Get Out of Iraq Now....continued

Yesterday I referred you to a post by Bilmon where he discussed an article in The Nation magazine about a website nowthatsfuckedup.com. From The Nation:

On November 15, 2004, a report on CNN.com briefly described a clash in the Iraqi city of Baquba, including an insurgent attack with rocket-propelled grenades on members of the First Infantry Division, in which four American soldiers were wounded. CNN did not post any images of the battle, and the incident wasn't given much attention in other media.

But visitors to the amateur porn website nowthatsfuckedup.com were given a much closer view of the action: "today in baquba we got into the shit again and got some of it on vid.....this is me and my wingman fuckin some shit up when these fucks shot 3 rpg's at us so we took down the whole spot.....look for yourself...the fight lasted like 85 mins total and they are still counting up the bodies."

The poster, an anonymous soldier identified only as "Stress_Relief," uploaded two videos of the clash onto the website, drawing enthusiastic responses from patrons: "nice work, guys. Keep blasting those mujadeen [sic] bastards."

Pictures of war were not the original intent of the site.

Originally created as a site for men to share images of their sexual partners, this site has taken the concept of user-created content to a grim new low: US troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan are invited to display graphic battlefield photos apparently taken with their personal digital cameras. And thousands of people are logging on to take a look.

Bilmon's reaction to this......

I came across the Nation article on nonwthatsfuckedup.com, which meant I had to take a good, hard look at the psychopathic side of the American spirit, and consider its implications not just for the war on terrorism and the occupation of Iraq, but its role in the emergence of an authentically fascist movement in American politics, one which feeds on violence and the glorification of violence, and which has found an audience not just in the U.S. military (where I think -- or at least hope -- it's still a relatively small fringe) but in the culture as a whole.

......was surprising.

Bilmon is an intelligent well educated guy. I'm sure he has a knowledge of history and if he really thought about that history he should not have been surprised. History is full of examples of what humans a capable of when driven to a frenzy of fear and hate by political and religious leaders. Bilmon rightly concludes that it's time to get out of Iraq now because this frenzy will never lead to anything good or productive.

The big news this morning is that Juan Cole has joined the get out now camp. While always opposed to the war Professor Cole has until now opposed an immediate US withdrawal. Like many of us he now believes the US presence is doing more harm than good.

The first reason to get the ground troops out now is that they are being fatally brutalized by their own treatment of Iraqi prisoners. Abu Ghraib was horrific, and we who are not in Congress or the Department of Defense have still only seen a fraction of the photographs of it that exist. Sy Hersh learned of rapes, some of them documented. Human Rights Watch has documented further prisoner abuse by US troops in Iraq. Sometimes the troops just go in and break arms or legs out of frustration. It has long been obvious that the Abu Ghraib scandal was only the tip of the iceberg, and that the abusive practices were allowed and encouraged by Rumsfeld and high officers, and weren't some aberration among a few corporals.

[.....]

The second reason is that the ground troops are not accomplishing the mission given them, and are making things worse rather than better.

Professor Cole gives the details behind each of the reasons as only he can so head over to his post and check it out. He concludes with this:

Basically, if all the US military in Iraq is capable of is operations like Fallujah and Tal Afar, then they really need to get out of the country quick before they drive the whole country, and the region, into chaos.

Even as they are chasing after shadows in dusty border towns, the US military is allowing much of Baghdad to fall into the hands of the guerrillas.

And that is why we have to get the ground troops out. Counter-insurgency has to have both a military and a political track. Even as the enemy is being pressed, you have to reach out to the civilian leadership and try to draw them into a truce.

The US military has had no political successes in the Sunni Arab areas. Mosul and some parts of Baghdad could have been pointed to in summer of 2004. In summer of 2005, these earlier successes have evaporated like a desert mirage toward which thirsty soldiers race.

The situation in the Sunni Arab areas was worse in summer of 2004 than it had been in summer of 2003. It is worse in the summer of 2005 than it had been in 2004. Even the Iraqi political groupings that had earlier been willing to cooperate with the US boycotted the Jan. 30 elections and are now assiduously working to defeat the new constitution.

Things in the Sunni Arab areas are getting worse, not better.

I conclude that the presence of the US ground troops is making things worse, not better.

Let's get them out, now, before they destroy any more cities, create any more hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons, provoke any more ethnic hatreds by installing Shiite police in Fallujah or Kurdish troops in Turkmen Tal Afar. They are sowing a vast whirlwind, a desert sandstorm of Martian proportions, which future generations of Americans and Iraqis will reap.

The ground troops must come out. Now. For the good of Iraq. For the good of America.

Professor Cole is right
The ground troops must come out. Now. For the good of Iraq. For the good of America.

Cross posted at Running Scared