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…
