An Open Letter To The Generals

October 3, 2004

Subject: Saving Iraq & Saving The U.S.:
A Full Mobilization Employment Plan

TO:

The U.S Chiefs of Staff,
All Members Of The U.S. Armed Forces,
General Anthony Zinni

CC:

Mullah Ali Sistani
The Community of the Faithful Of Islam In Iraq
Senator Robert A Byrd
Senators John Kerry and John Edwards
Paul Krugman

Editors, The Press

FROM: Michael Wells Mandeville, a systems scientist
mwm@michaelmandeville.com
http://www.michaelmandeville.com

Abstract: Strategic overview of catastrophic errors of judgment, definition of the strategic stalemate, presentation of radical lateral moves in five parts to dissolve the stalemate: restore credibility, drop Rambo action doctrines, immediately employ 4 million Iraqis, engage the Mid-East oil money to finance the restoration of peace, and mobilize the Islamic community to deploy the plan.

I heard in August of this year through the excellent journalism of Paul Krugman in the New York Times that Gen. Anthony Zinni had “received a standing ovation from an audience of Marine and Navy officers when he talked about the debacle in Iraq”. Krugman quoted him saying (speaking about those who had served in Vietnam), "We heard the garbage and the lies, and we saw the sacrifice. I ask you, is it happening again?"

To ask this terrible question publicly one must no doubt strongly suspect the awful answer.

Now, please hear me. I am quite certain that I speak for a vast many who are not connected with the political and military-industrial circles of the U.S. My words are hard, listen carefully.

It is perfectly clear that Iraq is lost to the United States. Unless there is a radical change in strategy and tactical doctrines, NOW, the U.S. is going to suffer a terrible diplomatic and military defeat.

As things are currently going, under existing political management, policy, strategy, tactics, and doctrines, the best you can possibly hope for in the next six months is a “Nixon Exit”, a new version of the ignominious “peace with honor” helicopter evacuation of Vietnam. You do remember, don’t you? It could come once again in 2005. This is perfectly obvious even to old coyotes in the deserts of North America far removed from the orbits of your thinking and operations on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

Yet despite the gloomy horizon, there may be another possible outcome. If a radical, very quick change in thinking and action is undertaken to completely transform U.S. relationships with the Iraqi street, it may yet be possible to generate a peace which leaves Iraq with a democratic government, peaceful streets, and the complete withdrawal of American troops in 2005.

Achieving such an outcome requires breaking the stalemates which have produced the existing circumstances. There is utterly no point in hanging onto existing concepts of what is possible or proper in handling Iraq. Breaking the strategic stalemate requires a complete “reframe” of the situation and conditions. To overcome the impasse, you must make sudden, decisive, lateral movements in your thinking and tactics to realign the forces at play in Iraq. You must re-polarize all forces and re-orient their vectors of conflict into vectors which produce cooperation.

Tall order? The essence is simple. I am going to explain it completely in this letter. I will outline exactly what must be done in Iraq.

Please then hear these words of an aging Navy veteran who lives a simple life with most modest means in the desert of Arizona. This veteran is far removed from politics, with no connections on the East Coast, nor with political and corporate elites. Though my observations come far from the orbit of thought and attitude which prevail in your circles, I am quite certain that my words are widely shared by large numbers of Americans as well as in many corporate and government hallways, even in the Pentagon.

My words are hard words but they deal with the most basic issues which dominate the world at this moment. You may find that these hard words offer a simple objectivity which cuts to the essence of today’s choices.

Doubtless, as proven by Iraq and 20 years of repeated failures in Palestine, the prevailing thought of those who dominate American politics and government on the Eastern Seaboard have been gravely mistaken about much of utmost importance. A generation of thinkers and doers on the Eastern Seaboard has failed to resolve issues, in fact they have tragically followed profoundly ignorant choices and have ended up producing the mother of all train wrecks in a far, alien desert.

Strategic Overview

Let me begin with an overview of the strategic background. Please allow me to begin by pointing to what is perfectly obvious in the Big Picture of History.

