Alissa Rubin of the Times had a fabulous piece of reporting from Baghdad yesterday that included the following:
“The withdrawal of the occupation forces is a must because they have
caused the destruction of Iraq, they committed massacres against the
innocents, they have double-crossed the Iraqis with dreams,” said [Baquba city]
worker, Ahmad Umar al Esawi, a Sunni. “I want them to withdraw all
their troops in one day.”Dropping his voice, he continued:
“There is something that I want to say although I hate to say it. The
American forces, which are an ugly occupation force, have become
something important to us, the Sunnis. We are a minority and we do not
have a force to face the militias. If the Americans leave, it will mean
a total elimination of the Sunnis in Iraq.”…Several
people said they were certain that the trend of decreasing violence
cited by General Petraeus would reverse itself as soon as the Americans
left.
Yes, we hate the neocons, we hate their double-crossing dreams. But can the left deal with the above eventualities? Why aren’t we holding hearings in Washington now of ordinary Iraqis, rather than American generals? Where are John Conyers and Lynn Woolsey and Maurice Hinchey–congresspeople who held hearings against the war two years back? Why isn’t the left bringing ordinary Iraqis to this country to tell us what they want?
No, I don’t want another American to die for a failed cause. But admitting failure and leaving, is that morally responsible? We need to have a meaningful counter-strategy: admit the failure of the Bush policy, summon Iraq’s neighbors, and try to bring stability to the country we smashed and burned…
Phil, you're starting to gaze upon the kool-aid, the cool, refreshing liquid…avert your eyes, man! Do not imbibe!
I mean, catch a grip. The U.S. pulled out of Vietnam, a fiasco, and within 2 years the north had taken over. What would staying longer have accomplished, and what did staying beyond 1969 (or 66, or 64) accomplish?
Reagan pulled out of Lebanon IMMEDIATELY after the Marine barracks was blown up. What was the effect?
The U.S. won't accomplish anything by staying longer in Iraq. More U.S. troops will die, more Iraqis will die by U.S. arms, whatever tensions exist in that society will grow worse and worse until we finally leave.
Don't buy into the Bushite argument that any resulting bloodshed, or sectarian strife, that occurs will be on the hands of the Left. That's absurd. Our military, at the behest of liars, removed the repressive Baathist regime, and now the liars act all astonished that the place has tured into a charnel house, and the majority is acting to claim its rights.
"But admitting failure and leaving, is that morally responsible? We need to have a meaningful counter-strategy: admit the failure of the Bush policy, summon Iraq's neighbors, and try to bring stability to the country we smashed and burned…"
We? Who is this we, paleface? Our moral failure occurred when "we" failed to stop the war, failed to have a massive national strike to stop these bastards and their lies. The moral failure is occurring right now as the same bastards gear up to bomb Iran. Summon Iraq's neighbors? Didn't you read Petraeus's testimony? He plans on summoning the neighbors' attention with high explosives, with power systems knocked out, bridges and dams destroyed: you know, the usual summons, delivered by Lockheed.
That is the administration's idea of moral responsibility: to bomb Iran, and then Syria. Do you really think they care one iota how many Iraqis die?
I feel sorry for the Iraqis, and hate the years of bombings and sanctions and the invasion. But, truly, the more compelling question remains: how big do you want the Iraq War Memorial to be? How many names on the wall?
All right-thinking Americans want the troops out of there. But that's not what the War Pigs want, and right now they are making the rules, while the rest of us stand helplessly by, watching this dark chapter of history unfold.
Happy New Year.
The article is clearly part of the Bush/Petraeus propaganda surge, the Iraqis don't want us to leave, yet, and for Rubin et. al., yet will never come.
I didn't read any interviews with the 4 million refugees, or obviously, with the 1 million dead.
How many more do we need to kill to save the Iraqis? How many more airstrikes you don't hear about, but go on daily?
If this were a decent country, there might be some way to help, but it ain't, not no more. All we will bring by staying is more death and destruction. Try to face it, Philip.
