What Is Our Moral Obligation To The People Of Iraq?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Iraq certainly wasn't Sweden or Switzerland under Saddam but the average Iraqi could leave his or her home without walking into a free fire zone and had electricity and water for more than three or four hours a day... Our actions have set them back seventy five years...


What happens if we leave and there is Hobbes' "war of all against all" because there is no sovereign...

I keep thinking of the "Pottery Barn Rules"- "if you break it you bought it"... In American civil law if someone is injured through your negligence it is up to you make them whole.

How do we make Iraq whole again, given the fact we broke it, and do we have a moral obligation to try to make it whole again?

I read a great quote somewhere," the path to war is wide, the exit is narrow."

[Waya]

1. I'm thinking we have a moral obligation.....

.........we invaded a country for no other reason than the greed and stupidity of Bush - how to do that, of course, is another matter - your guess is as good as mine....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. Not TooMany Want To Or Know How To Deal With That Question

I don't...

If we left tomorrow I doubt the various factions are going to sit down at a table and peacefully hash out their differences...We blew up a republic, that had been stable, and governed by the rule of law for seventy or so years, over our differences...

I don't think you need a PHD in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University to see this isn't going to end pretty...

[DangerDave921]

27. Rule of Law?

1. There was no rule of law under Saddam, other than his dictatorial rules.

2. If we leave, it will be bedlam.

3. Yes, more Americans will die if we stay. But the converse is many thousands of Iraqis will die if we leave. Some on here seem to be suggesting that the lives of US military is more important than the lives of Iraqis. I believe all humans' lives are equal.

4. The morality of what we do NOW is independent of the mistakes that were made in going in the first place. So stop mixing the two together.

5. Increased Iraqi government, and security in military, while we phase out is the key. We cannot just pack up and leave.

[Waya]

39. 1. There was no rule of law under Saddam, other than his dictatorial rules.

Nevertheless, like it or not - that was the rule of law. And it was stable - there were no car bombs, no shooting in the streets, people could go to the market and be relatively sure (unless they got hit by a bus) that they would make it back home in one piece. They had electricity for more than 3 or 4 hours a day. They had relatively clean water, health care, education (yep, even the women). While Iraq, under Saddam, was by no means great - it was better than what they got now....

2. If we leave, it will be bedlam.

If we stay it will also be bedlam. It doesn't matter if we leave now, in a year or in ten years - it will be bedlam. Whenever we leave the factions will fight it out and whoever emerges as the winner - rules. And most likely, again, with an iron fist - in order to keep the factions from shedding each other's blood.......


3. Yes, more Americans will die if we stay. But the converse is many thousands of Iraqis will die if we leave. Some on here seem to be suggesting that the lives of US military is more important than the lives of Iraqis. I believe all humans' lives are equal.

The longer we stay - the more Iraqis will die. If we leave, yes, Iraqis will die, but it will be over sooner.

4. The morality of what we do NOW is independent of the mistakes that were made in going in the first place. So stop mixing the two together.

You are correct - what we do now shouldn't depend on the mistake that was made by invading in the first place. However, what would be better: staying - more people lose their lives (on both sides) or leaving - yes, people will lose their life but the conflict of fighting it out will be over sooner, so, maybe in the long run the Iraqi death toll might be lower, compared to what it would be if we stay......

5. Increased Iraqi government, and security in military, while we phase out is the key. We cannot just pack up and leave

Not gonna happen that way.....as long as we are there and interfere, Iraq will not do it on their own.....

[DangerDave921]

40. Rule of law

Rule of law means that laws, not arbitrary dictators, decide justice and punishment. There was no rule of law with Saddam. There may have been laws, but that is completely different.

I respect your opinion. But I disagree that things were better under Saddam. I really do. Yes, things were more orderly and there was more electricity. But I believe there is the intangible of living under dictatorial rule, where there is fear for speaking out of turn. Just because there may have been more order does not mean it was better.

And I do think we owe a moral obligation to help the Iraqis. Very complicated decisions these are, I know, but I hate the thought of pulling out now and saying, "Fend for yourselves."

And I believe many people want to pull out immediately not because it is what's best for Iraq, but only because it's the opposite of what Bush wants.

