The Bushites, who dominate every single rung on the ladder of violence-escalation in Iraq, have recently been systematically choosing escalation over de-escalation… And escalation is what they have got. Only a small portion of this news is even getting heard in the US.
We heard a little about the incident on Haifa Street in Baghdad on Sunday, when Iraqis crowded jubilantly around a burning US Bradley Fighting Vehicle and then were strafed by US helicopters shooting down at them from the sky. Many Iraqi civilians were killed, and many more injured. One of the injured was Salam’s friend Ghaith, who went to the scene as a photog to get some pix. Salam urges us to go look at some of the pix Ghaith was able to shoot, anyway, regardless of his injuries.
If you go that gallery of Getty Images photos, you can scroll down for more and more great images, and click on each one for an enlargement.
More violence? Today AP is reporting that a car-bomb exploded near a Baghdad police station, killing at least 59 people. Also:
- Saboteurs blew up a junction where multiple oil pipelines cross the Tigris River in northern Iraq on Tuesday, setting off a chain reaction in power generation systems that left the entire country without power, officials said.
It goes without saying that in this escalation of violence in Iraq as in all others, nearly all the pain and harm is inflicted on Iraqis–and disproportionately on Iraqi civilians.
A proportion of this violence is inflicted by the Americans and their allies, and a proportion by the anti-US forces. Since the means of killing at the disposal of the Americans are so much more powerful and lethal than those at the disposal of the “insurgents”, it is almost certainly the case that a large majority of the harm suffered by civilians has been inflicted by the Americans. (Najaf; Falluja; Tel Afar; etc, etc.)
What is quite clear is that as the dominant (even if not monopolistic) military power in the country, the US has an unequalled capability to set the tone, and to ratchet down the level of violence. And indeed, since it is still the “occupying power” under international law, the US has a fixed responsibility to do this…
I feel ashamed for my country. I am haunted by the void left in the world by the 13,000-plus Iraqis who have been killed so far as a result of the Bushites’ decision to invade their country. How many actual or potential Picassos were among them? How many Daniel Barenboims? How many just good, decent people who were trying to do their best in their lives and by those whom they loved??
The vast majority of those Iraqi war dead were civilians who–unlike the members of the US military– had never made a decision to take up arms against their fellow-men. I mourn each of the US service-members killed, too. But it does remain the case that each of them voluntarily took up the profession of arms and in the course of doing so accepted the possibility that they might be killed in those same battles. That’s what the oath of military service is all about.
The responsibility for all this lies on our leaders. Bring the US troops home! Let the Iraqi people decide on their own future, themselves!
My family have lived in Texas and have supported democrats for generations. We want bush out because he is bad for the world. I read blogs all the time and the lamentations are consistently depressing, but what is the point? The blogs over and over again argue for reason and compassion, for the rule of law and for justice. Bush and his ilk in Texas are dancing in the streets. They know that they have won the undying support of half the population and they will be free to do what they want when they win. They laugh at the opposition, so pitiful and helpless. So all of the collective brain power of the blogs and their faithful followers have not produced a single workable plan to unseat Bush. What in hell is the matter with you people?
You insinuate that the US, by responding to terrorists, bears greater guilt for any terror attacks that follow. You say, “a large majority of the harm suffered by civilians has been inflicted by the Americans.” This is rather audacious.
There is no comprehensive, disinterested tally of ALL daily killings. Existing tallies are partial and highly politicized. Is a crowd “civilian” if it amasses to celebrate a bombing or mutilate infidel corpses? Would the Fallujah “hospital spokesperson” ever dare report that the US had bulls-eyed a Tawid safe house? Who tracks what goes on in all the slums, villages, and fields? I suspect that political murder and ethnic cleansing by Iraqis against Iraqis dwarfs the number of US inflicted casualties in recent weeks.
Is it fair to assert that any US response to the insurgents’ murders is more culpable than the insurgent actions themselves? The people trying to kill Iraqi police and civilians are only trying create chaos and pave the way to a new totalitarian order.
