Iraqi Freedom

[KymarFye]

Quote from dgabriel:



Its a bad assumption because you have little to base it on and the action which you are denouncing has yet to completely unfold.

It's also a bad assumption (that Arabs universally detest having American troops in their countries) because it flies in the face of plentiful evidence to the contrary.

Our leading Argentinian leftist radical chose to ignore an attempt to challenge him on his assumptions. Maybe he missed it while composing his reply to another of dgabriel's reasonable and articulate posts. If so, I'll do him the favor of re-posting it here:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote from alfonso:

It's "too early" to assume that Arabs, practically universally, detest having American troops within their borders?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I could link you to several articles describing positive reactions to the invasion, and to the troops directly, among Iraqi Arabs. Some include video or pictures. One such article even comes from the Arab News - which, big surprise, has taken a strong editorial stance against the invasion. Can you give me any reason why I should bother digging up the links for you? Would it make any difference in your position or your beliefs? Or would you instead, like your comrade msfe, engage in the message board equivalent of plugging your ears like a five-year-old and whining as loudly as you can? Or would you just ignore the material, and go on exactly as you had before, pretending that the exchange has never occurred?

Outside of Iraq, there have been many articles and interviews describing a generally positive response in Qatar and Kuwait to the American presence. Obviously, there has also been some popular opposition, especially in Saudi Arabia. I'm not sure how many other Arab countries have detachments of American troops within their borders, but, unless you have determined that Iraqi civilians, Kuwaitis, and Qataris are no longer Arabs, then whatever detestation there is certainly is not universal, nor, as events have shown, is it very practical.

 

[alfonso]

Quote from dgabriel:



Its a bad assumption because you have little to base it on and the action which you are denouncing has yet to completely unfold.

There are no parallels between Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq today.

Iraq did not take shape through the decisions of an Iraqi democratic republic. Your statement regarding Suadi Arabia as a democracy is inane and irrelevant. If there were a democracy in SA, the US presence would not be a thorn. THe disenfranchised find it offensive that the Crown Prince defers to the US and leaves them out of the public discourse.

What saddens me is that for people like MSFE and Alfonso the worst thing that could happen in Iraq following the US invasion is the emergence of a secular democracy, an elimination of the Baath party, greater economic development and international trade, and the minor consequence of the removal of a mass murderer from having a literal chokehold on 25 million people. A new Iraq would render their criticisms nugatory. Therefore, they wish for utter failure, quagmire, and enormous death and destruction.

The left would rather emasculate the US than help guide its power toward progressive purposes. The left, like Saddam, is all about power and denying freedom of conscience to the "others". The miserable inheritance of Marx' analysis of the "capitalist corruption of concsiousness" is seen in the Orwellian PC army of the past 2 decades, of which msfe and Alfonso seem to be charter members.

There are no paralles huh? Gee, how convenient for you.

There can only be no paralles if you ignore the fact that the Lebanese, Saudis and Iraqis (the majority) are Arabs, and the majority (vast) of all three are Muslims. There's paralles #1 and #2.

Your assessment of what would occur if Saudi was a democracy is, how'd you put it? "inane and irrelevant". It is a simple fact that Saudis find it offensive to their faith to have American infidels on their soil. So it seems like a safe bet that if they -- the Saudi people -- had the right to choose, they'd ask the Americans to leave ASAP.

You are obviously not very well read on Iraq, as evidenced by your pie in the sky "worst case" scenario.

Perhaps the statements of some prominent analyst might help:

""Iraqis, their neighbors and the outside world have all been served reasonably well by the delicate balance of power of the past nine months which leaves Iraq neither too strong nor too weak. And we still are. Yet this balance is a one-time thing; when undone, it is permanently gone. Now, as then, getting rid of Saddam increases the prospects of Iraqi civil war, Iranian and Syrian expansionism, Kurdish irredentism and Turkish instability. Do we really want to open these cans of worms?"

...

