The image of the United States military conveyed to the world by
the scandal at the Abu Garaib prison in Iraq is
“horrific,” said a retired Marine general who visited
UCLA on Tuesday.
Anthony Zinni, a four-star retired Marine general and Vietnam
war veteran, lectured like an old hand and fielded questions from
an audience of about 60 war veterans and their spouses, UCLA
professors and a smattering of students.
Zinni has a widespread reputation for his willingness to be
honest and critical of those in power.
During the forum, sponsored by the Burkle Center for
International Relations, Zinni spoke candidly about U.S. action in
the Middle East from the perspective of a seasoned military
commander, one who has spent 15 years working in the Middle
East.
Photos of prisoners held at Abu Garaib being humiliated by
American guards have recently appeared in the media, causing public
outrage toward the Bush administration and pushing some politicians
and citizens to call for the resignation of Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld.
Zinni voiced his irritation at the people responsible for
disgracing the United States military.
Everything the United States has been trying to accomplish is
being destroyed, and the work of thousands of honest, decent
soldiers around the world will be dragged down by these actions,
which are “not American,” Zinni said.
Culturally, many Americans have no idea of how shameful those
types of “frat-house pranks” are to Iraqis, he
said.
Zinni’s lecture focused on the military presence of the
United States in Iraq, an action he regrets.
Likening American military presence in Iraq to opening “a
big bag of unneeded worms,” Zinni voiced his belief that the
United States underestimated the responsibilities of jumping into a
region with an entirely different culture and belief system.
Now that the United States is well entrenched in Iraq, Zinni is
focusing on educating citizens on what is necessary to successfully
rebuild the region, coming to universities such as UCLA in an
attempt to provide students with an understanding of the issues at
hand.
According to Zinni, the United States has done an excellent job
at implementing much-needed change into an unstable region, but he
held that “in my mind, we’re failing at the strategic
level.”
The United States is trying to implement change and reform,
Zinni told the audience, but it isn’t enough.
“They have a cancer in their midst,” he said,
referring to the discontent that drives young men in the Middle
East to join terrorist organizations.
“It is an issue of the entire region.”
The acclimation of the entire Middle East area to modernity has
to be accomplished for terrorist threats to disappear, Zinni
said.
He placed special emphasis on Israel-Palestine coming to an
agreement as the key to start resolving problems in the region.
Zinni unabashedly said it will take at least another decade, or
the United States deciding it has had enough, for what has been
started in Iraq to come to a conclusion.
An internationalized resolution by the United Nations,
rebuilding international confidence in the United States, and a
focus on the economies of Middle Eastern countries will be
necessary for successful reconstruction of the area, Zinni
said.
Steven Spiegel, a political science professor and the associate
director of the Burkle Center, said Zinni “tells it like he
sees it,” further stating that “if we had more Tony
Zinnis, America would be a different place.”
Eric Anderson, a student in the audience, agreed.
“His eloquence and clairvoyance cannot be understated. …
It’s disappointing there weren’t more students
here,” he said.