Who are our soldiers standing (and fighting) with? Whose side are we on?:

By Ron Fullwood

02/26/06 "ICH" -- -- he AP has reported that the number of Iraqi army units that are able to stand alone, without our soldier's help, has dropped from one to zero.

But, the report states, the number of Iraqi battalions capable of leading the battle, with U.S. troops in a support role, has grown by nearly 50%, from 36 to 53, and the number engaged in combat has increased 11%, from 88 to 98.

Our soldiers now stand with the Shiite-dominated authority that they helped to achieve power with the force of our nation's military. We know that our troops are still being sent out on search and destroy missions and all sorts of 'anti-insurgent' raids. Most of these missions and raids are almost certainly directed at Iraqis opposed to the government our troops are propping up.

At this point our soldiers are just muckraking along with the Shiite-dominated militias we have funded, equipped, and supported. This same band of armed government loyalists, Shiite Kurdish and Sunni combatants, is the force that many, in and out of government, both republicans and Democrats, say they rely on to take over 'security' of Iraq so our soldiers can withdrawal.

The reality is, the Iraqi militias are using our assistance as a wedge against their political opponents. That's not democracy forming, it's a junta, a recipe for perpetual resistance to the existing authority, and we're on tyranny's side.

Bush called the leaders of the major parties in Iraq to buck them up as he darted around the world to keep out of harm's way: Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite; the head of Iraq's largest Shiite political party, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim; President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd; and parliament speaker Hajim al-Hassani, a Sunni.

Bush ``encouraged them to continue to work together to thwart the efforts of the perpetrators of the violence to sow discord among Iraq's communities.''

However, the AP had another report that signaled the Iraqi leader's impatience with Washington's 'protection' racket . . . the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was hinting, as was Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, that their religious armies could get the security job done if the government couldn't defend the holy shrines.

There are reports of police finding dozens of bodies, cuffed and shot execution-style since Wednesday. The bodies of 14 Iraqi police were found burned inside their vehicles near a Sunni mosque. The deaths included three journalists working for Al-Arabiya television.

There will never come a point where the U.S. military will be able to bring any reasonable political balance there and they shouldn't be expected to. They are designed to fight wars and defend our homeland against invasion or disaster, not iron out the intricacies of Iraqi politics and sectarian rivalry. Those are for Iraqi's to resolve themselves. The sectarian divisions can only be deepened and exaggerated by the heavy hand of our military occupation.

They want us to believe that the forces they are training (the ones that the politicians want to 'take control' of Iraq if we ever withdraw), will be some sort of beacon of democracy, but the reality is that there will always be a sect in Iraq who will be locked out of power and they will always be at the mercy of the ruling party's forces.

Our soldiers are now mercenaries of a supposedly independent government - Bush crowed the other day that Iraq's now a sovereign nation. "In less than three years," Bush claimed, the nation of Iraq has gone from living under the boot of a brutal tyrant to liberation, to sovereignty . . ."

"Our strategy in Iraq is, as the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down." he said. Troop levels on the ground will be decided by commanders on the ground -- not by politicians in Washington, D.C." (Applause.)

Yet, these soldiers, and the Iraqis under their guns, are clearly at the point of Washington's politics. They were likely optimistic and hopeful that the elections signaled a turning point in the occupation. They probably expected, and may have seen for a time, that optimism and hope in the faces and attitudes of the folks around them.

Unfortunately, there will be more political and military meddling, fueling more violence directed at the symbols of the sponsors of the ruling authority, our soldiers. Until Bush can find his way into his next brawl with Iran or Syria, Iraq will remain the deliberate, jingoistic symbol of Bush's paranoid fear.

Bush's cohort, Blair, admitted that the assault on Baghdad was essentially a muscle-flexing exercise. They thought Iraq would be a cakewalk (the hunt for bin Laden was a bust) so they loaded up our national pride and covered all of us with Iraqi blood to go with the blood of innocent Afghans caught in our swaggering reprisal. Tens of thousands of innocents, in Iraq and Afghanistan have been killed by our cluster bombs, our search and destroy missions, and by the misguided hands of our nervous soldiers so that Blair and Bush could "draw a line in the sand" like bullies in front of a crowd.

So the numbers of bystanders slaughtered by our aggression quickly outpaced the numbers killed in the 9-11 attack, but that wasn't enough to satiate the fear of Blair and Bush. And they seem shocked (as bullies often are) at the lack of fear from those they sought to dominate with their violence. And their enemies multiplied. More shock. And their critics multiplied. More shock.

Yet, Bush pushed on, mesmerized by his own hypocritical rhetoric about freedom and democracy. It's more than clear to all in the Middle East that his rhetoric masks the bloody reality that the U.S., under Bush's leadership, has become the type of oppressor that all the suffering people around the world fear. According to our own military and intelligence operatives, our presence in Iraq is having the effect of creating more enemies and resistance to the U.S. than can be countered by any new recruits or any new Iraqi government intuitive sponsored or propped up by our heavy-handed military forces and their war of aggression against all who would resist our occupying army.

A military force, our military force is designed primarily to fight and win wars. Not that they don't do peacekeeping well. American compassion and generosity are reflected in many of the actions of our soldiers, most noticeably in their dedication to humanitarian pursuits like medical care, rebuilding schools, providing food and housing, and other instigations of the representatives of a prosperous nation.

But, there is great resentment among many in the Iraqi population that won't be assuaged by chocolates, bandages, or raising roofs. Bush has pulled the plug on those projects anyway. Our soldiers shouldn't be put at the point of such a murky policy of intentions in Iraq. Our military is the inevitable arm of an authority engaged in active armed conflict with Iraqis in opposition to their propped up regime. Americans don't know who our soldiers are being asked to kill and who they are dying for. That shouldn't be a secret anymore. Bush shouldn't be allowed to escape accountability by labeling everyone who gets slaughtered with our soldier's help and support, evil insurgents.

We know that Bush wants to use the troops for anything that keeps them in place for future meddling They're his protection racket for the oil that we're 'holding for the Iraqis. They're his personal prop for victory speeches. They're his hired muscle in hell's kitchen, waiting for a new contract.

But, they are also our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, waiting for some rationality to their mission . . . and a ticket home. Our leaders should spell out just what they expect our soldiers to do in Iraq that is in tune with our own values and democratic principles. To ask them to defend anything less is a tyranny of our nation's leadership in Washington and in Foggy Bottom

Ron Fullwood, bigtree_75@msn.com is an activist from Columbia, Md. and the author of the book 'Power of Mischief : Military Industry Executives are Making Bush Policy and the Country is Paying the Price'

Link Here