You must confront this moment by looking far beyond the blizzard of detail with which you struggle day by day. You need to come to an understanding that the train wreck in Iraq was obvious in the very beginning. You must truly come to appreciate this fundamental point.

Even well before the unilateral invasion of Iraq, it was obvious the invasion was a terrible mistake of judgment. It was perfectly obvious even as far away as the desert of Arizona, even as it was to a great part of the world, that the arguments and evidence for the invasion, as well as its goals, methods of operation, and plans, were so distorted, contrived and so egregiously slanted in falsehoods, that it was highly doubtful that the government was commanded by sufficient competence to conduct such a momentous and risky undertaking.

It was agonizingly embarrassing to watch Colin Powell lie with obviously phony data as he gave the most important briefing of his career to the entire world assembled at the United Nations. It was completely shocking to see him destroy the personal credibility which he had built up with a lifetime of service. It was perfectly clear at the time that he was dissembling. It was perfectly clear that he was aware he was dissembling. Powell’s dissembling was perfectly clear to most of the world.

As a direct consequence, it is also perfectly clear, then as now, that the United States no longer has a State Department which has credibility for any statement of policy. Accordingly, at the current time it has nothing of significance it CAN say to anyone on the issues of war and peace.

It was impossible, from the abundant testimony and verifiable evidence in many quarters in the world, to believe that there was any serious threat from Iraq with the mythical weapons of mass destruction. And indeed, now the world has finally learned that these weapons really had been destroyed in 1992, fairly much as Saddam Hussein had long claimed, and fairly much as various United Nations inspections and other sources had maintained for many years.

What a shock it has been to discover, has it not, that the tyrannical Saddam Hussein was telling the truth about Weapons of Mass Destruction, while Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Colin Powell, George Tenant, and many other high officials in the U.S. government, all nominally servants of our democracy, were badly mistaken or lying. It is even more shocking to realize that General Franks and other military men believed them. On this rather obvious fact, the plot line of the world’s history books will turn and the Weapons of Mass Destruction will be known forever as the Weapons of Mass Deception.

But I digress, it was also perfectly obvious, BEFORE the tragic invasion of Iraq, that the diversion of resources from Afghanistan would fracture the world alliance in the struggle against terrorism, destroy the momentum of success in breaking up Al Qaeda, and create a great many bitter and perhaps irreconcilable polarizations which would vastly complicate international cooperation. It took no rocket science to understand this, only a little understanding of history. It was so obvious I and many others predicted all this even before the invasion of Iraq in various newsletters and internet websites.

And it indeed it is so. And more…as the unfolding tragedy of increasing violence in Iraq now quickly spirals into an on-going bloody insurgency which cannot lose because American resources are too thin. But neither can it be won, because American resources can continue to destroy any aspect of Iraq at will. This leaves a relatively small American expeditionary force stalemated with 25 million hostile people in a civil war which can only succeed at polarizing more hostility and force against the U.S. and Americans everywhere.

So it is that the invasion of Iraq is beginning to look more and more like Custer’s unlamented expedition to the Little Big Horn River. About as justified, about as arrogant, and about as effective.

It is perfectly clear that there is hell to pay for all of this and we know perfectly well where to deposit some of the karma. It was perfectly obvious to whose who looked just a little ways under the covers that the entire campaign was marshaled, promoted, and drumbeat by a small clique of zealots who had contrived, with the election of George W. Bush, to conduct a virtual take-over of many agencies and departments of the U.S. government. These zealots were closely connected with the old cold-war military-industrial complex, with the Zionist lobby, with Pentecostal-style cults, and a host of nominally “conservative” right wing think tanks, funded by filthy-rich troglodyte plutocrats who are still seeking revenge against Franklyn Roosevelt’s successful “New Deal” rescue of the American economy. They apparently found it easy to “merge” and begin to dominate the setting of agendas and political discussions in Washington DC and New York.