"And here we revert to last year's dilemma: after American forces directly unseat Saddam and occupy Iraq, what next? There were no good answers to this question in 1990, and there are none today. If the administration calculates costs, it will reach the same prudent conclusion it reached early in 1991: don't stimulate regional havoc, don't take direct responsibility for deciding the future of Iraq and don't risk losing American lives -- probably many more than were lost in Desert Storm -- on behalf of vague and undefined aims. We all want Saddam gone; but unless Americans are prepared for an unlimited occupation of Iraq, we'd do better letting the Iraqis get rid of him."



That was one of today's leading hawks, Director of the Mid East Forum, Daniel Pipes, writing in 1992.

I really have to ask, if Iraq wasn't amenable to forcible regime change in 1992, what changed so much in the following ten years for this guy to completely flip his position around?


The left, btw, is certainly NOT "about" denying freedom of concsience to anybody! That's absurd!
I wonder, dgab, are you another of the millions that scream "Marxist!" without ever having even read a bit of Marx and Engels?

 

[alfonso]

Quote from KymarFye:



I could link you to several articles describing positive reactions to the invasion, and to the troops directly, among Iraqi Arabs. Some include video or pictures. One such article even comes from the Arab News - which, big surprise, has taken a strong editorial stance against the invasion. Can you give me any reason why I should bother digging up the links for you? Would it make any difference in your position or your beliefs? Or would you instead, like your comrade msfe, engage in the message board equivalent of plugging your ears like a five-year-old and whining as loudly as you can? Or would you just ignore the material, and go on exactly as you had before, pretending that the exchange has never occurred?

Kymar, I'm always suspicious when someone claims to have evidence yet they don't present it. So, even if for this reason alone, I think you should provide the links.

Look, I've seen the video and pictures of the "jubilant" Iraqis myself. I am tempted to think, with good reason, that this is just the "smile for the camera" effect.

In any case, I wasn't talking about some Arabs supporting this invasion, I was talking about Arab sentiment towards having American troops indefinitely (even if only from their perspective) stationed on their soil. So yes, if you could provide some Arab viewpoints, preferably from Arabs actually living in the Mid East, that support an American occupation, then yes, I sure would like to read them.

 

[KymarFye]

This piece from the Arab News - which, as I've noted, has been editorially anti-invasion - is one of the more interesting, both because of its source and because of its own take on the "camera effect," whose existence I'll glady acknowledge, but whose function in this situation I believe you have mostly gotten backwards:

Arab News, March 28:

"Arab News asked several of the refugees waiting to enter Basra what they thought of regime change. Accompanying Arab News were several international TV crews. What the refugees said on and off camera were very different things.

"On camera, the general feeling among the crowd was sorrow at losing Saddam. Off camera, the citizens of Umm Qasr and Basra appeared genuinely exhilarated at the prospect of a brighter future, after Saddam had been removed."

http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=24366

The same reporter followed up on that article a couple of days later:

Exclusive: ‘Terrified of Saddam Hussein’
Essam Al-Ghalib, Arab News War Correspondent

UMM QASR/BASRA, 30 March 2003 — Four days ago my friend, Mohammed Al-Deleami and I were invited by Abdul Rahman Almotawa, a journalist at our sister publication Asharq Al-Awsat, to accompany him on a trip organized by the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information to report on the humanitarian relief effort at Safwan, an Iraqi town at the Kuwaiti border.

***
When we finally made it to Safwan, Iraq, what we saw was utter chaos. Iraqi men, women and children were playing it up for the TV cameras, chanting: “With our blood, with our souls, we will die for you Saddam.”

I took a young Iraqi man, 19, away from the cameras and asked him why they were all chanting that particular slogan, especially when humanitarian aid trucks marked with the insignia of the Kuwaiti Red Crescent Society, were distributing some much-needed food.

His answer shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.

He said: “There are people from Baath here reporting everything that goes on. There are cameras here recording our faces. If the Americans were to withdraw and everything were to return to the way it was before, we want to make sure that we survive the massacre that would follow as Baath go house to house killing anyone who voiced opposition to Saddam. In public, we always pledge our allegiance to Saddam, but in our hearts we feel something else.”

Different versions of that very quote, but with a common theme, I would come to hear several times over the next three days I spent in Iraq.