If the overwhelming majority Shiites drive the Sunnis from large swaths of Iraq, so be it. Many Sunnis collaborated with Saddam and his Ba'athists in the persecution and murder of Shiites in Iraq for years. Almost all Sunnis beleive Shiites are inferior. The main reason that people like Rubin and other media mavens don't want Shiites to consolidate power in Iraq is because it strengthens Iran's hand against Israel. But the only useful observation (from an America-first perspective) that the insane Zionist Charles Krauthammer has provided in the last five years is his recent column admitting that Iraq is already being partitioned: "Washington has not yet caught up to the next reality: Iraq is being partitioned — and, like everything else in Iraq today, it is happening from the ground up." link to washingtonpost.com
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Krauthammer no doubt has his Israel-first reasons for acknowledging the obvious (likely he believes a strengthened Iran increases the chances of an eventual US war against that country). But from an America-first perspective, I view a strengthened Iran as a counterbalance to Israel, which will reduce Israeli belligerence, and in turn pacify the Muslim threat to the US, thus advancing the possibility of our withdrawal. So long as Israel thinks it can get away with murder, and so long as it has bodyguard US troops nearby in Iraq (thanks to Jewish nationalists and Christian Zionist treachery) and so long as the US taxpayer is forced to finance Israel's murderous agenda, whatever Israel does makes all Americans complicit in Islamic eyes. Contain Israel, good things will follow.
if we stay, the adminstration wil surge on to Iran. tha'ts the very first reason we should leave immediately. second, the ethnic rivalries of other cultures are none of our business. the sunnis can make compromises if they want. they can do any number of things involving power and revenue sharing.
remember, the first thing the guy said is he wants us all out in one day. that's what he'd like to see. the second yo must take into account involves some of his whining about the fact that he isn't in power anymore.
If we are going to stay their to protect the sunnis, realize they hae a millenia long struggle with the shia. do you want to be there for a millenia?
turn around and don't look back lest ye turn to salt
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Peter Beinart reviews for the NYT the latest "books" (read: propaganda) written by Michael "faster please" Ledeen ('The Iranian Time Bomb') and Norman Podhoretz (World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism').
Highlight:
"The most astonishing part of “World War IV” is Podhoretz’s incessant use of violent imagery to describe American politics. Critics of the Iraq war represent a “domestic insurgency” with a “life-and-death stake” in America’s defeat. And their dispute with the president’s supporters represents “a war of ideas on the home front.” “In its own way,” Podhoretz declares, “this war of ideas is no less bloody than the one being fought by our troops in the Middle East.”
No less bloody? That’s good to know. Next time I talk to my sister-in-law, an emergency medicine doctor serving at Camp Taji, north of Baghdad, I’ll tell her we have it just as rough here at home. Norman Podhoretz is practically dodging I.E.D.’s on his way to Zabar’s."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/books/review/Beinart-t.html?_r=2&ref=books&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
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American boys owe Iraq nothing, they were sent on lies and stay because of lies. Tell you what, Phil, as your community is the brains and the money behind all these good folks on the Hill who got us into this, why doesn't your community make up the replacements Bush doesn't have so our boys can take their leave?
The only country that doesn't want us out of Iraq is Israel and their supporters. They don't give a damn about our boys or our country and they never really have. We have been spied upon by AIPAC, we have been used by PNAC, we have been manipulated by JINSA, we are betrayed by treasonous individuals and groups who do not stand beneath our flag but behind it.
To be honest Samie, we never wanted the Americans in Iraq. We are happy for the Iraqi people that they do not have Saddam ruling over them anymore, but we could have told you the Shiite and Sunni would fight. This just helps Iran.
Israeli focus has been on Iran not Iraq for a long time. It's a race against time with Iran. The new generation needs to oust the Mullahs before the Mullahs can start their own WWIV and take the region down with them.
Israel doesn't want to bomb Iranians. Or for America to bomb Iranians. It wants Iranians to bomb the mullahs and help create possibilty of real peace in Middle East.
Before you go blaming all your problems on American Jews you should get the truth.
Anyone who has studied Sabra-Shatilla has probably seen the work of Franklin Lamb. He revisits the site–
"The 25th Anniversary of the Massacre at Sabra-Shatilla"
link to dissidentvoice.org
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Just because we broke the pottery, it doesn't mean it is ours and we get to glue it back in the way we like it. The only thing we are to be held liable for is to pay for the damage we caused, which, by judging on the $2.65 billion fine imposed on Iran for the 241 imperialist occupiers killed in Lebanon in 1983, then we own Iraq on the order of $30 trillion just to compensate for the 2.5 millions deaths sentences imposed by the Clinton and Bush regime.
"You break it, you own it." We have broken Iraq. Sanctions, which did little to harm the regime, destroyed the middle class in what had been one of the Arab world's most educated cities. The invasion eliminated an effective if tyranical regime and replaced it with anarchy. I have been told, both by a man who spent 6 years in Saddam's jails and by a man whose father was executed by the regime, that things were better under Saddam.
We as Americans have a responsibility to the people of Iraq whose lives we have destroyed. Our leaders, who lied their way into this debacle should be tried as war criminals but our aquiecence in their beligerence means we too are culpable.
