Patrick Cockburn on Iraq (2)

Sorry I couldn’t resist it:

‘The other main non-religious candidate, Ahmed Chalabi, won less than 1 per cent of the vote in Baghdad and will be lucky to win a single seat in the new 275-member Council of Representatives’.

he he he he he….so it’s not all bad news.

Hum, Cockburn certainly seems to got it a lot more right than some bloviating halfwits, like me last week for instance. It seems pretty clear here what my mistake was; I ignored the fact that whatever Allawi’s other potentially positive characteristics, he is far too identified with the Americans to get popular support. I also underestimated the extent to which, in a state with security breaking down, people cling to the nearest state-equivalents they have which is usually their ethnic or religious groups.

What I did get right is that the Kurds are not getting much out of their alliance with the Shia and might end up shifting allegiance, but since they no longer hold the balance of power between Shia and secular/Sunni interests, it doesn’t matter any more.

On the other hand, just to prove that I’m not completely useless, I was a big seller of Charles Kennedy’s chances before the election and I note that my analysis that the LibDems had reached their high-water mark and would end up handing back all their borrowed Tory votes is now mainstream.

last line mine. Forgot to close the tag…

OOPS. Excuse the misspelling of rogue. And this as a “lie with retroactively” should be “lie will retroactively”.

Daniel,

I would suggest getting out of the election prediction business. You are have been uniformly awful in your predictions. Taking your advice re the Bush gang, we should then ignore anything you say on the subject in the future, because you are inherently unreliable.

It certainly looks like Iraq is going to be divided into subnational areas with high autonomy. Not necessarily a bad outcome, given that a strong central state has never worked. Just one more nail in the coffin of British colonial country construction.

“Sorry about stealing your car and driving it into a brick wall, Dude–but hey, you did say just last week that the clutch was sticking, so I figure it’s a win-win for everybody!”

Is there anyone around who is so innocent that they believe the USA, invaded Iraq in order to provide teaching in democracy? I know your government says things like that, but really… The place formerly was more secular than any other in the region, it was run by a cowed if defiant dictator as your country seems to prefer, and was not worth bothering about except for oil. Oil was the prize, and the USA invaded and stole that property, even providing by executive order that no one (NO ONE) could by any act or proceeding invalidate the actions that constituted that giant theft. I guess that is lawful, with the help of an army.
I do understand that if the US could just get the pretend politicians they ferry around in military vehicles to perform “government” then it would be a lot less expensive for the US to siphon off the oil. But just how does a place that is already under the unified occupation of a power that is more than ready to bomb into dust anyone who contends against them (Faluja) go about “breaking up” on the basis of a vote? And if people are told that they will suffer very serious material loss if they do not vote (water, food, restraint of curfew, presence of troops) what significance can you take from the fact that a lot of them go out and “:vote”. Here in Canada (Montreal) it used to be the rule fifty years ago that in order to get a near new washing machine you had to vote as desired by authority.So people did. And if the people vote on the basis of the presence of such native groupings as are allowed (religious) what analysis can you get out of that? They are going to be less secular? Well they are doing what they can, are they not? Like self defence neighbourhood by neighbourhood. And as to what they would do if they could act as they might wish, who in hell knows? And what is the reasonable prospect that they are going to be able to do that in the forseeable future? Will the first meeting of a new government be held in a building or in the belly of a US transport plane, with Chalabi running around seeing to the finish of the floral display. I think Jewish community leaders in the Warsaw ghetto had more “political freedom” than any Iraq citizens do now.

And if they do fall to chopping up each other as well as any Americans they can get to, does that not mean it will be cheaper for the Americans to control what they want to control (the production and export of oil). And how is it any different that what has been happening,. And who is there that has any real idea what the trouble making contribution will be from Egypt, Iran, Syria, and so on. The US has generated a big red boil over there, and it is going to spray pus all over. This is what the single minded pursuit and theft of other nation’s natural resources leads to.

Yes, you also predicted Kerry’s defeat consistently throughout the 6 months prior to the election, despite all the nonsensical talk to the contrary (I remember, because I did too, just not as publicly).

