Sam PF's Journal - Iraq - the debate we're not having
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10:53 pm
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Iraq - the debate we're not having
*Deep breath*
OK, I've been meaning to post on this for a few days, but been busy/tired/not feeling well/watching my new DS9 DVDs/some combination of the above. Actually I've been meaning to make a proper post about Iraq since I've been on LJ, but anyway. Somehow it still seems to be in the news, includign right now the UK election news. Funny, that.
Or at least, not much. There's certainly plenty that's highly dodgy about the whole thing. March 7th, Lord Goldsmith expresses grave doubts about the legality of invading Iraq without a second resolution, and says that "compelling evidence", hard evidence, of Saddam Hussein breaching UN resolutions would be needed to have a chance of justifying it. Ten days later, and no new actual evidence, indeed the UN Weapons Inspectors saying that Iraq is increasing co-operation, he instead accepts Tony Blair's "unequivocal assurances" as good enough. If nothing else, it shows that Tony Blair was extraordinarily keen to go to war, regardless of legality, and regardless of the flimsiness of the evidence of Iraqi WMD, which has now been very thoroughly exposed. But really, we knew that already.
But enough of that, it's all over all the papers and the BBC News and whatever. Thing is, I actually think that the current focus of the Iraq debate is very convenient for Tony Blair. Well, OK, that's an exaggeration, the timing is pretty inconvenient, but it fails to hit home, and gives him an easy get-out line in at least two ways: first, it's all about the process by which the decision to go to war was taken, and not about what the US and the UK have actually done to the Iraqi people; and secondly, it presents the issue as something of the past, taking the focus away from the question of what happens now.
The get-out it gives to Tony Blair is that he can intimate, encourage people to infer that, OK, so he might have exaggerated the evidence, so he might have cut corners with the technicalities of international law, but he did it for a noble purpose, to remove Saddam from power and bring freedom to the Iraqi people. And the mainstream media have largely been letting this absurd notion pass unquestioned. Note what Blair says - not that he made the decision because, even though we now know the intelligence was wrong, at the time he really really believed that we had to stop this tewibble tewibble thweat from Saddam's WMD. If he did he would be greeted with howls of derision even from out supine media. He says he believes he "Did the right thing", and that if he hadn't done it, Saddam would still be in power. "Maybe you disagree," he says, "But let's move on".
Invisible victims
Meanwhile, what is utterly missing from the "mainstream" debate in this country, the unmentionables, the unpeople, are the Iraqi victims of Bush and Blair's brutal invasion and occupation of their country. Occasionally British victims get mentioned in the election debate - Charles Kennedy last night with his "Tell that to the families of the dead soldiers" in response to Blair describing the recent revelations as a "damp squib". And if Iraqis are killed by insurgents, that gets reported. But the thousands, the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis that we have killed, the US and the UK, that we continue to kill, go unreported, undebated and even uncounted. As I mentioned in a previous post, our victims may well number as many as 100,000, according to a peer-reviewed study in the UK's most prestigious medical journal, The Lancet. The Government has tried to poo-poo this article, but has not produced any credible answer to it. Or if we restrict ourselves to reported, verified deaths, at least 21,000 according to Iraq Body Count.
And the killings continue, most notably the Iraqis shot on a daily basis at US checkpoints, who again go uncounted. And the killings continued, in a big way, in November with the post-US election assault on Fallujah, which a recent Guardian article described as "Our Guernica" - a city utterly destroyed by US forces, with an uknown number of civilian casualties, and persistent reports of atrocities committed by the attackers. Some of the most disturbing reports come from Iraqi Doctor Salam Ismael, who worked in the city during the attack; see e.g. here, here and here. You might not consider the Socialist Worker an entirely reliable source, but it is a direct interview with Dr Ismael. And the other funny thing? I have found not a single reference to this in the mainstream media; not one. Certainly nothing like a refutation, anything exposing this Dr. Ismael as a Saddamite propagandist. Just silence. This was US troops, of course, but British soldiers played a role, providing cover for the US soldiers in the surrounding region as they launched the attack, and helping cut off escape-routes.
It is this ongoing carnage for which Blair should be being held to account, far more than the details of exactly what Lord Goldsmith told him when about whether such a mass killing could technically be justified under international law.
