Articles with the Tag War on Iraq

On Iraq

Antiwar, War on Iraq
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Why I was opposed to the war on Iraq:

  1. Didn’t trust Bush or Blair.
  2. The long history of US and UK meddling in Iraq, beginning with the UK using poison gas in the 1920ties
    to defeat popular uprisings, through the US’s support of the Ba’ath party’s 1963 coup to the wheelings
    and dealings in the 1980ties, when saddam was our best friend as long as he kept killing Iranians, and
    let’s not forget how the Shi’ite population was encourage to rise up only to betrayed, or the decade long
    sanctions that hurt only the Iraqi people, not Saddam.
  3. The reasons given for the war were phony. It was clear from the start that “Saddam has weapons of mass destruction” and “Saddam has ties with Al Quaida” were so much lies.
  4. Afghanistan. Here we were supposed to believe Iraq would be led into a glorious future, when the
    country that we had been promised this about the year before was largely forgotten.
  5. A healthy skepticism of the idea that democracy can be imposed from above.
  6. A fear of the consequences of what would happen during the war, as well as after. Fortunately, the
    war was less bloody than I had expected, but the same cannot be said of the occupation.
  7. Not much faith in Bush and co not to fuck things up even if they were sincere.

We’re now more then a year further, the war is “over” and the occupation of Iraq an established fact. Yes, yes, you opposed this war, good for you, but you have to deal with reality as it is, not as you should wish it to be. Does this mean you should resign yourself to the occupation and support it, for some values of support? I don’t think so, as my presence at the March 20th anti-occupation demonstration in Amsterdam showed, but I’ve found it hard to articulate why.

It is tempting to give in to the calls to be grownup, mature and sensible and acquiescence in what Bush and Blair have done. Let them get away with their crime. But would you let a burglar live in your neighbour’s house just your neighbour was abusive to his family and the burglar says he has the best interests of the family at heart? I think not. Which is one reason I cannot accept the continuing occupation of Iraq.

The other reason is more complicated, more of a gut feeling than something I can reason out. I don’t think having US troops in Iraq is doing either Iraq or the US much good. Even if they would be under UN control tomorrow, with Bush having given up the presidency in favour of Kerry, I think I’d still oppose the occupation. Because there’s still reason #5 I was opposed to the war, something that nagged at me when bright-eyed and bushy-tailed warliberals tried to sell the war to me.

The idea is either (if you believed in this war from the start) that we in the West have a duty to liberate Iraq from Saddam and make it into a democracy or (if you didn’t) that, since “we broke it, we bought it” and we still have a duty to the Iraqi people to make their country into a democracy. It is an attractive idea, a great cause to be part of, the chance to do some good in the world in a very concrete way.

But…

Do the people who are in power in Iraq share your ideals, your goals? Will the Iraqi people themselves think the same about freedom, democracy and apple pie? Will the occupation not tend to exacerbate already existing problems or even become the focal point for anti-democratic forces? Will the temptation to take “shortcuts”, to e.g. install an “enlightened dictator’ be resisted? Is it actually possible to impose democracy from the outside? The history of US foreign policy in the 20th century, whether led by a Democratic or a Republican president, certainly doesn’t make me optimistic.

And yes, I’m aware that if the coalition troops withdraw from Iraq, there will likely be a civil war, with at best some strongman getting into power and rule Iraq much in thew same way Saddam did. The trouble is, the civil war is already there, with the coalition troops just being another target…It seems to me that at least sometimes, the presence of coalition troops just worsens the situation. Just look at Fallujah.

So what is the answer? I honestly don’t know. What I would try is to start withdrawing the coalition troops, but not to abandon Iraq. Democratic and civic forces need to be supported while those who would want to exploit Iraqi suffering for their own goals, like Al Quida, need to be defeated.

After that…?

Bloody Norm

War on Iraq
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Norman Geras says, in the course of writing about Bush’s war:

To give a crude analogy here: if someone burgles a house and her only motive in doing so is greed, I will approve of her action if, in order to bring off the burglary, she finds she has to release a terrified family from the grip of a bullying, violent and child-abusing patriarch. I will not think that what happened was overall bad because it was – ‘in essence’ – a burglary; or worry, in my approval, about the burglar going on to burgle others. If she does, we can disapprove of – and oppose – that.

Whereas I don’t think, to give another crude analogy here, that a mob war should be thought of as a public service, even if it clears the streets of some deserving scumbags.

