Falluja

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Jaguar, so you mean that a nation have the right to bomb the other into stoneage and then just leave them to be saying: "After all, it is their country."? Am I the only one that sees the failed logic in this?

 

A while ago I read an interesting book by a leftist economist named Michel Feher called something like "Powerless by Design." He criticized the left for it's reaction to Bosnia; before the intervention, it blamed the West for not doing anything, and after the intervention, it blamed the West for violating the "national sovereignty" of Serbia. Aside from the historical fact that much of the drive for internationalism came from the left (with the right holding onto nationalism), he saw this shift as an indication that the left had adopted a position where they could only criticize power but never adopt it, or never concieve of it being used for the betterment of a given situation. While one should always be suspicious of power, Feher points out that by always taking a negative critical stance, these elements of the left had effectively rendered themselves powerless, without a clear policy or position. While I agree that the US and the coalition have alot to answer for, I don't think this proves that coalition presence in Iraq is at this moment a bad thing...

 

I don't think this "situation" is about the US or Shrub. This issue is about a savage and barbaric Iraqi response. The people of Iraq have the opportunity to find a political solution to their problems - a post Saddam Iraq and US occupation - that some of them chose this as a response says more about them than it does about the US and Bush. I don't mean to lump all the Iraqi people into the bunch that behaved in this manner. But it seems to me that those who did this have a lot to answer for, and they will.

It is my understanding that many of the participants in this chanted religious slogans. What kind of "religious values or moral code" could anyone assign to this situatution? I have never supported this war in any way, but I will never support this kind of a response. Despite the US occupation, as DMC pointed out, the Iraqi people have a few opportunities sitting in front of them. The entire world is watching. What they decide to do here is as much up to them as it is to the US and Bush.

 

The scene in Falluja was sure nasty, and the killing of the contractors was just as nasty. It isn't a surprise. And don't let the term contractor fool you, "contractors" do some of the occupation jobs the US armed forces son't like to do because they fear casualties. The Fallujah people, 20 year US armed forces veterans, maybe with special forces background, don't quite fit the aid worker profile in my eyes.
What I say is that a "contractor" is a nice technical term for your good old mercenary. And mercenaries, the dogs of war, fight and die in war. Take Blackwater, tasked in Falluja with securing and transporting food, they don't mind to evecuate woundeds, or resupply ammo to fighting units, sometimes they fire themselves too. So, for an Iraq, where's the difference? The Iraqis don't care if they fight outsourced US troops or real US tropps, that's a legal difference only.
Sad for the people and their families, but nothing new really.

It ain't all that easy. In Fallujah the US created a lot of bad blood, starting by scared troops firing into demonstrators killing a dozen or two, and it amplified till today through US missteps and iraqi violence. Hey, Fallufah isn't a silly village, it is a city of 500.000, about as large as, lemme guess, Boston? That means, many, many angry people.
Interesting article: The making of an enemy - how Falluja turned against the US.

And while the Iraqis indeed may have their chance to participate somehow, they rightly understand the US not as liberators but as occupiers. The US have no legitimacy to the Iraqis whatsoever, for the Iraqis the US came to install their pet Chalabi or for the oil, or both and something else too - there too the notorious uncertainty about the actual US motives for war plays into the hands of the resistance.

What I find bordering the absurd is that atm Bush, after ordering and subsequently mismanaging what lead to the break-up of Iraq, insolently accuses the Iraqis that it is their fault - because they didn't play his game. I mean, uh, who started this?

 

This is really a catch-22 situation now. I was totally against the war, but now it's gone ahead you have to stay until the jobs done. Here I'd like to see Blair and Bush answer for their errors, but the coallition in Iraq still have work to do.
The Iraqi people do have a unique opportunity to have a chance to direct the direction their country takes, yet they seem intent on pursuing anarchy, which is saddening. I will admit that the management of the war is partly to blame for this. If the coallition had bothered to prepare fully there wouldn't have been the total breakdown in law and order. Also if the troops, particularly the Americans(sorry, but its true), hadn't carried out a shoot first ask questions later poilcy, there wouldn't have been such a build up of resentment.
The scenes in Falluja are a reminder that radicals are using local tention over Anti-American hatred to inflame the people and destabilse the area making it easier for these people to operate and gain power.
So, good or bad, the troops need to stay to get a hold of this situation, and unfortunately, thats exactlythe thing that will make it worse.
Catch-22

 

Catch 22 indeed. Now Bush has this mess on his hands - what now?

A US withdrawal and a civil war? Some say "Why not?". A less public neo-con, Edward Luttwak, has earlier, in an essay against peacekeeping - of course - propagandised a "Let war duke it out" approach, the free market capitalism version in conflict management. That might even work, but I doubt that the US, or Turkey and Iran for that instance, can resist the the temptation to meddle in their to promote their interests.

There is the point the US IMO never got, and likely never will: As I see it there is a US inability to understand that some missions, like peacekeeping, demand US neutrality. Originally on a peacekeeping mission, the US chose sides in Lebanon 1984 and Somalia - and, unsurprisingly, got targetet by the opposition of the side the US chose (Beirut barrack bombing & Black Hawk Down) - just that the US didn't understand why - wheren't they there to help?