Motives for war
As I said earlier, the other issue that goes undebated is the real reasons why the US and UK went to war in the first place. Americans are still sold the line that Bush went to war in Iraq to fight terrorism, although the notion of an Iraqi link to Al Qaeda has been comprehensively discredited, but the US media is even more pathetically servile to power than that of the UK, so there are still enough takers of that line that Bush remains in the Whitehouse. While in the UK, we are given to understand that it was Tony Blair's burning to desire to bring freedom to the Iraqi people that led him to deceive us into taking part in an illegal war. But frankly, if you believe that then, to quote Thucydides, I can only say that I congratulate you on your simplicity, but do not envy you your folly.
This is the same Tony Blair who, on coming to power in 1997, insisted that Britain continue to sell Hawk fighter jets and Alvis armoured vehicles to Indonesia, then ruled by President Suharto, a dictator every bit as bloody and ruthless as Saddam Hussein, and still engaged in the illegal and genocidal occupation of East Timor, that had cost the lives of 200,000 Timorese, a third of their population. No-one was asking Blair to invade Indonesia and topple Suharto, just to stop helping him, but apparently this was stretching Blair's bleeding-hearted devotion to freedom and democracy just a little bit too far. Or, if you want a more recent example, we may consider the case of Uzbekistan, a US ally in the "war on terrorism", where the UK Government attempted to silence our ambassador Craig Murray, an outspoken critic of the Karimov regime's human rights abuses, which included such charming practices as boiling political opponents to death. (See above article). Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabian theocracy, with its beheadings and its systematic torture remains our number one customer for arms. Again, if Blair is so concerned for human rights, then why is he actively supporting many of its leading abusers?
The idea that either America led by Bush, or the UK led by Blair, were motivated by concern for the Iraqi people does not stand up to the scantest analysis. The US and Britain will support dictators when it suits their interests, and topple them when that suits them better. This is not because the US and UK, or the people running their governments are especially wicked compared to other nations and leaders, but because that is how great powers behave and, with very few exceptions, have always behaved. We are in Iraq not to further the interests of the Iraqi people, but to pursue what the US and UK governments perceive to be in their own interests. More on what I think those perceived interests might be below.
Does it matter? What if Bush and Blair didn't go into Iraq to bring democracy to Iraq, does it matter if that is the result, even if it is achieved only as a by-product of the real motives, might we not weigh the overthrow of Hussein and the establishment of democracy against all the deaths, injuries, and suffering, and conclude that it was nonetheless worth it? This is the argument of the handfull of left or centre-left pro-war commentators in Britain such as David Aaronovitch, Johann Hari, Francis Wheen and Nick Cohen. Well, yes I think it does matter, because the goals and agenda with which the US and Britain went into Iraq in the first place are crucial for understanding what they are doing there now, and for considering what ought to happen next.
"Finishing the job"
There are many people who opposed the war, but who now take the view that, having made the mistake, committed the crime even, of going into Iraq in the first place, we now have a moral responsibility to remain there, to "stay the course", to "finish the job". The problem with this is that it begs the question, "what job?" Why are our forces there, what are our governments seeking to achieve by their presence in Iraq, what can we expect to be their policies there so long as they remain.
As I have said, I consider the proposition that our governments' purpose in going into Iraq was to bring freedom and democracy to be utterly risible, and no less so that that is why they remain there. What is the real agenda? For Britain, I must admit to being somewhat perplexed as to why Blair sees the war as in Britain's national interest; indeed, many military and diplomatic figures who are not in the least lefty or peacenik consider it to be nothing of the kind, but the best guess is probably the view that Britain's interests lie in supporting the United States, in being the US's number one, most loyal ally. A leaked memo from a Blair foreign policy advisor (later UK Ambassador to the US) showed that Blair promised Bush absolute support for regime change in Iraq as early as March 2002, but expressed the need for a cover story (WMD) to manage things politically.