One can argue that it is pointless to lob munitions on Fallujah from the air or that it is risky to stage ground assaults of residential areas or holy cities. Coarse actions may weaken any fine line between insurgents and unemployed street youth in general. However, neither will one stop the insurgents by being weak. A stragegy based on pure concessions will also surely fail.
If the US simply up and left, it would only make a bad situation worse. It would be another Somalia or Sudan. More, rather than fewer, civilians would probably die. Both the Bush people and the Kerry people seem to agree that this must not happen.
Is a crowd “civilian” if it amasses to celebrate a bombing or mutilate infidel corpses?
Well, yes. Also, in this case no corpses were being mutilated. Why did you throw that in?
If the US simply up and left, it would only make a bad situation worse.
There isn’t any US-guided solution available when a majority of Iraqis want the US out. I agree that there are more responsible courses for us to follow than packing up and clearing out tomorrow. But they involve the US giving up its self-elected mission to mold Iraq – a mission that Iraq clearly rejects.
The Bush administration is not interested in giving that up. It certainly would be better for us to leave overnight rather than continue to try to force Iraq to follow our dictates.
>If the US simply up and left, it would only make a bad situation worse. It would be another Somalia or Sudan.>If the US simply up and left, it would only make a bad situation worse. It would be another Somalia or Sudan.< John Koch suggests here that the US is in some way honestly keeping the peace between conflicting factions. Far from the truth; the conflict has been a war between the Iraqi people and the US for nearly a year now. I mean the Arabs of Iraq, and not the Kurds who have their own agenda. I worked in and on Iraq for a long time now, and it's perfectly obvious from the way the majority of Iraqis talk and behave, that they would easily settle their own affairs, if they were left alone. They are more Iraqi than they are Sunni or Shi'a. The only problem in Iraq is the United States, but I don't suppose that's news for most readers here.
The shame of our country is even greater: before we invaded, we insisted on sanctions for 10 years which responsible international agencies estimate caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. As a matter of policy, we simply do not recognize that Iraqis are people, members of our own species.
“If the US simply up and left, it would only make a bad situation worse. It would be another Somalia or Sudan.”
This is pure speculation with no basis in fact, reality, or logic.
The mess that Iraq has become was initiated by the Bush administration when it, without a scintilla of justification, preparation, or knowledge of the place and people they were trying to take over, used massive deadly and destructive violence to invade and occupy a sovereign country that posed no threat to anyone, least of all to the United States. The overwhelming majority of the violence, and the worst, deadliest and most destructive violence has been and is still perpetrated by American forces.
The American occupation authority and occupation forces have, time and time again provoked serious and lasting violence in non-violent situations. Two clear examples are Falluja and Muqtada Sadr’s group (go ahead, David, make my day and challenge me on this one). The Americans initiated the violence and the chaos and the lawlessness, and every day the Americans are there the situation deteriorates further.
Every single bit of the violence, chaos, lawlessness, and misery now rampant in Iraq is a direct result of the American presence. The longer the Americans have been in Iraq the more violent, the more deadly, the more chaotic, the more lawless, the more dangerous the situation has become. As Helena has pointed out, the American occupation authority and occupation forces have consistently been the ones to provoke and escalate violence. At no point have they taken steps to calm the situation down.
That anyone can conclude from the facts and realities on the ground that the Americans are having any kind of stabilizing effect in Iraq is nothing short of stunning. Simple common sense and logic dictate the conclusion that if the Americans were to pull out today there would be a significant reduction in violence. Just the removal of the constant and horrifically massive violence committed by American forces would be a major reduction in both the amount and the magnitude of violence. Even if the civil war predicted by those ignorant of Iraq’s history and social structure were to break out, Iraqis simply do not have the wherewithall to cause the amount and magnitude of violence the Americans do.
The civil war scenario is unlikely in any case. Iraq has never in all its history had a civil war. Contrary to the incessant dire pronouncements of people ignorant of Iraq’s history and social structure, there has never been serious sectarian or ethnic strife among Iraqis. On the contrary, most Iraqi tribes are mixed Sunni and Shi`a, most Iraqis live in mixed neighborhoods, and intermarriage is extremely common, particularly among the various Muslim groups – i.e. Sunni and Shi`a Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen.