The zealots were easy to spot. They had united loosely under the “neoconservative” label, “neocons” for short, and had contrived to publish an Imperial Manifesto which they proudly trumpeted. Well before the candidacy and election of George W. Bush, they were proselytizing elite circles to convert the remnants of American military powers left over from the cold war into an active Empire of dominance and hegemony. They brazenly proposed that America would be the world’s only dominant power, a proposal for which they are now rightfully called the “Imperial Faction” in American politics. They targeted Iraq as their first “client” for treatment with aggressive proactive domineering.

Given the secrecy inside Iraq and inside the Pentagon, it was impossible at the time for outsiders to foresee how incompetent the U.S. Military was to undertake an occupation of a major nation state. But for those of us on the outside, it only took about 90 days of carpet-bagging of Pentagon money to private contractors by Rumsfeld and Bremer to see that conditions had been made terrible in Iraq. By June of 2003, it was quite obvious that management of the Pentagon and the war in Iraq was grossly inappropriate to the challenge and that most things were trending to no good end.

So it was and so it is.

This was all perfectly obvious to a great many observers outside of the Eastern corridors of power in North America. It was and is elementary geopolitical reality and we know it to be so. The collective American consciousness on this point is profusely littered all over the Internet.

Now, with 18 months of unceasing strategic management incompetence in a deepening Tragedy which has no exit, the extent of American incompetence to undertake and maintain such a mission is perfectly obvious to the greater portion of the world. The Emperor is naked and a great many are remarking upon it, though some hardy souls still attempt to deny it.

Though much is still in doubt, one conclusion can already be definitively made. NEVER, EVER AGAIN, will the people permit the United States to undertake such an invasion. After some 20 months, some two thirds of the American people admit this “proactive aggression” against Iraq was a terrible mistake and their main desire is to terminate the situation as rapidly as possible. Once this is terminated, make no mistake, NEVER EVER AGAIN. The Imperial Faction will need to pack its bags and ply its fascist fairy tales to some other chump nation.

Many outside observers noticed just before the Tragic Invasion that the voice of only one Senator could be heard above the din of the zealots and their duped shills in the Mass Media, the voice of Senator Robert A Byrd. He has seen Vietnam come and go and much besides. He could be found on the Floor of the Senate just before the invasion of Iraq began where he offered perfectly obvious wise counsel to all comers. But there were few indeed in the corridors of power to hear Byrd speak about the indecisive intelligence, about the need for international cooperation to keep in check Presidential impulses, about the primacy of international treaty obligations to govern all the world equally, and about the illegitimacy of Presidential usurpation of the Constitution’s War Power, which the framers had reserved ONLY to Congress.

On Senator Byrd’s assertions, history is already coming to rest, much sooner than even he may have suspected.

As the invasion began, it became almost immediately obvious to people like me sitting in the Arizona desert, far from the scene, that the entire project was bound to create disastrous results. It was perfectly clear, even to those of us who know not much about Arab cultures, that 135,000 troops cannot hope to occupy a country of 25 million and impose sufficient order to undertake a rebuilding effort.

We saw quite clearly that the Priests of High Technology in the Pentagon intended to use so-called “smart munitions” in many forms to create a radical advantage in firepower. We knew at the time of the beginning of the invasion that these smart munitions would still be as brutal in urban zones as plain old dumb munitions and indeed we see how barbarous they have been and how effective they are in creating millions of enemies.

When Saddam executed his “shift function” and began the looting of all government assets, it should have been clear that he was converting his standing forces into a guerilla network which was disappearing underground. After all, that is EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID HE WAS GOING TO DO. It should have become clear that the invasion was up against an enemy far more wily than the zealots are willing to credit. From this it should have been clear that a different game plan would be necessary.

This should have became exceptionally clear from the systematic looting of the country under the very noses of American forces. Even from afar, with no daily intelligence briefings, it was obvious that the Baathists were “looting” their State Assets to hide resources in an effort to bide their time while denying the resources to the U.S. Unfortunately, it appears from afar that General Franks didn’t get it. Apparently, as I infer from his statements, he was too busy trying to chase Rumsfeld’s Weapons of Mass Deception.