The US is in any case the dominant force in Iraq, so it is the US agenda that matters most; whatever the UK government may or may not want, we are very much the junior partner. It is far too simplistic to say that this was a "war for oil". Control of Iraqi oil, being able to influence the quantity and destination of the flow, winning contracts for US oil companies (closely linked to the Administration), is almost certainly a motive, but certainly not the only one, and probably not the main one. Put simply, Iraq is an enormous strategic and economic prize, lying at the heart of a strategically crucial region. Controlling such a country would represent a massive gain for US power in the region and indeed the world.
The US have signalled their intention to remain in Iraq long-term, with the construction of 14 "enduring bases", from which they will be able to continue to dominate the country and the region. To what ends? The pro-war, right-wing, but remarkably honest intelligence analysis website Stratfor.com gives some interesting insights. (Unfortunately you have to pay to read their stuff, but I could email anyone interested with the odd article.) They suggest that the principle American war aim was to use their presence in Iraq to coerce neighbouring countries to change their behaviour in accordance with US interests, especially in relation to the "war on terror"; and within its own terms, this strategy has been quite successful. The US has been able to close its politically sensitive bases in Saudi Arabia, while inducing the Saudis to crack down far more thoroughly on Al Qaeda. Syria and Iran have also been quite co-operative in relation to terror suspects, and Syria has obeyed US instructions in pulling out of Lebanon. Stratfor, with its Realist outlook, considers this to entirely justify the war (though they are critical of the way it has been conducted), with all the American, Iraqi and other deaths it has entailed. Personally I don't.
The upshot of this is that America will want to remain in effective control of Iraq for the forseeable future, and have no intention of granting Iraq genuine democracy and sovereignty. They have allowed elections - elections that the US never really wanted, that were forced upon them by the Shia majority, led by Ayatollah Al-Sistani, but with over 100,000 US troops on the ground, overwhelmingly the most powerful military force, it is the US that literally calls the shots, and the new Iraqi government is constrained by what the US will allow. This means not only accepting a US military presence, but accepting their economic program, with mass privatisations, hugely corrupt 'reconstruction' contracts to US firms linked to the Bush Administration, and so forth, as has been well documented by Naomi Klein amongst others. (e.g. here and here; meanwhile, the new government is bound by the US-designed Transitional Economic Law that hard-wires many of the former occupation authority's neo-liberal economic measures.
This is the "job" that American and British forces are there to "finish": not the job of bringing peace and security to Iraq and then waving goodbye to allow the Iraqi people to pursue their own sovereign and democratic path, but the job of subjucating Iraq to the strategic and economic goals of the US; this is far more conveniently done through the means of a native Iraqi government, with the American military in the background making sure they play ball, and if that government has the appearance of democracy, so much the better.
Ending the Occupation
This is the problem with the Iraqi elections of January 31st; not that the Iraqis aren't ready for democracy (which I've never heard anyone in the anti-war movement argue), not that elections would lead to civil war, but that whatever might have been the outcome of the elections, the US would remain in control; in other words, the problem is that the elections didn't go far enough, they did not create a genuinely sovereign Iraqi government. This doesn't mean that the elections were a bad thing (as Bush and Blair claim the anti-war movement was saying), but that the elected government should be able to actually run the country in the interests of the Iraqi people, and not as a vassal of their American overlords. The election victors, the United Iraqi Alliance, are not US puppets; the US puppets, interim Prime Minister Allawi's party, were resoundingly defeated. But they are vassals, and will remain so as long as foreign troops remain.
The presence of US and Coalition forces in Iraq is increasingly unpopular. According to Newsweek of 31st January 2005, "an ever larger majority" of the Iraqi people want foreign forces to leave their country. Just a few weeks ago, 300,000 Iraqis (mostly Shia) demonstrated in Baghdad for an end to the occupation, symbolically toppling statues of Bush, Blair and Saddam. One survey by an Iraqi polling organisation found 85% of Iraqis wanted US troops out as soon as possible. (a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=7465">article here</a>. Of course this unpopularity is hardly surprising, given the continual killing of innocent Iraqis by the foreign troops, the failure to provide security of any sort, the massive unemployment, and the lack of reconstruction and frequently basic services. And yet, the idea of setting a timetable for withdrawal, supported by the majority of the Iraqi people, and at least formally by all the main parties in the Iraqi elections, is described as "artificial" by George Bush.
