As most of you are now aware,
Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death. A few weeks back, the Lancet released a survey conducted by John Hopkins University
on the mortality rate in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and it estimates that over 600,000 people have died who were not combatants. In Bush’s last press conference, he claimed the survey was “not accurate”. I am unsure how he came to this conclusion, but it seems as if the methodology used is pretty common and their statistics are transparent, so one can see how they went about doing it.
Both of these “milestones” bring up points to reflect upon what the Iraq war has brought upon the world. Outside of the extreme political fringes, most folks seem to feel that the defining point of the war is still unclear, and many agree that the current conflict is un-winnable. Since I am a supporter of the war in principle, I think reflection on these two points is important.
Most folks on the left (and some on the right) are now using these civilian casualty figures to justify their opposition to military intervention. Nothing is essentially wrong with this, but I do wish those same critiques would recognize the actual stance they are taking when advocating for the status quo worldwide.
Shuggy from Drink-Soaked Trotskyite Popinjays for War eloquently maintains:
“The assumptions that (Daniel) Davies, made about what should have been done in the first place and what should happen now do not follow. Horton in particular takes the view that the escalation of violence is largely a function of the presence of coalition troops in Iraq. Yet the situation described in the report is essentially one where violence is increasing because no one group in society has the capacity to monopolise its legitmate use. It is, in other words, a function of the fact that Iraq presently does not have, post-Saddam, a properly functioning state. Specifically the report records an increase in the casualty rate but a decline in the proportion that can be attributed to the actions of coalition troops.”
While many leftist news sources will claim that U.S. troops are doing the bulk of the killing, the report clearly states otherwise. That is not to say opposition to military involvement in Iraq does not have adequate reasoning. The “nation” of Iraq, if we can call it that, is in a serious crisis. The American mission to “jump start” democracy by throwing out a tyrant has created a country far less secure than the one under Saddam.
However, those who feel military intervention is always wrong need to acuretly state their full opinion. Shuggy continues:
“It is clearly the absence of government that is the problem, which leads directly to the positions taken by those currently using these statistics as a basis to analyse recent history and prescribe future solutions. For one, since the accusation of denial - not always unjustified - has been spread abroad, it is worth considering whether there isn't another kind working here. Pre-2003 was preferable, is the argument, because while Saddam Hussein was violent in the extreme, because he enjoyed the monopoly over it, there was less of it. If one, as very thinking person should, dispenses with the happy and convenient notion that other forms of regime-change would have necessarily left Iraq free from the sectarian consequences we see now - this is an argument for actually-existing statehood.
The idea that the first virtue of a government is order is by no means absurd but it a conservative argument. Those who are currently making this should either acknowledge this is so or concede that there is no reasonable grounds for believing that any imagined 'bottom-up' revolution in Iraq would have avoided this kind of civil conflict. And those arguing for maintenance of the pre-2003 status quo should also give some kind of indication of how long it could have realistically been expected to endure.
Moreover, if the basis for criticising a political action is that has increased civilian deaths as a result of overthrowing a state, no matter how bad it might have been - there is absolutely no credible reason for supporting the 'resistance', since their very existence and actions are inimical to the establishment of a functioning state of any kind. Its character should be enough to make one recoil at the idea it somehow represents a progressive future for Iraq but beyond this, surely even the notion that it represents one thing, that it represents a coherent force capable of bringing order to Iraq, will be dismissed by everyone apart from children and adults in denial?”
Well said. Clearly Iraq would be more stable under a repressive regime like Saddam’s, but such a stance seems out of character for many leftist critiques who often critized military dictatorships in the past.
I think the major obsticle in Iraq at this junction, is the very fact that we are still fighting for it to remain one centralized nation-state. The people who live there clearly don’t see themselves as one united people, and I think we need to accept that the country will desolve into three separate countries. Perhaps a weak federal government will still act in some manner, but the artificial boundaries placed upon the ethnic and cultural groups have already been dissolved. As much as the Bush administration says otherwise, Iraq is in a civil war. It is time we recognize this and allow the people of Iraq to democratically secede.
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