[Waya]

42. Just because there may have been more order does not mean it was better.

Well, that is a matter of opinion - it depends on whether one considers order being better than chaos - but all we can do on that is speculate. Neither one of us lives there, or has lived there - so we don't know, really, if what the Iraqi people experience is better or worse than what they experienced under Saddam. Even from Iraqis we might get different opinions.

Yes, I agree with you that we have a moral obligation to Iraq and yes, it is complicated.
I hate the thought of telling the Iraqis to 'fend for themselves', also - but I'm looking at it from the point of which will put an end to this mess the soonest.

You may be right that some people want to pull out immediately to spite Bush - and that would be equally wrong - however, I do believe that pulling out may end the inevitable conflict between Iraqi factions sooner rather than if we stay and drag it out.

But that's just me - what do I know.B-)

[bigtree]

3. stop our interference. stop our military assistance to the present regime.

allow Iraq to accept the assistance of their neighbors without our interference.

Our obligation under this Bush regime is to first just leave. Hands off, until it can be shown that all manipulations which advanced behind our military forces have ended. Our entire future in whatever aggression is to be directed against the US depends on our regaining credibility. That won't happen until we show that we've stopped trying to own Iraq and stop our military posturing against their neighbors.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. What Will Happen Is A Replay Of The Iraq-Iran War

There will be assistance...Military assistance...Majority Sunni countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan will assist the Sunnis...Majority Shia countries like Iran will assist the Shias... Syria , although a nominally a Sunni country will assist the Shias because of their alliance with Iran...

Eventually the Shias will win because there are a lot more Shias than Sunnis...


And we caused all this...

[bigtree]

9. right now there has been a *backdoor coup of Iraq by Iranian interests

The Maliki regime is completely aligned with the present Iranian regime -- with both economic and security agreements ongoing. Literally hand-in-hand with Iran. We rolled over Saddam for them and let them in the front door. I seriously doubt there will be some military action by Iran to get more of what they already have a great deal of: access and influence with their neighbor. The only ones who seem jazzed about Iran's posture toward Iraq these days are the hapless operators in the Bush administration.

As for their civil war, it is our presence which has 'caused' the unrest and chaos. Our military occupation is fueling the violence and creating even more individuals and groups pledged to violent resistance to our Bush's military advance. For any reconciliation to occur, we will need to leave (and Bush should have no part in that reconciliation). After that, it will take a recognition by the U.S. that Iraq's internal struggles for power, influence, resources, and territory is best left to Iraqis and their immediate neighbors.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. I'm Not Arguing We Should Stay

But there's a broad consensus that cuts across ideological lines that if we leave things will get a lot worse for the Iraqi people, unimaginable as that might be...

[bigtree]

15. It may get dicey for the Maliki regime and their minions

But who are we to decide whether that regime is the choice of Iraqis? I really don't believe we should be in the business of deciding the balance of power in Iraq. It's imbalanced with us there, and I think a great deal could be accomplished by taking the most pernicious element out of their way. Think of all of the animosity generated because of those U.S. ties. If the Maliki regime wants stability they should be responsive to Iraqi pressure, not military enabled U.S. pressure. I fully expect some blowback, but we have blowback occurring now, and escalating with our escalated involvement.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. I Don't Disagree,,,, Again...

I'm just saying if there's a nasty civil war it was our fault...We were the proximate cause...

[bigtree]

17. definitely our fault

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell's deliberate fault . . .

[cali]

4. I don't know. I hate that question. I'll try and answer anyway.

First we get out. It may not yet be Hobbes "war of all against all", but it's pretty bad. If things get worse after we leave, then I think we try to help set up and support massive diplomatic efforts with Syria, Iran and others. If things get better, we give them a lot of dough to fix there infratstructure and for reparative reasons.

I don't know. It's all so fucked up. And we are responsible.

[Vinca]

5. Our moral obligation is to return their country to them.

The dire predictions are coming from the same folks who brought us troops being welcomed with "sweets and flowers," Sadam and WMD, Iraq and 9/11, etc., etc., etc. It might just be that if we get out of the way things will calm down and they'll figure it out because they have to. If it turns out to be bedlam that will be tragic, but we can stay for 5 years, 10 years or 50 years and the only part of the outcome that will be different is the tally of dead American soldiers.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. Then We Should Admit As A Nation

Then we should admit as a nation we messed Iraq up, can't fix it, and if people are going to die it's better for them to be Iraqis...

