American foreign policy - mass murder in Iraq

Someone asked me if I hate US soldiers. Which got me to thinking, maybe it's time I lay it on the line.

See, am in the fortunate position to have grown up in the US and in Iraq. I have seen the best and the worst the US had to offer. I have seen the best and worst Iraq had to offer.

Growing up in different parts of the world (for reasons which shall remain undeclared here) and then returning to Iraq always gave me the sense I was a product of "pax americana".

I think the whole world is in "pax americana". But that isn't as good a thing as one may believe. Pax Romana led to the fall of Rome by the proxy agents and military which flourished under Roman civilization.

In any case, America is a remarkable place and I think most Americans are innocent, almost ignorant. Ignorant in terms of not really knowing what is transpiring around the world or what their foreign policy has really done to other countries. Chalk that one up to America's physical isolation.

But we took time to learn your language, maybe you should learn ours before invading under some holier-than-thou banner.

There are some Americans, however, who I find to be very learned and have embraced the fact that other cultures speak different languages and engage in different traditions.

Having said that, some flag-waving Americans have a very difficult time of coming to terms with their own fallibility. This leads to a very twisted understanding of patriotism that often flies in the face of the very principles established by America's founding fathers.

This can be blamed on socio-economic factors - as if the entire society is geared towards creating spartan men and woman - fodder for the cannon.

But they are not an evil people by any means. In fact, more often than not, Americans are a very compassionate lot. The kindest most nurturing family I have ever met is an American one, out on the West Coast. Their hospitality and how quickly they opened their hearts to a complete stranger from a strange land was astonishing.

But as a collective, I think Americans should face the demons of their past, which they have not done yet; this may give them a different world view. I am talking about the wholesale eradication of the indigenous north American populations by warfare or syphilis; the abominable history of racism and slavery; the lynchings.

How can you preach to other countries about fixing their houses when you built yours on massacres and racism?

See what I mean about innocence? Most Americans are not aware of their own history, let alone others', and the devil IS in the details.

Which brings us to the flaws of the democratic system. When a nation such as America goes to war, by its own legal principles and self-defining ethos, it does so by majority vote.

You vote your representative in Congress. Congress votes to go to war. You vote a person into the presidency, the president runs the country almost as he sees fit. I said almost. Not entirely, thanks to some important checks put in place nearly 250 years ago.

So accountability and responsibility go hand in hand with democracy. I do not think the latter could exist without the former. But by the same token arrogance and ignorance go hand in hand.

What is befuddling is the consistent track record of voting pundits who routinely make mistakes back into office, and consequently into power.

Let me point out a distinction. When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, he did not have the mandate of the Iraqi people. He wasn't voted into office. There were no polls conducted to measure Iraqi pulse. There were no demonstrations. It was Saddam's decision. (The same is true today - when Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari decided to agree to a US invasion of Tal Afar, he did not consult the Iraqi people. And when demonstrations protesting inflation and unemployment gather force, Iraq's US-trained national guard fire on the demonstrators, killing a large number. What's changed?)

But if the US were to prepare to invade Armenia, say, the power-brokers in Congress and the White House have the mandate of the people. Bush said as much days after he tore Kerry a new one. He was voted into office by the people. There were polls which showed overwhelming support for his Iraq policy, and all other relevant policies. There were minor demonstrations, clearly the attempt by the enlightened few to protest the status quo.

These enlightened few were castrated from society and called traitors. When Sean Penn sought to learn more about the situation he was ostracized by Hollywood and by many in the media because he sought knowledge. Why? Because he sought the truth and refused to believe what the square box god (television) told him?

So Americans, by democratic default, do share blame for what their leaders do in their name. Not surprising that the enlightened few create Not in My Name campaigns, or something to that effect.

Remember, the US constitution begins "We the people".

Having said that one should not hate Americans or wish them harm. One should not enjoy their misery nor celebrate their tragedies. One should not revel when abominations like 9-11 happen. Or when Hurricane Katrina hits. Or whenever any other crisis befalls the American people.

Keep politics out of it.

I would also to ask Americans to not revel in the deaths and tragedies of others. It's just so infantile and usually what goes around comes around.

At the end of it all, when we die, the earth and maggots which celebrate our corpses do not care if we are American, Muslim, Iraqi, Taiwanese or Jew.

Now, about US soldiers. No, I do not hate US soldiers when they are in their camps, whether it be Fort Hood, Pendleton, LeJeune, what have you.

I do not hate US soldiers when they defend their country. I do not hate US soldiers when they defend their own democracy. When they rush to help other countries in need during catastrophes.

But when they commit acts of aggression, it changes somewhat. When they commit barbarism, it changes somewhat. When they firebomb entire villages because they lack the courage to face their enemy on the ground, it changes somewhat. The invasion of Iraq is an act of aggression that contradicts every major treaty and international agreement since the Treaty of Westphalia - go look that one up.

Yes, I understand, some US soldiers believed they were helping the Iraqi people, are trying to build schools (which their air force destroyed). The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

But when US soldiers take pieces of the rubble from New York to Iraq believing "it's payback", when US soldiers collect body parts as mementoes to take back home; when they use torture and abuse equal to - if not worse then Saddam's mukhabrat; when they shoot indiscriminately into a crowd of protesters - what am I to think then? Let us forget I am Iraqi. What is any person to think?