The people of Iraq are terrified of Saddam Hussein.

http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=24481


Here's one recent summary of Iraqi reactions assembled by the Wall Street Journal. Sorry I can't transfer the links directly, but you can find the material referred to by performing your own searches at the sources mentioned. Anyway, I'm sure they'll be plenty additional reporting on this subject over the coming days and weeks - though certain publications and outlets will probably do all that they can to suppress details they'd rather not acknowledge. I'll also note that in the early '80s the Shias in Lebanon initially greeted the American Marines very favorably, but soon turned against them. If we mishandled this current situation, we could cause a similar transformation.

Embed, Baath and Beyond
It seems like only yesterday that doomsayers were declaring America had failed to win "hearts and minds"--that, contrary to the hawks' foolish prewar expectations, Iraqis are not welcoming the allies as liberators. Oh well, so much for that. Consider this collection of reports:

"Hundreds of Iraqis shouting 'Welcome to Iraq' greeted Marines who entered the town of Shatra Monday after storming it with planes, tanks and helicopter gunships," Reuters reports. Says one young man: "There's no problem here. We are happy to see Americans."

"The welcome they had hoped for finally greeted American troops yesterday, as waving Iraqis lined the streets when the advance northwards to Baghdad was resumed," reports the Daily Telegraph from central Iraq.

The Telegraph also reports that Royal Marine commando, mopping up after completing the delightfully named Operation James, an assault on a southern Basra suburb, "received a warm welcome from the members of the 30,000-strong population, with children and adults giving the thumbs-up, smiling and shouting 'Mister, mister, England good.' "

Another Reuters dispatch, from outside Basra, explains why Iraq's second city has been slow to rise up: Fleeing Iraqi civilians "said on Tuesday they faced heavy pressure from members of President Saddam Hussein's Baath party not to rise up against him." One unnamed local resident says: "The Baath Party has been going around Basra and using megaphones to warn us that we had better join the war effort."

The Washington Times reports from Qara Hanjir, in northern Iraq, that the locals "are welcoming the budding American military presence with undisguised enthusiasm." Soleyman Qassab, a local businessman who runs a burger joint called MaDonal's (yes, that's the right spelling), wrote in a local newspaper: "If the USA comes here, we'll get our freedom. It's time to welcome the American military."

The Associated Press reports that at a Centcom briefing today, "Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks described several instances in which local residents had helped U.S. forces throughout the country, paving the way for successful attacks against 'death squads' loyal to Saddam."

Another AP dispatch tells a moving story of an Iraqi soldier who deserted, turning himself in to Kurdish fighters at Kalak:

The soldier covered his face and wept.

It was a deep, sudden sobbing he couldn't control. His shoulders heaved. Tears wet the frayed cuffs of his green Iraqi army sweater.

He cried because he was alive. He cried because his family may think he's dead. He cried for his country. He cried because--for him--the war was over.

"I'm so sorry. Excuse me. I just can't stop," wept the soldier who fled Saddam Hussein's army and was taken Monday into the hands of U.S.-allied Iraqi Kurdish fighters. "Could this terrible time be over soon? Please, tell me."

The soldier, whom the AP calls Ali, describes a demoralized military with little genuine loyalty to Saddam: "We knew nothing. We were told only that America was trying to take over Iraq," he says. "But we are not so stupid. We know how Saddam rules the country. We know in our hearts we'd be better off without him."

 

[dgabriel]

Quote from alfonso:



There are no paralles huh? Gee, how convenient for you.

It is a simple fact that Saudis find it offensive to their faith to have American infidels on their soil. So it seems like a safe bet that if they -- the Saudi people -- had the right to choose, they'd ask the Americans to leave ASAP....The left, btw, is certainly NOT "about" denying freedom of concsience to anybody! That's absurd!
I wonder, dgab, are you another of the millions that scream "Marxist!" without ever having even read a bit of Marx and Engels?

"Infidels"? Oh, Osama asked us to leave. I stand corrected.


As for my credentials:
I read all of Marx and Lenin. I know Marxism as well as any anyone. I have a degree in History, and I studied in the Soviet Union in 1982, while you were suckling mamacita's nipples. I read it all and accept none of it.