Further, as most Arabs – and for sure any Iraqi – can tell you, Iraqis are the most fiercely nationalistic people in the Middle East. The overwhelming majority of Iraqis see themselves as Iraqi first and foremost, and their cohesiveness as Iraqis overwhelms all other considerations. That is even true for a great many – some say the majority – of Kurds.
Far from an immediate pullout being irresponsible, it is the best thing the Americans can do for Iraqis.
David, somehow I am not surprised to see you falsely conflating terrorism and resistance to foreign invasion. For the record, Iraqis have the right to defend themselves against invading and occupying foreign forces and the non-legitimate puppet government the invader is attempting to put into place. For my part, I would prefer to see all of the resistance be non-violent. However, complete non-violence is not possible in the face of the kind of massive, unrelenting violence the Americans have subjected Iraqis to. This is particularly true given the frequency with which the Americans have applied deadly violence against Iraqi efforts at non-violence.
Furthermore, as unfortunate as this is, violence may be a necessary part of any successful liberation effort. Ghandi’s non-violence was only one part of the Indian effort to liberate itself from the British. The civil rights movement in the USA saw its share of violence, despite all the focus on MLK’s non-violence. The same is true for South Africa. I am not sure non-violence alone would have been as successful in any of those cases as the combination of violent and non-violent action.
Alastair, you are 100% on the money. Of course, you have the advantage of actually knowing something about Iraq. Indeed the only problem in Iraq is the U.S.
Even in the case of Kurds the situation is not as dire as it has been presented, though the Americans are certainly creating a lot of problems there. There are certainly tensions between Arabs and Kurds in places like Kirkuk where Saddam expelled Kurds and gave their properties to Arabs (some of whom were in turn expelled from their villages and towns in the south and forcibly transported to Kirkuk). Those tensions go both ways now due to the recent brutality toward the Arabs on the part of the Peshmerga.
A far more potentially serious matter is the fact that the so-called “Iraqi National Guard” being used by the Americans as a proxy to fight some of its battles is overwhelming, if not entirely, Kurdish. However, there is, despite everything, also a great deal of good will and fellowship between Iraqi Arabs and Kurds, and many Iraqi Kurds are deeply upset and ashamed of the actions of some of their number. There is also not a great deal of respect for the two brutal and corrupt Kurdish dictators.
The two groups that may have truly unreconcilable differences are Kurds and Turkmens – members of those two groups rarely have anything positive to say about the other. But that is hardly a major factor in the overall picture.
Without the Americans in the picture to muck things up, Iraqis are far more likely than not to settle things among themselves.
John Koch wrote:
“Is a crowd “civilian” if it amasses to celebrate a bombing or mutilate infidel corpses?”
If they are civilians, the crowd they form is “civilian”, whatever the sentiments they express may be, or wether you like it or not. I suppose Iraqi’s don’t like foreign fighters killing them (from an Iraqi perspective the Americans are foreign fighters, you see), or flattening their cities, or blowing up “terrorist’s safe houses” with a lot of civilians in or around them.
“Is it fair to assert that any US response to the insurgents’ murders is more culpable than the insurgent actions themselves? ”
The Americans shouln’t be there in the first place. Iraq was a terrible dictatorshap, but it wasn’t a hotbed of terrorism. It it now, thanks to the American invasion and occupation of that country.
John Koch, with your use of the term “infidel” in this context you have revealed a great deal about yourself, your amount and level of real knowledge of your subject (somewhere between zero and none), your “information” sources, and your attitudes and prejudices.
Shirin, don’t be so self-righteous– you come across like the type who would shout down anybody who doesn’t agree with you. Being objective on this, I think J. Koch wrote a well articulated message that posits some legitimate questions. Don’t stick your head in the sand and hide from the points because he mentioned a charged word like “infidel.”
to look at both sides:
Yes, J.K., crowds that gather to celebrate attacks are generally made up of civilians; usually a small band within that group are truly dangerous individuals bent on unrest, but the large majority are just curious onlookers. The same holds true with university riots after football games.