The US can't get over their football mentality: Team vs. Team. Good vs. Evil. They are simply unable to be the referee. Remember? When you're not with us you're against us. Life ain't that easy.

And as for getting the job done ... ever considered that it might be an impossible job? That's what concerns me. Don't try to clean the Augean stables when you're not a demi-god and your name is not Hercules. The US may be well underway to lose control over Iraq, risking a civil war that might spread to the neighboring countries - basically exactly what the sissy euros have warned the US of when they wanted to go to Iraq so eagerly. Bleh.

 

Ragusa,

Or this could just be the effort of a dying Baathist regime and a pipsqueak radical Islamic cleric making, both making a desperate bid for power. Maybe we should wait for a little concrete evidence before crying that the sky is falling.

I don't think that you should lump all the Europeans who were against the war as "sissy", or insinuate that America called them all sissies. Germany and Russia have rarely, if ever, been accused of being sissies. In my experience the only European nation that is labeled as wimpy (correctly or incorrectly) are the French (and occasionally the Italians, but that was mostly a generation ago).

That said, I don't think that most Americans believe that the European nations who are against the liberation of Iraq are too soft for war. I believe that most of us "war mongers" know that the volume at which the nation objected to the war was directly proportional to the economic cost of the contracts that would be lost with the fall of Saddam's regime.

In truth, the primary goals of all the governments involved (including the US) had little to do with what was best for the world or the Middle East, and more to do with what was best for their own interests (including the UN). The fact that the coalition went doesn't make them any better or worse than those who objected. For the governments involved, it all falls back to economics and power (world power and getting re-elected power). If I were on your side of the pond, I am sure I would be just as much against this war as you are.

 

Hardly. Boston has to have way more than 1 million people - it's one of the biggest cities on the east coast. I know for a fact it's much bigger than Baltimore - which is where I live, and we have 700,000 people.

EDIT: Also keep in mind that the "official" population of Boston is a fraction of the total people actually living there, as most people who work in the city live in the suburbs. Baltimore City has about 700,000 people, but Baltimore County (the area surrounding the city) has 3.2 million people. It's the American way. Most people who work in a big city make enough money that they don't have to live in a big city.
END EDIT

To me, the main reason that we have to stay (and I mean this more if you are an American than if you are not) is if we pull out now, if Iraq degenerates into civil war that causes untold suffering among the Iraqi people, and if a radical government takes over that has just as bad political relations with the U.S. as Saddam's regime, then the 600+ American soldiers who died there died for nothing. And that to me, is TOTALLY UNACCEPATABLE.

[ April 07, 2004, 16:48: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

Well, I was being caustic, and admittedly no one here really deserved that

What I liked to point out was in a nutshell that IMO the US have to deal with much more than a mad cleric and his stirred up followers and that it is for quite a while no longer about a few desperate baathists who want the good old days back, much less about mysterious insurgents. If Fallujah is a glimpse on things to come, it could as well be the start of something bigger, that is, the mob joining the fray, like Intifada @ Iraq.

And considering that is outright scary. In WW-II the Germans were the first who encountered Russian human wave attacks, which had a highly demoralising effect on them. The US in Korea experienced the same with the Chinese and Koreans, to the same demoralising effect. The fighting around Black Hawk Down in Mogadischu was just that, only on an urban battlefield and 3rd world level.

Hell, I don't know what will happen, but playing it down is hardly the right thing to do. Let's be realistic. The US lost some 20 soldiers since the Fallujah killings, at least. That means that likely some 100++ were actually wounded. And that in less than a week.

The next logical step for the US will be to show strength in Fallujah. They have to take care by that not to alienate the passive majority which is either neutral or pro US. But it could well be that in Fallujah they managed to do that already.

 

While I agree that the U.S. has to stay, I disagree with the above for two reasons:

1. The risk of “bad political relations” is IMO irrelevant. In all likelihood, whoever eventually comes into power will ultimately not be a friend of the U.S. – this may not happen immediately, but it will happen.

2. I know this is going to get some people’s backs up, but to me the 600+ dead American soldiers is also irrelevant. In fact, some would say that they’ve already died for nothing, since the Administration shouldn’t have sent them there in the first place. Regardless, this should be about what is best for the people of Iraq, not about making a soldier’s death “meaningful”. Of course, it’s entirely possible for the two to go hand-in-hand.

 

The real verdict will come when a new government takes over and what it stands for. If its a radical islamic government, similar to what used to be in afganistan, or similar to the saddam regime, then it will all have been for nothing anyway. You get rid of one dictator (who IMO was only a true threat to his own people) only to replace him with another. Has anyone read animal farm? It satires the russian revolution perfectly, and it can be a good example of what is tragically close to occuring again. The problem is that the new government may be an even greater threat to the world than the last.

