Dark Mesopotamian daze: the blowback of hubris in Iraq

There's no shortage of folks from the former Bush administration or other original invasion cheerleaders (former UK PM Tony "Blah Blah" Blair anyone?) sticking their heads above the parapets to criticise President Obama's policies in Iraq, almost none of whom are showing any signs of remorse over the decision in 2003 to enter the fray.

Yet it is Dick (Deadeye) Cheney who is showing them all a clean pair of heels. The recent comments in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) by the former US vice-President and his daughter Liz Cheney regarding the ongoing anarchy in Iraq opened up old wounds. But that didn't seem to burden the Prince of Darknessand his politically up-and-coming offspring.

Given that Ms Cheney is preaching the same gospel as her old man, from the start we can assume Ole' Deadeye must have been home that night and his aim good, lending credence to the old adage [that] "the fruit don't fall far from the tree". In effect Cheney-one of the Shock and Awesome Foursome of the Unilateral and Pre-emptive New World Order(ed) Apocalypse-denounces Obama, blaming him solely for the current chaos consuming the former cradle of civilisation, Mesopotamia.

We'll return to the Cheneys' op-ed piece, but some background is necessary.

When I first heard back in late 2001 that the US was contemplating an invasion of Iraq in the aftermath of 9/11, I couldn't believe it. I felt then the US would be opening up a can of worms. But such was the geopolitical climate post 9/11, one had to be careful expressing such reservations, including here in Australia. It seems then, if not so much now, far too many of us had given the US a blank cheque for what was deemed "vital" to rid the world of the "forces of evil".

Yet not even your humble scribe would have anticipated the Iraq debacle wreaking this much ongoing havoc. Nor did I think it would cost this much in blood, treasure, and political capital for the US. Then again, few others did either. This included especially the aforementioned Foursome, along with their broader circle of spear-chucking neo-con acolytes, of whom there was no dearth then or now it would seem, the present pandemonium notwithstanding.

Such is the nature of hubris, at once the curse of, and ultimate cure for, empire. This observation is indelibly underscored in Hubris, Rachel Maddow's 2013 NBC documentary. When you open Pandora's Box, the only thing positive that one might expect to find at the very bottom is hope. And that's about all America has got going for it at present, and one suspects, not just in Iraq! If that isn't enough, the provenance of this morass is further showcased by the 2013 BBC Panorama documentary The Spies Who Fooled the World.

As for Hubris Writ Large, we need go no further than consider the Cheneys' chutzpah laden, double standardised diatribe about Obama's handling of the current situation. This is the man - a war criminal no less - whose self-serving lies, monumental deception, unadulterated arrogance and conspiratorial deceit regarding the attacks of 9/11, the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the mythical terrorist links, the false-flag anthrax scares, and the subsequent ill-advised and ill-fated Iraq invasion itself spuriously predicated on all of the above arguably have few if any parallels in modern history.

And this is the very 'stand-up' guy who by numerous credible accounts issued the 'stand down' order preventing a timely in-air intervention of whatever it was that hit the Pentagon on that fateful day! Wanna know which Horseman has the most 9/11 related blood on his cloven hooves? 'El Diablo' be your man! One suspects 'Deadeye' has his eagle eye on another invasion so as to boost up the value of those Halliburton stocks that have been keeping him and his daughter in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.

All of which is to say, the former 'Veep' is also the man whose personal and family fortune has been immeasurably enhanced by the filthy lucre from the Iraq imbroglio, all at the expense of more US and allied blood and treasure, and international peace and security combined, than possibly any other foreign policy misadventure undertaken by the Home of the Brave in its bloody, mercenary, hegemonic history. That is with the possible exception of that other imperial quagmire Vietnam of course, the parallels to which are more than many would 'fess up to.

