When Will the Mission be Accomplished?

The GOP chorus has been incessant in response to recent calls for a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. That chorus has chanted “Whether you were for or against the war isn’t important today. The important issue is that our men and women in uniform accomplish the mission in Iraq.” Does that translate into the absence of an exit strategy in the Iraq engagement? If it is so, what are the potential consequences of a protracted large scale US presence in Iraq on politics at home and within the Middle East region?

The murky field of counter-insurgency places a premium on the availability of human intelligence sources to weed out insurgent actors from populations. Hence the reason why defeating the insurgency movement would need to be taken on more seriously by the nascent post-Saddam military and intel establishment. While some US policy advocates propose a presence in Iraq until the elusive “Mission Accomplished” is satisfied, this evidently is the road to even longer confrontation. For a number of reasons:

• The rationale for democratization is going to polarize the Iraqi society for a long time. This polarization is harnessed by the primacy of ethnicity in the interpretation of the post-Saddam political evolution in Iraq. In the attempt to create a post-Saddam nation, Iraq’s political class has devolved to the same methods which maintained Saddam in power – seeking support from and forming coalitions along ethnic lines.
• So long as a dominant American military presence is seen as propping a puppet regime in Baghdad, the insurgency would linger on. The newly elected Iraqi leadership needs to redefine the meaning of Iraqi national security.
• The redefinition of Iraqi national security needs to emphasize the threats from neighboring states, the government’s right to protect the Iraqi people from foreign fighters and the need to develop a well-trained and capable fighting force.
• The new elite Iraqi military unit would be the visible abrasive weapon against the insurgency. Meanwhile a newly well-trained intelligence operation would have to cultivate human intelligence within all of Iraq’s highly polarized ethnic communities.
• It need be noted that most of the insurgents are foreign fighters, who have crossed the border to make of Iraq, the new battleground in the war on terror. Like the Al Qaeda movement has shown in its resiliency, such fundamentalists never give up. Hence there is a bull’s eye on every US military convoy in Iraq and on military personnel. It is time for the Iraqi government to announce that the party is over and it is time for the insurgents to go home.
  
  Listening to the Deputy Iraqi Ambassador to the UN yesterday on NPR, I sensed a lack of confidence in the ability of Iraqis to cater to Iraq’s own security. While some are quick to contend that only a political solution can bring an end to the insurgency in Iraq, it is evident that only a concerted political and military effort spearheaded by the new Iraqi government will dowse the flame of the insurgency in Iraq.
  
  So you must get my drift by now – the mission has been accomplished. Saddam is gone, a new Iraqi government was elected in January and the US can work with Iraqis as partners in the reconstruction effort...or is there some other reason to stay? The Iraqis should be able to deal with mopping up the insurgency.

Has the Media Reached a Verdict?

Ever since the Michael Jackson Child Molestation Trial was remanded to the jury, the media changed coverage from an assessment of the day’s court performances to its crystal-ball-gazing ritual of making predictions. The media is stunned by the verdict, with Fox News calling it “Shocking,” while CNN released a new CNN/Gallup poll which showed 48% of respondents disagreed, while 37% agreed with the verdict. The missing link between the verdict and the respondents (which was absent from the poll’s findings) is the role the media played in framing a guilty verdict and hanging it around MJ’s neck.

Most US legal “pawndits” staked their credibility on a guilty verdict, while the jury was in session. For a jury which was not sequestered, the post-verdict media reaction is only rational – shock and outrage. The media failed to address the 10 counts against MJ. They failed to see a wide net cast against an individual being pursued for over 12 years by an overzealous DA (wow am I beginning to sound like one of the media professionals). Well let’s scratch the word “overzealous” out, the man was simply doing his job – trying to convict an innocent man of pedophilia. Of all the many possibly outcomes in the case, they failed to present the other probability – that of MJ’s possible innocence. Is it because of the “yuk factor” Cynthia McFadden was talking about in the possible innocence of a pre-verdict pedophile?

One day after the verdict, the legal minds scratch their heads, surprised at their inability of their predictions to influence the jury pool and surmising the reasons behind the “NOT GUILTY” verdict. These pundits who have a cumulative legal experience of over 750 years all came out calling the case for the prosecution …and to further impugn the American legal system, I heard one of them say “the prosecution lost the case, the defense did not win it.”

I am not an MJ fan although I once was as a 7 year old kid growing up in faraway Cameroon. I am just an individual who seeks to believe in the standards set by the American legal system. I would like to hope and believe that the tenet “innocent until proven guilty” would hold true, even for celebrities. However, when guilty is the call from the start of a case, a miracle like the one Tom Mersereau Jr. accomplished will be studied as a case in law schools around the country for a long time.

Now, the question on every news anchor’s lips is “what next for MJ?” Why do they care? They had expected to cover the first day of his 20 year term in jail. Alas, they’re scurrying for the jurors and trying to predict MJ’s next move. The man has had his day in court, it is time to move on…