[Vinca]

24. Sadly, that's the hard truth. No one wants one more Iraqi to die,

but the other option will result in an "Iraqi Wall" next to the Vietnam Wall. Eventually, we'll leave. Do we want 5,000 names on the wall or 50,000?

[TomClash]

8. We are not staying there because of our moral obligation

First, it is Bush's moral obligation, not ours. He lied to get us into the war.

We are staying to control oil reserves. If you look closely, the only real difference between the candidates is the degree of the force size. No one is really leaving. We will be there until the oil runs out.

What is our moral obligation to our soldiers? I'm more concerned with that question. Let's face it - you and I aren't making much of a sacrifice. Over 3500 soldiers have died and 20,000 have been wounded since "Mission Accomplished." How do we order the ones who remain to risk their lives for Bush's moral obligation?

Even if we were staying for moral reasons, the Iraqis have not been able to cobble together a working government or an adequate army in the last 4 1/2 years. If they don't help, there's no point in putting our troops in harm's way.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. OK

"Even if we were staying for moral reasons, the Iraqis have not been able to cobble together a working government or an adequate army in the last 4 1/2 years. If they don't help, there's no point in putting our troops in harm's way."


I see your point... And I am not pointing fingers but that is the classic conservative argument ... "We gave the Iraqis their government back and now it's up to them to maintain it, so now the chaos is their problem and not our's."

They didn't ask for their government back, certainly not in this matter...

It would be akin to my going to your home while you were out, rearranging all the furniture, painting it in a new color, and replacing your cds and dvd with the cds and dvds I like and then being surprised when you resented all the changes I made...

[TomClash]

28. Two points

I'm not pointing fingers either but we've fought there for almost 5 years - how long do you have a moral commitment for your leader's mendacity and mistakes? It's as if someone else came to my home - in your name - and rearranged all the furniture, replaced the CDs - and then I killed one of your children in retaliation. And don't forget many Iraqis weren't exactly unhappy to see Saddam go.

The negligence analogy doesn't wash. We had no authority to invade Iraq under international law and arguments to stay merely perpetuate this criminal act.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

31. The Negligence Analogy Certainly Does Hold

If someone is hurt or killed by another person's actions whether those actions are lawful or not it is incumbent on the party that caused the injury to make that person whole.

It has nothing to do with us staying or going and everything to do with our moral (and) legal obligation to make Iraq whole again...

[Canuckistanian]

11. The obligation? To make reality the same as the rhetoric

But of course that rhetoric bar has been set so high, it's almost impossible to fulfill. Freedom and democracy are just pretty words without meaning in Iraq today.

What's needed is a de-escalation of hostilities and a round of political talks started.

For one thing, stop flooding the country with weapons. Stop antagonizing Syria and Iran. Stop the indiscriminate bombings. Stop the mass arrests.

Act as a peace broker instead of an imperial overseer. Bring in other Arab countries to act as intermediaries to try and find common ground and conciliations between different factions.

It won't be done, of course.

But until it is, the violence will not end. And until it is, the infrastructure will not get rebuilt. There will be no security in the streets. There will be no effective government.

[B Calm]

13. Troops need to stay in Iraq

Someone in DU posted this analogy of the Iraq War several years ago. I never have forgotten it.

...........................................

You go to a guy's house that you have been talking shit about for many years. You throw a bottle of grape juice through his window and climb in after it.

You tell him your going to clean it up, but you go to his fridge and take a sandwich. You then go lock his little sister in a closet, shoot his dad, and get to work cleaning out his wallet.

He tells you to get the fuck out, and you say I can't leave yet, I haven't cleaned up the juice yet, while you proceed to punch him in the face.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. There Is A Perverse Logic In That

There's a gunslinger in a mythical mid eighteenth century outpost town who kills the corrupt, mean, but effective sheriff and then goes on his way... At first the town folk are happy but then they are unhappy because they don't know how or lack the resources to respond when the occasional bad guy comes through town wreaking havoc....

