It’s All the Iraqis’ Fault, Dammit
That dwindling minority of unquestioning supporters of the Iraq war have sought out one fall guy after another as Mission Accomplished has become the Forever War: That cooked pre-war intelligence was the fault of an incompetent CIA. Joe Wilson lied and thousands died. The Democrats have been giving comfort to the enemy. Those treacherous Irani mullahs are to blame. Yada yada yada.
And now that a chickenhawk like Senator Pete Domenici is sidling toward the lifeboats, the gig is truly up despite some modest and temporary gains because of the surge strategy and concomitant offensives against the All Al Qaeda All The Time Insurgency, which suffered a setback today with twin blasts probably set by insurgents who had fled the offensive that killed at least 135 Iraqis.
So, realizing that the political clock is now far outrunning the military clock, the pro-war crowd has turned to the next logical (and I pray) bogeyman:
It’s all the Iraqis’ fault.
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12 Responses to “It’s All the Iraqis’ Fault, Dammit”
Well said, Shaun. Iraq was a mostly peaceful, developing country with a bad ruler, just like many countries around the world. Under Saddam, women could drive, vote, attend schools and go out alone in public without fear and without wearing a burqa. The schools were among the best in the Middle East, the culture peaceful, with lively coffee shops and cafes and a total absence of explosive vests and gunfire. The secular strongman leader kept terrorists and religious fundamentalism at bay, and though he was an A55H01E (clever customer service designation BTW) and we hate him, in 25 years he killed fewer civilians than we have in the last 4.
We destroyed that country and made it a hotbed of fanatic strife and daily killings. We can’t kill our way out of this one, though we continue to try. We are killing around 300 Iraqis a day and our own death toll has increased so much that the last month was the deadliest ever for our troops! Are things any better over there?
I think there’s a special place in hell for the neocons and their supporters. The unmitigated gall of blaming the victims.
Shaun & Greendreams,
Thank you both for saying this and saying it so well… It gets so little ‘airtime’ and consideration by the ‘average American’ and it is so important… so much the reason why the world is now questioning us, our principals, and our values.
More needs to be said and done and everyone should give your comments thought and the old cut, paste, ‘n pass it on… if that’s alright with you.
Careful though… I think I hear incoming on the right.
It is true that women could vote, although they were only allowed to vote for Saddam. And they were also subject to be “selected” by Saddam or one of his sons for a little night of “fun”.
I think it is possible to legitimately criticize the policies that led to disaster, destruction, and extremism in Iraq without romanticizing what life was like under Saddam’s regime.
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Life was certainly vastly better for Iraqis under Saddam using just about any metric.
Agreed. It makes my stomach turn whenever I hear Hillary talk about how we gave the Iraqis the chance for democracy but they screwed it up and now we should leave.
Don’t get me wrong, I think we should leave, but not because the Iraqis screwed it up.
O.K. Jason, I agree… their vote didn’t much matter but what about “drive,
vote, attend schools and go out alone in public without fear and without wearing a burqa. The schools were among the best in the Middle East, the culture peaceful, with lively coffee shops and cafes and a total absence of explosive vests and gunfire.”???The point that Shaun and GreenDreams make (and you pass over without comment) is that Iraqis had many of the same liberties that Americans take for granted.
A bad ruler? Absolutely BUT most Americans don’t have a clue and essays like this that need more exposure not dismissal and your dismissal of these facts as “romanticizing” looks more like an attempt to squelch an often overlooked topic then to move it forward.
Sure, women in Iraq had only one candidate to vote for (so did the men) BUT when no other Muslim country in the Middle East allow women the vote that’s pretty remarkable… NO?
Many nations of the world don’t even hold elections and of those that do, many have only one party.
Sorry, SteveK, my intention was NOT “dismissal”. Not at all. In fact, I’ve been forced to agree with Shaun’s underlying point here. As much as I originally thought that the invasion would improve Iraqis’ lives by removing Saddam, I was proven flatly wrong.
I just want to also guard against that becoming romanticization of Saddam’s regime. Guarding against overcompensation is one of my many quirks.
As horrible as Saddam was, there were also horrors found in the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior after he was removed. How tragic that brutality, rapes, murder and torture didn’t end with his removal. Some of those who are in high positions now are almost as bad.
I don‘t see things in such black and white terms, certainly the Iraqis have a part to play in all of this. Did we open up a Pandora’s box of ethnic and religious tensions, sure but nobody put a gun to Sadrs head and said go out and kill Sunnis. Shaun contradicts himself when he says “Al-Maliki presides over a government dominated by fellow Shiites that has zero interest in reconciling with the Sunnis. The parliament is paralyzed and even the riches-for-all oil bill is in jeopardy.â€
The members of parliament are obviously Iraqi, how are we to blame for their inability to come to an agreement? “Victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan†applies to politics as well, there is plenty of blame to go around for our policies as well as the Iraqi response to being liberated from Saddam. There is no one cause for this disaster, but many contributing causes.
