JoePublicFilmsBlog

« Holiday Commentary | Main | Response »

December 16, 2005

US Out of Iraq Now

The following is an address I gave at a program called Project SEARCH, which brings high school classes to the campus of the University of New Hampshire. The program had a speaker who did a history of Iraq, a speaker who advocated staying in Iraq, and me. I had 10 minutes...

The United States must begin moving troops out of Iraq immediately. What does that mean? Logistically, it is not a situation where we can start moving out tonight and be gone by tomorrow. What we must do is publicize and follow a plan of withdrawal, make clear that there will be no permanent US military bases in Iraq, AND we must also present a clear plan for assisting in any way that a majority of Iraqis request for rebuilding infrastructure in Iraq, and for working with the international community on a fair and equal basis to rebuild Iraq, and begin implementing it immediately.

We must also renounce the edicts and "rules", imposed by interim leader Paul Bremmer just after the invasion of Iraq. They are still in place. These decrees opened all Iraq's public assets to foreign corporate ownership. They allow 100 percent of the country's industries – banking, oil, food, whatever - to be owned by foreigners. Also, Bremmer ruled that 100 percent of the profits that foreign investors make in Iraq can now be taken out of Iraq - there's no requirement that any of these profits be reinvested, and the investors do nothave to pay a penny in taxes on their profits. These rules leave the people of Iraq, already destitute, with virtually no hope for upward mobility.

We must also remove all US mercenaries and contractors.

Doing these things would undermine the insurgency. General Casey said in a September 2005 hearing, "the perception of occupation in Iraq is a major driving force behind the insurgency." In the case of Iraq, the insurgency is primarily Iraqi nationalists with a concentration obviously in the Sunni triangle. Prior to the invasion, Iraq was the most secular country in the area we call the Middle East. The insurgency that exists today is not a jihadist dominated insurgency. Go online and look for the words of former Bush administration top anti-terrorsim advisor, Richard Clarke—he has been speaking out about these facts for some time.

Before I talk about how these changes would help on an international level, I’d like to speak briefly about some of the arguments that the Bush administration is using against the idea of leaving Iraq, dispite over 2100 US troops being killed in Iraq, 50,000 wounded, and Iraqi civilian deaths topping 100,000 by some estimates. First,

Civil War

It is disingenuous for us to now pretend that we care so deeply about other countries’ civil wars--- look at Afghanistan throughout the ‘90s, the Sudan today, Rwanda, places where hundreds of thousands if not millions have died, but since they don’t sit on the second largest oil reserve in the world, we didn’t get involved.

If it is inevitable that the Sunni minority which once was in power will fight shiites and Kurds, it is inevitable whether we are there or not.

The refusal of the Shia to retaliate is the most important factor here and this is primarily the result of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani standing firmly against it.

Last week, incidentally, a gathering in Cairo of Iraqi Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish leaders (under the auspices of the Arab League) called for a timetable for US withdrawal and also said that Iraq's opposition had a "legitimate right to resistance." The Sunni are not going to stop fighting while the occupation continues.

Recently Dick Cheney held up Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as the ultimate threat if we pull out of Iraq. Gen. CASEY stated shortly thereafter: You'd see [Zarqawi] consolidate his position on the ground if we pull out.

This is stuff from the same people who pushed the fear button with “Saddam Hussein's mushroom cloud and the secret Iraqi-Al Qaeda alliance.” Jihadists would like to do this. But Bin Laden couldn’t even do this in his home country of Saudi Arabia. How would it happen in a country that until we invaded was the most secular in the middle east?

Another argument is that the “US will be perceived as weak”. No one will think this. Everyone acknowledges that we are far and away the one and only remaining superpower on Earth. But if the plan is to maintain belligerant attitudes, the fact that we are the big cheese is going to continue to be a serious cause for concern, fear, defensiveness, resentment, etc., for people throughout the world.

We’ve also heard the “irresponsible” word used frequently by Bush officials. I’ll tell you what’s irresponsible: not giving the troops enough armor, cutting VA benefits; and lying to the American public from the run-up to the invasion through today, with talk of weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist (and with Marine officer and former lead UN weapons inspector in Iraq during the 90s, Scott Ritter telling them since 1998 that there was nothing left) to the implications today that we are helping in Iraq.

So, back to what I believe these changes would do internatiuonally:

Making the changes mentioned would also encourage our potential allies and even the UN to participate in rebuilding Iraq, if Iraq wants help. It would show the world that a request for involvement from the US would not just be an invitation to help the US military-industrial complex control Iraq’s oil and privatize its economy for US interests.

I recently heard someone make a simple but important point: “Even oil isn’t just about oil.” Oil is integrated in our lives in virtually every sense of the word. Whoever controls the oil, controls the world.

I have heard Bush officials say that the UN declined to get involved in the US-Iraq “war”, and they leave it at that, implying that the UN is weak and ineffective. In fact, the UN did not want to get involved for a number of reasons, the two most important being the clear illegality of the pre-emptive invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation, and two because it was obvious to the international community (including over 70% of the population in our #1 ally, England) that we were invading to take over the second largest oil reserve in the world, and try to move the middle east into our style of free trade that we’ve imposed on Latin America and some of Eastern Asia.

With the recent statement of Congressman Murtha about the US getting out of Iraq, we are now beginning to hear administration suggestions (and statements from hawkish democrats) of starting to get as many as 50k troops out in 2006. But these illusory statements are made contingent on Iraq “being able to defend itself”. By itself the statement might sound reasonable. But what that statement does is leave the door wide open for moving the timetable ahead again and again. We need an agreement and clear evidence that it is being followed.

What they are talking about is too slow and contingent on too many things. The Iraqi military has gotten worse in the past few months. There were supposed to be 64 battalions ready. A few months ago general Casey said 3 were ready. More recently he said only one is now ready—the other two unraveled. At this rate, after being in Iraq for going on three years, to reach the desired amount of battalions, we will be in Iraq for about 250 years, minimum.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, the lying, spinning, and listening to people who tell them only what they want to hear continues. Just two weeks ago, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld met with Ahmed Chalabi. Ahmed Chalabi, who has been wanted for years in Jordan for defrauding the Jordanian government of hundreds of millions of dollars—he’s supposed to serve 22years hard labor there. Ahmed Chalabi, who lived in London for years and was paid $1million a year by the CIA under the Clinton administration to lead the Iraqi National Congress from a posh hotel suite in London during the 90s. Ahmed Chalabi, who is currently under investigation by our own state dept. for allegedly selling Iraqi secrets to Iran just months ago! And Cheney and Rumsfeld are still taking advice from this guy. Obviously they have learned nothing from their past alliances with the likes of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden during the 1980s.

When we talk about Iraq, we are talking about a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. However, Iraq today is a breeding ground for resentment and hatred. Just after the invasion and the fall of Saddam Hussein regime, there were many Iraqis who were glad. But that was almost three years ago, and we have long over-stayed our welcome. Every child who has witnessed their parents or other loved ones dragged outside, beaten, taken away during a house raid; every person who has had loved ones killed during the invasion and occupation, and estimates are at 30K to over 100K civilian casualties, depending on whose #s you believe, all these people are likely to hate us -- forever. Unless we turn things around—unless we finally learn to do business with the rest of the world humanely and practice the human rights we preach throughout the world.

*This piece also is published on NH Peace Action's website: nhpeaceaction.org.

Posted by Joe Public at December 16, 2005 03:11 AM

Comments

Post a comment