But, will there not be a civil war if the Coalition forces pull out? Actually, there's very little history of sectarian hatred between Shia and Sunni in Iraq, and on the contrary there were signs of developing co-operation and solidarity between Shia and Sunnis opposed to the occupation in 2004, at the times of US attacks on Fallujah and Najaf.
Meanwhile, in case you hadn't noticed, there's already a war going on at the moment in Iraq, with the Coalition forces the primary cause. The insurgents mostly target Coalition forces, and Iraqis who work with it. In fact, according to this article, a recent report by the US Centre for Strategic and International Studies, shows that the vast majority of insurgent attacks are against US forces. Now, civilians generally make far easier targets than the heavily-armed American troops; which suggests that in fact the great majority of the Iraqi insurgency is essentially a nationalist resistance opposing a foreign occupation, while the fanatical, sectarian, terrorist groups targetting Shia civilians are a small minority. Without the American presence, most of the insurgency would have no reason to fight. And, as noted above, the Coalition themselves are responsible for a large proportion of the civilian deaths in the ongoing conflict. Overall, the occupation forces are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
As the countries that invaded Iraq, that created the current mess in the first place, Britain and the US certainly have a responsibility to the Iraqi people, but I believe that that responsibility is not to stay, but to get out. I believe it to be the height both of arrogance and naivity to imagine that the very forces that invaded and conquered are the best ones to bring peace, security and freedom; arrogant to imagine that we are capable of understanding Iraq's needs, of gaining the trust of the Iraqi people after all that has happened, of guiding the country towards real independence; and naive to imagine that this is, or ever was, the intention of our governments in the first place.
This does not mean that Iraq should be left to face what will undoubtedly be some quiet severe security problems and ongoing conflict alone. A (reasonably short) timetable should be set for the withdrawal of occupation forces, and during this time the new Iraqi government could seek to initiate a national dialogue with the various forces in the country, and, if they were to so choose, could invite in a UN Peacekeeping force, probably one composed from countries not involved in the original invasion, perhaps from Arab countries in particular. This would not solve Iraq's problems overnight; decades of dictatorship, war, sanctions and then invasion and occupation have created problems far too deep for that; but I do believe that Iraq will not have a chance of beginning to address these problems so long as they remain under occupation.
Back to the election
Of course, this will only happen if we, citizens of the occupying countries (a majority of my flist; Canuckistanians and possibly a few others excepted) make it happen. Stand up against the occupation, support our troops by campaigning to bring them home from the hell our leaders have sent them into, and allow the Iraqis to find their own solutions, instead of imaganing that we are capable of doing it for them. This is certainly not just about elections, and the big electoral chance in the US has passed, but here in Britain next Thursday it means voting against the parties and MPs that took us to war, and for a party that supports ending the occupation, such as the Lib Dems, the Nationalists, the Greens or Respect. It doesn't end on May 5th, whatever the outcome, but I really believe there is no bigger issue for the election than how to bring an end to the appalling crime to which our country has been party.
Tags: iraq, politics, uk politics, war
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*applauds*
You're so fab. :-)
*adds to memories*
*is about to pimp on own LJ*
I didn't know half of this.
Everyone in the world needs to read this article. Thankyou for writing it.
| From: | (Anonymous) |
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| Date: | April 30th, 2005 09:42 am (UTC) |
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You have written down exactly what I have been thinking. I have been writing to Lib Dem MPs and spokesmen for months, asking them what they actually think is going to happen next in Iraq, but they won't commit themselves to anything, most of them don't even acknowledge the questions, and those that do seem to take a very superficial, almost naive view. Mingus Campbell wrote to me to say that the objective is to get out of Iraq "without further embarrassment".
I read in some paper the other day that the reason for this is the perception that, having had their election, the Iraqis should be given "a fair wind".
Now they say they have a government in place, but I notice that they have not filled the Ministerial seats in the Oil and Defence Ministries. Now why could that be?
Bernie
The problem I have is that while I opposed the war, as I could see it would turn out like (It appears only George W Gump could not), I cannot support withdrawing the troops now - While freedom is good and occupation is bad, chaos is worse and Iraq would be a chaotic band of warlords at the moment - was Afghanistan was before the taliban. And then I think it would go the same way - toward a taliban like state.
