Stoopid Stuff

Utter Madness

Why are there insurgents? I mean, generically, what is it that causes people to take up arms against the local powers to attempt to overthrow or change the composition of the leadership? I tend to think that there are three, perhaps four reasons. If they do not feel they are honestly represented polictically. If they do not feel they have access to a reasonable level of economic opportunity. If they belong to a religion or other tribal entity that is actively oppressed or otherwise mistreated by the ruling class. Or, they are under foreign occupation. If one were to think about it, there are probably a few others, but these are the reasons for most of the insurrections and insurgencies that I can think of.

One or another group of Iraqis can lay claim to all four. Whether it's the Sunnis, marginalized and unrepresented, or the Shi'a, fighting for a larger slice of the economic pie after years of oppression, the reasons they have taken up arms can be clearly explained, even if from where we sit safe in America those reasons have a scent of unreasonableness.

So in order to improve the "security situation" in Iraq, primarily Baghdad, the US is sending an additional 20,000 combat troops. What will they contribute? They are combat troops. Combat is what they do. They will fight the fighters. So ask yourself: If we fight the Sunni insurgents, can we kill enough of them to cause them to accept the oppression, the ethnic cleansing, the economic and political marginization? Why would they stop fighting? What reason would they have to lay down their arms because some additional combat power was brought to bear against them? And Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army. They are currently uneasy allies in the fight against the Sunni/Neo Baathist insurgency. So we start a fight with them. Why would they not fight back? What would they have to look forward to if they laid down their arms and allowed the Americans and the Iranians to disarm them, to take all of their power?

They won't quit. They can't quit. There is no hope for them in quitting, only in fighting. Why can't the Americans see this? The Iraqis see it all too clearly. Left to their own devices, the Badr Brigades will brutally crush the Mahdi Army and the Sunnis. It will be Anfal in reverse. It's not just the brutal bloody-mindedness of the Bush Administration that makes me angry. It's the continued belief that just a little more combat power, a little more killing, a few more flattened neighborhoods and peace will break out all over. It's their refusal to open their eyes and see what they are creating.

Since the creation of the Israeli state in which tens of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their lands and into camps, there have been four generations born in those camps. And as each generation was more brutalized, more oppressed, the hatred grew, the radicalization became more widespread, and the violence has grown exponentially. There are many examples of how to create a permanant state of war. It's as if we studied them very carefully and set out to do exactly that. There will ultimately be peace in the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia only if and when the external forces cease to press their particular agendas and the people of the region can find a way to sit down and talk to one another.

If the Americans pull out their troops now, will there be peace? Of course not, our venal and misguided attempt to control a region we didn't understand has prevented any possiblity of that. But I fear we are about to create a spasm of industrial scale violence in the heart of a city of 7 million souls that would have made a simple civil war look like a desirable outcome.

Let me end by reminding you of one simple fact. The Russians utterly destroyed the city of Grozny in late 1999. The Chechnians are still fighting today. This is not a solution. It is madness...

posted by mikey @ 4:15 PM