Where Are The Iraqis in The Iraq War?

[babylonsister]

Where Are The Iraqis in The Iraq War?
by Ramzy Baroud


Five years after the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, mainstream media is once more making the topic an object of intense scrutiny. The costs and implications of the war are endlessly covered from all possible angles, with one notable exception — the cost to the Iraqi people themselves.

Through all the special coverage and exclusive reports, very little is said about Iraqi casualties, who are either completely overlooked or hastily mentioned and whose numbers can only be guesstimated. Also conveniently ignored are the millions injured, internally and externally displaced, the victims of rape and kidnappings who will carry physical and psychological scars for the rest of their lives.

We find ourselves stuck in a hopeless paradigm, where it feels necessary to empathise with the sensibilities of the aggressor so as not to sound “unpatriotic”, while remaining blind to the untold anguish of the victims. Some actually feel the need to go so far as to blame the Iraqis for their own misfortune. Both Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have expressed their wish for Iraqis to take responsibility for the situation in their country, with the former saying, “we cannot win their civil war. There is no military solution.”
It would have been helpful if Clinton had reached her astute conclusion before she voted for the Senate’s 2002 resolution authorising President Bush to attack Iraq. For the sake of argument, let’s overlook both Clinton’s and Obama’s repeated assertions that all options, including military ones, are on the table regarding how to “deal” with Iran’s alleged ambition to acquire nuclear weapons. But to go so far as blaming the ongoing war on the Iraqis’ lack of accountability is a new low for these “antiwar” candidates.

Is it still a secret, five years on, that the war on Iraq was fought for strategic reasons, to maintain a floundering superpower’s control over much of the world’s energy supplies and to sustain the regional supremacy of Israel, the US’s most costly ally anywhere?

Of course, there are those who prefer to imagine a world in which a well-intentioned superpower would fight with all of its might to enable another smaller, distant nation to enjoy the fruits of liberty, democracy and freedom. But it is nothing short of ridiculous to pretend that Iraqis are capable of controlling the parameters of the ranging conflict, that a puppet government whose election and operation is entirely under the command of the US military is capable of taking charge and assuming responsibilities.

Equally absurd is the insinuation that the civil war in Iraq is an exclusively Iraqi doing, and that the US military has not deliberately planted the seeds of divisions, hoping to reinterpret its role in Iraq from that of the occupier to that of the arbitrator, making sure the “good” guys prevail over the “bad”.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/29/7957/

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. I'm still having arguments with hubby over why the war was started, how

it is illegal and immoral, and how Iraqis are worse off than before. He doesn't want to hear what I have to say because I get all my info from "those liberal left-wing websites". *frustrated*

[babylonsister]

2. Wow. So he thinks we needed to go to Iraq, but did

he say why? Does he realize there was no AlQ there, nor WMDs? And wasn't that the reason we were all given? I would be frustrated, too. I imagine he's voting for McLame, too. :(

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Got rid of a bad dictator, WMDS, protecting ourselves.. all of it :^( Not sure who

he will vote for, but as a religious and political conservative it's possible. He did ask me some questions about Obama recently, and he seemed genuinely interested in him so who knows?

[surfermaw]

3. Bill Clinton on the War

He told a little story to express his thoughts, he said if your firends house burned, and you took him in at no cost to him and if he stayed for a year, you would be thinking he should get off the couch and find another place to live, and it was the same with Iraq, if we stayed on for a 100 years they would let us, he said we should come home he went on to say the only thing Iraq had to do was set up it government, decide which afactions were going to do things and then take the oil out of the ground to run their own government, ( words may not be exact but meaning is the same!

[MichiganVote]

5. That'd be one hell of an expensive friend. But of course in BushOilWorld its nothing.

[Adsos Letter]

6. Where are the Iraqis in the Iraq war? Well...

1. Some have fled the country.

2. Some are fighting the Americans/British.

3. Some are fighting each other.

4. Some not fortunate enough to leave are trying to stay out of the way, and suffering from violence inflicted by both sides.

EDIT: edited to add that I forgot Poland...

[Dan]

7. sadly, the long and the short of it is...

we broke it, we own it.

Whatever Iraq's people do - we really have no say.

One day, we will pack up and leave, cause we can.