The tensione between the ethnic and religious groups may lead to the break up of Iraq but thta happens it’s hard to see how (or why) this could have been prevented. This sort of dynamic happened in Yugslaivia.

One point to consider is how this may have develpoed without US intervention. I can think of many ways it may have been mcuh worse, just as with Bosnia and Kosovo without external intervention ethinic/religiuos conflicts can go on and on.

LOL. Abb1, when you’re good, you’re good.

“Whatever harm we did to the Iraqis pales to the harm they would have done to themselves.”

I like it. $20 says Bush, Cheney, Rice or Rumsfeld whips this one out within the next 6 months.

”
“Thank god for that, without it something terrible might’ve happened…”
I presume you’ve heard of religious fault-lined ethnic strife and genocide in the Sudan?
”

I assume you’ve heard of the religious fault-lined ethnic strife and genocide in Iran? In Saudi Arabia? In Yemen? No?
You are supposedly an intelligent guy, Sebastian. Is this really the best you can do?
“Yeah, well, if the US hadn’t invaded Iraq, a giant radioactive monster might have escaped the country and eaten the US”‘
“Yeah, well, if the US hadn’t invaded Iraq, the sun might have exploded tomorrow”.

Sure, Iraq’s population structure looked like a disaster waiting to happen. But it was actually under control under Hussein, and we can all just as easily write our own counterfactuals:
“Yeah, well, if the US hadn’t got involved, the post-Hussein era would probably have followed the standard [cf post Stalin or post Mao] pattern — a council of not-nearly-so-bad leaders who are so scared by the insanity they went through that they do something both to improve the country and to ensure that it won’t, again, fall under dictatorship.
From there to democracy may take 30, 40, 50 yrs, but they are not awful years, and they may actually, and sadly, be necessary, given the nature of human culture and society.”

Secularism is like all belief systems in that it becomes discredited when associated with corrupt, inefficient and, in the case of Saddam, sadistically violent rulers. In the case of Iraq, and with the absence of the Soviet model to aspire to, the varying strands of Islam became the key repositories for opposition to the Ba’athist regime and now to American occupation. The finger wagging so many of you are indulging in fails to distinguish between the consequences of the invasion and the consequences of sustaining Saddam Hussein in power in the first place. Take the horrible example of the apparently institutionalised revenge carried out by militia dominated security forces against Sunnis. Does anyone seriously believe this problem of Shias looking to exact retribution would have *diminished* had Saddam Hussein remained in power for longer? There’s no use saying, in effect, that Saddam kept Iraq secular and his overthrow has created all this Islamic fundamentalism; Saddamism is what *incubated* the fundamentalism – his ouster is what makes this apparent to us, it’s not the cause. What we are seeing now in Iraq could not have been avoided by allowing Saddam to remain in power, only postponed. The neocon analysis is, as I understand it, that the historical practice of supporting tyrannical but secular, or semi-secular, and friendly rulers in the region in order to secure oil-supplies and contain Islamic fundamentalism is counter-productive because it exacerbates the very forces it seeks to contain. Amongst their mistakes, surely, was to *underestimate* the extent to which this is the case? I really think your idea that Iraq could have remained secular if only Saddam had remained in power is about as realistic as expecting the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings to have experienced a revival by sustaining Romanov rule in Russia.

Shuggy, who is longing for the good old days of Saddam and the bloody hand? Personally, I think that the Gulf war I shouldn’t have ended until Saddam was deposed — at least then there would have been a real coalition doing it, instead of a fake one under orders from an oilpatch junior. However, that didn’t happen. What did happen was an invasion in 2003, which was certainly against American interest. Those who opposed that lost. After that, an occupation happened — one not necessitated by the invasion, by the way. In spite of the amazingly ignorant American plaint that Americans just have this moral duty to occupy Iraq — as if the country were some kindergarten — and teach the savages there all about running a country, in actuality the country had existed for eighty years, and in its ups and downs is as solid and as frangible as, say, Saudi Arabia, another place made out of patches and tribes which (amazingly enough) we are not looking at and saying, well, the whole thing is a botch.