 

@ Splunge

I respect your opinion. The point I was trying to make is while nothing is going to bring those 600+ dead soldiers back, and nothing is going to repair the despair their deaths caused their families, the rest of the U.S. would like something positive to come out of all of this. I did touch upon the Iraqi people lives getting better in my previous post. If millions of Iraqis are better off after we're finished, then at least the 600+ American dead served some greater good, some greater plan. If things are just as bad as before, then they died for nothing. Someone, even if it isn't the U.S. has to gain some benefit from all of this.

Worst case scenario would be for them to elect a theocracy, which in turn would turn into a Taliban-esque government. That would potentially be worse than under Saddam. And if that happens, then we have failed on every level. There were no WMD - OK. So now the focus has to shift to doing something good after all of this. It's one thing to say we never should have gone in there, but we can't change the past. Now that we are there, we have to leave it a better place than before we went in.

 

Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

What tells you that? The senior Ayatollah in Iraq actually is explicitly *against* a theocracy but instead for a separation of church and state - to keep the church pure from the corrosive effects of politics. That is, he is exactly against the Iranian approach.

Don't be so afraid of a theocracy, it's a whole world better than the current anarchy and US imposed strongmen like that pompous fool Chalabi. If they can offer stability that is worth the limitations they'll impose on everyday life. And even then the conservatism will eventually be overcome, we see signs of that in Iran.

 

My first thought was, as the facts unfolded, that they were operatives. This seems to have CIA written all over it. There were no other forces in the area, and no one "seemed" to know why they were there. It was as if they needed time to manufacture a story to explain what happened. My guess is that they were led into an ambush with maybe bad info.

But all that is really secondary. The real issue is what the "average Joe Iraqi" did there. One can't describe the entire population of a large city as terrorists. But at the same time there is going to be little sympathy for civilian casualties if they are viewed as the same as the terrorists. While the neocons and Shrub's dreams of an American empire are proving harder to realize, both the average Iraqi and the average American are losing big time. What happened there is one example of how both sides are losing.

In the meantime, 12 marines were lost yesterday in very intense fighting. I have a friend who is in the Corp and just got his orders for Iraq. He leaves next month. Before it was all about fighting the bad guys. Now he will be faced with a confrontation with the civilians. Remember we are there for them - bringing "democracy" for the average Iraqi. At least that was the latest excuse. But now it might be over violation of UN resolutions, or saving them from Saddam, or finding nukes, or whatever else one cares to use in defense of Shrub's little war of empire building.

But I also know that my countrymen were burned and strung-up on a bridge like butchered cattle and put on display for the rest of the world. That kind of action demands a response also. And that there is a call for more young Americans to go and fight in Iraq proves that the response is on the way. We may have reached a point of no return. So for those who think this war is such a great idea, here's your big chance - you may want to pick up a rifle yourself, go to Iraq and help out. This may last a while.

[ April 07, 2004, 18:34: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

An Iraqi might telly you in reply that the US did kill Saddam's sons, only to put their bodies on display for worldwide tv ... and they might ask you why the US are allowed to do stuff like this unpunished while they aren't.

Not my point of view, but they will ask you that.

 

That's another thing I wonder about - how long we are going to be over there. It is safe to assume that even if everything goes as planned, and nothing delays the June 30th date for the transfer of authority to the Iraqi government, that the U.S. troops are still going to be needed there for months to come. It is even possible that we keep a presence there for an indeterminate amount of time - kind of like South Korea.

 

@ragusa: better off under a theocracy? give me a break.

not so many people are happy with al-sadr. check the iraqi blogs (salam pax, etc, who think that muqti and his militia are just thugs), or even al jazeera (granted, though, that they tend to have a sunni bias). al jazeera even has a story about how happy and prosperous the kurds are. so yeah, things are ugly, but I'm still not convinced at all about the vietnam analogy.

not, of course, that bush shouldn't be sent on an express train back to texas this november.

 

Ragusa - Hmmm, good point. My answer would be a matter of degree. The bodies were not hung from a bridge and burned. And it was my impression that the two sons had done similiar things to the Iraqi people during their regime. There had been much torture and that people were brutalized by the Saddam family. I did not agree with what the US did by putting them on TV, since it may have been political, but there are other valid reasons; such as proving to critics (like me) that they really did get the "bad guys."

One only has to think of what happened to Mussolini after WWII ended in Italy. The Saddams may have gotten off easy. It is really too bad that they could not have been turned over to the Iraqi people for proper punishment, since at least some of them seem to enjoy this type of bucthery. But, like you, I don't agree with this type of behavior, since we have laws, courts and a civilized process for dealing with these kinds of people as human beings.

[ April 07, 2004, 23:43: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

@Bion

Thanks for reminding me about Salam Pax! I haden't been there in awhile. Could you post links to some more blog sites like that one?

Well, I have a friend who got hired by Blackwater a few months back, and he is in Iraq right now providing security. I was worried that that might have been him the other day, thankfully it wasn't.

I'm awaiting an email from him about what's going on over there and what his feelings are. He was a local(county) police officer before he left. And was not a member of the armed forces. I'll let you know what he has to say.