[Marxism] Sen. Hollings (D-SC) urges more troops, but denounces "war on terrorism"

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bush's failed Mideast policy is creating more terrorism
BY SEN. ERNEST F. HOLLINGS

With 760 dead in Iraq and over 3,000 maimed for life, home folks
continue to argue why we are in Iraq -- and how to get out.
Now everyone knows what was not the cause. Even President Bush
acknowledges that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. Listing
the 45 countries where al-Qaida was operating on September 11 (70 cells
in the U.S.), the State Department did not list Iraq. Richard Clarke, in
"Against All Enemies," tells how the United States had not received any
threat of terrorism for 10 years from Saddam at the time of our
invasion.

On Page 231, John McLaughlin of the CIA verifies this to Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. In 1993, President Clinton responded to
Saddam's attempt on the life of President George H.W. Bush by putting a
missile down on Saddam's intelligence headquarters in Baghdad. Not a big
kill, but Saddam got the message -- monkey around with the United States
and a missile lands on his head. Of course there were no weapons of mass
destruction. Israel's intelligence, Mossad, knows what's going on in
Iraq. They are the best. They have to know.

Israel's survival depends on knowing. Israel long since would have taken
us to the weapons of mass destruction if there were any or if they had
been removed. With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The
answer: President Bush's policy to secure Israel.

Led by Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Charles Krauthammer, for years there
has been a domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel's
security is to spread democracy in the area. Wolfowitz wrote: "The
United States may not be able to lead countries through the door of
democracy, but where that door is locked shut by a totalitarian
deadbolt, American power may be the only way to open it up." And on
another occasion: Iraq as "the first Arab democracy ... would cast a
very large shadow, starting with Syria and Iran but across the whole
Arab world." Three weeks before the invasion, President Bush stated: "A
new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example for
freedom for other nations in the region."

Every president since 1947 has made a futile attempt to help Israel
negotiate peace. But no leadership has surfaced amongst the Palestinians
that can make a binding agreement. President Bush realized his chances
at negotiation were no better. He came to office imbued with one thought
-- re-election. Bush felt tax cuts would hold his crowd together and
spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the
Jewish vote from the Democrats. You don't come to town and announce your
Israel policy is to invade Iraq. But George W. Bush, as stated by former
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and others, started laying the
groundwork to invade Iraq days after inauguration. And, without any Iraq
connection to 9/11, within weeks he had the Pentagon outlining a plan to
invade Iraq. He was determined.

President Bush thought taking Iraq would be easy. Wolfowitz said it
would take only seven days. Vice President Cheney believed we would be
greeted as liberators. But Cheney's man, Chalabi, made a mess of the
de-Baathification of Iraq by dismissing Republican Guard leadership and
Sunni leaders who soon joined with the insurgents. Worst of all, we
tried to secure Iraq with too few troops.

In 1966 in South Vietnam, with a population of 16,543,000, Gen. William
C. Westmoreland, with 535,000 U.S. troops was still asking for more. In
Iraq with a population of 24,683,000, Gen. John Abizaid with only
135,000 troops can barely secure the troops much less the country. If
the troops are there to fight, they are too few. If there to die, they
are too many. To secure Iraq we need more troops -- at least 100,000
more. The only way to get the United Nations back in Iraq is to make the
country secure. Once back, the French, Germans and others will join with
the U.N. to take over.

With President Bush's domino policy in the Mideast gone awry, he keeps
shouting, "Terrorism War." Terrorism is a method, not a war. We don't
call the Crimean War with the Charge of the Light Brigade the Cavalry
War. Or World War II the Blitzkrieg War. There is terrorism in Northern
Ireland against the Brits. There is terrorism in India and in Pakistan.
In the Mideast, terrorism is a separate problem to be defeated by
diplomacy and negotiation, not militarily. Here, might does not make
right -- right makes might. Acting militarily, we have created more
terrorism than we have eliminated.



Ernest Hollings is South Carolina's senior U.S. senator.
























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