Why the U.S. Must Get Out of Iraq NOW:
The latest justifications for continuing the occupation of Iraq are merely more of the same disingenuous tripe the American public have been fed since beginning the invasion of Iraq. As always, the U.S. is portrayed as the Good Guys using freedom fighters, under God, fighting Bad Guys to bring freedom and peace to a troubled region. It has never bothered President Bush that the reasons for attacking a supposedly sovereign country were false, that his actions have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilian men, women, and children, that his actions have resulted in a vast growth in the number of terrorists in Iraq and across the world (probably few with any direct or meaningful connections with El Qaida, but sympathetic to El Qaida), that his actions have created an Iraqi refugee population which is now the third largest in the world and totals 20% of the Iraqi population, that the U.S. is now seen increasingly across the globe by good decent people as an arrogant, self serving, militaristic monster with little or no concern for the environmental or human problems others in the world wish to address and make a priority.
The newest rational for 'staying the course' is that we owe it to the Iraqi people to bring stability and democracy to their country. That failure to do so leaves Iraq ripe for training and dispersal of terrorists. This reasoning needs closer examination.
First of all, it is never our responsibility to tell any sovereign country what kind of government they should have, let alone run their country. Secondly, if one invades a sovereign country for illegitimate reasons there are no logical reasons why one can then claim any legitimate reason for winning. Polls in Iraq show that most Iraqis want us to get out, but frankly that is kind of irrelevant. One might take a poll in this country and find that the vast majority want Bush out of office. That hardly gives the green light for another country to invade us, depose Bush, set up military bases across our land, and then decide for us the best kind of governance which would be best for us. As icing on the cake let's make this 'savior' invader a Muslim country sending over 'freedom from Bush fighters', under Allah, to bring freedom and security to the American people. I suspect I can speak for the American people: Bush is our problem and we are the ones who have to get rid of him and decide our own political fate.
It gets tiring listening on television to American after American debating what needs to be done in Iraq. Imagine if we had to listen to Iraqi after Iraqi debating what needs to be done in America. It is their country, even in the current demolished state. We demolished it, we caused this problem; they pretty much all understand that now (any illusions have long since evaporated), we are in fact an occupying force whose presence guarantees the conflict will not end; we are in no position to remotely, at this point, be part of the solution. When you can't be part of the solution you get out. GET OUT. Will our leaving result in a friendly supportive Iraq to American self interests? Of course not. But neither will our staying. Guess what? We have lost. That's right---we have lost. We better get used to it. To allow any more American young men and women to die in a lost cause is disgusting and unpatriotic. To participate any longer in the slaughter of the Iraqi people is a pathetic a misuse of power. Any illusion of Bush that God has ever been with us in this Hitlertorian adventure should surely not be accepted by the American public.
Whether we stay or not, Iraq and many other places across the globe are going to become breeding grounds for terrorists. This global terrorist movement has little to do with El Qaida per se and everything to do with poverty, joblessness, homelessness, societal chaos, lack of personal security, and the growing economic disparity between the haves and the have nots. El Qaida was formed to fight the presence of American military bases in Arabia. This spirit then spread to other areas where portions of populations in various countries also wanted American military bases propping up their governments out of their country. For a country like America, so instilled with the spirit of Americans controlling our own destiny, it is just disgusting to see us use our military might in an attempt to control the internal politics of others across the globe.
We are now at the crossroads. We have over extended ourselves and expend most of our tax money now on empire building. The rest of the world clearly wants us to stop and we should. If we get out of Iraq the contest will be over. We will have lost. We deserve to lose. What we did was wrong. Now the Iraqis will have to deal with themselves. If they need help mediating a peaceful settlement others will have to be the mediators because we have too much blood on our hands, there are way too many relatives and friends of those we have killed. It is good that we lose this. We need to learn that the best way to win the hearts and souls of others across the globe is not to heave bombs or prop up governments across the globe with military bases. We really have no choice. All our smart bombs and military superiority are now pretty limited in their usefulness for the kind of global problems humanity faces. Barack is right. We aren't accomplishing much any more by refusing to talk to those who oppose us, and solutions to world problems are no longer amendable to military solutions.
All the above seem sufficient reasons to pull out now, but there is one more pressing reason. This venture is teaching those sent to fight this unwarranted war to become callous and indifferent to human life. In a May 4th report issued by the Pentagon a survey found that only 47% of soldiers and 38% of marines agreed that Iraqi civilians should be treated with respect and dignity. Only 55% if soldiers and 40% of marines said they would report a unit member who had killed or injured an innocent non combatant. According to interviews with some recently returned soldiers the cruelty to Iraqi citizens by American soldiers is a widespread and pervasive practice. Why are our soldiers doing this? The answer is not particularly surprising. As one soldier explained, "the soldiers honestly thought we were trying to help the people and they were mad because it was almost like a betrayal. Like here we are trying to help you, here I am, you know thousands of miles away from home and my family, and I have to be here every day and work on these missions. Well, we're trying to help you and you just turn around and try to kill us."