As for Blair. I can only assume that he thought Gump was going anyway and he thought it would be better to join than not. The reason I think this is I can see no other reason for his support. What does he get out of it? I cannot believe he really thought it was a good idea (he is clever enough to see the outcome). Either way a stupid move on his side.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/79348937/1030113) | | From: | ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) shreena |
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| Date: | April 30th, 2005 10:20 am (UTC) |
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Yeah.. I mean, while I agree entirely that we're never going to leave the Iraqis with Freedom and Democracy and Sunshine and Fluffy Bunnies, I still don't think that it would be a good thing for us to have invaded a sovereign, functioning state, plunged it into chaos and left before, at the very least, made it vaguely functioning. I don't mean completely hunky-dory, but I don't think we should leave before very basic services are restored. Of course, if the Iraqis look capable of doing that themselves, that's a different story, but they aren't. Much as I disapprove of our reasons for going to war, I still can't support leaving right now.
Well, I wouldn't necessarily be against British troops leaving, just not the Americans. I still don't understand quite what Blair thought he was getting out of it. I mean, it's all very well to say that it's Good to be In with the Americans, but we don't get any concrete benefit out of that - they're never going to do anything trade/environment wise that doesn't benefit them, we're better off with European allies where we actually have enough economic and political might to negotiate sensibly.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/23473501/948446) | | From: | smhwpf |
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| Date: | April 30th, 2005 10:35 am (UTC) |
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See my reply to vectorious. As for getting services running, the Americans have had a couple of years to try to do that, and have signally failed, and vast sums of money intended for reconstruction have simply disappeared. Only the US firms carrying out the 'reconstruction' are doing well out of it. If we and the US want to help sort out the mess we created, then we should pay reparations, while leaving the actual work to people who can actually get it done.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/8890613/948446) | | From: | smhwpf |
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| Date: | April 30th, 2005 10:31 am (UTC) |
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There is pretty much chaos already. Terrorists who kill civilians at will, and American soldiers who... kills civilians at will. And a totally non-functioning economy, with no reconstruction happening.
I think you're unduly pessimistic about the route that an Iraq-sans America would go. The main Shia leaders, like Sistani, do not want a theocracy (though they do want Islamic law, which they're getting at the moment). Most Shias do not hate the Sunnis, and most Sunnis do not hate the Shia. They both hate the Americans. Afghanistan is a totally different kettle of fish, where there was little sense of national cohesion in the first place, warlords from a myriad of different ethnic groups all over, etc. Iraq is not like that. There would certainly be problems, but as I say I think a UN force not associated with the invaders would be far better placed to gain the trust of all (or at least most) parties in dealing with them.
I don't think I am being pessimitic and it can get a lot worse... most people can go outside and go round a city now - but if there were roaming militia (and there would be - the bombers at the moment are exactly the sort who once the enemy is gone would try to grab a fiefdom.) the cities could get alot more dangerous. See Honduras for details.
And there certainly could be sunni/shia/kurd wars - there would probably be intra - denominational wars as bits of Sunnidom fought for supremacy. I would certainly expect one faction either to impose on the rest or for Iraq to break into several different countries that would continually snipe at each other.
An UN force would be a good idea, but coudl you really ask non-coalition troops to go into iraq, even with the US picking up the tab? I cannot see a suitable force being available. Only really an islamic country with a suitable mix of sunni/shia could provide an acceptable force and none of them would be trusted by the Iraqis.
I am slightly overstatig the case here - but I do believe it can get alot worse and Iraq is not yet anywhere near the tipping point where leaving would make it better.
They don't want a theocracy - well some don't, but some do. Further if islamic law was imposed then the clerics would become the arbiters of such. There may be a secular leader but there would be theocracy in all but name in practice.
Yep. I hate the way it is always assumed that western rule = civilised and ordered and self-rule = chaos and bloodshed. I think you are right to point out that US/UK bloodshed is just culturally framed to appear legitimate and civilised. We have to stop assuming this distinction between civilisation and barbarism if there is ever to be a truly global democracy.