That said, for Shirin to argue that U.S. soldiers are completely indiscriminate in their violence, or that the U.S. is culpable for more destruction simply because they have greater firepower, is rather ridiculous. You’d be amazed at how far millions of abandoned artillery shells will go, and the U.S. isn’t out there nuking Fallujah for atrocities.
Insurgents are responsible for the streetside bombings, and insurgents alone. Iraq will need a police force regardless of governmental hierarchy; those who would slaughter recruits by the hundreds obviously have no vested interest in the locale’s future. Another lost fact is that the obvious questions of legitimacy behind Bush’s motives for war don’t carry down into a lack of morality for the average american soldier on the street; it is a completely independent martial structure. Damage to image of Abu Grahib aside, U.S. grunts are comporting themselves laudibly at remaining within rules of engagement that insurgents ignore. Tragic images of the broken bodies of children brought from the rubble of targeted buildings exist not because the U.S. was aiming for them, but because sick insurgents make the fateful decision to gather in their midst as human shields.
Faults lie with both sides; to stand on a pillar hurling vitriol at the other while acquiescing to the errors of your own acomplishes nothing. We need to start meeting in the middle on the facts here. Everybody, include the sane portion of the U.S. population, wants the U.S. out of Iraq. But violent insurgence against U.S. troops is the worst possible reaction. The world has its eyes on the situation, and I believe that if the Iraqis could holster their misunderstanding and rage for long enough to let the U.S. gather its senses, the logical next step would be for us to throw on the power switch on the way out the door. The only one that hurts is al-Zarquawi.
Faults lie with both sides
True.
if the Iraqis could holster their misunderstanding and rage for long enough to let the U.S. gather its senses, the logical next step would be for us to throw on the power switch on the way out the door.
Andrew, as by far the most powerful party, and the one suffering by far the least in this mess, our country has the first responsibility to “come to its senses”. Why put it on the Iraqis? “Misunderstanding and rage” is a pretty good description of the Bush administration’s mood prior to the war, BTW.
Andrew wrote :
“Faults lie with both sides”..
Are you serious ? it’s incredible how the invaders/occupiers are always able to persuade themselves that they are doing the right thing. That they are the most generous liberators.
Alas, war is dirty; the US troops/army/marines are no exception. They didn’t respect the Geneva conventions, because Rumsfeld doesn’t care. The troops weren’t even taught about it.
Since the Iraqis don’t seem to appreciate their “liberation” and since the insurgency risks becoming costly in US lifes, the Bushies plans to train more Iraqis for so-called “security forces” (260000). This is like pushing the Iraqi into civil war : since their gracious liberators weren’t able to start reconstruction works, there are no jobs, so they takes these security jobs, where they are then forced to fight against other Iraqis. Bush just asked congress to allow the shift of about 1/5th of the reconstruction money into security tasks; clearly, he wants to use reconstruction money to wage the war.
“crowds that gather to celebrate attacks are generally made up of civilians; usually a small band within that group are truly dangerous individuals bent on unrest…”
Forgive my self-righteousness, but I am simply not impressed with these kinds of unsubstantiated assertions. What, if any evidence do you have to support this claim?
In any case, how does the possibility that there might be a “small band of truly dangerous individuals” among the curious onlookers justify firing rockets into the crowd and then strafing the crowd with large calibre machine gun fire?
“for Shirin to argue that U.S. soldiers are completely indiscriminate in their violence…”
Perhaps I am just being self-righteous, but if you wish to have a discussion with me the first step is not to misrepresent my statements and my arguments. If you will not at least address what I have actually said, any attempt at discussion is simply a waste of time and bandwidth.
“or that the U.S. is culpable for more destruction simply because they have greater firepower”
Once again, if you wish to have a discussion with me, please address what I have actually said without distortion or embellishment.
Please be a little more discerning when you read.
