless of the interests and desires of the people.

It is incredible both that Packer can advocate for such a brazen criminal continuation of war and murder and that The New Yorker would give him the pages to do so.

Packer also says, 'the burden of proof lies on anyone who claims that Iraqis without Americans around won't be substantially worse off and might even fare better.' This simple minded attempt to shift 'the burden of proof' way from the warmongers to the peace movement and the critics of Bush's folly won't stand up.

The millions of Iraqi dead and wounded, the displacement of millions more as both internal and external refugees, the destruction of the country's infrastructure, its medical and educational systems, the barbarous treatment of the civilian population by the occupation forces and its mercenary contingents, the attempts to privatize and loot its natural resources, the creation of sectarian violence, the murder of hundreds of thousands of its children, all this is the gift of the Americans and the continued occupation promises more of the same.

In the face of this The New Yorker has the cheek, and the moral insensitivity to publish an article that says that those who advocate peace and the cessation of war and occupation 'have the burden of proof' that the Iraqi people would be better off without us. Well, just ask them. Every poll shows they want us gone, one way or the other gone, and they don't want to be occupied. There has never been an imperialist power that didn't think the 'natives' were better off under its control than on their own.

Packer could care less for the Iraqi people. What is important is that 'Iraq still matters to the United States, whoever is in the White House, and it will for years to come.' The reason? Iraq sits 'in the geographical heart of the Middle East, on top of all that oil'-- don't forget that OIL (we want it desperately-- it should be ours). Oh yes, there is 'radicalism' too. Where does that come from? Could people be radical because we occupy their country? Let's occupy their country to prevent radicalism.

Packer knows all of this by the way. But national (corporate) interest will out. 'Whenever,' he writes, 'this country decides that the bloody experience in Iraq requires the departure of American troops, complete disengagement [Iraqis be damned!] will be neither desirable nor possible [!]. We might want to be rid of Iraq, but Iraq won't let it happened.' Not as long as it is 'on top of all that oil.'

--Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at

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