Its nothing to do with Western rule or local rule - local rule would of course be preferable, but before that is feasable an infrastructure needs to be in place - utilities, police, judiciary, revenue, the machinery of government and economics etc.
Admittedly the allies bombed a number of these, which is why they do not exist, and Saddam has already dispensed with a few others. Some need to be restored before Iraq can make itself stable (and only the people of Iraq can build something lasting), they need to have a base to work from. We deprived them of that and we need to restore it before getting the hell out of there.
If the UK had similar destruction, and a similar history of recent violence, prevelance of Guns and so on, it would suffer the same problems.
I never even implied that it was a western vs local thing. It is purely a case of recent history and current circumstance shaping events.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/16280803/948446) | | From: | smhwpf |
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| Date: | May 1st, 2005 01:01 am (UTC) |
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If the UK had similar destruction, and a similar history of recent violence, prevelance of Guns and so on, it would suffer the same problems.
Say the Germans, or the Japanese, or whoever, had conquered us and destroyed our infrastructure, etc. Do you think the British people would want them to stick around and repair it, or would we just want them to get the hell out? I know it's not a perfect analogy but the same principle applies. Most Iraqis want us out.
Well A) we were not previously ruled by a dictator who had half done it already, B) The Germans and Japanese were pretty unpleasant regimes themselves and would have been dictatorships themselves, C) They would have had no intention of getting out at the time they came in- they came to impose their rule forever, not to install a different government and then get out.
And D) if the alternative was life under warlords who would terrorise far more and make life worse then YES! Let them stick around.
It is not merely not a perfect analogy it is actively misleading to think about it in those terms. None of the same principles apply.
Further, even if the majority of iraqis want us out - why do they? They want us out because the insurgents have made their lives hell, notionally on their behalf. Give into that and the insurgents, who don't have the Iraqi good at heart (and they don't - they want to impose their way on others) and would make life worse. In reaction to such situations is often to blame the wrong party and think it would get better if only they would go away.
There might well be a "foreigners get out" movement in the UK in the above circumstance. It does not mean it is the right thing to do.
Thanks for that Sam, it is a terrible situation and I am always reminded of those people who said that what would be worse than invading even, would be not having a plan for what happens next. I remember some US source close to the administration admitting that the US forces expected to be showered with flowers on invasion and that would take care of any problems with reconstruction.
The question I always wonder is will this free and democratic new Iraq be free to refuse to sell oil to the US going forward?
Considering a country as strong Japan is unable to get the US to leave over sixty years after first being occupied at the end of WWII I somehow doubt that Iraq will ever call its own destiny.
What should happen next? Well, I don't know. I have some experience of the way sectarian violence can take hold in a very short space of time. The presence of the US troops may actually be holding this in check by giving the majority of Iraqis something else to focus on (reminded of that old scene form Doctor Who were the Doctor wonders if he should stop the Daleks from ever existing because although they are evil they have brought people together etc...).
As regards Tony Blair, well the story I most often here goes along the lines of it is better to go along with the US admin to try and influence them but I have not seen any evidence that he is able to influence the US at all. In fact those countries who opposed the war have at least taught the US' attention.
Also, if Blair really did believe the faulty intelligence why did he promote Scarlett, the man responsible. Surely you should not reward incompetence, unless of course you are rewarding a friend for doing you a favour...
The thing about Japan is that Japan is EVIL. Who cares that the Germans killed millions of their prisoners and are notably not occupied, that was just Jews and Slavs - yellow people killing white people is WRONG and clearly means they need to be eternally supervised. By white people, obviously.
I can't help but wonder if the same thing is happening here, to some extent - the darkies try to kill our brave troops, oh noez, we must keep on occupying their country! It's unfashionable to say so these days, but the interwar and wartime US foreign policy regarding Japan is generally thought to have been racially motivated and there's no reason to assume that such attitudes have passed. I'm inclined to believe that if the Iraqis were white they would have been left to their own devices by now, as the Balkans have (mostly) been.
