Devoid of Gratitude
In an article in Saturday's Guardian, Haifa Zangana provides a highly critical analysis of America's current performance in Iraq. He implies that the US is carrying out torture to the same extent that Saddam's regime did. He says that the biggest struggle Iraqis currently face is surviving under the "increasingly harsh occupation," of which "collective punishment, random arrest and killing are the defining features." He also claims that Iraqi doctors and hospital staff "are unable to cope with the deepening humanitarian crisis" brought about by the occupation, and that more and more Iraqis are turning to support "the resistance."
While it might be presumed that Zangana, an Iraqi novelist and former prisoner of Saddam's regime, would have an especially insightful perspective, his observations are enormously one-sided and in several important cases quite simply false. To imply that the US carries out torture to the same extent that Saddam did seems on the face of it absurd and certainly is totally unsubstantiated. The Abu Ghraib torturers have already been tried and convicted, and are currently languishing in jail. This was not a fate that awaited any torturer under Saddam's regime. To claim that Iraqis' biggest struggle is surviving the occupation is completely false. All polls indicate that Iraqis fear crime far more than US killings and punishments. It is also a fact that the insurgents are killing far more civilians than the Americans are. Most ludicrous is his claim that the harshness of the occupation, evident in the tremendous strain being placed on Iraq's health infrastructure, is pushing more people to support the insurgency. The insurgents' main tactic currently is to target groups of Shi'ite civilians, whether young, unemployed men queuing up to join their nation's security forces, children accepting sweets from US soldiers, or families worshipping in mosques or grieving at funerals. It is these despicable acts that are putting so much pressure on Iraq's health infrastructure, not the US, who have spent billions of dollars on reconstruction – a fact that Zangana completely ignores. Does he really believe that support for the Iraqi insurgency is widespread and becoming wider? A poll taken earlier this year found the 96% of Iraqis thought it was wrong to target the security forces. The percentage opposed to attacks on civilians must be even higher.
The recent targeting of Jordanian civilians by the noble Iraqi resistance is very clearly having the effect of greatly eroding Jordanian support for the resistance's leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. On Friday, 200,000 civilians demonstrated against the hotel bombings in Amman. Today, dozens of al-Zarqawi's own kinsmen, including one of his brothers, have disowned him, issuing a damning statement of repudiation. Contrary to Zangana's claim, as the Iraqi insurgents turn to increasingly brutal attacks against Muslim civilians, more and more Muslims are turning against them, not towards them. Given the frequency and brutality of attacks against Iraqi civilians over the last several months, it seems very likely that this is also happening in Iraq.
The title of Zangana's article is "A right to rule ourselves," the implication being that the Iraqis currently don't. Yet, the current government, which wants the US to stay, was democratically elected by the Iraqi people. The examples of US oppression that Zangana gives – accidental killings of civilians, the rounding up of suspected insurgents, the abuse of prisoners – are part of US efforts to defeat the insurgency, not attempts to tyrannize the Iraqi people. While there is a case to be made that the coalition forces should get out and leave the job of putting down the insurgency to the Iraqis, it is also valid to argue that if the coalition forces were to pull out now, the Iraqi people would completely lose the right to rule themselves as the insurgents would take over and install another fascist Sunni regime. Indeed, the very possibility of Iraqis being able to rule themselves was created by the overthrow of Saddam. Had the US and its allies not invaded, Zangana himself might still be in a Ba'athist prison cell. Clearly, he's not very grateful for the freedom the Americans have brought him and his countrymen.
While it might be presumed that Zangana, an Iraqi novelist and former prisoner of Saddam's regime, would have an especially insightful perspective, his observations are enormously one-sided and in several important cases quite simply false. To imply that the US carries out torture to the same extent that Saddam did seems on the face of it absurd and certainly is totally unsubstantiated. The Abu Ghraib torturers have already been tried and convicted, and are currently languishing in jail. This was not a fate that awaited any torturer under Saddam's regime. To claim that Iraqis' biggest struggle is surviving the occupation is completely false. All polls indicate that Iraqis fear crime far more than US killings and punishments. It is also a fact that the insurgents are killing far more civilians than the Americans are. Most ludicrous is his claim that the harshness of the occupation, evident in the tremendous strain being placed on Iraq's health infrastructure, is pushing more people to support the insurgency. The insurgents' main tactic currently is to target groups of Shi'ite civilians, whether young, unemployed men queuing up to join their nation's security forces, children accepting sweets from US soldiers, or families worshipping in mosques or grieving at funerals. It is these despicable acts that are putting so much pressure on Iraq's health infrastructure, not the US, who have spent billions of dollars on reconstruction – a fact that Zangana completely ignores. Does he really believe that support for the Iraqi insurgency is widespread and becoming wider? A poll taken earlier this year found the 96% of Iraqis thought it was wrong to target the security forces. The percentage opposed to attacks on civilians must be even higher.
The recent targeting of Jordanian civilians by the noble Iraqi resistance is very clearly having the effect of greatly eroding Jordanian support for the resistance's leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. On Friday, 200,000 civilians demonstrated against the hotel bombings in Amman. Today, dozens of al-Zarqawi's own kinsmen, including one of his brothers, have disowned him, issuing a damning statement of repudiation. Contrary to Zangana's claim, as the Iraqi insurgents turn to increasingly brutal attacks against Muslim civilians, more and more Muslims are turning against them, not towards them. Given the frequency and brutality of attacks against Iraqi civilians over the last several months, it seems very likely that this is also happening in Iraq.
The title of Zangana's article is "A right to rule ourselves," the implication being that the Iraqis currently don't. Yet, the current government, which wants the US to stay, was democratically elected by the Iraqi people. The examples of US oppression that Zangana gives – accidental killings of civilians, the rounding up of suspected insurgents, the abuse of prisoners – are part of US efforts to defeat the insurgency, not attempts to tyrannize the Iraqi people. While there is a case to be made that the coalition forces should get out and leave the job of putting down the insurgency to the Iraqis, it is also valid to argue that if the coalition forces were to pull out now, the Iraqi people would completely lose the right to rule themselves as the insurgents would take over and install another fascist Sunni regime. Indeed, the very possibility of Iraqis being able to rule themselves was created by the overthrow of Saddam. Had the US and its allies not invaded, Zangana himself might still be in a Ba'athist prison cell. Clearly, he's not very grateful for the freedom the Americans have brought him and his countrymen.
posted by Garth Rumina at 9:26 PM
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