Yesterday, I walked past that sign in Clarendon I posted about earlier, the one that seems to be a tally of the number of U.S. dead in Iraq. The number has gone up from 1,411 to 1,462, and it still doesn’t keep pace with the ongoing count of U.S. casualties in Iraq, which has reached 1,487 as of this morning.
I posted about it on DCist yesterday, and got the following from a commenter.
This isn’t a memorial — not even a memorial “of sorts” (cute, those scare quotes). It’s a political statement in opposition to the defeat of Saddam Hussein and his crime syndicate.
Not in a million years would there appear in Clarendon a board diligently tallying up the number of political opponents terminated by Saddam over the past twenty-five years, much less a board that made an effort to count the number of Muslims the U.S. has mobilized its military to come to the aid of in five major military actions over the past twelve years.
You’ll never see such boards as these, of course. They wouldn’t have as their principal aim the criticism of the president — the truly evil force that’s been loosed in the world. So what, really, would be the point?
*Sigh* I see I’m going to have to repeat myself here.
To be honest, I think Billy Bragg puts it pretty well in his lyrics.
Now I ain’t no fan of Saddam Hussein
oh, please don’t get me wrong
if it’s freeing the Iraqi people you’re after
then why have we waited so long.Why didn’t we sort this out last time
was he less evil than he is now
the stock market holds the answer
to why him, why here, why now.Saddam killed his own people
just like general Pinochet
and once upon a time both these evil men
were supported by the U.S.A.
(You can hear the song at this link. I just didn’t’ want to link to a page that included sound without warning folks in advance.)
The truth is, a count like the one the commenter mentions would have to have started decades ago, back when Saddam was in the prime years of his killing spree; back when he was our SOB in Iraq, not just any old SOB; back when the U.S.. didn’t seem to care that he was killing his own people. After all, he was pretty much doing it with our blessing, or at least with no objection from us.
Besides, it’s already been determined by at least one authority that the war in Iraq was not and is not a humanitarian operation. Why? Well for starters it would have to have happened a lot sooner, considering that Saddam was well past his mass-killing days when we invaded, and there was no evidence that any mass-killing were happening or about to happen. Mass killing aside, Hussein wasn’t doing anything in Iraq when we invaded that he wasn’t doing decades ago, when he was our ally, or that he wasn’t doing the last time we went to war with Iraq.
Let’s review. No WMDs, or facilities/means to make them. No terrorist ties. No humanitarian rationale. So why are we there again? What’s that about the election and democratizing Iraq? Well, not so fast. Those election results may be overturned. Allawi, our new SOB in Iraq—the one whose coalition couldn’t get more than 40 seats in the newly-elected Iraqi assembly—might not allow Iraqis to get the government they voted for.
Iraq’s interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi says he is forming a new coalition to oppose the Shia alliance that won last month’s election.
His announcement came a day after Daawa Party chief Ibrahim Jaafari was named as the Shia list’s candidate for the position of prime minister.
Mr Allawi said he was forming a broad coalition with other minority groups that won seats in the election.
He said it would be a group that “believes in Iraq and its principles”.
Mr Allawi, a secular Shia, called Mr Jaafari an “honourable man, a fighter and a good brother” when asked if he feared the winning alliance would impose Islamic rule in Iraq.
It’s not a far leap to guess where Allawi probaby got his marching order on this one, and it wouldn’t be the first time the U.S. moved—through other agents, of course—to overthrow another country’s election results when those results don’t suit U.S. interests. A Shi’a-led government in Iraq, with strong religious influences and ties to Iran, does not suit U.S. interets. So, word passes to Allawi from the West Wing: Don’t let this happen. The major question here has already been put on the table.
How much will these elections really mean then if the results can so easily be cast aside that our boy can buy his way into keeping power while he allows the United States to arm and train Sunni militias to fight the Shias in the south?
How about this answer: bupkus. If Allawi pulls this off with our help, then it means nothing more than any bogus election Saddam ever held and “won” during his reign. So, the “democratizing Iraq” rationale holds about as much water as the rest.
So who would be indicted by a tally like the one the commenter suggests? Well, us. Maybe even as much as Saddam, considering we could have moved to stop him at any time, but didn’t, and considering that we might not be doing things much differently than he did.
Word.