Japan is just lately trying to change the US-imposed constitution, I gathered. Kudos to them.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/16038900/424148) | | From: | womble2 |
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| Date: | April 30th, 2005 04:30 pm (UTC) |
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The US still has troops in Germany, too. Every war they get inolved in is an opportunity to extend military and hence economic domination around the world. I don't think racism plays a significant part in that.
that was an intelligent and well-argued essay and certainly contained more than a few facts i was unaware of. i agree that the war on iraq was more about taking control of a stratgeically vital area of the middle east than anything else and spreading western values to the rest of the area. i notice that more than a few states around iraq has accelerated their democratic expansions, something of a positive byproduct of the invasion.
myself i am neutral on the war in iraq - i can understand and condone the political decisions taken to wage the war since they make sense and ultimately stand to benefit the usa. i dislike the propoganda that tries to make it into an ideological crusade however, i'd have been more inclined to support the action if it had been described as an agressively expansionist western war of oppotunity. i think the uk runs the risk of isolating itself from the wider international community by allying itself to such a war. this is more dangerous since i see the uk's future in acting as an honest broker between europe and the rest of the world.
If I may, I'd like to link this essay for others to read.
it's not only thought provoking, but chillingly accurate, covering the realities and motivations for this shameful act.
J.G.Elmslie
| | From: | smhwpf |
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| Date: | May 1st, 2005 07:54 pm (UTC) |
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Thanks, and by all means. :) If it's public, do what you will. :)
I came here from libellum's journal. And I salute you - I've never heard a more coherent case against the occupation. My vote was yellow already, but now I think it's even more yellow.
This is an excellent summary of the situation and very persuasive; I was leaning towards thinking that Coalition troops should stay for the time being and you've left me more convinced than not that leaving would be the better option. I'm going to submit this to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) election05 again. You might want to include the text of your cut tag in the main body of text so that people arriving at this post from an external site can make sense of what you said about Goldsmith's advice. :-)
sorry to jjump in here, after randomly reading...but we are not stabilising iraq for the iraqi people. our presence there has one end only and that is the corporate pillage of the country. we changed the legal framework applying to iraqs key industries, and economic sectors so that they could be privatised. that is in direct contravention of the geneva convention. legally it constitutes pillage. how arrogant of "us" to think that we can do a damn thing to bring stability. saddam was our man in the region, a man we can do business with. dont you think that any sane iraqi would rather not do business with us? and desperation drives them to collaborate with an occupation as bloody and offensive as any Nazi occupation of the 2nd world war. we have done our best to destroy a civilisation, and we still have the gall to suggest that we have anything to offer? fallujah was flattened. how many other cities suffered the same fate but didnt make the news?
| From: | _spire |
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| Date: | May 1st, 2005 03:49 am (UTC) |
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Also pointed in the right direction by Libellum. Excellent article. I will now be spending the greater part of my free time checking out all the links.
Thanks!
Oh crap - so now IMF and World Bank reforms are being implemented by force?
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/21706794/948446) | | From: | smhwpf |
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| Date: | May 1st, 2005 07:57 pm (UTC) |
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Pretty much. Well, except IMF/WB reforms are generally aimed at benefitting corporations generally, whereas the Iraq invasion is rather more specifically aimed at benefitting US coroporations (and other strategic interests), which is one of the reasons countries like France and Germany were less than keen on it.
I kinda got the impression that when small nations are prised open it was usually US companies that benefitted - after all, they are huge and have fewer laws to restrict them - giving them big advantages over eurocorps.
Ah well. Still a shitty thing to do anyway. But I guess we'll be seeing more of it from now on.
Great post - and one that opened my eyes to a few more aspects of what was done in the UK's name in Iraq. Let's hope the electorate bloodies the noses of all the parties which were in favour of the war on Thursday (slim hope, but you never know).
I do share Matt's reservations about pulling all the troops out now - my suspicion is that Iraq would end up swapping one form of external domination for another rather than achieving true self-determination.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/23473396/948446) | | From: | smhwpf |
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| Date: | May 1st, 2005 08:02 pm (UTC) |
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Thanks - and hi! *waves*
I think it would be feasible to put together a UN force that could assist the Iraqis post-occupation, without leading to external domination. Probably not immediate neighbours, but perhaps Egyptians, North Africans, maybe Pakistani forces, Latin Americans perhaps. No course of action right now is going to lead to a very good outcome, at least for quite a long while, but I think continued US occupation is amongst the worst of the options. |
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