Dividing the spoils of a war not yet fought

Dividing the spoils of a war not yet fought
Okay, let's try to get our heads around the Iraq situation. Admittedly th=
e world doesn't want this war, but there are a small group of people, hardl=
y larger than a Latin American junta, deeply entrenched atop our government=
, who desperately do. They are undoubtedly frustrated to find a world so un=
expectedly out of their control – an ill-timed strike in Venezuela that th=
ey would, under other circumstances, be supporting for everything they were=
worth is driving the price of oil uncomfortably high; the Turks are draggi=
ng their feet on an American invasion force in Turkey; the North Koreans ar=
e withdrawing from the nonproliferation treaty and threatening to resume mi=
ssile testing; Ariel Sharon is suddenly embroiled in a bribery scandal in I=
srael with a surprisingly up-for-grabs election now to take place only week=
s before an Iraq war might begin. It's enough to make a tough guy cry.

But the most obvious "on the ground" reality is that the massive American=
mobilization in the Gulf area only gains momentum by the week. The fact is=
, as was true with those World War I armies, past a certain point you can't=
mobilize on this scale and turn back. That undoubtedly is part of the plan=
in Washington. Let the world do its damnedest, let the inspectors search, =
let the UN yak, let the hoi polloi demonstrate, and in the meantime just cr=
eate the on-the-ground momentum for war, or as military analyst William Ark=
in put it in today's Los Angeles Times Sunday opinion section, "As tens of =
thousands of ground troops and their vast support infrastructure arrive in =
Kuwait, any options other than war fade further and further. This is the mi=
litary corollary to the 'Field of Dreams': If they come, you will use them.=
"

Arkin adds in "An Old-fashioned Fight," a piece about how Donald Rumsfeld=
"capitulated" to traditional military planners, that the war being planned=
is now anything but futuristic.


"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has approved a war plan. that owe=
s more to D-day and World War II than to the 21st century vision of lightni=
ng-fast, flexible warfare that has become his hallmark.. Last month. [he] s=
urrendered to the traditionalists, secretly approving a blueprint for war. =
that has the American force relying heavily on tanks, artillery and heavy m=
echanized infantry. The plan. does assign critical roles to air power, Spec=
ial Forces and covert operators. But they would operate in subordination to=
the kind of ground assault the Army has trained. itself to conduct in Euro=
pe since the beginning of the Cold War."

To read more of Arkin click here

Just as important, the same group of high officials, planners, and their =
acolytes are deep into making dreams reality when it comes to a postwar Mid=
dle East. They are, in a fashion that might be recognized by anyone who rec=
alls how the British and French divvied up the area after World War I, alre=
ady cutting and dealing the "spoils of war." Both the articles that follow =
deal with that subject in the sort of clear and down to earth way that you =
rarely see on our news pages, and interestingly both cite that phrase, "the=
spoils of war." And – I know you'll be surprised by this – the spoils of=
greatest concern to us (not to speak of the French, the Russians, and, as =
columnist Eric Margolis points out in the Toronto Sun, the Turks), are the =
oil resources of Iraq.

As Knut Royce writes in a report for Newsday on our plans for making use =
of Iraq's oil (referred to by a "senior official" in a recent New York Time=
s account of postwar planning as "Iraq's patrimony"), "There are people in =
the White House who take the position that it's all the spoils of war." Pat=
rimony, smatrimony, it's the oil, stupid. Tom

Click here to read more of this dispatch.