More on the Iraqi employees

I promise not to state, or even hint, that these people are ‘collaborators’ or whatever. What annoys me about the response to this issue from the ‘Decents’ (i.e. at Harry’s Place) is not just the outrage (which is fair enough) but the shock. It’s as if they genuinely persuaded themselves that the British (or the Americans) cared deeply about the Iraqi people and would take every step possible to protect the Iraqis who helped with their ‘project’. I mean, come on people, smell the coffee. This is part of a larger story about the non-relaxation of immigration from Iraq. If ‘we’ cared deeply about the fate of individuals from Iraq we would let them come to Britain (or the States) now we have annihilated their country. We don’t, therefore, we don’t. QED.

(Which is NOT to state that the treatment of the Iraqi translators is not particularly horrendous, but, again, what did anyone expect? Compassion?)

‘Collaborator’ seems like a perfectly normal term to me, so I guess I deserve to be banned. [that will very much depend on whether you attempt, as you did on the last thread, to pretend that there was nothing wrong with the treatment of collaborators in postwar France. And also whether that email is genuine or not – dd]

Anyway, here’s AI press release: Iraq: International support urgently needed to address spiralling refugee crisis.

…Amnesty International called also for the US, UK and other states contributing troops to the Multi-National Force (MNF) in Iraq to follow the lead of the Danish government and provide for the resettlement of Iraqis whose lives are now at risk because they are seen to have assisted the foreign forces, as interpreters, drivers and in other roles.

Last Friday, the Danish government admitted to having secretly airlifted about 200 translators and other Iraqi employees of its troops out of Iraq. Most are expected to seek asylum in Denmark. The US ambassador in Iraq has also called for all Iraqis working in support of the US government to be offered refugee status.

“Those who have worked with foreign forces are not the only people at risk,” said [Malcolm] Smart [, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme]. “The US, UK, EU and other states that have the capacity should provide generous resettlement programmes for the refugees who are most vulnerable and at greatest risk, including survivors of torture and others who urgently need medical care.”

Hmm, I’m not sure that a translator attached to a military raiding party or interrogation unit could really be considered as outside the category of legit target.

I’d rather emphasise that there is no warrant for torture / extra-judicial execution of enemy agents once in your power. This fate is a real prospect for a wide category that might be defined as collaborators, and they should be offered refuge. If it will save lives to advocate a special moral category for civilian employees of British armed forces, then I suppose this departure from universal norms is just.

Well, if you’re going to engage in prior restraint on subjects where it is clearly possible (as seen in that other thread) to have a reasoned disagreement, then I’m hardly in a position to do anything about that.

yup.

Hmm, I’m not sure that a translator attached to a military raiding party or interrogation unit could really be considered as outside the category of legit target.

I think that’s probably correct, but the translators (mechanics, cooks etc) specifically aren’t attached to military parties any more – while they were, we weren’t campagning about them because the assumption was that they were being protected by the British military. Now they’re being left behind and are likely to be massacred. I think I agree with Marc on the general principle – I know there are some people involved with the campaign who regard it as a special reciprocal duty of the British, but I’m more moved by the argument that this is a group which is particularly at risk.

SG: there’s a (I think) Canadian fashion label called “Dsquared”. We constantly vy for google top spot. As I said to Marc, a generous all-encompassing refugee program would be first best but the ex-employees a) are probably the highest priority because they’re in most danger and b) unlike most Iraqis, aren’t even safe in the refugee camps either.

I’m certainly for a generous refugee program, and also for particular attention being paid to people who’ve worked with or for the British as a particularly vulnerable category. It does seem a reciprocal duty of the British to protect those who have provided the British army with particular assistance.

However, I can certainly understand why members of the Iraqi resistance would view these people as collaborators. If you view the invasion as an illegal act, and a lot of people think we should, then these people are, arguably, themselves complicit in war crimes.

The key point, obviously, being that massacres of civilians are never acceptable; even those who have collaborated with an invading army. However, if some future Iraqi government, however unlikely that may look right now, were to consider placing ‘collaborators’ on trial, it wouldn’t seem obviously wrong for them to do so.

Maybe or maybe not, on a relatively capricious basis. It all depends on whether the thread gets bogged down again into a two minute hate against people whose worst crime was to believe my government when they said they were here to help and/or to earn a crust for themselves. In general I would advise commenters to err on the side of not cheering for murder.

By the way, for the most part the Iraqi employees in Basra are being slaughtered by sectarian death squads who are attached to political parties within the Iraqi government – ie other collaborators.

