On March 14th, Anthony Arnove, author of Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal took the stand alongside the members of Iraq Veterans Against the War and other concerned parties.  Arnove discusses the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and argues that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home. Anthony Arnove’s testimony, in its entirety is posted below. Testimony by Anthony Arnove March 14, 2008 Iraq Veterans Against the War Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan Thank you. It is an honor to speak here tonight alongside the courageous members of Iraq Veterans Against the War and others committed to telling the truth about the unjust and illegal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and organizing to end them. I would like to make five basic points about the two occupations and then draw five broader conclusions about the geopolitical considerations driving U.S. policy. First, it is important to stress […]

Billboarding the Iraqi Disaster

As you read this, we’re four years from the moment the Bush administration launched its shock-and-awe assault on Iraq, beginning 48 months of remarkable, non-stop destruction of that country … and still counting. It’s an important moment for taking stock of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Here is a short rundown of some of what George Bush’s war and occupation has wrought: Nowhere on Earth is there a worse refugee crisis than in Iraq today. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, some two million Iraqis have fled their country and are now scattered from Jordan, Syria, Turkey, and Iran to London and Paris. (Almost none have made it to the United States, which has done nothing to address the refugee crisis it created.) Another 1.9 million are estimated to be internally displaced persons, driven from their homes and neighborhoods by the U.S. occupation and the vicious civil war it […]

On January 30th, 2007 Representatives Lynn Wooley and Maxine Waters invited authors to speak in the Longworth House Office Building to the Out of Iraq caucus about books on Iraq.  Anthony Arnove, author of Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal spoke about the issue of withdrawal.  His testimony is below. Representatives Waters and Woolsey, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War in the gallery, colleagues: It is an honor to speak today about my book Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal. The title of my book is borrowed from Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal, written in 1967 by the historian Howard Zinn. In his book, Zinn argued the U.S. should pull out of Vietnam immediately and unconditionally. The consequences of not heading this call were enormous: tens of thousands of U.S. troops and millions in Indochina paid the price of the escalation and expansion of the war. There are differences between Vietnam […]

Each day the occupation of Iraq goes on, the situation for most Iraqis gets worse. The trend is unmistakable, and has persisted through each of the many “turning points” announced by the Bush administration and its handpicked Iraqi clients, and then duly reported by a still overly deferential establishment media. Consider the following: In August 2006, the New York Times reported that “the number of daily strikes against American and Iraqi security forces has doubled since January.” The Times quoted “a senior Defense Department official who agreed to discuss the issue only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for attribution” as saying, “The insurgency has gotten worse by almost all measures, with insurgent attacks at historically high levels…. The insurgency has more public support and is demonstrably more capable in numbers of people active and in its ability to direct violence than at any point […]

As the United States and its allies debate how to salvage the disastrous occupation of Iraq, many ideas have been put forward of how to move forward, from sending more troops, to partitioning the country, to redeploying all troops to Kurdistan or to neighboring countries. But the one option no one is seriously considering is the one that makes the most sense: withdrawal and an end to the occupation. The reality is, the longer the occupation continues, the worse things get for most Iraqis. Rather than being the solution to Iraqi troubles, the occupation is the problem. Indeed, The arguments for why the Unites States and its partners cannot leave Iraq are just as specious as the claims that were used to get us into Iraq in the first place. The occupation is not preventing civil war from breaking out, but instead is fueling sectarian conflict and increasing the chance […]