On May 11, 2005, at 2:47 AM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote:
How much was right about it before GW2? Is the "average" Iraqi better off or worse off now than then? Or, for another measure, is the number of Iraqi people who are better off without SH in charge greater than the number who were better off with him and his sons and cronies in charge?
The answer is of course "it depends". Were there torturings and unjust imprisonments before the attack? Yes, absolutely. Are there now? Yes, absolutely. Were innocents being killed before the attacks? Yes, absolutely. Are there innocents being killed now? Yes, absolutely.
Iraqis complain -- this is instructive -- that the basic utilities (water, power) were more dependable *before* the attack. There was considerably less random crime committed by citizens before the attack; we can all recall, I think, the footage of looting taking place after Baghdad was overrun.
Was Saddam bad? Sure he was. Did he use chemicals against his own nationals? Sure he did. Did he attempt genocide at some point in the past? Indubitably.
Was he a threat to the US? Not clearly. Was he continuing to oppress his people to the point of death? He was, but then, not as badly as before. Were there other options for enforcement of humanitarian ideals in Iraq? Probably, but few were tried; those that were were not in place very long.
The discussion shifted rapidly after the attack from ties to OBL to WMDs to overthrowing a dictator. The ties to OBL were totally spurious, but that was the reason many Americans fell for. The WMDs were a nice touch; if Saddam was in bed with OBL, and if Iraq had WMDs, obviously it would be just a matter of time before OBL used nukes, bio or chem weapons in a harbor someplace or whatever.
But the fact was -- and this was not a secret in 2002 -- that Saddam had NO ties to OBL. That was simply a lie noised about by people with a pro-attack agenda. The fact was that while there was no proof Iraq didn't have WMDs, there was no proof they DID have WMDs. So that was tenuous evidence at best. The third reason -- "regime change" -- was and is not a sufficient one to assault ANY nation, ever.
Now, of course, the argument is about aftermath. But to me this is on par with police planting evidence of pot usage in the home of someone they believe is guilty of embezzlement, then discovering after the (groundless; therefore illegal) search that the suspect is *instead* trafficking in stolen car parts. "Hey, we got a criminal off the street..." That's not a justification for the planted evidence that led to discovery of wrongdoing which was NOT the suspected crime to begin with.
If an American citizen were thrown in jail based on the above, there would be a massive outcry against the conviction and it would be overturned in a damn big hurry. There would be probes into departmental wrongdoing on many levels. Heads would roll. People would resign; poll results might end up changing a few politicians' careers permanently.
Yet when an analogous thing happens with Iraq, many seem unable to see the clear injustice of the thing.
(These are not rhetorical questions. I am asking for a serious "before" and "after" comparison between the common people's lives and their potential futures.)
The problem here is that the premise, as I see it, is flawed. The premise *seems to be* that the Iraqis are getting a democratic government, which gives them the opportunity of self-determination, and which justifies a few eggs being broken. But this premise ignores, I think, several crucial points.
1. Innocents are still dying. Iraqis, US soldiers, and civilians kidnapped and killed by resistance are all, to varying degrees, innocent. We don't even know how many have been killed; it's thousands at least. And we don't know how many more are yet to be killed. It could be many times the unknown current number. At what point do death tolls weigh in against the establishment of a democratic government? Here's a possible way to consider it. Since democracy is supposed to be about a choice, the only people who die for it should be the ones who decide to do so as a sacrifice. Of the people being killed now in Iraq, how many are verifiably of that persuasion?
2. Iraq is still not stable, nor is it self-policing. All major forces for law and order are still "coalition" troops, not Iraqi nationals. There is no indication of when this condition will change. I should repeat that. There is no hint of any stretch of time in which Iraq will become a self-policing, internally stable nation. It might happen in a year. It might not happen for a decade. And it was and remains our problem.
3. Democracy, to be effective, can't be foisted off on a nation; it has to be something the people themselves want enough to put into place. Iraq now does NOT have an elective democracy. It has a democracy that was forced upon it by another, more powerful, foreign entity; for all practical purposes it's another flavor of dictatorship. This is essentially a reformulation of the old saw, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." To no small extent Iraqis are having democracy rammed down their throats -- and that is *not* freedom. In fact, forcing democracy on others is pretty much the antithesis of what democracy is supposed to be.
Thus the idea that the Iraqis are working toward a better future is dubious at best. The idea that life has improved there or will soon do so is also questionable. And the suggestion that whatever democracy is erected will be permanent or stable enough to justify the sacrifice of thousands -- an unknown quantity of whom, if asked, might have decided NOT to make that sacrifice to begin with -- is at least as uncertain.
All the above points are *in addition to* the other wrongs perpetrated in Iraq, which are myriad, and few to none of which needed to happen. They're also in addition to the side-effects of the attack, such as the way US standing has gone down worldwide, the way our military is compromised now, and of course the incentive to become a terrorist that many young ME men now feel.
That is what I mean when I say everything about Iraq is wrong. Wrong premise; wrong action; wrong conclusions.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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