The occupation was evil minded from the get go, the subdebs sent in by the Americans are a bunch of easily seen through rogues, the neocons are either being deceptive or simply idiotic to think that a thief and a murderer are the best democracy has to offer, and the media in America has been very hesitant to even hint, since the elections in January, that American soldiers are performing scattered tasks of ethnic cleansing headed by a prime minister who is a member of a party that practically invented suicide bombing as a tactic in the 80s. Gee, but it must be the fault of the anti-war movement.

Finally a little point for the pro-invasioners:

‘BULGARIA and Ukraine have withdrawn hundreds of troops from Iraq this week as part of the general wind down after the national elections.

Bulgaria contributed 500 troops to the US-led coalition in Iraq in 2003, gradually reducing the number in recent years. The 380 Bulgarian troops still in the country are serving under Polish command in the Iraqi city of Diwaniya, south of Baghdad.

All are expected to return home by the end of the month, with the first group of 105 arriving home on Wednesday.’

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/bulgaria-ukraine-begin-troop-pullout/2005/12/21/1135032080298.html

My point is this. As i pointed out on previous threads: If the invaders were really serious about democracy, and if this war really was about secularism etc….then surely all the troops would be pulling out now?

After all, Bulgaria and the Ukraine are doing precisely what pro-democracy invaders would do. They fought. They deposed Saddam. They held elections. And then they left.

So I infer from these actions that Bulgaria and the Ukraine were serious about bringing democracy to Iraq.

Ipso facto, I infer (for the same reasons) that the invaders who stay (who must surely now be called colonisers, or else the English language will have to be misused) are not.

it was actually under control under Hussein

It’s nice to see the Kissenger-lite groupies being honest for once.

P.

Sorry I had to back up that last statement because liars like Christopher Hitchens insist (even though this is easily disprovable) that Kissinger did not support the war.

‘(Kissinger) I supported the original decision to act against Iraq for the following reasons: I did not see how we could project the war against terror and leave intact a government that had the largest army in the region, had potentially the largest oil income, and the greatest capacity to support terrorism. And through its very existence, it symbolically demonstrated that you could challenge the United States through 17 violations of a U.N.-negotiated ceasefire. And in addition, I believe, as [President Bill] Clinton did and as [President George W.] Bush did, as did every intelligence officer that I’ve ever met, that they did have weapons of mass destruction.’

Note his arguments: Iraq was a threat, it had oil and it had ‘the capacity’ to support terror. In other words, all classic Realist arguments.

It is a myth (or a lie) that you ‘had to be’ a wide eyed neo-con ‘utopian’ to support this war. It is therefore a valid inference that at least some of those who supported the war were not bothered about democracy or human rights (as Kissinger clearly wasn’t, and isn’t) but instead were concerned with oil and the ‘balance of power’.
Kissinger (like Blair and Bush) also does not rule out military action against Iran at some point in the future.

http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=8255

who would have supported a war that ended with a democracy and visible defeat for the jihadis, but no bases or oil deals?

And free ponies for all!

Anybody who thought that was the war Bush & Cheney were selling is delusional.

Shuggy, when you say:

“I was wrong to oppose the toppling of Saddam in 1990-91 and while it may seem perverse to do so, I still think this and that sustaining Saddam in power was the greater evil. It’s ok, this can be taken on board and you can still blame the Americans.”

Sustaining Saddam is a very odd phrase. Actually, the strongest argument for removing Saddam, I would think, would be that the sanctions regime was punishing innocents — the Iraqis — while rewarding Saddam. That it was a case of a perverse incentive.