What has become slowly obvious is that the occupation in Iraq failed at square one, with very little understanding of what major groups in Iraq were doing and with no mass plan of engagement to connect Iraqis into a new order. From these beginning errors, conditions have continued to spiral into greater failure and an ever more tragic quagmire. About the time George W. Bush was declaring “Mission Accomplished” to declare the end of major combat operations, it was perfectly clear that a violent struggle in Iraq was only beginning under the most incompetently lead government in American history. It was perfectly clear, even to old desert coyotes in Arizona, that there was NO effective plan of occupation which could hope to win the peace.

This was all perfectly obvious 16 months ago and I can prove it because I, and many others, have been saying the same thing on the internet for that long. Sixteen months, and the occupation is a total failure. All the King’s Men and all the King’s CIA, with unlimited funds at their disposal, could not, worse, still cannot get it right.

Now even a major part of the world can plainly see what the coyotes high in the Mesas of the Southwest could see from the beginning. The Tragedy in Iraq is a terrible historical loss for America and the situation cannot be resolved as things stand under existing plans, paradigms, and political management. In short, the U.S. is incompetent to continue this engagement. The U.S. is incompetent to bring any conclusion except more destruction, more deaths, more recruits for Al Qaeda, and a deepening world polarization against the U.S.

As a consequence, quite appropriately, the voices for abruptly withdrawing are growing louder and louder. As things stand as of October 3, 2004, these voices are right. Why should we continue to spiral into a deeper disaster? As a fine old country boy Kenny Rogers sang, “you gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em”. When it is time to cut and run, it is time to cut and run precisely because you know tomorrow’s price is unavoidably higher.

The Strategic Stalemate

But is this the only solution? Consider this strategic summary: The U.S. Ship of State sails through extremely dangerous historical waters. Major tragedies which change the course of history can occur at any moment. Al Qaeda has the U.S. just exactly where they want it, its military extended and exposed to the mortars and grenades of an endless Arab "snipe hunt" across a vast unfriendly territory which ranges from Palestine to Pakistan.

With the U.S. so excellently positioned for harassment, Al Qaeda uses random attacks, like the lances of bullfighters, to weaken and confuse the American Bull. Their strategy is winning, mainly because Rumsfeld and his Imperial Faction are incompetent buffoons who continue to “proactively” step into the traps Al Qaeda lays. Rumsfeld continues to hand-deliver to Al Qaeda on a silver platter an oafish continuation of the killing fields in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rumsfeld’s directives supply a steady stream of Americans under false pretenses to the killing fields and Rumsfeld’s doctrines continue to create more recruits for Al Qaeda’s jihadism than it kills.

You best fold this hand.

So how do you fix this? Shall you double the force you apply? Surely that is not enough. Triple it? Where are you going to get the force? American imperialism and George Bush are as popular around the world as Leprosy, nobody will touch either one. The well is dry.

Even if you quadruple the force you apply, no argument is persuasive. The killing fields in the Middle East are too large. You will simply increase the number of troops who die each day.

In short, the strategy of “proactive aggression dominance” with American troops, and/or with any foreign troops, is an absurd failure. All that can be achieved is the “Lebanon Shoot-out” which utterly destroyed Beirut during the 1980’s. Do we really need to prove once again the perfectly obvious with a “Baghdad Shoot-Out”.

If we pursue this path further, it is quite obvious that the United States will bankrupt and disintegrate. If so, it will take more than a generation to restore the Republic and repair the damage. More than a generation...

When management is too incompetent to deal with circumstances, the only thing you CAN do is walk away from it. We are exactly at that point. The question is, how are we going to walk and in what direction?

Let me suggest that you look at the indictments made by Ramsey Clark, some of which are even now in late September being echoed by John Kerry and a thousand voices in the Democratic Party. Beyond the many issues of unfitness for office, Clark speaks of War Crimes and international crimes against humanity.

There are a lot of people on the hook for these indictments. These indictments can be applied up and down the chain of command and management. Even for one sitting in the desert, many of those charges seem easily sustainable in any unbiased forum of debate. People will be chanting those indictments on street corners from here, now through to the last helicopter evacuation from Iraq sometime next year, regardless of who wins the Presidential elections. And then, all hell will break loose in the U.S. Americans could bankrupt themselves suing each other if such cases are admitted in the courts.