First, I was pointing out that J.K. was wrong, that the crowd was civilian and should not have been fired on. I also backed up my unsubstantiated claim that crowds often have a few bad seeds by pointing out that is the case with almost ANY large gathering. Another example is police here in NYC during the convention would arrest a block of protesters for civil disobedience if one person within annonymously threw an object. They didn’t all deserve punishment; they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s just how crowds work.
Second, I never misrepresent statements. “The overwhelming majority of the violence, and the worst, deadliest and most destructive violence has been and is still perpetrated by American forces,” is a claim that does not hold up, and I was calling you out for it the same as I did for J.K. on his. Insurgents will hold this title until they halt wholesale slaughter of Iraqis in marketplaces, international aid stations, and job-seeker lines.
Third, I was directly referring to you again, “Iraqis simply do not have the wherewithall [sic] to cause the amount and magnitude of violence the Americans do.” You are implying that having greater wherewithal for damage means more a party is more damaging. This is misleading at best. Every attack by the U.S. is mailed in with a return address and gets worldwide scrutiny. al-Zarquawi and his ilk wears no such fetters, and are doing a terrible harm.
No preference: read what I said. I said Iraqis need to leave a breather so the U.S. can come to its senses. Then the U.S. will elect Kerry, and the mops will come out to start cleaning all this up.
Christiane: Try to raise the bar a little more than that. Yes I’m serious: The U.S. shouldn’t be there, and the militants shouldn’t be blowing up Iraqi marketplaces because they are there. Read what I said about police. The country will need them, whoever is in power; call it a security force if you want, but it has to be there. And your bit about all troops/army/marines not caring about Geneva conventions is just worthless. Ever see pictures of what Russia did to Grozny? THAT’S not caring.
Again, I’m not against anti-war complaints; I have a lot of them myself. But don’t dumb down the arguments, please!
“I was pointing out that J.K. was wrong, that the crowd was civilian and should not have been fired on.”
In no way did you make that clear. In fact, even after rereading what you wrote I see absolutely nothing to indicate that you were saying it was wrong to fire on the crowd.
“I also backed up my unsubstantiated claim that crowds often have a few bad seeds by pointing out that is the case with almost ANY large gathering.”
No, you did not point out anything of the sort. There is nothing anywhere in your post that mentions large gatherings in general. All you did was make a rather bizarrely irrelevant reference to the extremely rare phenomenon of post-football-game university riots. For starters the Iraqis who were fired on by rockets and strafed by machine gun fire were not rioting.
In any case, a claim, also unsubstantiated, that there are “often bad seeds” in crowds of people does not in any way support the claim you made about a specific crowd situation or type of crowd situation. That is Simple Logic 101.
There is absolutely not a jot of evidence that there was even one “truly dangerous individual bent on unrest” anywhere near that scene. It is also not true that being “bent on unrest” makes one “truly dangerous”. In fact, more often than not being bent on quelling unrest makes one far more dangerous.
“I never misrepresent statements.”
On the contrary, every statement you attributed to me was a misrepresentation.
“‘The overwhelming majority of the violence, and the worst, deadliest and most destructive violence has been and is still perpetrated by American forces,’ is a claim that does not hold up…”
On the contrary, it is demonstrably factual that the overwhelming majority of the violence has been committed by American forces. It is also demonstrably factual that the overwhelming majority of the violence, death and destruction has come from the hands and the weapons of the American forces. The U.S. military wouldn’t even try to deny this, though I am sure they would try their best to justify it.
But more to the point, you distorted and misrepresented the statement you quoted above and turned it into a different statement altogether. To translate the demonstrably factual statement that American forces have directly committed the overwhelming majority of the violence and the most massive, deadly and destructive violence into a statement that “soldiers are completely indiscriminate in their violence” goes beyond distortion into completely false attribution. The two statements bear no relation to each other at all.
In addition, nowhere did I say that “the U.S. is culpable for more destruction simply because they have greater firepower“. The U.S. is culpable for more destruction simply because they and their weapons have caused more destruction – orders of magnitude more destruction, as a matter of fact.
