Aggressive aerial bombardment

New Sy Hersh article lays out the next phase


US bombing of Southeast Asia, spring 1970 (from footage in the documentary film Hearts and Minds)

Damn, I wish I had more time to do more on this... Lately there has been an exchange of articles and postings between Alexander Cockburn and Juan Cole. Frankly, I'm troubled by the way Cole -- a writer I usually admire and respect -- has presented his vision for stepped American troop withdrawal from Iraq, first from urban areas. Cockburn has staked the anti-war position with which I agree. Where Juan Cole is coming from, on the other hand, should never be confused with an anti-war position.

The Cole vision in part calls...

...For as long as the elected Iraqi government wanted it, the US would offer the new Iraqi military and security forces close air support in any firefight they have with guerrilla or other rebellious forces . . . . With the agreement of the elected Iraqi government, the US would prevent any guerrilla force from fielding any large number of fighters for set piece battles.

Cockburn viewed this notion of ``close air support'' as tantamount to ``saturation bombing''. Yes.

Now Seymour Hersh is weighing in with astonishing reporting of just how the US administration and the US military are planning -- not necessarily harmoniously -- to provide a stepped up air war as stepped withdrawals of ground forces occur over the next year. See this diary posted at Daily Kos for links and some sharp analysis.

Hersh will report in an upcoming New Yorker article just how the Bush Administration plans to ``...increase the pace of air operations'' with ``more bombing in direct support of Iraqi units''.

The Vietnam parallel is deeply disconcerting.

Hersh (CNN, Nov. 27): ...we can take out troops if we increase air. In other words, the temple of air bombing, bombing's sort of the unknown story right now. We don't know how many bombs are dropped, where. Nobody reports publicly as they did, Wolf, in Vietnam.

Juan Cole now should explain how what he is calling for is any different than what the administration is going to do. Like Alexander Cockburn, I see more potential for civilian death and destruction, that ``nobody reports publicly''. Just like the latter years of the Vietnam War, where tonnage of bombs dropped became the rosy pr while the US ground its way through a disaster wrapped in an illusion.