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| Iraq |
| "The real threat to Iraqis is coming now from Western defeatists" |
| 2003-10-30 |
| by Johann Hari The column is from The Independent, though the link is to Mr. Hari’s personal website. I find it interesting that these comments are appearing in one of the more stridently antiwar newspapers. EFL I want one person to dare to write to this newspaper and say with a straight face and a clear conscience that the Iraqi people would be better off now if we had left Saddam Hussein in power. Just one. Murat? I sense a This time last year, I visited a Marsh Arab family crammed into a tiny straw hut in the stinking heat in the Iraqi desert. It was not their poverty or their grief - overwhelming though they were - that changed my mind and made me resolve to support the military overthrow of this Stalinist tyranny. It was the fact that in this - the tiny patch of sand and straw that remained to them - they were forced to hang a vast, menacing portrait of the man who had done all this. If Blair and Bush had listened to the opponents of the war, they would still be festering in that shack. Instead, the marshes are being flooded with water once again. After the liberation (not a word Marsh Arabs scoff at), they began to hack away at the dams that destroyed their lives, and sympathetic officials have opened the massive al-Karkha dam to help them. Tony Blair always said that "the greatest beneficiaries of the war will be the Iraqi people." No, this is not the primary reason why we went to war, but the liberation of the Marsh Arabs was an entirely predictable result of military action - and many of you marched to stop it. You might have doubts about America being a friend of Iraqi democracy - given their one-time backing for Saddam and a myriad of tyrants, [This is a leftist myth — the most the US ever did for Saddam was to provide minor intelligence support in the hopes that he would be a counterweight to the Iranian thugocracy, which was then perceived (rightly, I think) as the greater threat. Besides, if we really did once support Saddam’s tyrrany, don’t we have a moral duty, then, to the victims of that tyrrany to relieve them of their suffering? Anyway, we now return you to our regular programming . . . ] all sane people should - but you can be absolutely certain that the bombers - attackers of the Red Cross - are its resolute enemy. America helped the Kurds to build democracy in Northern Iraq; neither jihadists nor Baathists have ever built democracy anywhere. America offers some hope; the bombers, none. Any possibility of a better Iraq is being shaken with every blast. Of course, we should not play their game by exaggerating the bombers’ successes. 90 per cent of the attacks are happening in just 5 per cent of the country, so most Iraqis - and most coalition troops - are unaffected by these attackers. The real danger confronting us in Iraq is not from freelance bombers. They can murder aid workers, but they cannot defeat us. The risk is, instead, that opinion back home will cave in to the tiny minority - mostly, it seems, non-Iraqis - who are attacking American troops. Brits and Americans are beginning to assume - in defiance of all the evidence from piles of opinion polls, conducted by companies who successfully predict election results across the world - that the coalition is not wanted by the Iraqi people. The real picture, away from the frantic TV cameras, is that Iraq is getting steadily better by the day. Iraqi teachers today are earning between 12 and 15 times their Saddam-era salaries, and almost every primary and secondary school is now open. Doctors’ salaries have octupled, and 22 million vaccination doses have been given to Iraqi children. The Kurds have never been happier or safer (they have, for over a decade now, been living in a thriving democracy on the land clawed back from Saddam in the first Gulf War, but they wanted the threat of Saddam removed forever). All of Iraq’s 240 hospitals and 400 courts are open and in business; 40,000 police are on duty. Some quagmire. Yet Iraq has become a magnet for international jihadists who venture across the world, from Afghanistan to Chechnya to Palestine. The notion of an Arab country moving towards the depravity of democracy (as opposed to rule by the Word of God) horrifies them. They care nothing for hospitals or schools. I have interviewed jihadists in both London and the Occupied Territories, and they believe - like old-style Marxist revolutionaries - that it is a good thing if material conditions get far, far worse under the corrupt current system, because this will precipitate a revolution. With these people prepared to make conditions far worse for the Iraqi people, a massive amount of disruption can be achieved with minimal man-power - a few thousand jihadists in a country of 23 million. The Iraqis understand this, far better than their alleged "friends" at International ANSWER. These attacks are calculated to undermine our will to carry out a proper transition to Iraqi