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Counting the Cost in Iraq
Thanks to the foresight of policy makers in Washington, the quagmire in Iraq is now past its fifth anniversary. If this year's U.S. presidential election is any indication of what the future holds for Iraq, just hear the GOP's presumptive nominee, John McCain, talking about staying there for another hundred years! God bless him!
It is not coincidental that barely four days after the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the death toll of American soldiers in that country reached the 4,000 mark. Now that the anniversary celebrations are way behind, it is time to do a little stocktaking in terms of what has been accomplished so far, and what more remains to be done in the years -- perhaps decades -- to come.
The assessment of what the invasion has achieved is already underway at the hands of political analysts, commentators and media gurus around the world. The view from the White House, however, is rosy.
Addressing a Pentagon audience on March 19, the anniversary day, President Bush was in a self-congratulatory mood, telling the world that -- as it turned out -- his decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the "right one" after all.
From the White House perspective, the progress in Iraq is being seen only in terms of reduction in violence that has seemingly occurred as a result of the last year's "surge" in American troop strength in combating the insurgents. But the questions that need answering are many. Is America winning "the war on terror"? Is life of the Iraqi people any better under American occupation of their country than it was under Saddam Hussein's brutal regime? Is the country united, secure and stable? When, if ever, will the U.S. be ready to disengage itself from the conflict in Iraq?
One would like to think that the progress in Iraq needs to be assessed only in context of the objectives that were set forth at the start of the invasion. Initially the stated goal for the war was to rid Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that the Bush Administration believed he was stockpiling, thereby posing a global threat to the lives and interests of Americans and their allies.
It must have been very embarrassing, if not disappointing, to Washington not to have found any trace of those dreaded WMD in Iraq. That discovery necessitated a rethinking of a new rationale for the war effort. Now the phrases currently in use in Washington giving a new raison d'etre for the war suggest that it is "an operation central to the war on terror" -- a "freedom agenda", an initiative to "promote and spread democracy in the Middle East"!
The question is: how serious is the U.S. about spreading democracy in the Middle East? If that indeed is the agenda, is it not a contradiction of current U.S. foreign policy to heavily subsidize the existing monarchies and dictatorships in the region with military hardware and logistics worth billions of dollars, all to prevent them from becoming democratic? Aren't the dictatorship in Egypt or, for that matter, the absolutely autocratic sheikhdoms around the Persian Gulf the beneficiaries of that policy?
Treating the war in Iraq as "central to the war on terror" would have made sense only if, before the invasion, there had been some evidence of Iraq having become a bastion of terrorists. Saddam Hussein, the devil in him, was not much of a religionist. Never tolerant of Muslim extremists, he always saw them as a potential threat to his hold on power and made sure that the country's prominent clerics, some of whom had come from Iran, would either be in jail or on exile.
That raises the question: if there were no WMD and no terrorists to be hunted down in Iraq, what then was exactly the purpose of starting the war in Iraq in the first place? What was it for that 4,000 American soldiers had to die? Why did another 30,000 men and women in uniform have to come home severely wounded, many with disabilities or suffering from post-traumatic disorder? What about the suffering of their families?
Most importantly, it is the people of Iraq who are at the war's receiving end. Their country has been ravaged beyond recognition. Estimates of civilian casualties vary, but conservative estimates put the figure at 100,000 dead and more than a million wounded. With hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed, and the country's infrastructure lying in ruins, just add another five million Iraqis who are now displaced, half of them languishing in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. Was it all worth an invasion?
One simply wonders why America had to exact such a heavy price from a people who had done no harm to America. All that it amounts to is five years of "surge" in human misery and still counting!
Husain is a Regina freelance writer.
© The Leader-Post (Regina) 2008
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12 Comments so far
Show AllI wonder why we keep talking about the 4000 American dead in Iraq. They volunteered to go there, did they not? The Iraqis did not ask for what came to them. If the Iraqis had come to the U.S. and unleashed this kind of mayhem on us, would we be supporting their troops or counting their dead or calling their soldiers "heroes"? Somehow I think not.
Getting rid of Saddam Hussein was a good thing, but then, getting rid of Hitler was a good thing -- it just is hard to justify the Soviet slave state of East Germany that followed (to say nothing of his victims in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc. who got Stalinism as a replacement).
