Troops Out Now!
Whether one talks of
25,000 violent deaths, as claimed by Iraq Occupation Focus, the 39,000
counted by the Swiss-based Graduate Institute of International Studies,
or the 100,000 "excess civilian deaths", including nonviolent
casualties of occupation, identified by the Lancet, this is a massacre
of innocent people that the government apparently believes is a price
worth ignoring for its Iraq policy.
Whether
these killings are directly attributable to the occupying force, or
caused by the terrorism that has flourished on the occupiers’ watch
along with economic and social chaos, they are the best reason for
bringing the troops home. It should be done for the Iraqis, not just
for ourselves.
There’s one major problem with this analysis. Quite a serious one in fact. We do not start from the point which we might want to start from. We are not starting from the place where we have not invaded, Saddam is still keeping order (in however bloodthirsty a fashion) and al-Q is only mad at us because of Afghanistan, troops in Saudi, Gulf War I, al-Andalus, the post WWI carving up of the Ottoman Empire and whatever else festered in their minds.
No, we are where we are now. Trying, however well or badly, to pacify a violent country for the benefit of the population of that country.
The question is, if we should "do it for the Iraqis", (assuming that we accept that point), is, will leaving the country with no military forces to speak of be a better solution for the Iraqis than what is going on now? Enquiring minds might be able to differ on that point but even by the standards of the Stop the War Coalition’s logic I don’t quite get it. I don’t agree with them that it should never have happened, don’t agree that the basic idea was wrong, but I do think that their belief in those things is leading them to the worst possible solution. Troops out now might be a good rallying call but it isn’t a good solution to the problem we face now.
Leave a Reply