The answers to your string of rhetorical questions, btw, are that in all cases I agree with the drafters of the Geneva conventions who put a special paragraph into their conventions to protect so-called “collaborators” from mob justice. All cases to be judged on their merits, but let’s be very clear here that apologetics for war crimes (and the extent to which I will tolerate same) is the game that we’re getting into here.

Sure. The game that you are also getting into here, of course, is complicity in every oppressive regime in the history of revolutionary change, and opposition to anyone outside of the power structure. You can rest assured in your righteousness, that’s fine, but I insist that you recognize that the actual consequences of your views are that people who live under truly horrid regimes have no practical recourse. Every time a people have rid themselves of an oppressive government, civilians have died. It’s terrible and cruel and unfortunate. The questions of whether it’s so terrible and cruel and unfortunate that everyone laboring along with revolutionary dreams should just drop them and get with the pogrom are, I would say, very murky moral waters. Luckily you’re around to clear it all up for us, and to eliminate from the conversation anyone who doesn’t have the incredible moral clarity and righteous vision that you do.

Hope that doesn’t get me banned! When you start taking out the censoring stick, it can be hard to put it away….

I would like to see some evidence that there is indeed a danger of a mass-slaughter of former British employees there – as opposed to, say, mere harassment.

The Times article confirms that these employees have always lived among the general population, without any special protection:

James Milton, a former captain in the Adjutant General’s Corps, who served in Iraq, wrote: “I watched these unarmed individuals working side by side with our forces, facing the same dangers as our troops and then going home to live amongst those individuals who had been targeting them hours earlier.”

I’m glad you’re giving the questions of censorship, violence against oppressive government, violence against civilians, collateral damage, intentionality, governmental versus nongovernmental violence, and acceptable risk to non-participants in times of revolutionary change the seriousness they deserve.

There are important issues at hand here, of course, and your refusal to accept that– or to demonstrate that you understand their importance by confronting them– lends credence to my suspicion that you are censoring because you don’t like what others have to say. It’s the first rule of censorship, after all. What we censor isn’t stuff we disagree with. It’s illegitimate. Funny how hard it can be to tell the difference, though. I mean, look, what I am saying has argumentative content, as much as you may find it incorrect or asinine. And as revolting as you, and I, find some of the comments from the other thread, they also have content, which can be defeated by better content, but not by censorship. When you can only confront these arguments, as absurd as they may be, by calling the other side an ass, or pulling out the big eraser, well, I’m not impressed.

On the other hand, sliding so effortlessly from righteous indignation to “don’t be an ass”, utilizing both flippancy and moralizing– that’s grade A message board rhetoric. Nicely done.

My impression is that in the US, at the popular level many of the most vehement supporters of the war are also strong opponents of letting any Iraqis in at all. This is a xenophobic war.

Around 1980 in Portland, OR, there were two types of people involved in supporting SE Asian refugees: bleeding heart liberals, and Vietnam Vets who had had personal contact with pro-American Hmong or Vietnamese. Probably more of the former. I suspect that the same is true in Minneapolis.

Fracked up the links somehow, even cutting and pasting your code.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/graham_stewart/article2237419.ece

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2007/08/fate_of_iraqi_collaborators/

I agree. But you’re ignoring what to me is the important aspect of this, the threats of censorship. Censorship is always a big deal, for any reason, in any context. Threats of censorship invite maximalism. And when they are made along with pious sermonizing, they are particularly galling. But for the threats of censorship, I wouldn’t have weighed in at all. But when someone insists that not only are his opponents making a repugnant argument, that their arguments are so repugnant as to remove them from the conversation altogether, we’ve moved into an entirely different arena. If supporting insurgents who murder translators is an argument that, in dsquareds position, simply must not be made, then I feel compelled to ask him where precisely he thinks this line exists. It’s an an empty construct. There is no bright line division between legitimate and illegitimate discourse. Whoever tries to draw one is simply engaging in censorship of argument he disagrees with.

#10: freddie, if you’re trying to overawe a Brit with your mad rhetorical skillz, citing the IRA in your list of politically acceptable resistance groups really isn’t the best way to do it. Your ignorance of history extends to saying silly things like “Every time a people have rid themselves of an oppressive government, civilians have died” which basically is just not true.

Also interesting that no one has made the practical point: leave aside the question of whether the Iraq was is legal and moral or not. In the future, it is likely that at some point the British Army will be operating – entirely legally and morally – in someone else’s country and will be recruiting local interpreters and other staff. They did in Bosnia, after all, which was a bona fide UN-backed peacekeeping op. Also in Sierra Leone.

