Iraq surge strategy debates continue in the United States. While the Democrats press for the immediate pull-out of U.S. troops, the Pentagon says such calls “reinforce enemy propaganda”.
Senator Hillary Clinton seemingly not impressed by the Iraq Progress report, sent a request to the Pentagon chief to inquire about Iraq contingency planning. As a lawmaker and presidential candidate, Ms. Clinton is expected to get a straightforward response and even classified at that. “Until we get this president and the Pentagon to begin to at least tell us they are planning to withdraw we are not going to be able to turn this around,” Senator Clinton stated during a recent presidential candidates’ debate over question submitted by YouTube web-service users. Instead, she got a booby trap from the Under Secretary of Defense, Eric Edelman. It was polite, officious and unclassified but it implied that Hillary Clinton’s public discourse of Iraq exit strategy played into the propaganda war against the United States. “Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia,” the letter said. This passage might as well be taken from the Soviet Politburo style-guide. Open doubts and discussions of its policy were tantamount to democratic dissent, fomented by the foes. “Such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks to achieve national reconciliation,” the Under Secretary continues. Substitute ‘Iraqi’ for ‘Afghani’, and you will see the reasoning against the pullback by Michael Suslov, the Soviet Communist Party’s top ideologue and commissar. Had Academician Andrei Sakharov, as a Parliament member, sent a similar request about Soviet force exit strategy from Afghanistan, he would have gotten a similar response. Back then, the Kremlin was besieged by the communists. Now the White House is occupied by the neoconservatives. However, the ideological similarities are really sinister. Is the Under Secretary’s admonition above the freedom of speech in the U.S., or is it just an exercise in damage control and perception management? The bad news for him is that Senator Clinton is not the one and only concerned about the U.S. forces hijacked by the U.S. messianic mess in Iraq. “The diplomatic work cannot begin to heal Iraq to protect our interests without our troops out, our troops have become targets,” said Governor Bill Richardson, Democratic presidential candidate during the debate. Some even have the guts to put the blame squarely on the Commander-in-Chief: “What we need to do is turn up the heat on George Bush and hold him responsible and make this president change course. It is the only way,” stated John Edwards, Democratic presidential candidate. How can the Under Secretary defend the debilitating debacle in Iraq and prevent public provocative debates? “At this point I think we can be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in, but there is no military solution to the problems that we face in Iraq,” said Senator Barack Obama, Democratic presidential candidate. In good old Cold War days Senator Goldwater would evoke witch-hunting to crucify the Enemy’s agents of influence and demonize American Glasnost. The good news is those days are gone with the Ku-Klux-Klan. So, what are the options for U.S. preachers of gloom and doom in Iraq, brain-washed and indoctrinated by the dictum ‘who is not with us is against us’? Imposing a gag order on Democrats and renegade Republicans? Branding the majority of the American people extremist peaceniks and ship them to the Gulag? Labelling freedom of speech a propaganda stick of the Caliphate freedom fighters?