 This
article is provided courtesy of DefenseWatch,
the official magazine for Soldiers For The
Truth (SFTT), a grass-roots educational organization
started by a small group of concerned veterans
and citizens to inform the public, the Congress,
and the media on the decline in readiness
of our armed forces. Inspired by the outspoken
idealism of retired Colonel
David Hackworth, SFTT aims to give our
service people, veterans, and retirees a clear
voice with the media, Congress, the public
and their services.
|
|
|
|
March 3, 2005
[Have an opinion about the views expressed in this article? Sound
off in the Hot Issues with Defensewatch Forum.]
By Michael S. Woodson
Maybe the insiders can tell us who wants us in Syria. That's the
question raised by the bombing assassination of former Lebanese
Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, just one day after the world press
reported Iraqi election results in favor of the Shi'a and the Kurds.
Analyzing these events without unhindered access to the bombing
investigation is calculated guesswork. Everyone seems to have a
motive, accusation, and denial.
Al
Qaeda's gainfully unemployed might have sniffed the wind in
Iraq
after the elections and decided they needed a new smoldering home.
Like the Biblical story of the demons, they roam around looking
or a cleaned up place, Beirut, and return to it with seven times
the terrorists.
Or did Iran create a diversion to get the United States off of its
back and onto Syria's with Russian help? The Russians were upset
at their exclusion from Iraqi reconstruction contracts, and now
the U.S. rattles sabers over Iranian nuclear development, threatening
yet another Russian contract with a country that can actually pay
it back.
Of course, most Russians believe America is in Iraq for oil and
that the humanitarian restructuring is window dressing. Considering
the razing of Chechnya and interference in Georgia, the Kremlin's
house is of broken glass.
As it sometimes happens with individuals, America and Russia may
have started mercenary adventures in Iraq and Siberia, for example,
but American troops and public opinion forced our juggernaut to
transform itself into a humane democratizing force defined by the
goodness of our citizen troops. Can Russia say the same? It is the
overwhelming good will earned by the plurality of American troops
and aid personnel that fanned the spark of democracy in Iraq.
Many blame Syrian intelligence for involvement in Hariri's murder
on grounds that they had to be involved because they are the occupiers.
Yet Syria's Assad regime would have to be on a hashish binge to
order a Lebanese assassination the day after Iraqis got out the
vote. Maybe they were. Or, did someone else in the Syrian or Lebanese
pecking order want Assad out, baiting the Americans and Israelis
to do the work while there is momentum?
Or did Syria work it out with Iranian agents and Hezbollah to bomb
Hariri, agreeing secretly to issue plausible mutual denials? The
news that Iran and Syria "aligned" themselves following the Bush
administration's saber rattling early in February lends credence
to this view, but is not enough for a prima facie case.
Now Syria is doing good deeds for us, turning in Saddam's half-brother,
and Iran is reaching out to the Russians, who insist their fuel
supply will actually control nuclear proliferation, not stoke it.
Both countries now try to show the U.N. some compliance in areas
of former intransigence in exchange for delay and protection. Eager
to rebuild European ties to check increasing Chinese, Russian and
North Korean military activity, President Bush is listening to European
advice on how to handle Iran and Syria.
Then there is the Secret Neocon War theory: the Pentagon, with its
secret espionage operations branch (Strategic Support Branch) uses
its last bit of unsupervised time before outgoing U.S. Ambassador
to Iraq John Negroponte and National Security Agency Director Lt.
Gen. Michael Hayden are confirmed as National Director and Deputy
Director of Intelligence, giving a hard push to the Neocon's Middle
East reverse domino theory strategy. Will Negroponte look into the
Pentagon's past, or say live and let live, as diplomats do?
By their overt writings on the need for ruthless empire, the Pentagon
advisors and analysts behind the Iraq invasion have opened the door
to this sort of interpretation.
Our government has done some odd things that enable me to believe
its politicians may repeat their Iraqi performance. And some who
were in power when weird things were done in the American peoples'
name before are still on the payroll.
I thought it was crazy a long time ago when Robert McFarlane, Ronald
Reagan's former National Security Advisor, unsuccessfully tried
to kill himself after he was discovered to have launched a clandestine
sales pitch to the Iranians at a time when the Reagan administration
was disavowing negotiation with terrorists. And yet it happened.
Fortunately, our troops normalize and defuse some politicians' elitist
obsessions by being just good, ordinary American people doing extraordinary
things as the real points of contact with the Iraqi people.
Divining foreign policy is hard work when you are not divine. Sometimes
there is a glint of redemption in the smoke of human conflict to
give us hope. And sometimes opinion writers like me think too much
of our own thoughts, just like politicians do. That caveat said,
we need some hard evidence about who bombed Hariri. By this we can
better know our enemies, friends and ourselves to increase chances
at success in the terror war, protect our own troops from similar
bombings, and know which bombs warrant our military response and
which do not in the nation's defense.
©2005 DefenseWatch. Michael Woodson
is a Contributing Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at singingmountains@yahoo.com.
Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com. All opinions
expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily
reflect those of Military.com.
|