The idea that you have to swallow the whole thing (the idea that Saddam is evil leading to the idea that any means of deposing him is good leading to the idea that the American invasion was good leading to the idea that the Americans have a moral duty, as invaders, to stay and make things better) or nothing makes no sense. At each moment, there are a variety of options, and the trend of the options taken show, collectively, a mindset in D.C. that was both ignorant and arrogant, that operated to maximize a minority ideology and the interests of the American state as seen through that minority’s eyes than to maximize benefits for Iraq, and that engaged in its ignorance in a project that has now blown a hole in all of its grand plans. Its response to faults in the plan was to try to repress feedback that would point to faults in its plan.

In the meantime, a lot of questions that the interventionists don’t care about — being, on the whole, an elite corps with zip knowledge of democratic practice — keep emerging. Take the notion that our actions in Iraq should emerge from information about Iraq. Well, I would say that for a good 30 months now, the major media outlets in the U.S. have devoted perhaps a thousand times more time and space to Chalabi, a politician who has received maybe 1 percent of the Iraqi vote, than to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who is the goddamn prime minister of the place. To put this in the WWII perspective so beloved by the prowar side, it is as if the American newspapers from 41 to 44 devoted more space to Randolph than to Winston Churchill. Consequently, the average American has perhaps less knowledge now of Iraq than we did before we invaded, insofar as that knowledge comes from the media.

And why is this? It is because the American media can’t even recognize groups out of its social class and type. Chalabi is a recognizable type: a can do CEO who rips off investors and has that great, Jack Welch attitude that gets testosterone flowing and makes for great party chatter. Since, of course, Iraq is not America, and the dominant class there is not the middle class or even people who recognize themselves as the middle class – hell, after ten years of sanctions and three years of botched reconstruction, the unemployment rate is greater there than it was in the 30s in the U.S.A. — this so distorts our information about the place as to make it unrecognizable.

Who is to blame for this? Americans — particular Americans. Since Americans claim to be “responsible” for Iraq, I’d say that blame is well deserved, at least on those terms. In reality, the half assed American effort is not going to disguise the difference between Iraq’s interests and America’s forever. And American ‘innocence’ will once more lose its cherry.

Well hey, guess what. I was in favour of that imaginary war as well.

So if, as seems pretty likely at the moment, the result matches that description (democracy and visible defeat for the jihadis, but no bases or oil deals), will you come back here and make a post admitting you were wrong about the war?

soru

should read “the costs are apparently either totally absent or insignificant”

And I’d love to see the source of your optimsim on this “no bases or oil deals” business. Why do you think either outcome is “pretty likely”?

In short, the news from iraq. I don’t know what news source anyone could have that would cause them to think otherwise.

In any case, even if it does, against my prediction, turn out that there ends up being a US air-base in Kurdistan or something, would that really move the war from good to bad?

I can’t recall a single one in which you acknowledge the fact that war—by its very definition—involves an enormous degree of human suffering.

Discard your preconceptions, and listen to what the people on the ground are actually saying. A large proportion, probably a majority, find their personal lives better, right now during a low-intensity war, than under saddam’s rule.

This is not because war is fun: war is, as everyone knows, a bloody, horrible mess, where children get blown apart by shells, young men die for no good reason, mothers weep.

It is because the available alternatives are comparable or worse.

Recognition of Saddam’s regime killed millions, containment killed hundreds of thousands, the war has so far killed tens of thousands. Very likely there was a better plan than ‘this war now’, but it was probably still a war or the credible threat of one.

Most westerners have, from watching war films if nothing else, some kind of instinctive feel for how horrible a war is. They don’t need lecturing on that, it’s not 1914 any more.

I don’t think many first-world people watch ‘third world dictator’ films, have any kind of comparable feel for what a life of grinding poverty under sanctions and repression under a dictator are actually like.

That means the only way to honestly engage with these issues is to try to be as rational and detached as possible, because your instincts and prejudices will mislead, emotive language that feels true will be a lie.

soru

Soru, you are making a silly point about the feeling that life is better. If the sanction regime had been abandoned while Saddam was still in power, Iraq’s people would have been doing better too, and if you listened on the ground they would have been more hopeful of their future. And why not? they would have had more money.