Today' left has adopted the Marxist precept that the individual's consciousness is in effect the product of the individuals relationship to the method of production, no matter what period of history, Iron, age, bronze age, Industrial-Capitalist age. THe individual has no freedom of consciouness because it is formed and controlled under the system of production where the worker is the enslaved, the owner is master, and the capital formation rests in the hands of the few. A marxist beleives that anyone properly taught Marxism will accept it as gospel, oops, I mean the truth. It is the revolutionary that frees the consciouness of the proletariat by breaking his bond of enslavement, so say the Marxists.

The PC movement has adopted this idea of "infected consciousness". The leftist beleives that those who don't accept the left's decrees have simply not been properly taught. The nonbeleiver's consciousness has been "infected", and until he is "de-programmed" by the PC police, he will never be free. It's such a convenient way to eliminate debate. For the Left, there is no relativism, there are no alternatives, there is really no debate, and there is no theory. There is only truth, historical inevitability and the eventual arrival at the communist uptopia. Marx revealed the truth, and by God, oops, I mean by thunder, those who accept the truth will deliver it to all, come hell or high water, oops I mean even if it means a bloody revolution and the dictatorship of the people. The power hungry leftist loves that gospel. They command the truth, they command the people. They control production. There has not been one Marxist state that has not been a totalitarian nightmare begun with blood and streamlined with bloody purges.

Your liberation of consciousness Alfonso is another's denial of consciousness. I'll give them a choice and accept the possibility of two different, competing, perhaps incompatible, but perhaps valid views. That's where you and I differ.

As for Pipes, put this in your pipe and toke on it:

Why the Left Loves Osama [and Saddam]
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1040


Excerpt:

"The same goes for Saddam Hussein, whose gruesome qualities matter less to the Left than the fact of his confronting and defying the United States. In its view, anyone who does that can't be too bad - never mind that he brutalizes his subjects and invades his neighbors. The Left takes to the streets to assure his survival, indifferent both to the fate of Iraqis and even to their own safety, clutching instead at the hope that this monster will somehow bring socialism closer.

In sum: 9/11 and the prospect of war against Saddam Hussein have exposed the Left's political self-delusion, intellectual bankruptcy and moral turpitude."

 

[dgabriel]

Why the Left Loves Osama [and Saddam]
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1040


Excerpt:

"The same goes for Saddam Hussein, whose gruesome qualities matter less to the Left than the fact of his confronting and defying the United States. In its view, anyone who does that can't be too bad - never mind that he brutalizes his subjects and invades his neighbors. The Left takes to the streets to assure his survival, indifferent both to the fate of Iraqis and even to their own safety, clutching instead at the hope that this monster will somehow bring socialism closer.

In sum: 9/11 and the prospect of war against Saddam Hussein have exposed the Left's political self-delusion, intellectual bankruptcy and moral turpitude."

 

[dgabriel]

On to Baghdad?: Yes - The Risks Are Overrated
by Daniel Pipes and Jonathan Schanzer
New York Post
December 3, 2001
As the war in Afghanistan winds down, the argument over Iraq is heating up.

The Bush administration has dropped some heavy hints about the need to rid the world of the Saddam Hussein regime. In response, some are denouncing this prospect. Their dissenting views, which fall under six main rubrics, need to be taken very seriously.

Catastrophe: A "great catastrophe" will follow if an Arab country is hit, predicts Jordan's King Abdullah II. Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara warns of "endless problems" if any Arab country is struck.

Sounds ominous - but these two leaders forget to explain just why ousting Saddam would be so terrible. Or why it would be worse than leaving him in power. Khidhir Hamza, former head of Iraq's nuclear program, estimates that his old boss will have "three to five nuclear weapons by 2005." Given Saddam's well-established viciousness and aggression, this would be the true catastrophe, not his losing power.

Coalition busting: "Striking against any Arab country will be the end of harmony within the international alliance against terrorism," says Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League. Gernot Erler of Germany's Social Democrat party is more specific: An attack on Iraq "would certainly mean the end of the broad political alliance against terrorism."

