The Duty of Solidarity We Owe the Iraqi People
Setting aside all the arguments and lamentations over whether it was right for an Anglo-American alliance to invade Iraq and smash the Baathist state there, the only really important question is: What do we do now?Ever since the bombs started falling on Baghdad, that's the only question that has really mattered, and it's also the question that the mainstream "anti-war" movement has got wrong, by any standard recognizable in the traditional perspective of the progressive left. "Troops out" offers no effective solidarity with pro-democracy Iraqis, and offers far greater advantage to the "resistance" fighters who behead kafirs, put bombs in mosques and assassinate trade union leaders.
"Troops out" was wrong from the start because, as all the facts now show, it didn't make a difference. It will be the right answer eventually, of course, the way a broken clock is right, twice a day. Canada was right to say no to joining the American-led invasion, given the circumstances. And the hour will come when the circumstances will be right for the Yanks and the others to go home.
But that hour has not yet come. Not according to His Excellency Howar Ziad, anyway. Ziad is the Iraqi Ambassador, a senior adviser to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a brave patriot and a progressive liberal, unapologetically of the left, and his view of the world is the subject of my Tyee column today.
By nine this morning, the nutters were already at it in the comments. My previous Tyee column, the inaugural one, set off almost two weeks of it, non-stop. Turns out I'm a CIA agent, a secret advocate of Dershowitzianism, "evidence of just how deeply the Israel Lobby has infiltrated every aspect of our media" and a former girl named Teri who had a sex change operation who's somehow associated with the Rothschilds and the Bilderbergs. After that you get into favourable nods to Ernst Zundel, some references to the Freemasons and the Illuminati, and then: "The telephone lines are all bugged.The keystrokes are all recorded. We're all on secret lists accompanied by profiles."
Geez. And I was trying to be nice.
posted by Terry Glavin at 9:47 AM
7 Comments:
AHA! Sex change, the Rothschilds and the Bilderbergs.
Now I see it as it is. But why cannot I find you in our lists? Must recheck the archives...
Need to have a word with Illuminati too. The lazy SOBs are known to make a mess of the paperwork ;-)
I'm sympathetic to the idea that the US troops are needed to protect the population, but I'm wondering about Ziad's assertion that the US forces are needed to defeat the Baathists, who are surely the least of Iraq's problems right now. Most of Baghdad is currently under militia control at this point, and the entire south is under the direct governance of Shia militias.
Crap, cut off the post. Continued...
Personally, I'm in no rush for US troops to be pulled out, but to tell the truth, with over 1,000 gruesome sectarian deaths a week, I don't think they're making much difference at this point.
I also beg to disagree with double-plus-ungood's suspicion that US troops aren't making much difference at this point.
I would point you to the recent ethnic cleansing of Balad, where US forces were essentially told to stand aside as Shia militia murdered scores of Sunnis and drove the rest from the town. The US forces complied. As another example, I'd point to the recent lifting of the siege of Sadr City and Karrada, where US forces complied with the wishes of al Sadr, and the Sadrists celebrated in the streets.
At any rate, I think the discussion is moot. As Canadians, we have little influence on US policies in Iraq, and I think it unlikely that Bush would wish to withdraw troops anyway. I just don't see them accomplishing much, nor do I see much reason to think that their presence will do anything to stop the collapse of what is left of Iraqi society.
I would respond by asking what US troops staying in Iraq would accomplish. What would it ever accomplish? Iraq is in a state of civil war right now, and the US seems powerless to stop it. Also, a lot of the violence seems related to anger over the US presence in Iraq. Obviously a withdrawal couldn't happen overnight. There would have to be a phased withdrawal and a coordinated transition. I really don't see how the continued US presence is helping matters though.
The crises in Iraq and Afghanistan will not be solved if economically advanced Western countries withdraw or fail to commit sufficient political, economic development and military resources to stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq for Afghani and Iraqi citizens.
I completely agree, and the fear that Afghanistan would be allowed to wither on the vine if Iraq was invaded was one of the reasons to oppose the invasion. And sadly, with most resources flowing into the black hole that Iraq has become, it is.
One could suppose that Afghanistan could be saved at his point, although signs seem fairly grim. Michael Yon, who has done some excellent reporting from Iraq in the last two years, had this to say a few days ago:
Early this spring, when I reported from Afghan farms about this year's bumper opium crop, people thought I was using that opium. Now it is common knowledge that the opium trade is fueling a Taliban comeback. Mark this on your calendar: Spring of 2007 will be a bloodbath in Afghanistan for NATO forces. Our British, Canadian, Australian, Dutch, and other allies will be slaughtered in Afghanistan if they dare step off base in the southern provinces, and nobody is screaming at the tops of their media-lungs about the impending disaster. I would not be surprised to see a NATO base overrun in Afghanistan in 2007 with all the soldiers killed or captured. And when it happens, how many will claim they had no idea it was so bad and blame the media for failing to raise the alarm? Here it is: WARNING! Troops in Afghanistan are facing slaughter in 2007!
Should that occur, I can only imagine that public support for the Afghanistan mission would evaporate overnight.
Regarding Iraq, I don't think that it can be saved. There are simply too many things that have gone wrong, and there is a real possibility of the eventual overrun of US forces there, particularly if the Bush administration proceeds with military action against Iran in the near future.
As for the allegation that US forces stepped aside to allow Shia militias to "ethnically cleanse" the Sunnis in Balad, the Voices of Iraq website (http://tinyurl.com/y6pfu3) tells a somewhat different story:
I was referring to this earlier incident.
As for the allegation that US forces complied with the wishes of al Sadr, and the Sadrists in lifting the siege on Sadr City and Karrada, American troops ended roadblocks only after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered them out. Granted, Iraqi Sunni Vice President Vice President, Tareq al-Hashemi and other Sunni leaders strenuously disagreed with PM Maliki's call, but double-plus-ungood, you've misrepresented the American action as compliance with Al-Sadr and the Mahdi militia when in fact the Americans were complying with the wishes of the Iraqi government and its head of state.
Iraq's head of state governs only with the support of al Sadr and his party. And, of course, his militia. From the WaPo:
Maliki's decision exposed the growing divergence between the U.S. and Iraqi administrations on some of the most critical issues facing the country, especially the burgeoning strength of Shiite militias. The militias are allied with the Shiite religious parties that form Maliki's coalition government, and they are accused by Sunni Arab Iraqis and by Americans of kidnapping and killing countless Sunnis in the soaring violence between Iraq's Shiite majority and Sunni minority.
Sadr City is the base of the country's most feared militia, the Mahdi Army, which answers to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr's strongly anti-American bloc is the largest in the Shiite governing coalition and was instrumental in making Maliki prime minister five months ago.
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