Aaron Brown of CNN asked repeatedly during August 2004, “why are we still fighting the Vietnam War”. Why do people like Paul Krugman and hundreds of other journalists and critics keep alluding to comparisons with Vietnam? The answer is elementary. For a great many in the American Hinterland far beyond the vision of Washington DC, the answer is that the Tragedy in Iraq is the same tragedy and the same struggle for the Soul of America as arose during Vietnam against the same self-absorbed incompetence, greed, corruption, and arrogance in the use of executive power. Richard Nixon ultimately became the fall guy for that Tragedy and his failure as a president will always symbolize it. Just so, George W. Bush’s arrogant invasion of Iraq will always symbolize the ultimate failure of American Imperialism.

In many ways and in countless forms, a great part of the world now knows all of this. Only portions of the American Mass Broadcast Media still gamely attempt to pretend otherwise. I hope that you too have seen through enough of the illusions of conceit in Washington DC and New York. I hope that you can perceive enough of this reality to know that the existing strategic impasse MUST BE DISSOLVED, IMMEDIATELY, or hostile hands will reach out to do it for us.

Towards this end, it is good that the Kerry-Edwards campaign has finally moved onto center stage with its own blistering critique of the Tragedy in Iraq. It is good to see that Atlantic Coast politicians are beginning to see now what has been so obvious up in the Mesas of the Western States for nigh on two years. It is good that the Kerry-Edwards team has begun to lay out some talking points for a plan.

Their four point agenda for a plan is helpful. As they suggest, an international conference is immediately necessary to create a new context. A radically expanded effort at increasing security and employing more Iraqis for rebuilding Iraq is elementary common sense.

But their “plan” is short wheels and a motor. Vague, academic, reader-board talking points are worthless unless we can pour in the details of a large, visionary, detailed campaign of radical change in existing conditions.

First, Restore Credibility

Accordingly, let me now immediately provide a vision of the transformative details. It is amazing that, with a dark budget of many tens of billions of dollars, the U.S. intelligence agencies cannot tell you what the score is in the Middle East and cannot provide you with the means to fix Iraq. So this old coyote in the desert, with scant resource save that which can be unfolded through the Iway, will point you forthwith in the direction where you can fix the situation.

To begin with, you must work ceaselessly to restore credibility:

With Anthony Zinni, you must confront the root of the problem, the Imperial Faction, head-on. He has called for the resignation of Rumsfeld and the entire apparatus of “Rambo-cons” who have created this tragedy. Anthony Zinni’s call is the correct call. Though the timing of the Presidential election appears to trump calling for such resignations, still as a matter of principle it should be supported as widely, vigorously, and as visibly as possible. Rumsfeld and his appointees should go immediately.
You must build new personal coalitions to build far better policies which you yourselves know far better how to implement than the likes of the Imperial Faction. You have much work to do on behalf of the American people to overcome the views and manipulations of the Imperial Faction.
You must vigilantly deal with the issue of respect and credibility of veterans. The highest brass need, collectively to make it very clear in the sternest of terms to the politicians that they betray their country and every person in uniform and destroy morale and credibility when they permit the kinds of smears which have been fostered and tolerated against John McCain, Max Cleland, and John Kerry.
Like Kerry did with his now famous swift boats, you need to focus your forces more sharply then ever directly against the Imperial Faction. Remember Daniel Ellsberg? He turned the entire Pentagon upside down. I do not advocate illegal acts, but I hope appropriate people turn the Pentagon upside down and keep shaking it until the lies all fall out.
One of the gravest necessities is to restore elementary credibility in the rule of law and ethical truth. You must not duck, dodge, nor distort the continuing revelations about torture interrogation techniques and policies. The whole world, save possibly the American Broadcast Media, knows perfectly well that the CIA has a hidden empire of disgusting black arts and that the infection of brutality and sadism in Iraq sources directly to the CIA and some of its sinister allies. All this is perfectly obvious even to the coyotes on the Mesas in the desert. Nobody is kidding us. At every level, out this stuff in whatever way you can.
Don’t play dodge’em games. Refuse to bury issues. You will not damage the U.S., you will strengthen it. You can and should stand tall on loyalty to 300 years of international treaties, the U.S. constitution, and the American common law. Rake all lies, misrepresentations, and errors into the open air. You will do far more good for the U.S. Military than harm. The more the truth is exposed, the more credibility you will restore to the Republic. People who argue otherwise are the idiots who create these problems in the first place. It is that simple.