To which the sensible reply is - So what? The attacks on Sept. 11 were against the United States, not Egypt or Germany. The U.S. priority is to win the war against terrorism, not make new friends.

Further, the coalition is window dressing. Only one country is actually needed to launch an attack on the Iraqi regime, says former CIA Director James Woolsey. "Operating from Turkey and from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf," he notes, should generate more sorties than was possible against landlocked Afghanistan.

And Turkey appears to be on board: Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu recently said that his government might reconsider the "Iraqi question," indicating Turkey's possible willingness to help America.

Destabilized Arab regimes: "Arab regimes will be considerably weakened if they are incapable of preventing operations against Iraq," finds French analyst Gilles Kepel. "This would be highly destabilizing."

Really? More likely, ridding the world of Saddam will stabilize every Arabic-speaking country, as they no longer worry about his depredations and can loosen up. Better yet, the Iraqi National Congress (waiting in the wings) gives signs of setting up a democratic government and the Kurdish government in the north of Iraq (in power) has already done so.

Collateral damage: An attack on Iraq would cause civilian casualties, Britain's Foreign Ministry and Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki bin Faisal both tell us. True, but collateral damage pales in comparison to the damage Saddam inflicts on his own people, whether gassing 5,000 of them on one day in 1988 or assaulting the Shi'ites in Iraq's south for over a decade.

As in Afghanistan, an attack on Iraq would be a humanitarian operation that the local population will celebrate.

Strengthens Saddam: Attacks on Iraq may only "bolster Saddam's position in Iraq and make the people more supportive of him," warns Prince Turki. That's ridiculous.

Saddam will not be stronger after the United States gets through with him for the simple reason that he won't be around at all. One President Bush left Saddam Hussein in power after defeating him in war. The second will not.

Saddam innocent of 9/11: Lord Robertson, NATO's secretary general, last month told US Senators there is "not a scintilla," of evidence linking Iraq with the 9/11 attacks. Columnist Robert Novak concurs that there is "no Iraqi connection."

Not so. Mohammed Atta, one of the hijackers, met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague. Two of his co-conspirators met with Iraqi intelligence officers in the United Arab Emirates. Bin Laden aides met with officials in Baghdad. Further, Saddam may be behind the recent military-grade anthrax attacks, suggested by the presence of bentonite, a substance only Iraq uses for this purpose.

Thus does every argument against targeting Iraq collapse. Saddam Hussein represents the single greatest danger to the United States, not to speak of the rest of the world. Today, with Americans mobilized, is exactly the right moment to dispatch him.

 

[dgabriel]

You could ask Pipes what happened in the 10 years to make his earlier view no longer relevant, but a six year old aware of 9/11 could answer that question. You better run out and dig up a six year old Alfonso, because you sure do need the answer.

 

[KymarFye]

Quote from alfonso:



In any case, I wasn't talking about some Arabs supporting this invasion, I was talking about Arab sentiment towards having American troops indefinitely (even if only from their perspective) stationed on their soil. So yes, if you could provide some Arab viewpoints, preferably from Arabs actually living in the Mid East, that support an American occupation, then yes, I sure would like to read them.

Let's be precise: "Occupation" is much different from presence, though I believe that in extreme situations, such as the situation in Iraq, many consider occupation by American forces to be preferable to the available alternatives.

As previously, I would refer you to Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, and even Yemen and Saudi Arabia. I'm not informed as to what other Arab countries may currently host US troops in any significant number on an indefinite basis. Qatar's evidently popular, reformist leader openly affirms American protection as essential to his efforts and to his country's long-term interests. It's reasonable to assume that even the most pro-American members of these countries' leaderships would probably prefer a world in which there was no need for them to host a foreigner's troops. Almost all Americans would also prefer such a world. Unfortunately, we are doomed to live in the real world, not a world of utopian fantasy (whether Euro-utopian or Islamic fascist utopian).

Anyway, though there is certainly opposition in all of these countries, to varying degrees, it is evident that it is nowhere near "universal."

 

[dbphoenix]

To Kymar and dga:

I'm not going to get involved in all of this. Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your posts.

Just think. If the Ottoman Empire had been left whole, would things be better, or worse?

--Db