by JBG » Mon Dec 19, 2005 3:58 pm
Its a bit of a myth rolled out by pro-war supporters that Iraq is better now than it was under Saddam.
We get told of the gassing of the Kurds, the arbitrary executions and torture.
Iraq was exceptionally prosperous up until the late 1970s. It had the closest thing in the Islamic world to having a Western standard of living.
Saddam was a disaster for the country as he squandered a lot of the oil money on arms, hoarded loads for himself and dragged his country into two wars between 1980 and 1990 and his sabre rattling ended in the current malaise.
The standard of living in Iraq dropped terribly during Saddam's reign and many people died directly from his terror. However, it is a fallacy to say that people are better off now. Most of Iraq is without proper running water and electricity, two and a half years following his overthrow. There is also no basic law and order and the ordinary people have no faith in the judicial system. For example, if some lunatic drives through a junction in Baghdad because there is no electricity to power the traffic lights and smashes your car you have to grin and bare it, because no policeman will come out to investigate the accident and the court system is not working properly for you to sue the guy that crashed into you. Things like these mean an awful lot to ordinary people and they were there in Saddam's day.
The reason there is so few policemen is because if you queue to apply to join the police, you run the risk of being blown up by a suicide bomber. If you manage not to get yourself blown up and become a policeman, you run the risk of being shot or kidknapped and beheaded.
Countless more died in the 1990s as a result of Western imposed sanctions. In my opinion both Saddam and the West must take responsibility for the terrible infant mortality rate in the period 1991 to spring 2003 caused by the sanctions. The sanctions did not punish Saddam's regime but the ordinary Iraqi people. Aid agencies were crying out since the early 1990s against economic sanctions but the West, led by Bill Clinton, swept the Iraqi problem under the carpet and hoped Saddam would rot away under the weight of the sanctions.
The West also holds a responsibility for the massacre of the Marsh Shi'ites in 1991 as George Bush Senior called for them to insurrect, which they did, but did not provide them with any support whatsoever, and as a result they were slaughtered.
Just because the war is "over" (its not, its now just at another stage) doesn't mean that the suffering of the people is any better. Germans and Japanese both will tell you that the real hardships for them were not between 1939 to 1945 but for the 3 or 4 years after 1945, when there was no public utilities, very little food, and plagues of disease.
Countless more died in the 1990s as a result of Western imposed sanctions. In my opinion both Saddam and the West must take responsibility for the terrible infant mortality rate in the period 1991 to spring 2003 caused by the sanctions. The sanctions did not punish Saddam's regime but the ordinary Iraqi people. Aid agencies were crying out since the early 1990s against economic sanctions but the West, led by Bill Clinton, swept the Iraqi problem under the carpet and hoped Saddam would rot away under the weight of the sanctions.
The West also holds a responsibility for the massacre of the Marsh Shi'ites in 1991 as George Bush Senior called for them to insurrect, which they did, but did not provide them with any support whatsoever, and as a result they were slaughtered.
My own opinion is that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was guided by the hand of economic and American strategic interests. The claim that they are there in the name of "freedom" is laughable, given that there are plenty of other cruel regimes in the world.
The neo conservative theory was that they could overthrow Saddam (very easily done) and then force upon the Iraqis a Western style democratic government system from above, with the hope that Iraq would become stable and prosperous and have a long term strategic impact if people from other countries such as Lybia, Syria and Iran would see what was going on and rise up against their own governments. This is a lofty aim and in theory, yes, there is a lot of virtue in it, although the planning and thought behind it was wholly inadequate and the Americans made the fundamental mistake of thinking that if it worked in Germany and Japan, it would work in Iraq. They were wrong, tragically wrong.
I also feel that the US are there to secure oil resources. I'll get attacked from some quarters by saying that, but look at the fuel prices lately and you'll see how important the issue of oil is becoming. Ordinary people in the West care more about increasing oil prices than they do about babies in Iraq dying of malnutrition: look at Leon's signature as an example. I'm not attacking Leon as if I'm honest, having to pay a few quid more every time I go to the petrol pump probably is more immediate to me than Iraqi citizens dying 3500 miles away. If it bothers me and other ordinary people a lot then it will really bother big business and the military.
My own feeling now is that now that they are in it, the US needs to stay and try to sort it out. I know this sounds cold, but the issue is not of American soldiers dying in ambushes or by roadside bombs (although I feel for their mothers, having met one in Boston lately) but of the countless Iraqi citizens suffering under the occupation and the civil war which the US is powerless in dealing with.
Last edited by
JBG on Mon Dec 19, 2005 4:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jolly Bob Grumbine.
). This might cost tens of billions but it could be a saving of many billions more in the long run and there will be less body bags coming home. If the Iraqi people have water, food and electricity, the insurgents will lose support and Iraqi's will trust democracy more.