Since I have run afoul of the comments policy I will just note that I was able to make a point without the use of inflammatory terms like “Uncle Tom†or “Chickenhawkâ€
What makes sense to me are blogs by Iraqis I’ve seen painting the picture like this:
Life under Saddam was bad and seriously dangerous for many, but everyone knew where the danger lay. One could avoid a lot of it by watching one’s words and actions.
Now, the danger is everywhere, coming from multiple sources in completely unpredictable ways.
Look, I’m no fan of the Iraq war, but I think there’s a lot going on here that isn’t being thought about.
Let’s step back just a minute.
First, however preferable some might think Saddam’s rule was to the invasion, the fact remains that, even if left in power, Saddam was aging and succession was unclear. If he had died in power, what might have happened next? Uday and Qusay were not famous for being wise, stable young lads. I suspect that they would have fought among themselves for power, maybe even attempting to divide up ethnic loyalties in the country. Result? Possibly something quite close to what we are seeing now, with rival kidnappings, bombings, and the like. At best, it would have been civil war. At worst, it would have been civil war accompanied by interference from the surrounding countries, maybe even covert interference from Germany and France, who had been dealing with Saddam.
Another thing to consider is that one thing we’re seeing in Iraq right now, sadly, just isn’t new to the
region. What I’m refering to is the attempt to establish a “client state.”
In some aspects, Iraq is undergoing an attempt to put it in the “Lebanese positon” by Iran. For decades Syria has used Lebanon as a safety valve for its miserable economy. What do we see when Lebanon tries to assert its independance? Bombings. Murders. Mayhem. Iran’s economy is currently failing- there are gasoline shortages, inflation, teachers and other groups striking for better pay- and there sits Iraq on fat oil reserves and with previous trading relationships with Europe. I don’t think it’s irrational to suggest that Iran would like to establish Iraq as a “client state” and is attempting to imitate the Syrian model.
Another aspect that should be looked at is the ubiquitous demon that keeps the entire Gulf region locked in misery- the struggle for religious and ethnic supremacy. This conflict supersedes all feelings of patriotism and nationalism throughout the region. It is certainly in play now and is the motivating factor behind a lot of what is going on. The U.S. invasion did not create that, and our actions can do little to alleviate it. It will continue to strangle all the countries in the region until they themselves decide to discard it.
The private militia, state-within-a-state culture is part and parcel of the religious supremacy/ethnic loyalty mindset, and can also be found in many places in the Gulf, notably Lebanon, and, in the past, PLO enclaves outside the Israel/Palestinian geographical area.
I repeat, I did not agree with the invasion of Iraq and I’m unhappy with current events there. However, the above-mentioned conditions pre-existed our presence and would have become damaging, violent factors eventually, without any interference from anyone.
Does that justify what’s going on now? Of course not. But the responsibility is not ours alone. It is, at least in part, an unfortunate expression of the innate cancers of the region.
My last remark is a question: if you add in the amount of draftees killed during the Iran-Iraq war, do current casualties still outnumber previous deaths?
lynne, this is such a stretch. We don’t know who will take over for most of the world’s leaders? Should we kill all of them just in case someone who is not “wise” and “stable” might come to power? (hmmmm, wise and stable. does that describe our current administration?).
How so? The Baathists had no reason to change anything. They were in control, they were in the money. Big palaces, tons of money, all the trappings of power. Any mullah that tried to horn in on that power was SOL. No way did the Baathists share power with religious whackos.
Again, the Baathists would never let Iran or Shiites take control of Iraq. But the Americans allowed exactly that to happen. Then hailed it as a product of democracy. Now wants to attack Iran for what WE allowed and encouraged to happen, increasing Iranian and Shiite power in the region. Let’s see, we push for elections in a country that’s 60% Shiite. Wonder what will happen. Surprise! They won. Wait, that’s good, right? Because Al Qaeda is Sunni? Lynne, our invasion did create this situation. It would never have occurred with Baathists in control.
I’m not glorifying Saddam or the Baathists. They were awful. I AM saying that what we had there was better than what is there now. If we could install a secular leader who could clamp down on terrorism and stop the civil war so we could go home, we’d celebrate. Wouldn’t we? Well, that’s what we destroyed.
I believe without our intercession, Iraq would have continued to be a mostly peaceful secular state with an iron-fisted “law and order” ruler and powerful police and military, and with no tolerance for religious fanatics.
Easily, if the researched number of over 600,000 deaths is correct, or even close. Besides, we were responsible for that war, not Saddam. We armed him and encouraged him. He could not have fought Iran without our help.