George W. Bush and others who wish to justify an indefinite U.S. military presence in Iraq are fond of talking about our “commitment” to Iraq. That makes a fine talking point, which some find persuasive.
I agree that we owe a commitment to the Iraqi people, for the great damage that we have done to them. But we must insist that any talk of commitment in the context of the Iraq War be discussed in terms of what that commitment means, not in abstract, but in real terms. For it is the meaning of that “commitment” that necessarily provides a guide for our future course in Iraq.
Like all moral concepts, the word “commitment” can be used to justify good things or to conceal bad things. The most important question to consider about our commitment in Iraq is, does it entail a commitment to the welfare of the Iraqi people, or does it entail something totally different than that? If the former, then a starting point for considering how to meet our commitment to the Iraqi people is to acknowledge the stark ugly truth that there is widespread anti-American hatred and consequent anti-American violence in Iraq. And then we must understand and acknowledge the reasons for that hatred and violence:
Some thoughts on the current anti-American attitudes and violence in IraqIn addition to the
civil war now raging in Iraq, it is necessary to recognize that a considerable amount of the violence there is directed against America troops. That fact is acknowledged as early as page 3 in the
Iraq Study Group (ISG) report, which notes four sources of violence in Iraq, including the Sunni insurgency, al Qaeda, Shiite militias, and organized criminality. It notes that “most attacks on Americans still come from the Sunni Arab insurgency”. Of Shiite militias, it says: “The Mahdi Army, led by Moqtada al-Sadr, may number as many as 60,000 fighters. It has directly challenged U.S. and Iraqi government forces, and...” And the role of the U.S. presence in Iraq in encouraging violence from al Qaeda and
al Qaeda recruitment is well known.
Thus there is a widespread belief that American withdrawal alone could result in a lessening of the violence in Iraq. As
noted by Major Brent Lilly, head of a Marine civil affairs team in Iraq, “Nobody wants us here, so why are we here? That’s the big question. If we leave, all the attacks would stop, because we’d be gone.”
It is clear that the Iraqi people do not want us in their country, as shown by numerous polls of Iraqi citizens, including a
World Public Opinion poll taken in September of this year. That poll showed that 78% of Iraqis believe that the U.S. military presence is provoking more conflict than it is preventing, 71% want us out in 6 months, 61% say that if U.S. led forces withdrew within 6 months that would increase security, and most striking of all, 61% (of Iraqis in general, not just the fighters) approve of the attacks on American forces. And as ominous as those poll results are, they are even worse among Shiites and Sunnis, who account for the vast majority of the violence directed against American troops.
The fact that there is so much anti-American feeling among the Iraqi population poses tremendous if not insurmountable obstacles to “winning” a guerilla war, as we should have learned during our involvement in the Vietnam War. But aside from those tactical difficulties, it is crucial that we ask ourselves why there is so much violence directed against American troops in Iraq and so much widespread anti-American opinion that more than 60% of Iraqis approve of the violent attacks against us.
Reasons for anti-American attitudes and violenceIt is crucial to understand the causes of the anti-American feelings and violence in Iraq because we must understand and acknowledge them before we can redress them. And we must redress those causes, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because as long as the current degree of anti-Americanism remains (and getting out would be one very good way to lessen anti-American feeling in Iraq), it is highly unlikely that the current ugly situation will improve.
The most obvious reason for anti-American feeling among Iraqis is that we invaded their country
under false pretenses. That is one cause of anti-American feeling that we cannot reverse, though it would help to apologize for it when a new U.S. President assumes office in 2009. But that alone does not come close to explaining the breadth or intensity of anti-American opinion today in Iraq. There are numerous other reasons as well:
Botching of promised U.S. help to reconstruct their countryAs explained by Anthony Shadid, the only journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of the Iraq War, in his book “
Night Draws near – Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War”, many Iraqis were initially so glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein that they welcomed the American invasion at first, with varying degrees of ambivalence. However, as subsequent chaos ensued and months passed with little or no electricity, clean water supplies, health care or basic security, and as Iraqi deaths accumulated into the tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands, Iraqis increasingly came to disbelieve American claims that the invasion was conducted for their benefit. For example, three and a half years after the invasion of Iraq, residents of Baghdad were receiving an average of only
2.4 hours per day of electricity. And a
World Public Opinion Poll taken in January 2006 showed very low approval by Iraqis of American services provided in all areas, including: economic development – 29%; helping build Iraqi government institutions – 23%; infrastructure – 20%; helping to mediate between ethnic groups – 17%; and, helping Iraqis organize their communities – 25%.
As Shadid notes in his book, many Iraqis could not understand why a country as wealthy and powerful as the United States could not restore basic services to them following the initial invasion of their country. Probably
Executive Order 13303, “Protecting the Development Fund for Iraq”, has something to do with that. Signed by George Bush shortly after the Iraq invasion, that order calls for the transfer of billions of dollars from the United Nations Oil for Food Program into the “Development Fund”, much of which has found its way into the hands of Halliburton, operating under no-bid contracts to supply reconstruction services for Iraq. But instead of going into reconstruction, billions of dollars have gone unaccounted for, and Bush’s executive order prohibits lawsuits that could potentially retrieve the missing funds.
U.S. oil interestsIt did not help in alleviating concerns about U.S. motives that shortly after our invasion of Iraq we
rushed to protect oil supplies while allowing the rest of the country to descend into chaos. The ISG report recommends that George Bush reassure the Iraqis on that score by issuing a public statement that “rejects the notion that the United States seeks to control Iraq’s oil”. But at the same time the report is full of oil related recommendations, with no explanations on how they would be expected to help Iraqis, and nothing said about collaborating with the Iraqis or seeking their views on those issues. With regard to the ISG recommendation concerning oil, Antonia Juhasz
points out in the
Los Angeles Times that the ISG report implicitly recommends that “the U.S. government should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil interests and those of its corporations are met”.