“Iraqis simply do not have the wherewithall [sic] to cause the amount and magnitude of violence the Americans do.”
This is yet another demonstrably true statement, whether you like my use of the term wherewithall or not.
“You are implying that having greater wherewithal for damage means more a party is more damaging.”
No, I am not implying that at all. What I am stating is the obvious fact that the Iraqis do not have the capability of causing the amount and the magnitude of damage, death and destruction that the Americans have caused over the last 18 months. American forces are causing in one day far more destruction than Iraqis could possibly cause in a month or more.
“Every attack by the U.S. is mailed in with a return address and gets worldwide scrutiny.”
That is untrue. Most attacks by the U.S. go unreported, or at least get very scant, and very well spun coverage. The overwhelming majority of reporters in Iraq rarely or never leave the Green Zone and get virtually all of their information from American press conferences and other official sources. What that means is that they hear only what the American occupiers want them to hear with, of course, the spin the Americans want to put on it. There is also considerable pressure on journalists and news organizations not to step too far “over the line” in their reporting.
“al-Zarquawi and his ilk wears no such fetters, and are doing a terrible harm.”
1) There is not one bit of evidence that Az Zarqawi is in Iraq, or even that he is alive. It IS clear that he serves, as he did from the beginning, as a convenient propaganda device for the Americans. In fact, they have turned him into such a legend that it reaches the point of absurdity.
2) Your claim that every American attack comes under great scrutiny while the actions of the mythical “Az Zarqawi and his ilk” do not, is, like most of your other assertions, demonstrably false. Every little move, or alleged move, made by the so-called “insurgency” is reported in gory detail and with just the “right” spin.
3) We agree that the so-called “insurgent” attacks on civilians, the kidnap/murders and so on do harm. The Americans, however, have done and continue to do orders of magnitude more harm to orders of magnitude more people.
Furthermore, both the legitimate resistance and what you call “Al Zarqawi and his ilk” are a direct, and 100% predictable, result of American actions. If the U.S. had not committed the egregiously, aggressive, and illegal, act of invading Iraq there would be no resistance, and there would be no “Al Zarqawi and his ilk” in Iraq. Every single action by the Americans in Iraq, military and otherwise, has been perfectly designed, whether deliberately or not, to lead to exactly where we are today.
Addendum:
Andrew stated that “Every attack by the U.S. is mailed in with a return address and gets worldwide scrutiny.” I pointed out that this is not factual. I should also point out that it is irrelevant to the argument. The issue under discussion is not the amount of scrutiny. The issue under discussion is the number, magnitude and destructive, deadly nature of U.S. attacks.
“ said Iraqis need to leave a breather so the U.S. can come to its senses.”
Let me get this straight Andrew. The Americans have comitted the illegal aggression of violently invading and occupying a foreign country, using massive force. The Americans are in a foreign country trying to impose their will on that country and its people by whatever violent, deadly, destructive and cruel means they decide to use. And you put the responsibility on the people who are the victims of this deadly, destructive, violent and cruel occupation to give a breather to those who are bringing it all upon them.
“Then the U.S. will elect Kerry…”
1) That is looking less and less likely by the day.
2) Based on what Kerry has been saying, even if he is elected it won’t make any difference at all as far as Iraq is concerned. In fact, he indicates he wants to send even more forces there.
“and the mops will come out to start cleaning all this up.”
1) Kerry has stated that he will keep American troops in Iraq until 2009. That is not an improvement.
2) Who is going to do the mopping? The Americans? Thanks, but no thanks. The Americans have proven incapable of doing anything but making the mess bigger and messier.
“your bit about all troops/army/marines not caring about Geneva conventions is just worthless.”
It is anything BUT worthless. It is a fact. In fact, your criminal president has declared that he has the right to set aside the Geneva Conventions if he so chooses (he doesn’t have any such right), and many if not most of the American troops in Iraq have never even heard of the Genevan Conventions.
“Ever see pictures of what Russia did to Grozny?”
So, this is your standard? Being able to find a worse case than the Americans in Iraq entitles you to bragging rights? Very, very sad.
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