Baghdad today is a terrifying city. Iraqis tell me that when the Americans leave, it will get much worse. A sectarian bloodbath will ensue which may drag in Iran (to protect the Shia) or Saudi Arabia (to protect the Sunni). Turkey will inevitably join in to crush the Kurds.
The invasion of Iraq has been a disaster. I hope our country has learned a few lessons: 1. don't invade a country when you can't speak the language. 2. war is unpredictable 3. Things can always get worse. 4. Firepower is overrated.
However, for those of us on the left to wash our hands of the crimes committed in our name is obscene. The American Empire reminds me of Tom Buchanan at the end of the Great Gatsby. Others pay the price for his crime. He just walks away, oblivious,not even conscious he has done anything wrong.
Iraq can be fixed if only because Iran, Syria, Turkey, Jordan and Saudia need a buffer state between them, but to put Iraq back together would require the USA to start talking rationally about Iran and Syria and to permit some sort of regional stabilization conference to take place. It would also require the involvement of individuals like Nasrallah (Hizbullah) or Haniyya (Hamas), who have sufficient moral stature but no direct interest in Iraq.
Unfortunately, creating such a conference would require the neutralization of the Israel Lobby in the USA, but who knows? The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is now on the best seller list, and Obama looks like a weak-kneed coward groveling before American Zionists. Maybe we will see some changes over the next year.
As for Amir's claims, while Israeli Jabotinskians may have been focused on Iran, American Jabotinskians (Neocons) were focused on Iraq. Obviously, the center of gravity of the trans- or supranational ethnic Ashkenazi Jabotinskian politcal elite has possibly temporarily moved to the USA, but until a significant number of American Jews start openly condemning Neocons, the leadership of the organized American Jewish community and Jewish Zionist billionaires for putting Israeli interests before American interests and start demanding the abolition of the criminal terrorist Zionist state, non-Jewish Americans have every right to critize and to blame American Jews for the horrors that the State of Israel and the Israel Lobby have inflicted on the world.
Yom Kippur approaches. American Jews are completely dishonest about Jewish history in the 20th century. It is time for some genuine atonement from American Jews for the crimes of Zionists during the 20th and 21st century and for the crimes of Soviet Ashkenazim in the first half of the 20th century.
And when can we expect the Muslims to start atoning for all the pain and destruction they have wrecked on the world all these many years?
What's good for the goose is good for the gander, is it not Mr. Martillo?
I think we are seeing a Reformation in the Jewish World. This is a good thing. Perhaps the jews will be a good role model for the muslims. That would be a great thing.
Amir, PNAC, JINSA, JTA on and on, AIPAC on and on. Members of your community designed and lobbied for Iraq (hoping for Syria and Iran to follow) for goodness sakes, it's all documented. If these groups don't speak for you then speak out against them. Help break the embargo in the US media with regard to these groups and yes, dammit, their loyalties to Israel. Israel is not America and America is less than 2% jewish yet the power of media and visual properganda creates the lie that America and Israel are one. Your community is the tail wagging the dog.
Do you realise how dangerous this has all become, eventually every rotten trick pulled, every lie ever told, every tragedy exploited will come to the fore. What then, Amir?
I wont quote Pearl, or Wolfowizt or Abrhams to embarras you – you're educated so look for yourself. Stand with us, not those guys.
From the Federal exchange to funding our political parties, a small minority is holding huge power and has wielded it to ill effect on this nation.
Iran is not a danger to American interests unless we threaten her – For why should we threaten her? In whose interests?
The Iranians have the right to keep their mullahs or topple them, it is non of our godam business and non of yours or Israels. If you want to fight Israels war, then join the IDF – do not give money to buy American politicians who send American boys in stead.
That is all I ask. I don't blame Jews, Amir, I blame a whole host of folks, but now we have got to change the way this country is governed for our childrens sake, your kids as much as mine.
Tom, the phrase "You break it, you own it." is ridiculous. That has pretty much been the American imperialist policy. Invade a country and destroy its leadership. Then claim oops, we broke it, now it is ours and we have a responsibility to rebuild it. Where then it could start creating its puppet regime that would be loyal to the empire.
We own nothing except paying for it with our money and sending our leaders to war tribunal.
WM, at this point, remaking Iraq as a loyal subject of our empire is impossible. "You break it you own it" is not a way to sureptitiously expand our sphere of influence. My point is that for us as Americans to walk away blithly and say "oops our leaders made a mistake" ignores the huge damage we, in allowing this immoral invasion, have caused the people of Iraq.