Now, it’s probable that there will be factions there who want the army out; and it’s possible that they will threaten the interpreters. (I don’t know if this actually happened in Bosnia, but it’s plausible.) In that case, it’s going to make the army’s job a lot easier if they can point to a long and honourable record of looking after the locals they employ, and this in turn will make the (ex hypothesi moral and legal) operation on which they are employed more likely to succeed.

If it is so bad in Iraq that you have to let Iraqi citizens into Britain in order to avoid their being massacred, why don’t you just stay in Iraq and defeat the bad guys?

Its just a creepy level of cowardice and moral relativism here; you simultaneously believe that the West are the bad guys for being in Iraq, and the West are the bad guys for not letting decent Iraqis move to the West in order to avoid being massacred.

Presumably, if decent Iraqis have to move to Britain in order to avoid being massacred, Britain isn’t so bad after all? Presumably, if decent Iraqis fear being massacred when the British leave, perhaps the British aren’t the bad guys in the first place?- the potential massacre-ers are?).

Sk

I don’t think “the insurgents” are a wonderful group and am pretty much free of the tendency to valorize anyone with a gun. But I thought the statistics showed that most insurgent violence was directed at the occupation forces, with the minority aimed at civilians responsible for most of the deaths, because, I suppose, civilians are a softer target.

Having made that point, I don’t actually have any faith in any statistical data that comes from Iraq regarding violence. But it’s not clear to me what the politics of the various Sunni and Shiite insurgent factions are–once in a while you see some article quoting an insurgent leader expressing opposition to the killing of civilians. Also, this is something that could change from year to year–perhaps by this point everyone involved in violence is a sectarian, but it may not have started out that way. I vaguely recall that during the first siege of Fallujah in the spring of 2004, many Iraqis, Sunni and Shiite, sympathized with the Fallujans. By the time of the second siege this wasn’t the case, because there had been many attacks on Shiite civilians in the intervening time period.

On dsquared’s original point, of course the British and American governments should provide refuge for the people they employ, but I also agree with the Amnesty International link (abb1’s post 2) which said this is only part of what we owe.

You’re right, it was a little disingenuous. I should have been clearer in my original post, I apologize. What I mean, and what my point is, is that these are complicated matters, and they don’t seem to me to invite the kind of certainty Daniel/dsquared has. If the discourse can function when it engages with Nazis, racists, eugenicists, Stalinists, and all other manner of reprehensible people, I don’t understand why it can’t handle apologists for Iraqi murderers. Doesn’t make sense to me. Like I said, censorship is a big deal.

As for the historical record, I don’t think you and I are likely to agree on what precisely constitutes moments of revolution, but you’re right, the examples you cited are hard to argue with. The Orange Revolution, though, is looking less and less like a real change at all.

Time to go to work…

If the discourse can function when it engages with Nazis, racists, eugenicists, Stalinists, and all other manner of reprehensible people, I don’t understand why it can’t handle apologists for Iraqi murderers.

I don’t remember any apologists for any murderers in the previous thread. The crux of the discussion is the question of whether the British Iraqi employees constitute a special, more privileged category of Iraqi refugees.

The last paragraph of the Times article:

…personal appeals from senior Army officers in Basra to relax asylum regulations and make special arrangements for 91 Iraqi interpreters…

That is the issue here and nothing else.

But for the threats of censorship, I wouldn’t have weighed in at all.

Censorship? Seriously? Is Daniel actually far more powerful than I had realised? I take it from your use of this term that he is threatening to prevent you from publishing your views anywhere else on the internet, or in any other context, thereby closing down any discussion on this subject at all. Rather than, for example, threatening to delete trollish comments from one thread on this (privately owned) website, in a valiant and entirely worthwhile attempt to keep the discussion on-topic and non-arseholish.

Given his mighty power, I guess I’d better burn my copy of Freakonomics before the DSquared Gestapo start knocking on my door…

I didn’t see that the insurgents (…) were achieving anything at all, which is why they ought to give up.

and they didn’t listen to dsquared in his infinite wisdom – bummer, someone call the police

seriously, with that level of understanding of what’s going on in Iraq, it’ll be impossible to make any kind of headway towards a political solution – the insurgents are doing just fine

meanwhile, the Bush administration itself is arming insurgents – please dsquared let us hear your take on this

I’m basically in sympathy with Dsquared’s objectives here and I understand his feelings about the last thread, but it has to be said it’s a little bit odd to be talking about banning people for “advocating war crimes” on a blog that regularly tolerates no-end-but-victory trolls like SK. (I’m also a little amazed at the placidity with which some people feel comfortable dismissing the insurgency given the evident nature of the occupation, but whatever.)