Restoring credibility is essential. These things will bring some greater measure of sanity in your own purposes and actions as well as for many others. But unfortunately none of these are going to resolve the terrible Tragedy of Iraq.

Second, Drop Rambo Action Doctrines

Let us now go deeper into Military Action Doctrines. You must abruptly change those which are in current use. In August, I watched with great sadness as U.S. Armed Forces belligerently dumped explosives into the middle of a densely populated old-world city and pompously engaged in highly dangerous firefights while surrounding a venerated old antique of a Mosque, threatening to thrash the poor fools within who don’t have a clue about what to do nor how to do it except to shoot off the ammunition which was passed to them by others.

Many have taken up calling this U.S. deployment a Rambo-style operation. That is about right.

Drop it.

You get suckered into these operations because somebody doesn’t like that someone else is not submitting to someone else. Here it is the Mosque, there it is a town, now this week it is a city. How much force to apply, how to apply it, come in hard, come in soft, the debate spins around and around. No matter what you do here, it just isn’t going to go well. And there is no way to sell it to anyone. There is no support left for this, except among small numbers of those who are truly obsessed with conquest and the violence of war.

Continuing the Rambo approach is absurd. Shooting up more cities creates no solutions, it only gets us closer to hell. Escalating it is madness. Besides the fact that this is well beneath the elementary dignity of the people and soldiers of the United States, it ends up losing the war. A great many fear as I do that the history books may record that the turning of the tide of history against America began at Najaf. For every move you make now, the geopolitical stakes are really that high. The world wearies of an occupation in which political leadership is obviously hopelessly failed and where the military side is brutally over-muscled and creates far too much civilian carnage.

How to shift out of these destructive military reactions? You have a problem? Freeze frame it. Seal it off. Frame by frame, isolate the insurgents. Food and water will eventually liberate all areas. This solution is as old as warfare and was widely used from the earliest of days because it works so well. What is difficult about this?

Manpower? Yes…well.

Do we really have a $30 billion dollar per year or more national intelligence community which is unable to recall the elementary lessons of history?

Third, IMMEDIATELY Employ Everyone In Iraq

Here then is the strategic plan which I argued some 18 months ago would make peace work in Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan. If you can still find enough forbearing in the Iraqi people at this time, you might still be able to implement it.

I call this the Full Mobilization Employment Plan. This is the only plan that ever works. It is not difficult to understand and not so difficult to implement as might be thought. Every successful conqueror, fascist, and communist who ever took over a country knew how to make this plan work, and that is why they were successful.

As you roll into a country and destroy its government and its agents, most social function collapses and chaos ensues. No one knows what to do next. To overcome the chaos you must have a proactive plan which can fully engage the population in the new order of things. In the case of Iraq, this should have meant immediate implementation of a plan to employ immediately some one fourth to one third of the population with sufficient pay to support their families fully. Their pay and consumption demands would have immediately sparked a commercial and agricultural revolution which would have engaged the remainder of the population full time chasing after the bucks of demand to rapidly increase the supply of goods and services.

As production mounts, you can begin to taper off the public employment rolls, and eventually, with skillful management, you can achieve a balance that works. In the space of a few short years, all can be normalized.

With an oil rich nation, this should have been child’s play. Iraq would be largely peaceful today if this plan had been implemented in May 2003.

In one sense, under such circumstances, it does not matter exactly what you employ one fourth of the adult population to do. The most important thing, the most important good of the new order is that a fourth of the population is fully engaged in something, knows how to fit into the new order, and is enabled to survive and support his family with some dignity. The rest then know what to do. The farmers now have cash markets, the merchants can sell, and producers can start producing personal consumption goods again.

