I frankly don't understand the interpretation that once you get into a war you can't ever pull out until you've won it. We need more politicians in this country who are willing to say, "I made a mistake. Let's correct it as soon as possible." – George McGovern, 2005, former U.S. Senator from South Dakota and 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee.
The U.S. war in Iraq has been an unmitigated disaster. As we approach the end of our fourth year of that war, casualties include nearly
3 thousand dead American soldiers, hundreds of thousands of
dead Iraqis, nearly 20 thousand
wounded American soldiers (approximately half with permanent disabilities), and tens of thousands of American soldiers with
mental health problems. The
monetary cost to the United States of at least $100 billion per year is bankrupting our country. And nobody knows what will be the eventual toll to Americans and Iraqis in cancer and birth defects resulting from exposure to hundreds of tons of
depleted uranium.
As a result of the
false pretenses upon which we invaded Iraq, our disregard for the international laws of war and
treatment of prisoners, and the death and destruction we have wrought upon Iraq, the
international reputation of the United States has plummeted to record lows, especially among Muslims. And consequently, the war has served as a
recruiting tool for anti-American terrorists, resulting in great harm to our efforts to combat international terror.
George McGovern is someone whose opinions on how to deal with this disaster deserve to be taken very seriously, for many reasons, but primarily because he is the person whose actions were probably more responsible than those of any other single person in extraditing us from the similarly catastrophic Vietnam War (more on that later) more than thirty years ago. His 2006 book, “
Out of Iraq – A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now”, co-authored with William R. Polk, provides an enlightened discussion of the Iraq War and plan for American withdrawal. In this post I provide a brief background on McGovern, a summary of his plan for getting out of Iraq, and a discussion of why I believe that plan should be taken much more seriously than the recently released
Iraq Study Group report, co-chaired by James Baker III and Lee Hamilton:
A brief background on George McGovernGeorge McGovern was a
bomber pilot and war hero during World War II. Following two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from South Dakota in 1962. By the late 1960s, he was one of three or four U.S. Senators to publicly speak out against our involvement in the Vietnam war, for reasons very similar to his current opposition to the Iraq War, including: the awful toll in American and Vietnamese lives; the belief that the Vietnamese people should have the right to determine their own fate; and, the fact that we could not ‘win’ that war. He later said that it
took more courage for him to speak out against that war as a junior Senator than it did for him to fly combat missions during World War II.
In 1972 he was chosen as the Democratic nominee for President, with his number one campaign issue being the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. Unfortunately, he was excoriated not only by his opponents but by much of the U.S. national news media, which dubbed his candidacy as standing for the “
Three A’s”: abortion, acid, and amnesty: Abortion, because he believed in a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion (one year before
Roe v. Wade became the law of the land); acid, because he believed that people should not be imprisoned for the
possession of marijuana (marijuana isn’t acid, but hey, what’s a little inaccuracy when the Presidency of the United States is at stake?); and amnesty, because he believed that following the termination of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war, draft evaders and deserters from that illegal war should receive amnesty.
McGovern lost the Presidential election of 1972 to Richard Nixon in a landslide, carrying only one state (Massachusetts). But not before Nixon, in an effort to neutralize McGovern’s most important campaign issue, reached an agreement with North Vietnam just a couple of weeks before the election, allowing Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to claim “Peace is at hand” just a few days before the election. This led directly to the
Paris Peace Accords, signed by Nixon just a few days after the start of his second Presidential administration, which officially ended direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. And that is a major reason why I say that George McGovern is more responsible than any other single person for ending our involvement in the Vietnam War.
But McGovern is not a pacifist, as is frequently claimed by his critics. As a U.S. Senator in 1978, he was one of the very few U.S. politicians who advocated intervention in Cambodia in order to stop the genocide taking place there.
McGovern asked in response to that genocide, “Do we sit on the sidelines and watch a population slaughtered or do we marshal military force and put an end to it?” And he also supported our involvement to stop genocide in Kosovo in 1998 and
in Darfur.
More recently, George McGovern has been involved in vigorous and continuing efforts to ameliorate or end
world hunger, and in voicing opposition to the Iraq War.
