No Exit: The Baker Commission and the Trap of Reality

[NNN0LHI]

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2006/111406Floyd.shtml

by CHRIS FLOYD

As Washington waits with bated bipartisan breath to unwrap the shiny Christmas present known as "the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group," it becomes more and more obvious that the newly empowered Democrats are walking into a trap.

But it's not an artful contrivance prepared for their demise by the infinitely devious Karl Rove -- the "political genius" who, since his appearance on the national stage, has managed to lose two elections (2000 and 2004) and eke out very narrow, dubious victories in two others. (And it wasn't Rove who cheated Bush into office in 2000, so that doesn't count even as a technical KO for him. The post-election coup d'etat was directed by Bush family fixer James Baker -- now chairman of the, er, Iraq Study Group.)

No, the trap awaiting the Democrats has been laid by reality itself. As so often noted here before, there is no good solution to the blood-puking hell that George W. Bush has wrought in Iraq. There is no path out of this killing field that won't involve more slaughter, more suffering, more hate, more grief. No "bipartisan panel" – certainly not one led by the lifelong peddler of Bush Family snake oil, Jim Baker, and the Democratic whitewasher for all seasons, Lee Hamilton – is going to find some new, unlooked-for way to untangle this knotted gut. They can only sift through the same reality that we all can see. The options are extremely limited, and all of them have ugly consequences.

Writer and documentary-maker Edward Cox gives a mostly excellent analysis of the situation in a recent Guardian article, Same as it Ever Was. (He is, I think, off base in a brief look at the 2008 presidential election, but this is a minor point in a penetrating takedown of the wildly unrealistic expectations rising around the "Baker Commission.") Very briefly, the main choices break down this way:

[Norquist Nemesis]

1. Who thinks Baker waved a scolding finger at Bush

and told him he's very likely to face impeachment proceedings over all of this. It would be interesting to know how deep they dug to run the cover-up operation for the Bush Family.

But, now that Bush has decided to convene his own 'internal' study group (translation: what documents need to be shredded or classified as top-secret for the next 75 years), will Bush just let the Democrats embrace the Baker Group? Meanwhile, Bush drags it out for 18 months with another Cheney Huddle until all attention is focused on the next Presidential race.

[twilight_sailing]

2. Democrats beware!

No "bipartisan panel" – certainly not one led by the lifelong peddler of Bush Family snake oil, Jim Baker, and the Democratic whitewasher for all seasons, Lee Hamilton – is going to find some new, unlooked-for way to untangle this knotted gut. They can only sift through the same reality that we all can see. The options are extremely limited, and all of them have ugly consequences.
----------------------

Yep. Be careful, Democratic leaders.

The media has been selling this study group as a panacea. But no one has yet told us what the "noble cause" is. What is our goal in Iraq? Is it to establish permanent military bases in the Middle East? Is it to control Iraqi oil, so that we can defend ourselves from OPEC?

What is the end that the Iraq Study Group is aiming toward?

If we do not know where we are trying to go, we have no hope of ever arriving there.

State the goal Iraq Study Group. Bush has given us 3 or 4 false explanations for this misbegotten war. He cannot be trusted. And if the Iraq Study Group cannot name the "noble cause" then they are not to be trusted either.

Democrats beware!

[savemefromdumbya]

3. The US invaded Iraq in 2003, it now 2006, WTF has it been doing ever since

basically made no progress and the Baker Commission is a joke

[John Gauger]

4. A good analysis.

It pretty much lays out everything there is to know about the invasion. Especially important is the fact that we are beyond the point of no return; there is nothing that we can now do to fix the situation.

[acmavm]

5. This says it all...

<snip>

And what a sickening spectacle these "leaders" presented last weekend: George W. Bush and Tony Blair piously kneeling in prayer on Easter Sunday, pledging their fealty to Jesus Christ and His teaching of mercy and lovingkindness – while ordering missile strikes on crowded cities, while filling hospitals with the mutilated bodies of young children, while shoveling fat war profits to their cronies and contributors. Only the most craven, bootlicking sycophant could fail to be revolted at the hypocrisy of these murderous cynics. They are a perfect match in moral idiocy for their crack-brained brother-in-arms, Osama bin Laden.

Their chest-beating pronouncements about "staying the course" and "seeing it through" are just so much rag-chewing nonsense. The way to rectify a crime is not to keep doing it – or in John Kerry's ludicrous formulations, to keep doing it in some different, "better" way – but simply to stop doing it. The illegal invasion was a crime, the occupation is a crime, and if you would not be a criminal, you must stop committing crimes.

<SNIP>

[whistle]

6. This reporter Chris Floyd sums up the Baker Commission Report

...like this:

"And so immediate withdrawal, while still the "best" option on the table, is far worse now than it would have been a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. Again, this is the reality. This is what we can't escape. There is no good way out. There is no good way forward. Tonight, tomorrow night, and for nights uncounted to come, some innocent will die in agony because of what we've done."

That boils down to being a Hobbesian Choice that forces the U.S. into the worst of the worst which is eternal conflict, perpetual war.

We can no longer conduct war on this planet! We may have to defend ourselves in a war-like manner, but we don't use war as an instrument of policy! That is what is being done by the British and by the United States—the use of war as a policy matter! The killing power of modern technology, and the alternative of the killing power of security technology, is asymmetric warfare!

What does asymmetric warfare do? It's a caustic force, it destroys society. It's denial of ground, by destruction. And no force can resist the denial of ground, the process of pure destruction. Can pure destruction, which is the only mode of warfare which is possible now, can that be a source of victory, a source of a victorious interest? That can never happen. So therefore the only policy, is the policy of mutual interest, the Westphalian policy.

The Westphalian policy is a matter of the natural moral law, what is in the best interest of the people involved, which is peace. And you get rid of the people who oppose peace, in this case the Bush/Cheney crowd. We get both Cheney and Bush out now. The grounds for doing so are there. Bush is clinically insane. He manifests that, it's an open secret. It's not even an open secret any more, it's a sewer, it's an open sewer. Cheney is a sociopath, who's committed crimes. Why not just impeach the pair of them, and get rid of them. Send them back to Craw-fish Ranch and put an electric fence around it or something.

Then the world can work out a peace agreement with all the parties in Iraq using Westphalian policy, wherein all states are of equal status and legitimacy.

<see discussion here> http://update.unu.edu/archive/issue21_1.htm