Presumably seeking something of a suitably catchy sound-bite to grab the short attention spans of the haplessly scammed, yet blissfully resigned American public - but without jogging too much their even shorter memories - Deadeye chastises Obama for "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" in Iraq. Say what Dickie Boy? Now what "victory" would that be? Are we missing something here old son? When has anyone - other than the invasion cheerleaders mentioned above - ever described the $3 trillion plus and counting Iraq debacle at any point as anything remotely resembling a "victory"? At least not since president George W Bush's "Mission Accomplished" flight suit adorned, fighter jet landing 'n grandstanding mo' on the USS Abraham Lincoln in the aftermath of the initial invasion.

A victory it may have been, but if so it was a victory for incalculable, unprecedented stupidity, arrogance, ignorance, lunacy, contempt, avarice and hypocrisy. At least his old mucker mate Dubya - the monkey to the Deadeye's organ grinder - has enough sense to keep his trap shut, presumably mindful of Basil Fawlty's advice about not mentioning The War ("Hey you started it, you invaded Iraq").

For his part 'Dubya' probably knew well that to utter any criticism of his successor's policies would attract accusations of epic hypocrisy on his part. Clearly the former Oval One's erstwhile Grand Vizier and his 'Bolshie' daughter have no such qualms. With respect to Deadeye's 'Apocalypse Now or Later' moment in the sun, there's no "oh the horror, the horror" here; more like "oh the chutzpah, the chutzpah".

As for president 'BOB', we may or may not think that he is handling things well in Iraq or Afghanistan, but who could/would/might have done it better/differently? Mitt Romney? John McCain? John Kerry, Hilary Clinton or Al Gore? Even Cheney himself! I'm inclined to think not. To a great degree, anything Obama and his policy advisors might have done, could have done, should have done etc., was always going to be tantamount to closing the gate after the nag has bolted into the, ahem, bush. The damage had already been done well before Obama signed the lease on the White House, and in Iraq there was no unscrambling of the omelette.

And as for that other quagmire and the original Graveyard of Empires Afghanistan, had the Americans just stuck to the knitting there and not effectively abandoned it to pursue the Iraq misadventure, then we might not be arguing the toss now. As evidenced by the two documentaries above, this was a view shared by most senior people in the defence, intelligence and security community both in the US and the ROW as well as more than a few in Congress. But they effectively gave way to the neo-cons.

Unfortunately the political and moral capital the US amassed after 9/11 began burning a hole in its pocket from Day Zero. "Shoot first and ask questions later" was the order of the day unfortunately, and I'm ashamed to say that Australia bought into the morass. Like we always seem to do. Vietnam, Korea, the Gulf War anyone? There was however one question asked at the time, which was "why do they hate us?"If only the Americans had spent more time contemplating this existential dilemma a bit deeper.

Harking back to the Cheneys' WSJ piece, it was interesting listening to a White House press conference shortly after it was published. Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked to comment on Cheney's views with particular reference to the "Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many" bit. Before Carney could respond, some journo wag interjected with the following: "Arrgh, which president was he referring to again?" Touché hombre I say!

Now needless to say this riposte brought the (White) house down as it were. Carney seemed delighted but regrettably declined to make a meal of it for posterity, one suspects much to the disappointment to the assembled media throng. Yet there'd have been smirks all round on the dials of folks watching the conference news feed from the Oval Office.

Bottom line here is this: If the Deadeye's harangue is anything to go by, one suspects he is as guilty of crimes against humility as he is of crimes against humanity and competent marksmanship! Hubris? You want Hubris? You've come to the right place buddy! One is mischievously tempted to turn the above extract on its head and say: "Rarely has a former US vice president been so guilty of (neo) conning the masses and enriching himself at the bloody terminal expense of so many of his fellow Americans into the bargain".

As for the admittedly execrable Saddam Hussein and the assumption the Iraqis would greet the Americans as liberators as if it were France in 1944 and the reviled Vichy occupation regime was still in power, there were bigger, badder despots than him, and much bigger threats to America before 9/11. Always have been. Always will be. Many of them were created and lovingly nurtured by the US itself, something that wasn't widely discussed then.

