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bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
Staticide, Not Civil War in Iraq
by Sarah Shields
December 8, 2006 - CommonDreams.org
Calling the tragedy in Iraq a "civil war" is not only inaccurate. It is
morally indefensible, laying the blame for the horrific violence and the
destruction of a country and a society upon the victims of an illegal,
aggressive war. It allows pundits like Thomas Friedman to claim that the
country has been dysfunctional for a millenium, ignoring a long
historical context of international support for Iraq's brutal dictator,
debilitating and murderous sanctions by the United Nations, and a
catastrophic and unprovoked US-led invasion of a sovereign state. More
important, if Americans believe that Iraq is in "civil war," liberals
would argue that the United States must remain in order to prevent an
even worse outbreak of violence.
Calling the tragedy in Iraq a "civil war" is not only inaccurate. It is
morally indefensible, laying the blame for the horrific violence and the
destruction of a country and a society upon the victims of an illegal,
aggressive war. It allows pundits like Thomas Friedman to claim that the
country has been dysfunctional for a millenium, ignoring a long
historical context of international support for Iraq's brutal dictator,
debilitating and murderous sanctions by the United Nations, and a
catastrophic and unprovoked US-led invasion of a sovereign state. More
important, if Americans believe that Iraq is in "civil war," liberals
would argue that the United States must remain in order to prevent an
even worse outbreak of violence.
Iraq is not undergoing a civil war. The country is in the throes of an
anti-occupation struggle. Having declared, with the installation of the
current government, that Iraq is no longer occupied, the US government
and media can hardly frame the current violence as a struggle against a
continuing occupation. Nonetheless, what is being cast as civil war is
the latest example in a long line of peoples' fighting against
occupation, struggles in which those groups who collaborate with an
occupier are themselves targeted by those seeking to end an occupation.
Algerians fighting the French also attacked the those indigenous forces
who had allied themselves with France. Moroccans targeted the goumiers,
local troops who worked with the French in suppressing a rebellion
against foreign control. The Vietcong fought not only Americans, but
also the Vietnamese who collaborated with the occupation. Zulu Inkatha
were targeted for working on behalf of South Africa's white government.
Irish nationalists linked Protestants with the British occupiers. The
occupiers tried to present each as an example of the intrinsic and
intractable violence of these societies, which provided yet another
example of their continuing need for the benevolent protection of the
occupation.
Framing the Iraq tragedy as civil war forces the US media to ignore the
clear inconsistencies. Shi'ite forces under Muqtada al-Sadr attack the
forces of a Shi'ite-led government. News reports day after day describe
terrible attacks against civilian populations, with no coverage at all
of violence against American forces. Where are our mounting casualties
coming from? The BBC writes that eighty percent of attacks are against
the occupation forces, not against civilian targets. Iraqi targets are
often people either directly collaborating or trying to collaborate with
the occupation (local police and military recruits), and people whose
continuing work allows the current government to function. The apparent
contradiction in which Iraqis would attack those who allow the
hospitals, schools, and services to continue is comprehensible only in
the context of an anti-occupation struggle where an insurgency tries to
prevent the functioning of a government installed by an occupation army.
The United States exacerbated ethnic conflict in Iraq in order to
refocus a growing anti-occupation insurgency, beginning with our arming
Shi'ites to help us attack Sunni forces in Fallujah. Even then, some
Shi'ites came to the aid of the Sunnis in a clear rejection of US
efforts to divide the country. The militias introduced into the Iraqi
Interior Ministry during the era of John Negroponte (accused of
eliciting the same behavior in 1980s Honduras) have unquestionably
engaged in sectarian killings. It is impossible to argue that sectarian
violence has no history in Iraq; nonetheless, despite Saddam Hussein's
efforts to expel some Shi'ites during the 1980s, Sunnis and Shi'is
continued to marry each other, to be members of the same tribes, and to
live in the same neighborhoods.
Sectarian violence has increased dramatically during the United States
occupation of Iraq. The occupation has only exacerbated the violence.
The reasons are consistent with countless historical examples. Occupiers
try to divide the country in order to keep their opposition weak. And
those who would resist occupation invariably attack those who would
collaborate with the occupation. Iraqis will only become more and more
divided the longer the United States remains in their country. The
notion that we could stabilize Iraq and leave a viable government is
absurd when looked at historically. Governments in power during
occupation, collaborators with occupation forces, are most often
overthrown when the occupiers leave. Whenever US forces leave, Iraqis
will have to struggle to create their own state. The sooner we leave,
the fewer people will have been compromised by their connection with our
occupation. Had we ended our occupation at the end of 2003 before the
siege of Fallujah, or had we left Iraq in February 2006 before the
bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, Iraqis could have begun to
reconstruct their own government and infrastructure without the horrific
inter-communal violence that is now escalating daily. Our occupation has
hardly prevented chaos and civil war, and leaving today would not
miraculously end the violence that has been building over the past three
years. But our immediate departure would allow Iraqis to get on with
reconstruction without the polarizing presence of a continuing
occupation. If we insist on staying, we will preside over the remainder
of the annihilation of the state we have worked, for decades, to
destroy.
Sarah Shields teaches the history of the Middle East at the University
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
source:
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20061208110110885
===
-muslim voice-
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