Comments on: More on the Iraqi employees

By: Phoenician in a time of Romans

Phoenician in a time of Romans — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 05:30:19 +0000

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.

Well, they are collaborators by the common usage of the word. Extending this to “quislings” or “traitors” is considerably more difficult (since it assumes a legitimate government waiting in the wings), but from the perspective of the Iraqi resistance it’s not a huge stretch.

Ideally, they’d be considered on a case-by-case basis by whatever government arises when the Americans leave, with only those taking part in the tortures or other actual American abuses actually being charged – but this is pie-in-the-sky thinking. They’re going to be the scapegoats for a traumatised and rabidly resentful population, and it is going to be sickening.

And there’s a serious problem with painting the insurgents as terrorists based on the brutal terrorism attacks on civilians – about three quarters of all attacks are aimed squarely at the occupying forces. There is terrorism going on; it is not so clear that the people engaging in it to any real extent are the same or even a substantial subset of those taking potshots at the US troops.

By: roy belmont

roy belmont — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 02:51:26 +0000

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.

By: Exile

Exile — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 08:01:45 +0000

Hello, lads, and I'm not going to be here long. This is just to let you know that the save the stills campaign has suffered its first split. Not bad going in less than a month.

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 01:42:08 +0000

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.

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 01:38:39 +0000

I do actually think that the pro-war blogs in this campaign are being a bit hypocritical since they were prepared to see the same atrocities and worse committed on Fallujah, but we are being “big tent” people at the moment because this campaign needs all the friends it can get.

But there was no “massacre” commited on Falluja. There was absolutely no alternative to take back that city for the national government or the country would have gone to full scale civil at that point. Please, don’t make such silly comments.

By: Outside The Beltway | OTB

Outside The Beltway | OTB — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:11:09 +0000

The Price of Betrayal…

Richard Fernandez contends that moral arguments against abandoning interpreters and others who have worked with Coalition forces will likely fall on deaf ears (”how effective are moral arguments — really — when it comes to politicians…

By: ajay

ajay — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:34:45 +0000

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.

By: Mrs Tilton

Mrs Tilton — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:29:27 +0000

And, with that, Roy Belmont wins the thread.

Not surprising that this is a thread best won by something OT and surreal.

By: Roy Belmont

Roy Belmont — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 06:16:07 +0000

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.

By: Donald Johnson

Donald Johnson — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:12:48 +0000

51—I don’t think you understand the comment correctly.

By: Sredni Vashtar

Sredni Vashtar — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 23:03:10 +0000

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.

By: leederick

leederick — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 21:41:35 +0000

I wish people would be more honest about the political agenda behind this, rather that going on about what humanitarians they are. It a obvious attempt to force a humiliating public admission, from the people who started the war, that Iraq is being handed over to thugs and that war is such a failure that the only way they can stop people who aided them from being rubbed out is to spirit them out the country.

That admission would be a complete reversal of the official line that the job’s done, and we can hand over to the Iraqi army and government confident that they can take our place in providing security. That public front is complete bollocks, but for some reason the people selling it are having a very easy ride at the moment. Having it exposed as nonsense and forcing their bullshit down their throats is an entirely admirable cause, so why not be upfront about it?

By: abb1

abb1 — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:56:49 +0000

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.

By: J Thomas

J Thomas — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:49:44 +0000

Roy Belmont, I doubt you have anything to do with the blog “Belmont Club”. Not just because from what I’ve seen you say here I figure you’d get banned in about 5 minutes. But also because when I googled “roy belmont” and “Belmont club” together I got no hits at all.

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:25:42 +0000

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.