By invading their country for no reason, we owe all Iraqis, big time. We may owe those Iraqis who are at risk of massacre a safe asylum in our own country. I don’t think we owe a special debt to that minority of the latter class who actually got jobs working for the occupation forces, over and above the one we owe all the at-risk Iraqis.

I guess since we’re going to cut loose most of the at-risk Iraqis anyway, then letting the Coalition’s employees alone in is one way of doing arbitrary triage. But it’s not the moral alternative to paying our debt to the entire country; just the slightly less immoral alternative to locking even them out.

Expecting the shlubs who barked and yelped for the invasion/occupation until it was a done deal to do something tangible and effective for the co-operating preterite now that the tide has turned irrevocably away from anything like quick victory, or victory of any kind for the invaders, is like expecting them to take the actors home with them at the end of an especially violent action film.
It was just a movie, for God’s sake. Get real.

“ajay nails one massive issue here.”

Hmm, the html should have kicked in here to take you to there:
https://crookedtimber.org/2007/08/13/more-on-the-iraqi-employees/#comment-207287

Dsquared-

What’s your basis for thinking that Iraqi employees of the British army are the most endangered group in Iraq? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that the process by which this campaign started was not, “let’s identify the most endangered population in Iraq and help them get out.” The duty to former Iraqi employees is real, but it’s based on our relationship to them, not this kind of utilitarian reasoning.

I’m basically in sympathy with Dsquared’s objectives here and I understand his feelings about the last thread…

Hey, there’s a reason for that, for the last thread. Read that post, rhetoric there sounds like a red-guard leaflet or something: “time to do the right thing”, “our Iraqi friends”, “this country will be shamed”, “throw themselves on the mercy”…

The post set the tone, comments followed the genre; what’s fair is fair.

23 is bogglesome. If I understand the comment correctly, the aftermath of war, the protection of refugees, and leaving people to be torn apart by mob violence are not the “important aspect of this”, so much as the possible deletion of some blog comments?

Check your goddamn privilege.

J Thomas at #48.
I doubt that you are related to Henry Thomas, a Cornishman who died sometime in the I believe 18th c.
He was buried in a churchyard outside Polperro within which I spent a little time in a winter’s evening’s contemplation quite a good many years ago.
He was buried alongside three women, each one having been his wife, as well as some of his children. All three of the women had died in childbirth, consecutively, with only a little time between their marriages and their passing, as evidenced by the correspondence between their dates of death and those of the children.
It was a sad thing that crept up on me, as my mind did the calculations in the background, while I took in the cold gray beauty of the stone and the trees and the low dark sky.
At first it was just another set of long since passed on folk, a near-anonymous few among many others whose names were engraved there. But then the numbers began to align and I realized what I was looking at – the narrative of his life, that Henry Thomas, as it were.
Like I said, I doubt if you’re related, though of course one never knows.

46: Probably better to avoid this argument. For many of us, if a policy will make it easier for the US or Britain to invade more countries in the future, that’s a reason to oppose that policy.

Yes, but I was talking about legitimate UN-backed operations such as Bosnia, not invasions, as you can see if you read my entire comment.

Hidari,

the British government has taken in hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees for decades and continues to do so. It’s completely facile to pretend they don’t care about anybody; running an asylum system is very complicated business. Though I disagreed with their original decision, I can perfectly see why they would be very reluctant to give the green light to the 16,000 or so Iraqis that have worked for the international community in the British sector.

Doug #57:
“But there was no “massacre” commited on Falluja. There was absolutely no alternative”
Where are you from, Doug?
It’s only a massacre if it’s unnecessary?
It’s only a massacre if it fails as strategy?
It’s only a massacre if somebody does it us, that’s it, right?
Every reputable account I’ve seen has Fallujah as an atrocity of staggering dimension. Massacre’s almost too immediate, too local and small for what evidently happened there.
This morality thing, this ethics thing, where it’s always only about whether or not it works, this is not human, Doug. Which in a real distant sort of autistic way is cool. I mean we don’t have to be human, right? If it gets in the way of our survival. We can become a hive of buzzing insects.
Though I think what a lot of us were seeing is the attitudes that make some of our ancestors noble and worth imitating was that very thing – the refusal to compromise principles for expediency. “Give me liberty or give me death” kind of attitude.
Whereas somehow we are currently overrun with the “sacrificing liberty and honor to avoid death is one of life’s minor but often necessary compromises” type of folks. Doug.