The McGovern/Polk plan for getting out of IraqWithdrawal of troopsMcGovern and Polk recommend a phased withdrawal of all American, coalition and mercenary troops, beginning as soon as the appropriate security arrangements can be made, and lasting up to approximately six months.
Simultaneously, an international police force, probably under the auspices of the United Nations, should be set in place to maintain security. This will eventually need to be replaced by an Iraqi police force, which we should assist in training if requested by the Iraqis.
Renouncing of U.S. imperial and corporate ambitionsBecause a major reason for the Iraq insurgency is hostility towards the American occupation, which is based upon the (accurate) perception that imperial ambitions and corporate greed are largely responsible for the American presence in Iraq, it is essential that we renounce all imperial and corporate ambitions. Words alone will not suffice for that purpose. Rather, we must immediately cease construction of the numerous huge American military bases in Iraq and allow the Iraqis to void all oil contracts made during the occupation, so that they can be renegotiated on fair terms or opened to fair bidding.
As a corollary to this, we should encourage the creation of an independent audit and investigation into the numerous instances of fraud and waste,
including the fund that the United Nations turned over to the Coalition Provisional Authority, and Halliburton’s $2.4 billion no-bid contract, which have combined to cheat the Iraqi people out of billions of dollars.
PrisonersPrisoners that have been indicted by the Iraqi government but who are currently in American possession should be turned over to the Iraqi government. Prisoners of war should be immediately released. Thousands of prisoners fall into a grey zone, for which it will be difficult to determine their status and their appropriate fate. Efforts should be made to collaborate with the Iraqi government on this issue, to release political prisoners and turn over to the Iraqi government those charged with actual crimes.
Reconstruction and reparationsGreat damage has been done to Iraq as a result of the American invasion and subsequent war and occupation. McGovern and Polk go into much detail on the many projects which we should generously fund in our effort to repair Iraq’s infrastructure, assist in the growth of civic institutions, reconstruct a public health system, remove the mines and depleted uranium that will otherwise continue to pose substantial health and safety risks to Iraqis for years to come, and reimburse the Iraqi people for their losses in lives and property, etc. Much of that can be done through the auspices of the U.N., with U.S. financial assistance.
These things are recommended not only because they will go far towards stabilizing Iraq and restoring the international reputation of the United States, but also because they are the right and fair things to do. And as part of these gestures of goodwill, McGovern and Polk also recommend that we sincerely express our condolences for the numerous Iraqis killed, maimed, unfairly imprisoned, and tortured as a result of the American war and occupation.
CostsPutting these recommendations into effect will be expensive for the U.S. government – estimated by McGovern/Polk to cost over $13 billion. But they are nowhere near as expensive as it would be to continue the war, which would easily accumulate costs of more than $13 billion in less than two months.
Advantages of the McGovern/Polk plan compared to the Iraq Study Group (ISG) planBecause the plan put forward by the ISG has received so much national attention, and because the McGovern/Polk plan is so superior to that plan in so many ways, I believe that it is very important for Americans to consider some of the crucial differences, lest we be lulled into putting too much stock into the ISG plan. And if the substantive differences in the plans aren’t convincing enough to some, keep in mind that James Baker III, one of the ISG’s co-chairmen, was the man who played a paramount role in installing George W. Bush as President in 2000, by leading the successful effort to
prevent Florida’s votes from being recounted as mandated by Florida law. Some of the main differences in the two plans are as follows:
Renouncing of U.S. imperial and corporate ambitionsI begin with this issue because not only was it a major cause of the war in my opinion, but the
perception that it was and continues to be a major cause of the war plays a major role in fueling the Iraq insurgency. Therefore, refuting this conception should go a long way towards decreasing the violence in Iraq.
The ISG report provides rhetoric that gives the appearance of recognition of this fact:
The United States can begin to shape a positive climate for its diplomatic efforts, internationally and within Iraq, through public statements by President Bush that reject the notion that the United States seeks to control Iraq’s oil, or seeks permanent military bases within Iraq.
Yet, that one paragraph is all that the ISG provides to address this crucial issue. They appear to be saying that the mere utterance of words from Mr. Bush’s mouth will assuage the world wide suspicions of American imperial ambitions and corporate malfeasance. And not only that, but the ISG report implicitly states (though not in these words), as
pointed out by Antonia Juhasz in the
Los Angeles Times, that “the U.S. government should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil interests and those of its corporations are met”.