Going to war and the follow-up to war has been a bungle job by the Bush Administration..
But, T., your defense of Saddam and criticisms of the Iraqi election are way off base.
Saddam and sons were far from reformed and their ouster was necessary. But there were many ways to have done this. It is a terrible calculus, but the march on Baghdad was very efficient and was probably the least costly in lives than other options — though leaving the weapons inspectors in seems like it would have been the best course by far.
There is nothing sinister about Allawi seeking the Prime Minister post! Things are moving along just as they should! It takes a 2/3 majority to form a government; Allawi is thinking he is positioned to be a comprimise candidate, someone satifactory to all factions.
At this point, Bush is mostly interested in extricating himself [and America] from Iraq. I don’t think that he cares enormously who takes charge and I don’t think that any of us know what levers behind the scenes are being pulled. But even with Bush in charge, everything that America is doing is not Satanic.
I don’t know where you last quote comes from.
It IS NOT for the responsible, even, accurtate source, the BBC that is above it.
You write “A Shi’a-led government in Iraq, with strong religious influences and ties to Iran, does not suit U.S. interets.” This is true, but it also would be life-threatening to the Kurds and Sunnis, so where is it that one has to suppose that it would be necessary for the US to butt in its nose?
It would be more dangerous for Iraqis than Americans for the whole place to dive into civil war, ala Yugoslavia.
Also, your final quote is not from the BBC report. I don’t know where you got it, but it is irresponsible. Allawi was the provisional leader that the US opposed before he was voted in ~year ago, though he and the US got along OK once he was in power.
That last quote comes from here. It was my intention to provide a link when I was writing the post, but I must have forgotten to do it. Allawi was voted in? Funny, I thought he was appointed by the U.S. Did Iraq have an election prior to the one on January 30th?
Right. There wasn’t an election, but Allawi was voted in by an Iraqi council of some sort.
Allawi is a scumbag — I’ve been reading about him. And his pursuit of the top job is troubling because of his background, and because he is not thought to be respected by the Iraqi public for the job he’s done over the past year.
America WILL have influence, but this is inevitable since America won’t help rebuild the country if factors come forward that thrust Iraq into a civil war. So an assembly vote to put a Shiite fundamentalist with ties to Iran will have a lot going against it.
I’ll tell you what I don’t understand from what seems to the The Left POV these days: There is total disinterest in the welfare and happiness of the Iraqi people. Yeah, sure, if it suits The Left interest to wail about Iraqi civilian deaths, that’ll come up; but this blindness to the ongoing horror of Saddam, mystifies me. And to be oblivious to the possible carnage from civil war there.
Studies of the Berkeley war protesters of the 60s tell us there were two kinds of folks in the protests of that time. Half, including most of the leaders, were genuinely for the best outcome for everyone. The other half just liked to protest and were solely self-interested.
Do you honestly think the right has the welfare and happiness of the Iraqi people at heart? I hope you’r e not simply equating lack of support for the war in Iraq with a lack of concern for the Iraqi people? Look, I doubt very many people on the left would say Saddam was a good guy or that he didn’t need to be removed. But this administration has gone about it entirely the wrong way. If anything the Iraqi people are worse off because we made thier country a hotbed of terrorist activity where it wasn’t before.
If it were for the good of the Iraqi people, would we have gone in with cluster bombs and depleted uranium? If anything those who opposed this war and continue to criticize its execution are acting more out of concern for the Iraqi people than the advocates of the war.
Carnage? If anyone’s oblivious to the carnage that’s going on in Iraq right now, it’s our cheerleader-in-chief and his supporters. Remember, Iraq probably wouldn’t be on the brink of civil war if we hadn’t invaded in the first place. The truth is, we made this mess against the advice of much of the world, and a lot of reasonable, intelligent people who are appalled that thus far things have turned out just as badly as they predicted, if not worse.
We went to war in Iraq for largely one reason: a huge number of American wanted to kick some Muslim butt after 9/11, and Afghanistan didn’t sate that desire. In fact, the wanted it badly enough that they were willing to convince themselves that Saddam was behind 9/11. So now Saddam is gone and the man who actually is responsible is…where? And we’re gonna be pouring how many resources into Iraq for how long?
Believe me, if Iraq is someday a peaceful country it wil most likely not be because of us, but in spite of us.