When the US military practices a systematic mechanism for targeting the welfare of civilians (Bombing attacks in the first Gulf War and the Kosovo War, systematically targeted power plants and grids, railway stations, refineries, communication networks, sewerage treatment facilities, and water purification plants, in spite of Article 54 of the Geneva Conventions which prohibits attacking any objectives "indispensable to the survival of the civilian population.") what am I to think?

When child health care in Iraq is 100% worse than in the past 10 years, what am I to think?

And saying look at the mass graves Saddam created does not exonerate the issue. Saying Saddam killed 300,000 does not exonerate the issue. Is one wrong corrected by a greater wrong? If Saddam is guilty of killing 300,000 people in the course of his 35-year reign, well the US military, the Bush administration, the US media, and every man, woman, and child who voted for this war are equally guilty for the killing of more than 100,000 Iraqis in less than three years.

Or am I to believe the US military and society in general is equitable to Saddam?

Guilty for the destruction of the entire infrastructure of Iraq. Guilty of creating a country that has no basis as a nation, a country that has been looted of its public, national, and mineral wealth by brigands, by Halliburton and by the US military.

Guilt for the sanctions which effectively killed 1.7 million Iraqis according to UN figures. For those of you who were not privy to the sanctions regimen, Iraq was not allowed to import pencils because of the graphite and lead in them. Iraq was not allowed to import medical texts, medical equipment, or have its scientific community attend cancer-fighting seminars.

Vital chlorine for water purification was denied by the US sanctions committee at the UN.

While Americans were watching Survivor, Iraqis were scrambling to find medicines. Many died because vital medical equipment in Iraqi hospitals had become obsolete or broken down. Privileged Iraqis tried to smuggle things into the country or leave entirely. In the 1990s, four million Iraqis left the country.

In the 1990s, thanks to the 300 tons of depleted uranium used by the US to blow up Iraqi installations and military hardware, cancers increased in Iraqi society by 500%.

You talk about the oil-for-food scandal that the UN received kickbacks. How dare you? The scandal was the 1.7 million Iraqis who died because of the sanctions. Dennis Halliday who ran the program in the 1990s and early 2000s said it was unfairly constructed. He said of $20 billion, $7 billion went to war compensations in Kuwait alone.

And did you know that every UN official who visited Iraq was paid a salary which came out of the UN for food coffers? All equipment brought in by the UN weapons inspectors was paid for by that program. They made a bundle while Iraqis were dying.

What are we to say when tens of UN-commissioned and ICRC reports said that the sanctions were causing untold devastation and misery on the Iraqi people but almost had no effect on the Saddam government itself? And this was in 1996, seven years before the invasion of Iraq.

In 1996, the World Health Organization said: Comparing

levels of the infant mortality rate (IMR) and the mortality of children under 5 years old during the pre war period (1988-1989) with that during the period of the sanctions (since 1990), it is clear that the IMR has doubled and the mortality rate for children under 5 years old has increased six times.

In 1997, the UN's Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights said the sanctions

often cause significant disruption in the distribution of food, pharmaceuticals and sanitation supplies, jeopardize the quality of food and the availability of clean drinking water, severely interfere with the functioning of basic health and education systems, and undermine the right to work.

During that time, US and UK warplanes continued to bomb Iraq under the guise of the no-flight zone. The 2003 war in Iraq began in the summer of 1991 because the US military could not take on the Iraqi military in the streets. Every strand of Iraqi society would have fought back. And so, 13 years of the most punitive sanctions regimen in human history followed, to debilitate Iraq, to break Iraqi society, to ensure the Iraqi military could never refurbish its broken down weaponry.

In 1991, the UN reported that

In marked contrast to the prevailing situation prior to the events of 1990-91, the infant mortality rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world, low infant birth weight affects at least 23% of all births, chronic malnutrition affects every fourth child under five years of age, only 41% of the population has regular access to clean water, 83% of all schools need substantial repairs...

The report concluded with an implicit call for re-development and normalization of the Iraqi economy: In presenting the above recommendations to the Security Council, the panel reiterates its understanding that the humanitarian situation in Iraq will continue to be a dire one in the absence of a sustained revival of the Iraqi economy, which in turn cannot be achieved solely through remedial humanitarian efforts.

Oh, but it's Saddam's fault, say the ignorant majority. The US government knew as early as 1996 - as did every other government in the UN - that sanctions were not working to isolate Saddam or his henchmen. In fact, it strengthened him because it destroyed the fabric of Iraqi society. Instead of thinking of overthrowing their government, Iraqis were forced to sell of bits and pieces of their houses to buy food.

But the sanctions were kept in place because a plan had already been drawn up to invade Iraq. And America watched Destiny's Child and the finale of Seinfeld.
The guilt is overwhelming.

Guilty for helping foment a cancer within Iraq that will lead to civil war. Guilty for what is yet to come in the Middle East.

And then you have the gall after all the havoc to tell me how my country can fix itself? Nope, I will put you back in your place every chance I get. I am not intimidated and am not apologetic. And I know how to word it, eh.

I do not want to see Iraqis or Americans killed. But when you invade a country, expect a reaction. Accept responsibility. And don't be surprised if the very soil fights you.

Physics demands it. History ordains it.

But you have a choice. You can continue to delude yourselves with self-righteous regurgitate. Or you can acknowledge that the US has made a mess of things in Iraq and rethink the entire strategy.