Needless to say, the situation has gone far beyond the point where George Bush’s words alone can have any ameliorating effect on suspicions of American intentions in Iraq. The McGovern/Polk report provides full recognition of this obvious fact, along with detailed and forceful recommendations for addressing it.
Withdrawal of U.S. forces from IraqThe McGovern/Polk recommendations provide a forthright plan for getting U.S. troops out of Iraq, along with a plan for providing for the continuing security of Iraqis.
In stark contrast to this, the ISG report, while superficially acknowledging the need to get out of Iraq, fails to provide a plan that is either clear or likely to accomplish the removal of U.S. troops any time in the foreseeable future. For example, it recommends that U.S. departure from Iraq should be dependent upon Iraqi “progress”:
The point is not for the United States to set timetables or deadlines for withdrawal, an approach that we oppose. The point is for the United States and Iraq to make clear their shared interest in the orderly departure of U.S. forces as Iraqi forces take on the security mission.
But further into the report, the ISG appears to recommend that even substantial Iraqi progress should not be sufficient for triggering American departure:
If the Iraqi government demonstrates political will and makes substantial progress… the United States should make clear its willingness to continue training, assistance, and support for Iraq’s security forces, and to continue political, military, and economic support for the Iraqi government.
And later still in the ISG report it appears that the ISG believes that U.S. military presence in Iraq should remain indefinitely under any circumstances:
The primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq should evolve to one of supporting the Iraqi army, which would take over primary responsibility for combat operations. We should continue to maintain support forces, rapid-reaction forces, special operations forces, intelligence units, search-and-rescue units, and force protection units.
In summary, the ISG recommendations appear to be little more than a supped up version of “stay the course”.
Reconstruction and reparationsThe detailed recommendations for reconstruction and reparations put forward by the McGovern/Polk report are critically important because they represent a vigorous effort to provide for the long term stability of Iraq and simultaneously restore the international reputation of the United States. Both of those results are crucially important in our efforts to combat international terrorism.
The ISG report barely touches on those issues. Indeed, not only does it not say anything about making amends for our abuse of human rights and torture of hundreds of Iraqi citizens – it doesn’t even recommend that we should enact laws to restrict George Bush’s
capacity to continue those abuses.
The bottom line – a matter of goals and valuesAt the heart of the matter, the difference between plans such as those advocated by the ISG and those advocated by McGovern/Polk has to do with goals and values. If the primary goal is to maintain American imperial and corporate presence in Iraq, either primarily through American forces (Bush plan) or by attempting to get the Iraqi Army to take over our quest for “victory” (ISG plan), then our current course or some modification of our current course such as advocated by the ISG probably holds out the only chance of “victory”. After all, some corporations have done quite well in Iraq and may be expected to continue to do so as long as the war continues.
On the other hand, if the goal is to decrease the violence in Iraq, stem the drain on the American treasury, restore our international reputation, at least
attempt to restore stability to Iraq, and thereby contribute in a positive way to our fight against international terrorism, then plans such as the McGovern/Polk plan or
John Kerry’s plan are what we need. Those are plans that recognize that the American presence in Iraq is a major cause of the violence there, and therefore, the centerpiece of any plan to decrease the violence in Iraq must focus primarily on American withdrawal above all else.
On November 7th, 2006, a majority of the American people confirmed what polls had been suggesting for a long time – that they have no interest in plans that focus on maintaining American imperial and corporate presence in Iraq.
No one should entertain any hope that George W. Bush will ever voluntarily accept recommendations that have any similarity to those put forth by McGovern and Polk. To do so would be to admit a mistake – a task that Mr. Bush has repeatedly shown himself incapable of accomplishing.
But Congressional Democrats do have the capability of leading a national conversation on this issue, putting pressure on the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans to support them in doing the right thing, and of pursuing investigations into crimes that may have been committed in leading our country into war. If they pursue that course and are successful, they will have put an end to the worst American military disaster since the Vietnam War. If they pursue that course and are unsuccessful, at least the American people will know whom to blame when they go to the polls in 2008. Either way, Democrats will serve our country well if they vigorously work to promulgate plans, such as the McGovern/Polk plan, which recognize the serious mistakes we’ve made and seek to correct them.
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