The Zong

I awoke from one of several tiny comas that evidently had nothing to do with tryptophan on Friday and read a quietly somber report by the Christian Science Monitor about our marines’ withdrawal from Fallujah. Under different circumstances, this might sound like progress; as America draws down its military presence, the Iraqi forces will step in to help secure their countries future. As they stand up, we’ll stand down!

As a nation at war, it’s easy to go through the motions on Thanksgiving, to give a thought to our troops serving abroad and to salute them for serving our country, maybe mention them in a polite way over some pie. Vice President Cheney was even rumored to be in Iraq for the holiday to celebrate with the troops, and although it didn’t ever really happen, it was a nice thought by whoever leaked it. The reality, of course, is that this tiny scene from Fallujah is a truly saddening microcosm of what we’ve done to Iraq as a whole.

Here echo the conclusions of a report written by the chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in August, and first described by The Washington Post, which determined that there is little the military now can do to improve prospects in insurgent-riddled Anbar Province, which includes Fallujah.

“They say we are here to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, but I just don’t see that happening,” says Corporal Mattice, of Gladwin, Mich. OP Blazer is perched on the northern edge of the city, looking due south down a main street known to the marines as Ethan, site of numerous roadside bombs.

Giving thanks for our troops, for their unquestioning sacrifice in support of freedom and democracy, is a pretty minor gesture on the part of any politician at this point. Perhaps the proper way to give thanks for them would be to find some way to get them out of harm’s way, or at the very least to not abandon them as soon as political successes (or failures) are secured. Nevertheless, we’ve watched four Thanksgivings come and go since the invasion, and it would seem that Fallujah – an outpost that we’ve virtually destroyed through numerous attempts to control it – is once more slipping away from us. We are standing down, but for some reason, those who are about to stand up seem to be the same assholes who have been killing our troops and Iraqi civilians with bombs and sniper fire.

The 300 marines here are attacked five to eight times each day. That presence is a significant drop from the 3,000 marines posted here in March 2005, and the 10,000 that took part in the late 2004 invasion.

Another metric: Officers say the number of direct fire incidents against US forces has shot up 650 percent in the past year. Three marines had been hit by snipers in one 48-hour span earlier this week.

I wish I had a solution, but I don’t. We pay the salaries of military and intelligence experts to figure that stuff out, and if they can’t come up with any better ideas, I’m not sure that there really is one at this point. Instead, I think we should give thanks for our troops and the freedom they defend by establishing some sort of accountability and oversight in regards to how the hell we got into all this shit in the first place.

The new Democratic congress is making some noise about bucking the status quo in regards to defense contracts, energy and domestic spying. This is promising in a way, but you’ll forgive me for remaining skeptical about any real resulting change. Nobody wants to play the blame game for keeps, at least not right now. Why the hell not? Why has anyone swallowed the rationale that we need to keep fighting to honor those who were killed in a war that never should have been started in the first place? The GOP-controlled congress paid a hefty price for their unwillingness to hold anyone accountable for the deaths of our servicemen and thousands upon thousands of Iraqi civilians. Now the Democrats, rank and file, get to show America just how well-placed their votes were.

Since 2004, the Intelligence Committee has been promising to complete a thorough investigation, called Phase II, into how the Bush administration used intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. With Republicans dominating the committee, some of the most politically charged areas of inquiry have been delayed by Chairman Pat Roberts. The committee has released some of its work, but the broad question of whether the White House accurately and responsibly represented the information it had at the time remains unanswered. Now, the outgoing chairman no doubt wishes the committee had finished the work under better terms.

What it breaks down to, finally, is just a ballgame. Republicans vs. Democrats is the thickest rivalry in the country, and every couple of years we all have to pick a side. I’m certainly glad that the team I root for won this year, but I know most of us desperately want it to be more than just a process of hand-clapping and gloating. As it is, when I read things like the CSM article cited above, I feel like the war itself is nothing more than a political keystone for both the right and the left, and that our soldiers’ lives are being sacrificed for the sake of something to argue about. We’re certainly not winning any wars on this day. We’re only fighting them.

- M.G.