IRAQ: Where Are the Iraqis in the Iraq War? - Ramzy Baroud

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Where Are the Iraqis in the Iraq War?
Ramzy Baroud, Aljazeera.net

March 25, 2008

Five years following the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, the
mainstream media is once more making the topic one of intense scrutiny
and analysis. 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 empathize 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
authorizing 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, are on the table regarding how to "deal"
with Iran’s alleged ambition to acquire nuclear weapons. But to go as
far as blaming the ongoing war on the Iraqis’ lack of accountability
is yet a new low for the "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’ 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
conflict, and the 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."

The idea of the US making an immediate exit from Iraq or taking full
financial and legal responsibility for the devastation and genocide —
yes, genocide — that occurred in the last five years is simply
unthinkable from the viewpoint of the corporate US media, which still
relates to the war only in terms of American (and never Iraqi) losses.

There are very few commentators who are actually arguing that the
reasons for war were entirely self-serving, without an iota of
morality behind them. Would Bush employ the same logic he used to
justify Saddam Hussein’s execution — suggesting this was warranted by
the Iraqi president’s violence against his own people — when dealing
with those responsible for the deaths of over a million Iraqis as a
result of this war?

And indeed Iraqis are dying in numbers that never subside regardless
of the media and official hype about the "surge." Just Foreign Policy
says the number of dead Iraqis has surpassed a million, while a survey
by the British polling agency ORB estimates the number at over 1.2
million. But the plight of Iraqis hardly ends at a death count, since
those left behind endure untold suffering: soaring poverty,
unemployment between 40-70 percent (governmental estimates), total
lack of security in major cities, and, according to Oxfam
International, 4 million in need of emergency aid.

"Baghdad has become the most dangerous city in the world, largely as a
result of a US policy of pitting various Iraqi ethnic and sectarian
groups against one another. Today Baghdad is a city of walled-off
Sunni and Shiite ghettoes, divided by concrete walls erected by the US
military," reports Dahr Jamail, one of the a few courageous voices
that honestly relayed the horrendous outcomes of the war.

Indeed, there seem to be no promising statistics coming out of Iraq.
Even under the previous regime and the debilitating sanctions imposed
by the US and the UN, Iraqis were much better off prior to the war.
Now, Iraqis are relevant only as pieces of the endless US government
propaganda. From the viewpoint of Bush, McCain and Cheney, they are
the victims of Al-Qaeda, which must be fought at all costs. From the
viewpoint of Clinton and Obama, they need to fight their own wars and
take responsibility for them, as if Iraqi "irresponsibility" is the
main problem.

In yet another "surprise" visit to Iraq by a US official, Vice
President Dick Cheney declared that Iraq was a "successful endeavor."
Considering the exorbitant contracts granted to selected corporations,
the war has indeed succeeded in making a few already rich companies
and individuals a lot richer.

Meanwhile, Shlomo Brom, a senior fellow at Tel Aviv University’s
Institute for National Security Studies and former head of the Israeli
Defense Force’s Strategic Planning Division, sees things from a
slightly different angle. "Any Iraq will be better than Iraq under
Saddam, because the Iraq of Saddam had the ability to threaten
Israel," he was quoted as saying in the Christian Science Monitor.

In considering such skewed logic, one can only hope that Cheney’s
successful experiment will end soon, and that Israel’s desire for
security is now sated. The people of Iraq cannot tolerate any more
"success."