Tom, Obviously, you don't understand the working of the American empire. There are many hegemonic disasters by the US, but as long as the leader in place is a US puppet, then it is a success.
A mass murderer of all but one member of a family does not have the right to adopt or marry the remaining member of the family on the grounds that it is the best for that person. The only right he has is to be put on trial for his crime, and pay any damages the murderer has caused. The fate of the remaining member of the family would be determined by the system that is unrelated to the murderer.
You haven't been following many of the pro-pullouts like Nader back in 2004, who was calling for an immediate US pullout because we don't have moral right to determine the outcome of this country, and have us immediately replaced by a regional peacekeeping force.
WM,
The invasion of Iraq has been a disaster for the American Empire and will be no matter whether we stay in or get out. Halliburton's profits in no way recompense us for our loss of power and prestige.
The best argument I have heard for an immediate US pull out is that stability will return to Iraq only after one side or the other smashes the other and a strong man reemerges who like Saddam can impose order on a violent and independant people.
This brutal showdown will happen after the US departs. The logic then is that the US should leave so that the bloodbath will occur which is the only path to future stability.
This is cogent argument, with which I have a hard time disagreeing. The US today in Iraq is fundamentally a bystander in a inter-Iraqi fight for power. One can easily argue that we are backing the wrong side. These are all good reasons to leave.
However, those of us on the left in America who want the US to leave Iraq should not imagine that peace will break out with our departure.
I guess my principal point is moral. That is to say, we as Americans are responsible for the criminal destruction of Iraq. We have a responsibility to the people whose lives we have destroyed. Leaving Iraq and thinking the story is over as even more blood flows in Baghdad is obscene.
Tom, your concept of morality is no different from the early conquistadors going all over the western hemisphere and claiming what is good for the indigenous people. Everyone has the right to self determination, and when their land is occupied, that could never be.
NATO smashed Serbia to bits, but hell would freeze over before the Serbians allowed them to occupy their land for the next 20 years. Israel smashed Southern Lebanon to bits, and hell would freeze over before the Shiites accepts Israel's help in stabilizing the region. Once you take yourself out of the American exceptionalism mindset, then you would realize how ridiculous the idea of letting the criminal take care of his victim sound.
WM,
Just a suggestion. Don't start every comment with an ad hominem remark. You don't know anything about me, to assume that my morality is that of Hernan Cortez seems a bit of a stretch.
More to the point, the romantic notion, dear to both left and right, that the US "occupies" Iraq in any meaningful way is absurd. US control barely extends past the gates of the Green Zone or of their various bases. Today no one controls Iraq, various militias (including the US army) control small bits of it.
Last time I was in Baghdad, I was chatting with a young educated Iraqi (the sort of people whose lives we have truly fucked up), and he said "I didn't want you to invade, but now I don't want you to leave." He is certainly not a fan of the US occupation, he is even less of a fan of what we have done to his country, but his knowledge of Iraq, far greater than mine and yours put together, tells him that a US withdrawl will lead to a level of bloodshed even worse than that which exists now.
Your position, perhaps, is a bit Americacentric. That is to say, if our boys are no longer dying in Iraq then the problem is solved. We took a functioning stable country and created hell. If we walk away and pretend it never happened, and go back to concentrating on house prices and Paris Hilton, we are a tacky shallow people.
Tom, Its ridiculous to assume my answer to be Americancentric, I just said the murderer has no right to determine the fate of any of the surviving members of the family he just murdered. A neutral peacekeeper in which the murdering state has no say should be the ones keeping peace, if there is a need for one.
I have indicated that justice should flow both ways, where America should compensate Iraq just like the way the American court wants Iran to pay the illegal American conquerers that were holed up in Lebanon, which would be on the order of $30 trillion dollars. "Following orders" is no excuse as a defense as they have tried it in the Nuremberg trial, and massive number of military, pentagon and instigators of the illegal conquest of Iraq (not to mention Afghanistan, Serbia, East Timor, El Salvador, Guatemala, etc) should be charged with war crime and a prison like Abu Graib would not be large enough to hold them all. Heck, if the Indigenous Americans can bring charges against the whole occupying race in America, they would. Once these think tank war mongers realize that there are consequences to themselves when playing global chess by sending millions of people to their death, they will have second thoughts on committing murder by proxy.
An anecdote of an Iraqi from the ruling class does not make reality. Their motive is to try to keep the status quo they had. It is the oppressed class that should be having their say now, and they want the criminal occupiers out.
Khalas habibi. Let us agree to disagree.