I think most Iraqis did want Saddam gone, and Saddam’s crimes are black (in fact, in my own opinion Saddam should be dead right now — it was highly stupid not to shoot him after his capture), but the fact is that the economic activity that has come to Iraq has been mostly as a result of the removal of the sanction regime, while the massive insistence of the occupiers on making economic decisions and doing the ‘reconstruction’ has mainly benefitted an array of American companies, at great cost to the American taxpayer. Basically, America is justly resented for its appalling and unnecessary occupation, which is reflected even in the (obviously flawed) polls of public opinion taken in Iraq over the past couple of years, and the trend is only getting worse for the Americans. Occupations get more onerous over time, not less.

There’s no point in debating at this level but:

‘Most westerners have, from watching war films if nothing else, some kind of instinctive feel for how horrible a war is. They don’t need lecturing on that, it’s not 1914 any more.

I don’t think many first-world people watch ‘third world dictator’ films, have any kind of comparable feel for what a life of grinding poverty under sanctions and repression under a dictator are actually like.’

This is self-evidently and blatantly false. Most of Eastern Europe and Latin America for example know perfectly well what totalitarianism was like (and even in Western Europe, most European countries were totalitarian within living memory). And yet in Latin America, where they had much experience of regimes very similar to Saddam’s, the population were overwhelmingly against the war. There is no mystery here: most South Americans view the US in the same way the Poles and Czechs view Russia, and would see a ‘humanitarian intervention’ by the US and the UK, not as a serious issue to be discussed but simply as a joke.

They are right.

Incidentally, ignore the ‘pay attention to what the people on the ground’ stuff: as Soru well knows (as we have been through this discussion) the people on the ground loathe the occupation and despise the occupiers. One recent poll stated a majority wanted an immediate withdrawal of the US/UK, another stated that nearly 50% wanted an immediate withdrawal (with 4% who couldn’t make their mind up). And this varies widely over the country. Almost all Sunnis, for example, and most Shias want an immediate withdrawal. The fact that many Iraqis think their lives are getting better (a meaningless statistic, since we don’t know from what point this optimism began to develop….pro-warriors always assume it was since the invasion, but rarely provide evidence for this) ignores the salient point which is that they think they would be doing better still if we would just **** off and let them run their own country.

Since the ‘oil deals’ have already been done, incidentally, I have no idea why you think they won’t happen.

Incidentally, yesterday, according to Omer of Iraq the Model, over a million people demonstrated in Baghdad, and demanded a recount of the votes, alleging huge fraud.

‘brendan only somewhat misreports’

Oh please. Quote what bit I have misreported.

Incidentally, Uncle Kvetch, I quoted to Soru a few threads ago an up to date (this year) report in which aides of Bush (allegedly or presumably (depending on your point of view)) briefed journalists that the model for Iraq was South Korea..i.e. a country where American bases were going to stay for years or decades (or longer). So Soru knows very well that there is reason to believe that Bush wants permanent military bases.

Incidentally, Soru has a fantastically naive view of how force is applied in the modern world. It’s true that you can use bombs and bullets (and the US/UK certainly haven’t been shy about using THEM). But you can use other methods of influence as well. You can apply what is euphemistically known as ‘diplomatic pressure’: i.e. you can make it very much worth the countries’ while to do what you want. You can bribe the country (i.e. the political elite) with arms and oil deals. You can threaten the country with loss of preferential trading, sanctions and all sorts. So the fact (and it is a fact) that the US wants permanent bases does not imply that the US/UK will be forced to use actual military force to get them. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

Oh please. Quote what bit I have misreported.

You:
another stated that nearly 50% wanted an immediate withdrawal (with 4% who couldn’t make their mind up).

The poll you were talking about:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/12_12_05_iraq_data.pdf

Question 33:How long do you think U.S. and other Coalition Forces should remain in Iraq?
They should leave now: 25%

Most of the other categories call for a withdrawl in the short or medium term: in another question only a tiny 4% did not consider the withdrawl of US forces to be ‘any kind of a priority’.

But only those 25% were calling for an _immediate_ withdrawl, with job not done and insurgency active.

soru