The battle in Samara

War on Iraq
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This, if this is a true account of that battle in Samara, is bad:

A Combat Leader Gives The Inside Skinny Of The Biggest Battle Since The War Ended

[…] most of the casualties were civilians, not insurgents or criminals as being reported. During the
ambushes the tanks, brads and armored HUMVEES hosed down houses, buildings, and cars while using
reflexive fire against the attackers. One of the precepts of “Iron Hammer” is to use an Iron Fist when dealing with the insurgents. As the division spokesman is telling the press, we are responding with overwhelming firepower and are taking the fight to the enemy. The response to these well coordinated
ambushes was as a one would expect. The convoy continued to move, shooting at ANY target that appeared to be a threat. RPG fire from a house, the tank destroys the house with main gun fire and hoses the area down with 7.62 and 50cal MG fire. Rifle fire from an alley, the brads fire up the alley and fire up the surrounding buildings with 7.62mm and 25mm HE rounds. This was actually a rolling firefight through the entire town.

The ROE under “Iron Fist” is such that the US soldiers are to consider buildings, homes, cars to be
hostile if enemy fire is received from them (regardless of who else is inside. It seems too many of us
this is more an act of desperation, rather than a well thought out tactic. We really don’t know if we kill
anyone, because we don’t stick around to find out. Since we armored troops and we are not trained to use counter-insurgency tactics; the logic is to respond to attacks using our superior firepower to kill the rebel insurgents. This is done in many cases knowing that there are people inside these buildings or cars who may not be connected to the insurgents.

The belief in superior firepower as a counter-insurgency tactic is then extended down to the average
Iraqi, with the hope that the Iraqis will not support the guerillas and turn them in to coalition forces,
knowing we will blow the hell out of their homes or towns if they don’t. Of course in too many cases,
if the insurgents bait us and goad us into leveling buildings and homes, the people inside will then hate us (even if they did not before) and we have created more recruits for the guerillas.

The occupation of Iraq

War on Iraq
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Bobbie at PolitX has a problem with those who call for a end to the occupation of Iraq:

Now, you can argue all you like about the reasons for going to war. Were there WMDs? We haven’t found them, but Saddam was doing his best to make us think they were there. Were we lied to? Difficult question. Were we knowingly lied to? I think it’s unlikely. Discussing these can go on all day, but in the end they don’t get us anywhere. We need to look at the problem in hand.

Now that the war is ostensibly over, and the occupiers should be looking. What do the Stoppers want?
All coalition troops to immediately pull out of Iraq? That would leave the country in a bigger hole than ever, prone to bandits, civil war and wannabe dictators. Surely only an agenda-driven fool could support such action?

A progressive, pragmatic left must realise that what’s done is done. Stamping feet and throwing tantrums is no good now: what will most help the people of Iraq is if we take this chance to help mould and foster democracy in the country – take this chance to be part of the process, not outside it.

At first glance this looks reasonable. Only at first glance, though. The problem with this analysis is that it supposes that Bush ‘n co actually care for the people of Iraq, that they are rational competent people actually wanting to built a better Iraq. More offensively it supposes that democracy can be imposed from above, that Iraq has no chance to develop into a democracy on its own, without outside interference.

This is dangerous nonsense. Historical evidence shows that it is in fact the other way around. Every time either the UK or the US interfered in Iraq, it has lead to dictatorship and repression. The UK “liberated” the country from the Ottaman Empire, only to form its own protectorate kingdom, first having to guess the unruly natives. The US was the country that actually put that dangerous madman psychopath dictator Saddam Hussein in power and gave him the resources to once again gas Iraqi people.

So why should it be any different this time? Should we trust the high moral standards of mister Bush and Blair, who lied and lied to get this war started and are lying still about why they did?

I think not.

Bobbie’s fears are reasonable ones, but the country already is prone to “bandits, civil war and wannabe dictators” –most of the latter now serving on the socalled Iraqi National Council. The occupation is only making matters worse. To equate calling an end to it with “stamping feet and throwing tantrums” is just grossly offensive.

Satellite age McCarthyism

Antiwar, War on Iraq
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This article says what I think about the socalled “evidence” coming out of Iraq that anti-war Labout MP George Galloway was in pay of Saddam Hussein, that France and Russia provided intelligence to Iraq during the war or that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden were in league: it’s bullshit.

April 29, 2003—After the United States and Britain were shown to be providing bogus and plagiarized “intelligence” documents to the UN Security Council that supposedly “proved” Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction program, the world’s media is now being fed a steady stream of captured Iraqi “intelligence” documents from the rubble of Iraq’s Mukhabarat intelligence headquarters.

Welcome to the new digital and satellite age McCarthyism. Phony documents are “dropped” into the hands of a right-wing London newspaper owned by Conrad Black. They are amplified by Black’s other holdings, including the Jerusalem Post and Chicago Sun-Times. The story is then picked up by the worldwide television outlets of News Corporation, Time Warner, Disney, and General Electric and echoed on the right-wing radio talk shows of Clear Channel and Viacom. Political careers are damaged or destroyed. There is no right of rebuttal for the accused. They are guilty as charged by a whipped up public that gets its information from the Orwellian telescreens of the corporate media.