We'd do well to recall America didn't invade Iraq because of concerns about human rights abuses under Saddam. The Horsemen and the loftily christened Project for a New American Century (PNAC) cabal did their best however to shill that swill. This, along with all the other hokum we were force-fed by the neo-con nincompoops throughout this period, including the bringing of freedom, liberty and democracy and the rule of law, and the rest of the fruit.

Which brings to mind one of many books relevant to the subject at hand, this one by author, blogger and U.S. foreign policy critic William Blum. Called America's Deadliest Export: Democracy – The Truth about US Foreign Policy, the title is a fashion statement in itself, and Blum's book is highly recommended for those having difficulty coming to terms with America's less than altruistic geopolitical motives, aims and objectives in its 'War on Terror'. You're on a hiding to nothing if you're still swilling the Kool-Aid after this.

At all events, one of the big questions is: Who created the Saddam monster in the first instance? A: The very same people who created the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda 'monsters'! For his part Saddam was only one more in a long conga line of dictatorial "monsters" that America has birthed, encouraged, nurtured, fawned over and armed over several decades - Suharto, Mobutu, Batista, Pinochet, Marcos, Somoza (Senior and Junior), the Shah of Iran anyone? - only to have said "monsters" in some shape or form and at varying intervals, come back and bite the hand that bred 'em, fed 'em and led 'em on. It's called blowback, aka the immutable law of unintended consequences of Empire. More often it was not just blowback for America, it was even much more so for the hapless citizens of the respective countries involved. The phrase "And you will know us by the trail of dead" takes on a whole new meaning in the context of US foreign policy to be sure.

But in Iraq as elsewhere, Kissingeresque realpolitik - a more or less equal mix of arch cynicism, imperial opportunism, economic colonialism, amorally fuelled arrogance, full spectrum dominance, and unbridled, unprincipled ambition - ruled the US foreign policy 'airwaves'. T'was ever thus. In this respect we'd all do well to remember what President Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR) said when one of his aides got in his ear about the execrable Nicaraguan 'kleptobrutocrat' Anastasia Somoza (Senior that is; don't even get me on Junior) and how much of a son of a bitch he was? As was his wont, FDR didn't miss a beat - his reply went something like this: "[H]e may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch".

Of course most of us have heard that one before. Yet that was America's stance towards Saddam and his ilk then, and remains so now. And that was that 'commie/pinko' subversive Trotskyite termite cum New Dealer FDR talking fer chrissakes, the man who in 1941 all but invited the Knights of Bushido albeit sans RSVP to bomb Pearl Harbor and fry a few thousand American service personnel on their day off!

For my own part I've seen, heard or read little in the past few years of studying closely - and reflecting upon - America's sordid, subversive, sorry-ass history and self-serving, 'play-by-our-rules-or-else' foreign policy machinations and geopolitical manipulations of the past 80+ years on the Big Blue Ball-purportedly carried out in the interests of that nebulous, movable feast known as 'national security'-to think otherwise.

It is apposite to round off ruminations with an observation from Canadian academic and author Alasdair Roberts. The following is from his book The Collapse of Fortress Bush – The Crisis of Authority in American Government, published at the fag end of the Bush era:

"...the usefulness of Iraq as a precedent for a bolder foreign policy was undone by the inability of the United States to govern the occupied territory properly. The invasion was seen as an abject failure, largely because the US [government] lacked the administrative capabilities to assure success. In important respects, the Bush administration was a prisoner of institutional constraints and policy inertia – both in its decision to go to war against Iraq and in its inability to guide its reconstruction."

So much for "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" eh?

Unless America begins some serious soul searching and housecleaning, and stops trying to be the ROW's self appointed Police Force, Prison Guard, and Pest Controller rolled into one, it is well on the path to becoming its very own Empire of Graveyards!

Folks, here endeth the sermon. Now can I gets me that all-important, much sought after "Amen" from de choir? Or am I just preaching to the unconverted?