[Marxism] Franz Schurmann: Bush Could End the War by a Brazen Use of Force - May 18, 2004

["Ralph Johansen" <michele@xxxxxxxx>]

Bush's option for an endgame strategy

Franz Schurmann: Bush Could End the War by a Brazen Use of Force (Following
in the Footsteps of FDR, Truman, and His Father)


Franz Schurmann, editor of the Pacific News Service and emeritus professor
of history and sociology at U.C. Berkeley, in PNS (May 18, 2004):

Much of the American media paint the President as helplessly caught in the
vortex of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. But the fact is that Bush, by
saying only a few words, can easily resolve the Iraq conundrum by announcing
that the bulk of American soldiers will be home before June 30 this year.

However, the history of America's wars since February 1945 suggests that,
just before ending a war and bringing soldiers home, the then-presidents all
felt they had to -- or had to threaten to -- kill large numbers of enemy
soldiers and civilians as their exit strategy. For example:

--Franklin D. Roosevelt and his British ally Winston Churchill, on February
13-15, 1945, carried out raids against the demilitarized German city of
Dresden. Deaths: 135,000 or more. Both leaders knew Germany was on the brink
of collapse.

--Harry Truman knew in July 1945 that Japan's leaders were desperately
looking for a deal. Japan's vaunted navy had no fuel and its army was
seething with discontent. Nevertheless, Truman dropped an atomic bomb on
Hiroshima on Aug. 6, and another one on Nagasaki on Aug. 9. Total deaths:
150,000. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on Aug. 7, and Japan's
surrender came on Aug. 14.

--Dwight Eisenhower was elected president in November 1952, and in July 1953
ended the Korean War. Up until the day of the signing of the Panmunjon Truce
Accords on July 27, President Eisenhower kept on threatening both the North
Koreans and their Chinese allies with laying a radioactive cobalt belt over
the narrow neck of North Korea that would shield South Korea from any new
attack from the North. But former General Eisenhower undoubtedly knew that
the cobalt belt was militarily useless since American planes had already
flattened every city and town in North Korea.

--Richard Nixon, after his November 1972 landslide electoral victory,
ordered the most severe bombings ever of Hanoi and other cities and towns of
North Vietnam. The media called it Nixon's Christmas presents for Hanoi. Yet
on January 27, 1973, the United States and the two Vietnams signed a peace
accord in Paris.

--George H. Bush presided over the Gulf War, the shortest war in American
history with the fewest American deaths and injuries. But according to a
recent Business Week story, Beth Osborne Daponte, a demographer in the
Commerce Department assigned to do work for the Pentagon, estimated in 1992
that 40,000 Iraqi soldiers died along with 13,000 civilians. Much of that
destruction happened after Saddam had abandoned Kuwait. Then Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney rejected her figures.

What the exit strategies of all these presidents have in common is that they
all had little military merit, but were designed to terrorize entire
populations of enemies, and impress allies and the American people as well.
In the two World War II cases, total victory was at hand. In the Korean and
Vietnam wars, draws were at hand. And in the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein had
moved his troops out of Kuwait. The killing of most of the 40,000 Iraqi
soldiers while they were retreating was an act of terror aimed at both
enemies and friends, with the message that, if enemy or even friend got out
of line they would again suffer destruction from the sky.

President George W. Bush has announced that, at June 30 midnight, America
will return Iraqi sovereignty to a legal government. Colin Powell in Amman,
Jordan, and Condoleeza Rice in Berlin reinforced this date. If the President
follows in the footsteps of five of his predecessors, including his father,
he will launch a massive terror attack in Iraq before June 30.

The target that stands out in Iraq is the war waged in the Shiite holy
shrine cities of An-Najaf and Karbala. There, an "Army of the Mahdi" led by
Muqtada al-Sadr has been fighting American forces for many months. Last
week, Iran announced that an agreement had been concluded between the Army
of the Mahdi and the Americans. But now the "Tehran Times" reports that on
Sunday, May 16, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei blasted the desecration of Iraqi holy sites by U.S. troops.
Khamenei, though a hard liner, has been a supporter of better relations with
America. But when American soldiers apparently damaged the holiest shrines
of the Shiite faith, his tone turned hard again.

If George W. Bush opts for an endgame strategy similar to his father's,
chances are that his ratings in the polls will go way up, at least
temporarily. He is betting that Khamenei will accept the endgame as he did
in February 1991, though the Iranian leader fulminated then about the Great
Satan. And it would send a message, lethal as it would be, both to the
Iraqis and the Iranians.


Posted by Editor on Tuesday, May 18, 2004 at 7:15 PM




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