I still find it incredible that the Bush administration couldn't be bothered to plant WMD in the Iraqi desert, "find" those weapons and announce "case closed." I guess stupidity and arrogance are too potent a mix.
We (via Bush) have done what we have done. The only thing that matters now is how to unwind and repair. Part of that effort will be rooted in whether and to what extent the world starts forgiving the American PEOPLE for our error.
That forgiveness, to whatever extent we can obtain it, will start (or not) on the outcome of our major election.
IF we, the people, elect an Iraq-war-opposer, we'll have a leg up on restoration of our image. If we elect McCain from the Bushism wing to insist on our "we were right all along" stance, then Americans will continue declining in both treasure and prestige abroad.
Most Americans don't understand that the American and Iraqi victims are the same collateral damage in the eyes of the planners. Not since WW2 have American troops actually been needed for winning a war. Our soldiers don't actually win wars anymore. They just fight in them. The winning goes to the politicians in the form of political capital. Pretty sick society that would allow this to happen, but in a declining empire you can't avoid it. We are all potential collateral damage.
Hoa binh
The Iraq Freedom Congress (http://tinyurl.com/26yzpd )
is a libertarian, secularist, non-violent, democratic, and
progressive group that opposes Ba'athism, Islamism, and
nationalism—as well as the US invasion/occupation.
The Iraq Freedom Congress has organized a self-defense
Safety Force that patrols neighborhoods in Iraq (population:
5,000) and has reduced sectarian violence there to zero.
However, far from supporting this effort, US forces have
assassinated the head of these Safety Forces
(http://tinyurl.com/25yknr ).
*****
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo/
> ...why we keep talking about the 4000 American dead in Iraq. They volunteered...
They volunteered to surrender their rights to disobey the President when they entered the military, whenever that was. As a group, they have a duty to one another not to let the other down. You're not there. You won't be throwing yourself over a grenade to save anyone. They have to get themselves into the mindset that allows them to do that. The mindset that allows you to sacrifice your life is not conducive to the idea of going "I think I'll sit this war out, good luck guys, bye!"
As soldiers, their duty is to obey. It's to obey if President Bush sends them. It's to obey if President Obama tells them to pack up and go, nevermind whatever natives are pleading with them to stay. And some natives will be pleading - just because most want us to go doesn't mean all do, and those who have worked with the US are going to be prey.
War supporters like to claim how cheap the war is. Compared to Vietnam, WWII or a variety of other wars, the numbers are low. Discounting the lives of fellow Americans simply plays into that. The 4000 become zero.
As civilians, our duty is not to allow elected leaders to spend the lives of soldiers (mostly fellow citizens) without good reason. Some war supporters think civilians should obey like soldiers obey. No, we shouldn't. Some anti-war folk seem to expect soldiers to do what they cannot, stop a war. No, they shouldn't. You allow them the freedom to ignore their Commander-in-Chief then you risk them ignoring orders to stand down too.
I would have thought that once they (soldiers) realized that this war was wrong, their first duty was to obey their conscience and refuse to fight. Otherwise, the real herose are the Iraqis who are fighting for their hearths and homes, not the Americans who are there to enforce a brutal occupation on a sovereign nation. As I said before, would you be feeling so cuddly about Iraqi soldiers if they kicked down your doors, invaded your home, and manhandled you and your family, all because they had to obey their Commander-in-Chief, the poor lambs?
> As I said before, would you be feeling so cuddly about Iraqi soldiers
But, Iraqis should care about their soldiers. It's as if you're claiming your scenario proves they should not.
No, I am saying that right and wrong are right and wrong. American soldiers are serving a brutal power. Caring about them is fine, but they are not victims in the same sense as the Iraqis. The Americans are in the wrong, and they owe Iraqis an apology for every word of aggression, for every door they break, for every man they shove, for every bullet. They have deeply and unforgivably and heinously wronged the Iraqis in ways that do not bear thinking of, in ways that are not to be forgotten. You are saying that we should care about the American soldiers because they are OURS. I am saying that we should care, but that we should remember who are the real victims in this war. For example: if my son came home wounded from Iraq, I'd bind his wounds and take care of him, but I would be unable to say he was justified in doing what he did in going there in the first place. For he went there as an occupier. Especially if he/she enlisted during the war, it was his duty to find out why he/she could be fighting in a far away country and ordering a foreign people around and the significance of that.
The victims are Iraqis. The oppressors are Americans. There is no getting around that - sorry.