Everyone quickly becomes fully invested in maintaining the prosperity of this new regime. Personal stability creates the social stability of the new regime. He who has the gold, and pays well and very widely, rules very well indeed. That is the elementary formula. This formula has been known for thousands of years. It was even described in ancient Chinese texts which predate everything which is known as Western Civilization. It was called the “Mandate Of Heaven”.

Let me ask you this. How could a $30 billion dollar a year intelligence service fail to deliver you the goods of an occupation plan which contains the elementary NECESSARY formula for any successful occupation? How is it that they are so incompetent?

Were they lazily thinking of Andrew Jackson’s model for dealing with Indians, which held that you just shove them around and herd them to hell and gone? Or were they thinking of the Israeli model for treating Palestinians, which holds that you just shove them around, indianize them on reservations, and tell them to stay there under occupation rules or get the crap beaten out of them? Isn’t that pretty much what Iraq has become, a great big reservation ruled by cliques controlled by the CIA using Mossad intimidation techniques?

Where does that leave the U.S. Soldier? How about as “the patsy”?

This cannot work in Iraq, the population is far too large. It is not working in Palestine either, people just pretend that it is and they get away with it because the problem “appears” to be much smaller.

The proof of this formula is very simple. You can study history. Or, if you are in a hurry, you can ask, “what is the great secret of Al Sadr’s emergence as a leader?” The answer is easy to verify: he organized a social movement, mainly a self-protection militia, and provided positions, roles, and payrolls to thousands of unemployed, broke, demoralized Iraqis who did not have a clue.

Do we really have a $30 billion plus a year intelligence industry in the U.S. which cannot give you the basic facts about how to cure the situation in the Middle East?

Can this be turned around? Maybe. Let us go back to the formula. Here is what you need to do. You must immediately hire about four million Iraqis for at least one to two years. After a couple of years, you can probably begin to reduce the public rolls to about half because the demand for labor in the private sector will become huge.

Do not be cheapskates and play the Iraqis for chumps like you are now, to their considerable distaste. You are going to pay the Iraqis about three to four times the current pay scales to pump in a huge wave of prosperity. You generally are going to pay a minimum wage of $1000 per month to every head of household in Iraq who shows up for work in one of several arenas.

You are also going to offer forgiveness and unconditional amnesty to all insurgents: they turn in their weapons and they sign up for a job.

With this total, immediate employment, you are going to RADICALLY AND IMMEDIATELY CHANGE THE DYNAMICS ON THE STREET. Four million Iraqi families will be spending their time thinking about how they are going to spend the money. Soon they will be far too distracted to conduct insurgent acts.

Fourth, Engage The Oil Money To Finance The Solution

You are going to arrange financing for this from the Arabian Gulf States – Saudi Arabia and all the small fiefdoms. They will use an international tax on the barrel of oil to create the funds. Eventually, Iraqi oil production will pay back the loan.

You are going to organize the four million Iraqis to accomplish the following tasks:

A huge portion of them, which we can call the Iraq Reconstruction Corps, are going to comb every square inch of Iraqi soil for weapons and toxic pollutants and all the junk and gunk of the past 30 year. All dangers will be removed. As they go, house by house, door by door, all military weapons in the country will be seized. Handguns will be ballistically profiled and registered so no bullet can be fired anonymously. This should be done as a wave, like a wave of locusts flowing through every square inch of the land, from the sea to the mountains. Nothing should escape this examination. Nothing.

Another portion of your four million are going to stake out most every intersection in the country. Most every intersection, 24/7. Wire them up with wireless communications. Nothing in the country will be able to move unobserved. The posse hunting for Alqaeda and insurgents will be able to close up on their footsteps.

A good portion of your four million will expand the services for education, human health, and civic resources. These will provide the backbone of the newly emerging government services.

Another portion of your four million are going to stake out and protect the oil industry and other vulnerable installations. These will eventually become the Iraqi army.