[Geek_Girl]

26. OMG that's a perfect analogy

nt

[B Calm]

30. I love using it on right wingers when talking about Iraq. It's simple

enough so they can understand that this war is a joke!

[OHdem10]

18. How Many Lives Have We Sacrificed for Iraq.

We have spent Billions. Hand out cash as if it is
candy . How much infrastructure have we built to
have it destroyed already????? How many years have
we been there.????

At this point I would not frame it as owing them'
anything. It can be framed as Is it in our national
interest to stay there amd for how long. The Korea
Model.???

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. That Still Begs The Question

They didn't ask us to invade their country...Once we did that, by law and logic, anything that happened after, became our responsibility...

It would be akin to "you" having a barbecue at your home that starts a fire that engulfs and burns my home. It's incumbent upon you to restore my home to the state it was in before you started the fire...

Now we know that we can never restore Iraq to what it was because we can't but that doesn't obviate the obligation...

P.S. Korea was a UN action and we are able to leave because we were able to establish an uneasy peace ...

[OHdem10]

22. How many troops do have stationed in Korea.

They have been there 50 years.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. We Used To Have 37,000 Troops

Those troops were a tripwire...


Any attack on those troops would result in war between North Korea and the U S..

[B Calm]

34. and to think that it is still a divided country... nothing won

[Smarmie Doofus]

19. Clearly someone had to play the "Saddam" role:

>>>Iraq certainly wasn't Sweden or Switzerland under Saddam but the average Iraqi could leave his or her home without walking into a free fire zone and had electricity and water for more than three or four hours a day... Our actions have set them back seventy five years...>>>>

i.e to make such an unworkable arrangement ( Sunni, Shia, Kurd) work. It might as well have been Saddam himself.


>>How do we make Iraq whole again, given the fact we broke it, and do we have a moral obligation to try to make it whole again?>>

Those who conceived and launched the war... plus their enablers in Congress ( of BOTH parties, BTW) and the media carry both the guilt and the responsibility. They will acknowledge NEITHER. Not now; not ever.

The "Biden" plan ( partition) seems the only feasible scenario. ( 'The best idea we've had so far' , to channel Seinfeld) . The US should NOT be involved, however.

Perhaps a DEM president, if we can elect one who is relatively non-complicit in the war conspiracy itself, can forge an international coalition ( one begins naturally to think "UN", but this one might require a more creative remedy ) to oversee a realignment and demilitarization of the country formerly known as "Iraq" while ensuring ... to the degree that this is possible... the human rights of the inhabitants therein.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. I Always Viewed Saddam As Iraq's Tito

A strongman who stifled ethnic tension through force and the power of personality; except Tito depended more on the latter than the former...

[Geek_Girl]

25. Since 70% of Iraqis believe it's ok to kill American Soldiers

I think the best thing to do is get the hell out of there.

And If you think for one instance that this administration gives a shit about stability in Iraq I have a some swamp land to sell you.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

29. First , stop funding the killers. Second, get out of their country.

Third, make reparations decided by a third entity.

[MedleyMisty]

32. Leave them alone

Get out. Offer humanitarian assistance.

Any more than that seems rather "white man's burden"-ish to me. We don't have the right to tell them how to run their own country or how to solve their own problems. Yeah, we f'ed things up for them but doing anything other than accepting that, apologizing for it, and asking them if they want us to help and if so how they want us to help is just digging the hole deeper.

And I don't mean asking our toadies. I mean asking Iraqis who weren't given power by us and aren't protected and paid by us.

Essentially, our moral obligation is to give them their soverignity. If they want us to help after that, we also have a moral obligation to honor that request.

I think that we're the cause of a lot of the strife and that things would probably actually get better if we left, but let's say that we leave and everything goes to an even deeper circle of hell and it's just all ethnic cleansing all the time. Yes, that blood is on our hands. To go along with the other massive amounts of blood on our hands. The US is really just sort of swimming around in a huge pool of blood. It's not our freedoms that people hate us for.

Anyway, I think in that situation an international body like the UN should step in and do the best it can at peace-keeping and protecting people.