In answer to your remark, if Iraqi soldiers were committing unforgivable crimes against us in the U.S., should "they were just following orders" be good enough for other anti-war Iraqis - just because they were Iraqis too? No, it shouldn't be. Because when someone does wrong, it's wrong, and when someone does right, it's still right, and being American or Iraqi doesn't change that. I'm sure the Nazi Germans were concerned about their soldiers. Does that make them right because they were just obeying THEIR Commander-in-Chief?
> we should remember who are the real victims in this war.
Everyone is a victim except Blackwater, Halliburton and assorted defense contractors. Is this what we're fighting over, who is more of a victim, a dead person or another dead person? I think they're both dead.
>Nazi Germans were concerned about their soldiers. Does that make them right because they were just obeying THEIR Commander-in-Chief?
You seem hung up on making US soldiers = Nazis. As bad as Abu Ghraib was, they weren't tossing folks into ovens. Caring for your own doesn't mean the Commander-in-Chief is right. Caring for your own doesn't mean not caring for anyone else. Caring for people does not make one a Nazi.
Nuremberg established that following orders was not a sufficient defense for all things. But in war, it will cover a great deal that in civilian life would be extreme crimes. For a soldier on the ground before invading Iraq, their concern is how to do it, not whether to do it. For a soldier after invading, their concern is one another and doing their job as defined by their leaders. What you demand is that they not concern themselves so much with the job of staying alive and keeping one another alive but instead spend their time deciding to abandon their fellow soldiers.
The military can save us from some things but I don't think an idiot President is one of those things. The military is justified in defying orders if the leader refuses to leave office as the population wills. The population has not so willed. So you're asking the military to defy not simply the Commander-in-Chief but the system and people they've sworn to protect. This may seem a great idea now but it's not a wise one.
I'm afraid they are not protecting anyone by going over to occupy and brutalize a foreign country that was no threat to them. And there have been soldiers who have refused to fight - the true heroes - Lt. Ehren Watada and several others comes to mind. I call it not abandoning fellow soldiers, but standing by fellow human beings. Even if they are not soldiers. Looking beyond your own narrow clique. As Mohd. Ali said: No Vietnamese ever called him "N----."
The American fallen may be victims, but their names are carefully recorded, where they are from, their ages, their childhoods, all published in newspapers. Iraqis fall without a cry, underprivileged even in death, erased in silence, forgotten, nameless, even mislabeled as "militants." How many times does one see their names published in newspapers in the U.S., hear their stories told, know what they feel?
The soldiers who joined the army after the Iraq war had broken out made a choice to join that had nothing to do with protecting the American people, who were never threatened in the first place. And yes, for the Iraqis whose families are dying everyday, while American troops stand by and make jokes about the bullets they fired and take pictures beside shot out cars, no, those troops are not victims. Especially, again, not if they joined after the war began. Then they are participatory in the genocide that is currently taking place in Iraq. They have blood on their hands.
> I call it not abandoning fellow soldiers
Call it fuzzy bunnies if you want. I'm not talking about how you should feel or I should feel, I'm talking how soldiers will react because it is soldiers that you're asking to defy orders. Pat Tillman thought the Iraq war was illegal. An interesting question is whether Tillman would've gone to Iraq if so ordered. I think he would've been torn between supporting his unit and supporting an illegal war.
I've never been or known a cop or soldier. Never been in a gang of friends like in "Good Will Hunting", where right or wrong, they would defend you instinctively without question. But that 'narrow clique' mindset is what keeps soldiers alive. It's noble that Watada resists. I drove his Mom a few times when my Mom was arranging a gathering to raise funds for his defense. I didn't get the sense from her that her son condemned others for failing to be as morally superior as he. A website supporting him says that he has the respect of other officers who won't do the same. I think that respect is mutual. It is not an easy decision for a soldier. It shouldn't be.
> Iraqis fall without a cry,
And so you would prefer to make US deaths as anonymous? Well that would be 'fair' I suppose but it doesn't seem very useful. The result would seem to support war advocates who claim that the war is very cheap.
> Especially, again, not if they joined after the war began.
You write about the bad evil Americans who shoot families but what about the doctors? Bloody hands they have, so they're guilty of genocide?
I don't want a military that decides what's best for the country despite what the elected leader and the general population decides. The blood is on Bush and Cheney's hands.