self-rule, along the path that has already been travelled by the Kurds in the North. A hasty withdrawal would give Islamic theocrats or recidivist Baathists a far better chance of seizing power than free elections. All decent people - including those who opposed the war - [this means you Murat!] must now work to establish a consensus in Britain and the US behind the path that Iraqis, in every single poll of their opinion, are begging us to take: stay for a few years to ensure a transition to democracy, resist the fascistic bombers attacking those who have come to help, and gradually accord more and more power to the Governing Council in advance of elections. I’m not sure that all that many of those who so vocally opposed the war can be properly described as "decent," but the man does have a point. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #21 Matt, I know the book you're referring to but have not read it yet. What did you like about it? One of my buddies said it was good stuff. Would be a cool read to see what we did right and what can still improve on. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-10-30 11:01:17 PM |
| #20 Both of his sons don’t have the capacity to follow on their father You got that right Bosporus. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-10-30 9:16:14 PM |
| #19 even with a UN resolution international backup is close to zero Mur RAT - do they teach math in turkey? or did you choose to play hookey that day.... there are over 10,000 troops other than American as part of the coalition (not including the brits) thats just a bit more than close to zero. and you should expect to see an american footprint for years to come - we are already spending hundreds of millions on signals intel to keep tabs on the surrounding countries. your just peeved that the turks come out of all this looking very weak - got the kurds standing behind uncle sam thunbing their noses at you. if this was about oil then we would of left hussien in power as our puppet. yes american compainies are getting handsome profits - not in selling iraqi oil but in repairing infrastructure. and if it is american tax payer money then those monies go to american companies. american, british, french, russian, chinese and even turkish oil companies have done business in the are for decades. just because an american company, paid for by the us treasury, has the lion share of contracts means nothing. your an idiot - try and look at what is really going on. we are going to change this region one way another, and not for goddam oil! |
| Posted by: Dan 2003-10-30 6:41:40 PM |
| #18 I sure as hell saw more irrational hatred broadcast against Bill Clinton than I've seen against GWB! And much better funded--like Mellon |
| Posted by: Not Mike Moore 2003-10-30 5:02:47 PM |
| #17 Any effort to just cut and run is not going to go unchallenged. Which is one big reason the Democrats are going to be handed their heads in the election next fall. They are opposed to doing ANYTHING in the Middle East but hand-wringing. The American people have seen through their rhetoric, and find their position appalling. The constant broadcast of hate, most aimed at George Bush, reminds most Americans too much of Al Qaida and the radical islamofascists. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-10-30 3:36:13 PM |
| #16 Murat is, like soooo wrong about Halliburton. Maybe next time, troll boy... |
| Posted by: Raj 2003-10-30 1:25:33 PM |
| #15 Sorry but I believe Bush will withdraw within 6 months,.. Not going to happen. Bush knows what the consequences would be of just packing up and leaving, and WE know what the consequences would be. Any effort to just cut and run is not going to go unchallenged. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-10-30 1:13:42 PM |
| #14 Murat- Just who the hell should get the re-building contracts? Who put lives and treasure on the line? Just how many people did Saddam kill each month? Why don't you give us credit for stopping that perpetual slaughter? Just how do you know that Uday or Qusay would not have continued the SLAUGHTER of thousands of their countrymen each month? |
| Posted by: Craig 2003-10-30 12:39:41 PM |
| #13 Murat misses the point. If he wants a piece of the Halliburton action, he should just by the stock. Of course it dropped yesterday. |
| Posted by: Anonymous-not above 2003-10-30 12:31:07 PM |
| #12 Murat, if your country is poor because the oil fields were set afire and booby-trapped, and allowed to rot, does it matter how much profit the company makes that gets them functioning again? Murat, pease provide a link or two to how much Haliburton is profiting. That's screamed about a lot but so far I haven't seen any evidence that they have even got the oil flowing properly yet, which means Haliburton is probably taking a substantial loss at this point. Murat, you need to think things through a bit before you post. Post some links, prove your point, instead of spewing old discredited anti-American talking points. In the entire time you've posted here I don't think you've ever convinced a single person you were right about anything. You've got to work a bit harder than that. |