From a distance this reality is sort of sickening. My country has never been, with the exception of Vietnam, in any war in which American soldiers preyed upon civilian populations. The examples these soldiers cited are at the level of the worst ghetto gang like behavior anywhere. They showed one photo of an American soldier acting as if he is about to eat the spilled brains of a dead Iraqi man with his brown plastic Army-issue spoon. The scene, Sargeant Mejia said, was witnessed by the dead man's brothers and cousins. Another soldier, Philip Crystal, reported they were approaching this one house in a farming area, "They had a family dog. And it was barking ferociously 'cause it's doing its job. And my squad leader just out of nowheres, just shoots it. The bullet went in the jaw and exited out. And so the dog's yelping. It's crying out without a jaw. And I am looking at the family, and they're just, you know, dead scared. The family is sitting there, with three little children and a mom and dad, horrified. And---I actually get tears from saying this right now, but--and I had tears then, too---and I'm looking at the kids and they are so scared. No reports are ever filed about this kind of stuff, no one is ever punished. It happens all the time."
These soldiers explained that most raids are done on the basis of poor intelligence, and thus, the raids rarely have any real catches. A lot of times Iraqis report people to be terrorists to settle family disputes, tribal rivalries, personal vendettas. One soldier described how suspects are rounded up. "We throw them in the back of a Bradley shackled and hooded. These guys were really throwing up. They were so sick and nervous. And sometimes they were peeing on themselves. Can you imagine if people could just come into your house and take you in front of your family screaming? And if you are actually innocent but had no way to prove that? It would be a scary, scary thing." Another soldier said it was very common for American soldiers to call Iraqis civilians derogatory terms like camel jockeys or Jihad Johnny and sand nigger.
One soldier who worked the headquarters office at Abu Ghraib prison, claimed this: "That was when I totally walked away from the Army. I read these rap sheets on all the prisoners in Abu Ghraib and what they were there for. I expected them to be terrorists, murderers, insurgents. I look down this roster and see petty theft, public drunkeness, forged coalition documents. These people are here for petty civilian crimes." One soldier reported the kind of incident which "has long ceased to arouse much interest or even comment in the military". The incident he related was one in which an unarmed man drove with his young son too close to a check point. At that point the father was decapitated in front of his small, terrified boy. He went on: "As an American, you just put your hand up with your palm towards somebody and your fingers pointing to the sky. That means stop to most Americans, and that's a military hand signal that soldiers are taught that means stop. That's a sign you make at checkpoint. To an Iraqi person, that means Hello, come here. So you can see the problem that develops real quick. So you get on a checkpoint, and the soldiers think they're saying stop, stop, and the Iraqis think they are saying come here, come here. And the soldiers start hollering, so they try to come there faster. So soldiers holler more, and pretty soon you're shooting pregnant women."
Enough. Enough. It is not a pretty picture, this war. So who really are the cruel animalistic people in this conflict? Who are the good or the bad guys? How do you tell? Who should we hate? There are so many candidates. As usual I always look to Lincoln for insight on human nature. Lincoln always took a moral stand against slavery, yet had this to say about southerners: "They are just what we would be in their situation." It seems this applies here. Many of us, put in the situation of our American soldiers, would behave thusly; most Iraqis and Americans, if their lives had been switched around, would behave similarly. Clearly then, the focal point needs to be the situation, not the players. The blame lies on those who create situations in which normal people end up behaving badly. The saddest aspect of this Bush Administration created situation, is the permanent damage to the psyche of so many American soldiers. It is hard to undo learned insensitivity to others; it is hard to undo the use of violence to solve conflict; it is hard to have tolerance after being taught to be intolerant. Many of these American soldiers are going to come home changed in their attitudes about others, changed in how they react to conflict, changed in how they react to diversity, changed in their ability to control their emotions; changed in their ability to be sympathetic to others.
It is time to bring the troops home---for their sake and the sake of the Iraqi people. Our ability to be part of the solution has long been lost. We are part of the problem. If we left there will be all sorts of problems remaining, but at least we will not be part of them. It is like a guy who goes to a wedding, causes turmoil in the form of a brawl to break out, and then when the cops tell him to leave, he says "I can't leave. Having caused the problem I have a responsibility to solve it and as soon as they do as I say, things will be all better." Can anyone imagine the cops saying, "He is right. He caused the problem. It is his responsibility to fix it. He can stay."