Permanent U.S. bases in IraqAs a good indication that George Bush intends the U.S. occupation to be permanent, regardless of the outcome of the current war,
14 permanent military bases are under construction there. George McGovern and William Polk note in their book, “
Out of Iraq – A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now”, that five of those bases are already massive, “amounting to virtual cities”. Nor does this fool the Iraqis, 77% of whom believe that the U.S. intends to have permanent military bases in Iraq, and 78% of whom believe that the U.S. would not withdraw its forces even if asked to do so by the Iraqi government.
As with the perception of U.S. oil interests, the ISG recommends that this should be dealt with simply by having George Bush publicly “reject the notion that the United States seeks permanent military bases within Iraq.” The idea that George Bush can affect perception of our motives in Iraq simply by publicly “rejecting the notion…” is incredibly stupid. Why doesn’t the ISG/Baker-Hamilton Commission advise some concrete action, as opposed to mere words, on how to persuade the Iraqis that the U.S. doesn’t intend a permanent presence in Iraq? One has to wonder about that.
Torture of IraqisThe
approval of torture by the Bush administration and its
widespread use in Iraq and elsewhere, much of it on victims who were
arrested by mistake, are well known. Not only is this immoral, against international law, and destroying the international reputation of our country, but it must be contributing to the toxic anti-American attitudes and consequent violence in Iraq. And that conclusion is consistent with statistics that show 540
U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq in the year beginning April 2003, compared to 929 during the year beginning April 2004, concurrent with and following the revelations of the
torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib under the auspices of the U.S. government, and approximately concurrent with the rather abrupt rise in the percentage of Iraqis who feel less safe with Coalition forces present than absent.
Excessive American violence against IraqisFighting a guerilla insurgency, especially when large segments of the civilian population are against you, is an extremely difficult task, which often tempts the counter-insurgency forces to take massively violent measures against civilian populations. The U.S. military in Iraq has proved to be no exception to that.
For example, it could be said that the anti-American insurgency in Iraq began in April of 2003, when the U.S. military fired into a crowd of protesters in Fallujah,
killing 13 Iraqi civilians. The intermittent and continuing violence in that densely populated city eventually led in November 2004 to a massive American bombing and military attack that
resulted in the destruction of 10,000 building, the permanent displacement of 100,000 Iraqis, and the
use of white phosphorous leading to the deaths and permanent mutilation of untold numbers of Iraqi civilians. According to independent journalist Dahr Jamail:
I have interviewed many refugees over the last week coming out of Fallujah at different times from different locations within the city. The consistent stories that I have been getting have been refugees describing phosphorus weapons, horribly burned bodies, fires that burn on people when they touch these weapons, and they are unable to extinguish the fires even after dumping large amounts of water on the people.
All told,
hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, mostly civilians, may have died as a result of the American war in Iraq. Not only is no great care taken to avoid civilian deaths, but sometimes,
as in Haditha earlier this year, the killing of civilians is intentional.
Conclusion – The need to bring moral values to the table when considering what to do about the American war in IraqGeorge Bush has often said that we did not go to war against the Iraqi people, but rather (after the weapons of mass destruction rationale fell through the floor) we went to war to remove an evil dictator. After the evil dictator was removed, Bush’s line was that we stayed in Iraq to bring democracy to the Iraqi people. And now, his justification for staying in Iraq (in addition to fighting terrorists) is to honor our “commitment” to Iraq.
But when one considers all of the above noted events and circumstances – the unfulfilled promises to reconstruct the Iraqi infrastructure that we destroyed, the widespread torture of Iraqis under the auspices of the American military, the deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, the looting of the country by American corporations operating under no-bid contracts, and the apparently permanent American military bases that provide evidence of our intention to stay in Iraq indefinitely regardless of the outcome of the current war – it should be evident that our war in Iraq IS against the Iraqi people. And that is how it is seen by most Iraqis.
So, when the Bush administration or others speak of our “commitment” to Iraq as a means of justifying continued American military presence there, and yet they fail to talk about how to redress and make amends for the multitude of damage that we have caused the Iraqi people, or even mention that subject, that is worse than hypocritical. What those people are essentially suggesting is that, in order to fulfill our “commitment” to Iraq we should indefinitely continue on essentially the same course that has caused so much human catastrophe.
I believe, as George McGovern does, that because of the intense anti-American feeling that fuels so much of the violence in Iraq, continued American military presence there is likely to do far more harm than good for the Iraqi (and the American) people. But whether one believes that, or whether one believes that an American military presence in Iraq is required for an unspecified amount of time in order to achieve stability there, when we talk about “commitment”, we
must talk about it in terms of concrete human meaning, recognizing the damage we have caused the Iraqi people and how to redress that damage. That is what the McGovern/Polk plan does, for example, among other things by advising that we immediately cease construction of permanent military bases in Iraq and allow the Iraqis to void all oil contracts made during the occupation, so that they can be “renegotiated on fair terms or opened to fair bidding”. Those who talk about our “commitment” to Iraq
without recognizing the damage we’ve caused or how to redress that damage appear to be doing so simply to justify the furtherance of American imperial and corporate ambitions in Iraq. Following that path is likely to lead to an indefinite continuance of the current catastrophe in Iraq.
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