[leftofthedial]

33. to leave,

let them sort out their own future with neutral international help

and to pay and pay and pay and pay reparations and for rebuilding

[LiberalAndProud]

35. Murdering Blackwater thugs sent home in disgrace would be a

step in the right direction.

Military occupation of a nation, finding its only justification in citing regional instability that was introduced by that self-same military is implicitly immoral.

Peace will not be purchased at the end of a gun.

[dpbrown]

36. To get the fuck out of their country and let them have their OWN oil revenues

And to pay them for the damage we did to their country through our illegal invasion and occupation.

[kitty44]

37. Yup. Exactly. n/t

[JackRiddler]

38. Get out and pay reparations

You broke it, you fixed it? Iraq is not a piece of pottery.

Your argument reminds me of the custom (said to obtain in some places) that requires a woman to marry her rapist.

Do we require the arsonist to take over the house he burned, and repair it at his own pace? No, we lock him up. Rightly so. We don't ask the rapist to do favors to his victim, on the contrary, after he serves his time we slap him with a restraining order to stay away from his victim.

You and your government have no right to maintain a Green Zone. Your government has no right to tell the Iraqis anything, let alone write their laws and sell their property to your country's corporations.

You and your government have no right to pick the winners of the Iraqi "civil war," the one that your government intentionally started.

Your taxes as a nation -- more accurately, your line of credit for deficit spending -- paid for the destruction of the Iraqi nation.

Most of you were against it in principle, but you still paid for it. (The "you" in these words includes me.)

Not only did your government lie, outrageously, about its reasons for the invasion. Not only are your elected leaders making almost no move to hold that government accountable for these lies, for the war of aggression they launched, or for the crimes against humanity and mass murder they committed.

Most of you still lie to yourselves that if only this government had been competent, the situation in Iraq would not be so horrible. Most of you are now accepting the latest lie fed to you by certain of your leaders (mainly "Democrats"), who say that we had noble goals and we tried our best, by golly, but if those Iraqis want to snub our favors and kill each other, well then the whole mess is their problem and we should leave them to it.

In fact, failing the original war scenario that the Iraqi people would greet the invaders with "flowers strewn in our paths" -- which even the neocons understood was unlikely -- civil war was the inevitable Plan B. Civil war was the intended result of American government policy. Remaining ignorant about this is beneath your dignity as a thinking citizen.

Bombing the Iraqi nation's infrastructure so that they no longer have electricity or water and are helpless and dependent on the invaders was the plan. The bombings from the air, the tortures continue - do you hear anything about it? Destroying the ancient cultural treasures, flattening the peoples' identity and killing the flower of youth was the intent. Arming the death squads of the Interior Ministry was the policy, overseen by US government men like Negroponte who were old hands at such crimes. Running the Iraqi intellectual classes out of their homes may not have been intended to the extent that it has happened -- but to the planners of the invasion and occupation, it is a welcome effect that the country now lacks a secular nationalist political class.

You and your government do have a right to leave as quickly as it is logistically possible to transport all troops away from Iraq -- and to do so under the cover of a ceasefire. This would be the best way to support the US troops -- to stop ordering them to be complicit in a criminal war.

You have a right and a duty to offer reparations -- a good start would be to reassign the hundreds of billions of dollars your government has budgeted for continuing the rape of Iraq for another two years.

In offering reparations, you and your government have a right to put certain humanitarian, logical and just conditions on these. You even have a right and a duty to use the reparations as an incentive to the hostile parties in Iraq to form a unity government, cease hostilities, and hold a genuine democratic election. (Said reparations to be placed in a trust monitored by third parties so that you don't abuse that function, as your government predictably might.)

You and your government have a duty to pay for the reconstruction of the nation you shattered, but you have no right to profit from that reconstruction.

You as citizens have a duty to fight your own regime until those responsible for this crime are brought to justice, and the historical record is thrown open and reclaimed on behalf of the truth. You have a duty and a need to restore your own republic and its constitution, and to rediscover the principles outlined in your Declaration of Independence -- a document that makes clear why the Iraqi people, no matter how distasteful we may consider their ideologies to be, have every right to resist the foreign invaders, and to seek help for that invasion from neighbors, until the day the foreign invaders have left their soil.

[BlooInBloo]

41. Wide and deep.