Supporters of the Iraq war continue to impute to those of us (the liberal left or just the plain old left) opposed to this appalling misadventure, several unsavory qualities and motives. They imply that we are not sufficiently disturbed by tyranny and oppression. That we find fault with the US government (especially a Republican one) engaged in a noble endeavor to punish fascist regimes. The right has even asserted that opponents of the Iraq war wouldn’t mind if the terrorists defeat George Bush (cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face). Also, we cannot bring ourselves to celebrate the liberation of Iraqi and Afghan citizens. In other words, we are not patriotic Americans and we are crestfallen that democracy might be breaking out all over the mideast ! All straw man arguments of course – a mindset spawned by the one dimensional thinking of the right’s current champion who famously said, "You are either with us or you are with the terrorists."
What the right willfully ignores is that the opponents of the Iraq war may have paid heed to history and learnt that a reckless, unilateral aggression exacts a high price in human lives and national morale. We find the notion of pre-emptive invasion of a country (however detestable its leadership) which did not attack us and was unlikely to do so, a morally reprehensible and unacceptable political precedent. We vehemently disagreed with the suggestion that the death and mutilation of US soldiers, wanton killing of Iraqis and the destruction of Iraq’s historic and modern infrastructures was only a necessary "collateral damage". We nervously predicted the futility and danger of abandoning the pursuit of the Taliban and Al Qaida to focus on an aging and attenuated despot (whose follies we had ignored for years because of his oil wealth) with whom, it appeared that Bush-Cheney had a personal score to settle. Why is it so difficult for the right to appreciate that to be alarmed and repulsed by terrorism and to disapprove of a cynically wrong headed war are not mutually exclusive moral choices ?
What really bothers the pro-war crowd is that the opponents of Bush’s war have been proven mostly accurate and prescient in their prediction of what could and would go wrong in Iraq. The alarm bells that went off in our heads when the Bush-Cheney brigade tried to scare the hell out of us by the deliberate and dishonest juxtaposition 9/11 with Iraq and Saddam with Osama, were sounding the right warning. All reasons and justification presented for the flawed war have turned out to be morally and factually hollow. Almost everything they told us has fallen apart systematically for the whole world to see, without any participation by the left. That is why the right is angry – they are blaming us for being correct.
President Bush has been asked by some US senators (a couple of GOP senators among them) to give an accurate status report of the war in Iraq to the American people. If and when George Bush undertakes the task, I hope we will hear the unvarnished truth. We are no longer interested in the tired old litany of "let freedom reign", democratic Iraqi elections and constitution and "the world is better off without Saddam". I hope he will have the courage to acknowledge the following and admit that we are not just breaking some eggs to make the omelette, we are also killing a whole lot of chickens:
Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein if not worse, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has said.
"People are doing the same as (in) Saddam’s time and worse," Allawi said in an interview published in Britain on Sunday.
"It is an appropriate comparison," Allawi told The Observer newspaper. "People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things."…….
This report is more than a year old but was grossly ignored by the US media perhaps because of the impending 2004 presidential election.
When more than 200,000 people died in a tsunami caused by an Asian earthquake in December, the immediate reaction in the United States was an outpouring of grief and philanthropy, prompted by extensive coverage in the news media.
Two months earlier, the reaction in the United States to news of another large-scale human tragedy was much quieter. In late October, a study was published in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, concluding that about 100,000 civilians had been killed in Iraq since it was invaded by a United States-led coalition in March 2003. On the eve of a contentious presidential election — fought in part over U.S. policy on Iraq — many American newspapers and television news programs ignored the study or buried reports about it far from the top headlines……
Security Contractors in Iraq Under Scrutiny After Shootings
Recent shootings of Iraqi civilians, allegedly involving the legion of U.S., British and other foreign security contractors operating in the country, are drawing increasing concern from Iraqi officials and U.S. commanders who say they undermine relations between foreign military forces and Iraqi civilians.
(Their) activities have drawn scrutiny both here and in Washington after allegations of indiscriminate shootings and other recklessness have given rise to charges of inadequate oversight.
"These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There’s no authority over them, so you can’t come down on them hard when they escalate force," said Brig. Gen. Karl R. Horst, deputy commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, which is responsible for security in and around Baghdad. "They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath. It happens all over the place."
And in another part of the mideast : In Egypt, election tests U.S. push for democracy Analysis
For months, the Bush administration has said that it is serious about pushing for democracy in the Middle East. It’s about to get a serious test of that resolve.
Egypt, the world’s most populous Arab country, is suddenly roiling with a wide-open, combative election that seems certain to end with the country’s main Islamic group, the banned Muslim Brotherhood, as a big winner….
And here is an apt cartoon by Mike Luckovich . Please click on image to see.
Accidental Blogger 