As the oil industry recovers, its prime mission will come to finance a two million or so public employment sector to sustain wide sharing of the people’s wealth with full employment dynamics. The four million public work force can be gradually slimmed down to one half or to one third of its original size, or perhaps even less.

Not least, some portion of the four million will become the representatives of Iraq’s new national parliament. To create a fully democratic national system, Iraqis should be able to vote for a Councilmen who represents about one hundred Iraqis of voting age. This would require a system of some 100,000 representatives, the great majority sitting in Village, City, and Provincial councils, some sitting in the National Parliament. These representatives would provide personal legal and agent representation services for the people whom they serve. Most likely the Village Councilmen would elect the Provincial and National Parliaments. The Councilmen would insure that all people are treated properly in Iraq. With such close, intensive representation by one Councilman per every 100 registered adult Iraqis, secrecy and isolation would be difficult. The influence of corrupt, Western-style demagogic media would be minimized.

Are you ready? Of course not. Will it work? Eventually, under someone, something like this will be made to work.

Whether it will work under American jurisdiction is an open question because the psychological damage in Iraq is very advanced. The mischief of CIA manipulation is very grave and unpredictable. Events at this stage may rapidly cascade at any moment beyond U.S. control.

But this is what you must attempt to undertake. Nothing less. Or just get out before you betray any more soldiers and Iraqi civilians in a vain effort to muddle through.

While you are at it, the program should be extended to Palestine and Afghanistan, financed the same way, ultimately paid by a direct tax on all oil production in the Middle East. Employing four million Iraqis for a year at $1000/month will cost $48 billion. Since Iraq is said to be capable of supplying as much as 5 million barrels of oil per day, or even 50% higher, it should be able to count on an annual oil income of some $55 billion. This is enough to pay for full employment and eventually repay the initial reconstruction costs.

These sums are not available today or tomorrow, only in the long term. And that is where the Gulf State Bankers come in. To bring this program into being despite the severe psychological damage in Iraq, the entire financial solution should be arranged through the Islamic bankers of the Middle East oil producers. This would provide a pan-Arabic, pan-Islamic financial solution for all the “problems” in the Middle East.

Fifth, Mobilize The Islamic Community

To implement this program “on the street”, immediately, the only workable method is to engage the Islamic community. More probable than not, if the Islamic community cannot “win the peace” in Iraq, no one can. Islam is the main commonality which most ethnic groups and provinces in Iraq have in common. Accordingly, Islam is the major moral force through which Iraqis can overcome their parochial self-interests and find their highest common mutual interest. Muslim institutions, then, are likely to be the most successful in peacefully initiating the rebuilding of Iraq.

Religious leaders, teachers, and organizations can provide the networking and a local presence everywhere in Iraq. They can coordinate the use of some physical resources to enable the beginning stages for implementing the programs. No doubt they are best positioned to nominate managers and coordinators for the programs who are least likely to be corrupt. Most importantly, if they find that this plan is in tune with Islamic precepts and offers a very speedy disengagement of American troops from Iraq, they can undertake to draw together the “brightest” and most “sincere” of the younger Iraqis to implement the program “en masse” as a truly “Iraqi” program.

More probable than not, then, peace-loving Islamic leaders are the most likely people to restore peace and sound government in Iraq. Bush and his Imperial Faction clearly cannot do so. Nor can John Kerry, unless he can offer this type of systemic solution to all Iraqis by gaining the confidence and participation of Iraq’s cultural leaders.

If Americans cannot become practical enough to offer this type of plan, then peace-making Islamic organizations in Iraq and the Middle-East should engage to implement the plan. If fact, it is best that they begin to provide the leadership immediately. They are perfectly capable of stepping up on the stage of history. The only thing lacking to turn conditions around in Iraq is visionary leadership with a heart and the will to enable all to succeed. That heart and visionary leadership need to be more Islamic and Iraqi than it is American. Let it be so from the Heart and Mind of God.

To contact the author about additional discussion of these ideas and systems concepts, write: mwm@michaelmandeville.com

To view the author’s website and obtain a PDF or HTML version of this letter, go to:

http://www.michaelmandeville.com

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