| Posted by: Yank 2003-10-30 12:26:01 PM |
| #11 Murat. After we're done sucking every drop of THE OIL out of Iraq, I say we head up to Turkey and grab every brick of THE HASH you're smoking up there. Can't see the lefties protesting against, "No War for Hashish!" |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-10-30 12:13:33 PM |
| #10 Re: halliburton profiting on Oil contracts. Im sure Bechtel is profiting on road contracts. Does that mean we went in to build roads? |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-10-30 11:53:59 AM |
| #9 Murat: If Saddam had died a natural death, Uday or Qsay--either one of whom made their old man look like a piker when it came to torture and repression--would have taken power. There were no practical alternatives, and neither boy was the sort to go gently into exile and take up art collecting. If Saddam & Sons had stayed in power: --thousands of Iraqis would have continued to be killed and maimed every month by the Baathist regime. (You like to talk about war casualties a lot, but for some reason you never mention the "normal wastage" of civillian lives during the "peaceful" reign of Saddam & Sons. Why is that?) --Saddam would still be subsidizing Palestinian suicide bombers at $25K per detonation, and enriching himself (and TotalFinaElf) through the UN Oil-For-Gold-Plated-Bathrooms program. --The marshes would still be deserts, and the Marsh Arabs a lost people. This is all good, right? You're in favor of it, right? (And, personally, if Haliburton rebuilds Iraq's infrastructure and gets the oil fields working again, it's only fair they be compensated for their efforts. It's better than paying TotalFinaElf to prop up the dictatorship, isn't it?) |
| Posted by: Mike 2003-10-30 11:31:13 AM |
| #8 If the US had no intentions on OIL than someboddy should explain why halliburton and other US oil companies are tremendously profiting from the situation now. I see none of you can, heck denying the undeniable is a hard task isn't it. |
| Posted by: Murat 2003-10-30 11:05:39 AM |
| #7 Heck, we're still in Korea and Germany and we successfully implemented a containment strategy against the Soviet Union that took 40+ years. We were in Vietnam for nearly ten years. Jarhead: Have you seen the new book The March Up about the First Marine Division in Iraq? Looked good to me, but what do you think? |
| Posted by: Matt 2003-10-30 10:51:19 AM |
| #6 Explain again why leaving Saddam in power would have been a good thing for Iraq--or Turkey, for that matter. Saddam is born on 28 April 1937 (he is almost 67), this grandpa is almost senile and cannot form any big threat to the world, waiting a couple of years and he would have gone naturally. 1 It would have spared lives of thousands in Iraq if war did not happen 2 Iraq is now facing anarchy, which would probably not happened. 3 Both of his sons don’t have the capacity to follow on their father. But a natural death of Saddam would have deprived the US of a just cause (fighting a dictator with alleged WMD weapons) to occupy its oil recourses. |
| Posted by: Murat 2003-10-30 10:50:36 AM |
| #5 Murat, If we CAN leave in six months, then we will have had a big win. We learned a lesson in Vietnam about doing something half-assed. Bush will not leave the country until it can be on it's own. We can and should start redeploying troops that are covering Bosnia. They should be standing on their own by now and if they screw up I think the EU should step in. This will reduce the Ops-tempo for our troops and greatly increase morale. Yes Jarhead you will garrison Iraq for at least the next year (or maybe two). The more schools, hospitals, and mosques that the terrorists bomb decreases their support. Also the border force is coming together and this will reduce the number of islamo-idiots that can cross into Iraq. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2003-10-30 10:44:43 AM |
| #4 Murat: Explain again why leaving Saddam in power would have been a good thing for Iraq--or Turkey, for that matter. |
| Posted by: Mike 2003-10-30 10:12:17 AM |
| #3 Guess we'll just have to see where we are in 6 months then Murat. I think we'll still be there. At least I've been told to be ready to pull my rotation there in late '04 or in '05. LH is correct we are still in Afghanistan. We are still in Kosovo as well. I think the only way we get pulled quicker then '05 is if a Democrat wins the WH. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-10-30 10:12:09 AM |
| #2 last i heard we were still in afganistan. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-10-30 10:06:35 AM |
| #1 Sorry but I believe Bush will withdraw within 6 months, even with a UN resolution international backup is close to zero. Bush hopes to get a trophy (Saddam) so he can declare his mission finished without losing to much face, leaving Iraq a la Afghanistan, semi civil war. |
| Posted by: Murat 2003-10-30 10:00:54 AM |