by Caleb

The anniversary of the U.S. led invasion of Iraq is coming upon us fairly soon, and from the looks of it a lot has changed since last year.  For one we have a new president, one who acknowledges that torture is a crime and has boasted opposition to the Iraq War since the beginning.  We even have what seems to be a clear sign of the coming end to the Iraq occupation, a withdrawal plan.  Obama is calling for a 19-month time line to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, up three months from his campaign promise.  This has been lauded as the best possible action that can be taken in Iraq to end the illegal occupation.  But is this plan all it’s really hyped up to be?


The biggest footnote of this withdrawal plan is the 35,000-50,000 residual force that will be left in Iraq after the 19-month time line for “training, protection, and counterterrorism missions.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/washington/26troops.html)  The size of this residual force has drawn criticism even from Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, who both saw the numbers as much too big.  The Iraq Veterans Against the War went as far as to call this a “plan for almost three more years of an unjustified military occupation.”  Though the best way to decide if this residual force is acceptable is still to ask the Iraqi people themselves, and as a clear majority want the U.S. out in much less time than 19-months, I think the Obama administration would be hard-pressed to find support for the existence of this force among Iraqis.


His plan also does not address the number of private contractors that are now stationed in Iraq.  Under the Bush administrations mass privatization efforts the ratio of contractors to troops has now become around one to one.  When pressed about this problem on the campaign trail, Obama said:

“Here’s the problem: we have 140,000 private contractors right there, so unless we want to replace all of or a big chunk of those with US troops, we can’t        
draw down the contractors faster than we can draw down our troops. So what I want to do is draw—I want them out in the same way that we make sure
that we draw out our own combat troops.” (http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/4/despite_celebrated_speech_has_obama_really)

What this means is that when we look at the number of troops the administration says we will have at a certain time, we have to double that number to account for all U.S. troops, including private contractors.  This means the residual force will swell to somewhere around 100,000 forces, a number which, I think, requires no comment.


The agreed upon date for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops is the end of 2011.  Interestingly, this date was agreed upon with the Iraqi government by the Bush administration itself.  Taking this into account, Obama’s plan is not a withdrawal plan, but simply a draw-down plan before the predetermined date of
total withdrawal.  Perhaps not quite as much change as we need, though still a slight shuffle in the right direction.


What all this boils down to, much like Obama’s campaign did, is a change of image.  We may still be occupying Iraq for almost three more years, but the world will be served this occupation with a brand new label, one that emphasizes that, if this is an occupation, it will be ending soon, so you really don’t have to worry about it.  It’s quite similar to Pepsi’s new ad campaign (http://adsoftheworld.com/files/images/pepsihooray.preview.jpg), which ironically enough is based off Obama’s campaign.  Instead of making their product better, Pepsi has decided to freshen up it’s image and attempt to look hip and cool.  It’s only when you take a sip of the soda when you realize you’ve been dealt the same old shit.  It’s nice to say you’re going to end the Iraq war, but as the old saying goes, actions speak louder than words.


So after all this, what should we do?  Should we become apologists for the Obama administration?  Well there doesn’t seem to be a need to.  He won’t be up for election again for nearly four years, so there should be no threat in criticizing him too strongly for the time being.  Not to mention the job of apologist has already been taken by Robert Gibbs.  Should we, then, become entirely cynical of all of politics, and wander around muttering about how dirty the whole game is?  Though it can be fun, I don’t think this is the best action to take to effect any sort of change.  Plus we’ve got plenty of time to do that when we become old curmudgeons.  The best action for activists to take is to continue the action they’ve done the last eight years.  I think we can all agree that Obama will be much more susceptible to public opinion than the Bush administration ever was, so if there’s ever a time to get out on the streets and make your voice heard, that time is now.  In fact major cities all around the United States will most likely be holding protests around the anniversary of the invasion, hell even my conservative ol’ town of Grand Rapids is having one.  There couldn’t be a better time to tell the government to end the occupation NOW.