Iraq Fiasco and the Withdrawal Paradox

Category: Americas, World Affairs Topics: Conflicts And War, George W. Bush, Iraq Views: 3147
3147

17 July 2005: Scores of bodies lying outside the morgue of a local hospital in the Al-Musayyib town,  about 37 miles south of Baghdad. The dead are victims of a suicide bomber that killed at least 60 people and wounded 85 in a massive fireball when he blew himself up next to a liquefied gas tanker.

From Friday through Sunday, Iraq was hit by an unbelievable 15 suicide bombings, one of which, on a Shi'a mosque in Musayyib, killed 98 people. Since the April 28 formation of the new government, car bombings alone have killed close to 1700. Since the United States has a population at least 11 times that of Iraq, this is proportionately something like 6 9/11's that Iraqis have gone through in just the past few months - without even counting deaths, injuries, and torture inflicted by U.S. and Iraqi government forces. According to a justification George Bush gives now and again, this was a deliberate goal of the invasion and these 6 9/11's count as a stunning success of the policy.

This week, Seymour Hersh reports that, according to anonymous military and intelligence sources, during the run-up to the Iraqi elections, George Bush signed a "highly classified Presidential 'finding' authorizing the C.I.A. to provide money and other support covertly to political candidates in certain countries who, in the Administration's view, were seeking to spread democracy." The context in which this finding was made was Iraq and the political candidate who was supposedly "seeking to spread democracy," was none other than the Paul Bremer-appointed strongman Ayad Allawi, whose democratic record includes general thuggery, vicious crackdowns from the Iraqi security forces, attempts to intimidate and suppress the media, and approval of the murderous assault on Fallujah in November - although it's true he has shown no less respect for democracy than his successors.

It's harder and harder for anyone to justify any aspect of the Iraq war unless, like most of the right wing, he takes the position that facts don't matter or, really, don't exist. You simply can't argue that Iraqis are better off - the violence far exceeds that of Saddam's later years, unofficial militias intimidate everyone and restrict basic political freedoms almost as much as Saddam did, and, indeed many basic rights that Saddam guaranteed, especially women's rights, are gone now.

You also can't argue that the United States wanted any real democracy in Iraq. The presidential finding may or may not have been fully implemented and it certainly made little difference - Allawi's list only got 14% even in the official figures - but the intent to manipulate the election was there. And even the election itself represented a capitulation to Ayatollah Sistani, not any American plan.

You get the point. And yet, this same week, Jay Bookman, deputy editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, wrote an opinion piece in which he excoriates the Iraq war as an absolute fiasco but says we can't just leave, that we're "morally obligated" to stay until the Iraqis can elect a government and establish a "means of self-defense."

This would mean little - it is, after all, the conventional view - but Jay Bookman is the same man who wrote, in the fall of 2002, that the reason for the impending Iraq war was dreams of a new militaristic American empire and referenced the plans of the Project for a New American Century, at the time largely unknown but now a staple of left analysis.

Now add to all of this the analysis developed over the last few weeks in these commentaries, that the Iraq war is now significantly weakening American imperial hegemony, directly through bogging it down and consuming the administration's attention, and indirectly through hastening the collapse of the international legitimacy of America's role.

You have a picture of a war that's not helping anyone, except, of course, the very people Bush swore eternal enmity against after 9/11, that neither hard-headed realists who care only about American power or American soldiers' lives nor bleeding hearts who are willing to make sacrifices if it's for the good of Iraqis can seriously support. And yet the antiwar movement is silent, nobody is coming to us to say, "You were right all along, please tell us what to do now," and, most critically, even people with penetration, open minds, and basic good will like Jay Bookman don't support withdrawal. Talk about immediate withdrawal and meaningful support is negligible - the question isn't even asked on polls. This situation is, or ought to be, a tremendous paradox.

Rahul Mahajan is publisher of the blog Empire Notes and teaches at New York University. He has been to Iraq twice and reported from Fallujah during the siege in April.


  Category: Americas, World Affairs
  Topics: Conflicts And War, George W. Bush, Iraq
Views: 3147

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Older Comments:
YAHYA BERGUM FROM USA said:
And let us not forget the Iraqi people who died after America betrayed them in the previous war. It's not for me to criticize an Iraqi's choice of helpers whether such helpers are Arabs or Persians or from nearby or further away. Obviously their government might have something to say about their choices. But this time around I'm disinclined to betray those currently at risk for having chosen help from me - or even those at risk for being inclined to resist someone else's choice of helpers.
2005-07-20

IAN FROM UK said:
Right you are Peter. I was thinking about the same thing. Appx 120,000 Iraqi and 42,000 Afghani civilians killed, countless maimed, tortured, raped and sodomised by American soldiers, a large number of them children and not even an apology from Blair or Butcher Bush. Human suffering is not considered to be an issue unless its European or American suffering. This mindset that only we matter is quite pathetic. Yes I can see why the rage against us. But you have to give us English some credit. At least we have the civility to initiate a dialogue with Muslim communities. Though our media is not brilliant it is not the hate, rancour and yellow journalism of rabble rousing US media groups such as Fox News and New York Post.

Here is a taste of US freedom and democracy:

http://www.infowars.com/print/iraq/sodomized.htm
2005-07-19

PETER FROM NORWAY said:
Reports today show that there have been at least 25,000 innocent civilians slaughtered by invading American and allied forces. That is just a conservative estimate. Between The Lancet and the UN the estimate is much higher - 130,000 civilians killed. Now I suppose because these are Muslims and Arabs so the number of dead does not bother us? No 1-minute silence to honour the slaughtered. No public outrage. No media coverage other than a blurb on page 6. No heart wrenching comments gracing headlines, no personal histories of those murdered? Just a statistic, Yes? Now I wonder if all can now see why the Muslim world is seething at us? If there were 25,000 or 130,000 civilians killed in the US, these buggers would have been dropping nuclear bombs on any country they pleased, just because they can. However they would not attack China or Russia naturally because their nuclear weapons are a deterrent to such monsters as the US. Hence it makes very good and sound sense fro all Muslim countries to acquire nuclear weapons by hook or by crook because barring that they run the risk of ending up like Iraq. This applies to civilians too as the consequences of an apologetic and defenseless community results in horrors as the Pakistani visitor to the UK who was bashed to death by white English mobs. Had the community had a plan to deal with such situations deftly, the hooligans would think twice before murdering Muslims or Asians and destroying their property. Maybe that is what Muslims need to do, stop being apologetic, demand the their rights and boycott ant country, community or organisation that does not comply. This of course would only work if Muslims put up a united front. Will Muslims be united?
2005-07-19