Why the U.S. Is in Iraq

Story of the Day Weekend Edition
Why the U.S. Is in Iraq
by Eric Olson (Deep Blade Journal)



In the wake of US Representative John Murtha's quite reasonable call to stop the killing and maiming in Iraq on a rapid timetable, President Bush has begun a sweeping war propaganda campaign. The White House released a "Victory" strategy outline and the president began a series of rallying speeeches, the first of which was delivered from Annapolis last Wednesday.

Of course, the Bush strategy is laden with fantasy. I'll just refer to Murtha, the only elected establishment figure, respected by the US military itself, who has come out telling it like it really is in Iraq. Here is how Sy Hersh analyzed the truth of Murtha's position in an interview with Amy Goodman on Tuesday's Democracy Now!:

And so, for Murtha to suddenly say it's over, as he did three weeks ago or two weeks ago, as I wrote in this article, it drove the White House crazy. They were beyond mad, as somebody said to me, because they know that the generals are talking to him. So here you have a case where we don't have -- you know, the generals are terrified pretty much, as they always are. That's just the nature of the game. But they don't speak truth to power. They're not telling the American people exactly what's going on, and they're clearly not telling the White House, because the White House doesn't want to hear.

So Murtha's message is a message, really, from a -- you can consider it a message from a lot of generals on active duty today. This is what they think, at least a significant percentage of them, I assure you. This is, I'm not over-dramatizing this. It's a shot across the bow. They don't think it's doable. You can't tell that to this President. He doesn't want to hear it. But you can say it to Murtha, you can say it to Inouye, you can say it to Stevens.

Despite this deep pessimism evidently emanating from the US military itself, President Bush has set forth his "victory" agenda in such a way that the US would never leave Iraq. The way President Bush defines "victory" -- "defeating the multi-headed enemy in Iraq -- and ensuring that it cannot threaten Iraq's democratic gains once we leave" -- in fact ensures permanent US troop presence because the "democratic gains" are all defined in terms of US advantage. Gains for the US in Iraq hardly represent the true will of the Iraqi people, so the fight against the "multi-headed enemy" is really a fight against most of the Iraqi population. It is clear that the bulk of the Iraqi population never will accept US control of their economy and resources -- making the need for direct US enforcement of its "gains" permanent... (full story)

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Update (1:21 AM Dec 4)

As I mentioned in a comment over at Eric's website, Bush's reference to the "multi-headed enemy" warrants some serious extended attention. I'll try to write something of substance about this on Sunday afternoon. The historical use of this type of language-- what I've taken to calling "the demonology of capitalism" after a few discussions with my advisor Marcus Rediker-- is on the short list of dissertation topics for me right now. Anyway, more to come...

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Update (10:29 PM Dec 4)

Unfortunately I don't have as much time to spend on this as I would have liked. As it is I'm barely staying on top of updates in addition to my coursework and other obligations. I do however want to take a moment to underscore the significance of the Hydra reference clearly invoked by Bush in this speech. The Lernaean Hydra is one of many icons that has continually reappeared in the elite vocabulary whenever the ruling class confronts a threat to hegemony. This elite anti-proletarian lexicon draws heavily upon ancient mythology and the history of class struggle, where icons of antiauthoritarian insurrection real and surreal are fused together into a demonology comprising all foes of the established order.

The historical origins of the Hydra reference are specific to imperialism. Hercules is the hero of the strong-- the nearly (he was a demi-god, even the international capitalist class doesn't conceive of itself as truly invincible) omnipotent individual white male. Whatever else he was, in his quest to kill the hydra Hercules was the errand boy of empire. The Hydra, along with the other six beasts he either killed or captured, was not a threat to Hercules but rather a threat to the Crown. Hercules was sent to kill it on orders from his cousin, King Eurystheus, as part of his penance for butchering his family in a hypnotic rage induced by his father's mother.

Himself the victim of intraelite bickering, Hercules nevertheless followed orders no matter how capricious and eventually was deified as a result of his actions. As such Hercules was constructed as a model for the imperial soldier, and the metaphor holds in more or less the same basic form today. Bush certainly would never suggest that he himself would battle this "multi-headed enemy" in Fallujah or any of the other Lernas of our time. In the fairy tales of antiquity's imperialists, Hercules is redeemed for his efforts in support of the ruling class. Our ability to move beyond this outdated world order hinges in part on understanding the history of this elite vocabulary and its historical context.