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A Victory in Iraq?
Posted 12-5-2005
So let me get this straight,
after more than 2,000 American casualties, more than 15,000 wounded, perhaps
100,000 or more Iraqis killed, and $300 billion of our money wasted, NOW
Bush is laying out his plan for victory in Iraq? He and the neocon
apologists for this disaster can talk about victory all they want, but the
reality is that there will be no permanent resolution to the challenges
Iraqis face, as long as the United States has a military presence there. And
frankly, no one, including Bush or Cheney, can say with any measure of
certainty what will happen in the future, except there will be bloodshed.
This administration seems
unwilling to acknowledge the cultural, historic, ethnic, and religious
issues that are at the heart of the challenges in Iraq. The invasion of Iraq
was not about fighting international terrorism because there were not
terrorists in Iraq before we invaded, and terrorists like Bin Laden
mistrusted Saddam because they viewed him as too secular and not devoted to
Islamic fundamentalism. Saddam Hussein brutally suppressed the cultural and
religious differences, and, if anything is abundantly clear since his
removal, those differences that fermented beneath the surface in Iraq for
years have now been opened up. The contempt of the Sunnis towards Shiites
and Kurds, and their feelings towards the Sunnis are at the heart of the
matter. Those feelings have been there long before we arrived in Iraq and
they will be there when we leave.
The challenges in Iraq are
not about voting and drafting a constitution. While those things may be the
overt signs of a democracy, and they make good propaganda back here, they
mean little if they are force-fed and their society doesn't function
democratically. The longstanding repression practiced by Sunnis when Saddam
was in power is not forgotten by the Shiites and the Kurds and the violence
perpetrated on each other since our invasion gives little sign that a
peaceful society is around the corner. So we can stage votes, as we've done
in Afghanistan, and have the Iraqis draft a constitution, but that doesn't
mean they are ready to peacefully coexist.
I am done rehashing the lies
and misrepresentations that the Bush administration used to get us into
Iraq. We all know they were dishonest liars and the Democratic wimps in the
House and Senate that went along with and continue to support the charade
are equally culpable. But would someone look around the Islamic word and
tell me where a western-style democracy exists? I guess Turkey would be the
closest thing to one, but their Islamic society is influenced significantly
by Europe. Does anyone think Mubarak in Egypt will really accede power if
the Islamic fundamentalist political party in Egypt wins an election? Does
anyone think our great friends, the Saudi royal family is going to turn
Saudi Arabia into a democracy anytime soon? In fact, why Iraq and not Saudi
Arabia for our "democracy project"? Nearly every terrorist that attacked the
USA on September 11, 2001 was a Saudi. Didn't the Saudi royal family deserve
a spanking too?
My point about the Islamic
world is that it may or may not desire functioning democracies. But if they
are to happen, they must evolve from a society that desires it. We continue
to make the foreign policy blunder of assuming other cultures think like us
and want to be like us. When our democracy was formed it was a natural
progression of a society that wanted out from the tyranny of a monarchy. We
may have had some help from France who had their own reasons for wanting to
weaken the British, but Americans developed the ideas for a new society,
and, though the ride is still bumpy today, our form of government and
society grew up together.
Congressman Jack Murtha's
recent statements about our presence in Iraq reflect what I've been saying
all along. We create a false sense of security, and any permanent stability
in Iraq will not be realized until we leave. In the meantime, we remain
targets, and is our military really trained to be "nation builders"? We are
supposedly training Iraqis to be the military and police for their nation.
If we only train Shiites and Kurds, it will add to the conflict with Sunnis.
If we are bringing Sunnis into the mix, are they former members of Saddam's
army? And wasn't that who we were fighting in the first place? But the issue
that the Bush administration cannot explain is -- without Sunnis involvement
in the Iraqi army and police, how will the ethnic/religious differences be
minimized, and with the Sunnis in those positions, are we just recycling
Baathists loyal to Saddam or training Sunnis loyal to the insurgency?
The bottom line is will there
ever be an opportune time to leave Iraq, and does anyone really trust the
Bush administration's judgment in the matter? If we leave now, Bush claims
there will be bloodshed, but what evidence is there that if we leave in two
years, or five years, there will not be that same bloodshed. In the mean
time as long as we stay, we sacrifice more American lives and more of our
financial resources. I am sick and tired of the lies and miscalculations of
Bush and Cheney; they have not advanced our position in the world. In fact,
their miscalculations and support for torture have really lessened our
stature as the world's remaining superpower.
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