America Has Totally Failed in Iraq

05/30/2005

America Has Totally Failed in Iraq
Paul Munnis

For months now we have kept silent on the subject of the War in Iraq. Our theory was to give peace a chance. After all, it takes time to build a nation. We have patiently watched American forces mount counter insurgency operations that have resulted in the invasion of homes, the razzing of cities, and the arrest and incarceration of tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens. We have watched women, children, and citizens rounded up and herded like cattle into U.S. prisons and compounds. We have read the reports of U.S. military handling of these people in crude and abominable ways. We have watched the blood and carnage levels increase, the body counts of soldiers and civilians rise, and we see the Iraqi nation engaged in a religious civil war.

We see the U.S. as a total failure in the management of this war. Neither in a military or in a civil sense is the nation growing and improving. As we celebrate this Memorial Day in the U.S. and remember the sacrifices of those who have died for American freedom, we are appalled by what we see in Iraq and the waste of human life and the ill-conceived and poorly managed attempts at governance. We are unhappy with the way in which the Bush Administration is using the brave, loyal, and committed members of our U.S. Armed Forces.

In Iraq life is not getting better instead life is getting worse. The average Iraqi is no closer to freedom, justice, or a life of tranquillity then they were under Saddam. In fact, for all Iraqi’s they are worse off. Regime change has not brought an improvement nor is it likely to in the foreseeable future.

The latest dumb idea from the U.S. is to take 40,000 Iraqi soldiers and have then set up between 1,000 and 2,000 inner city checkpoints inside Baghdad. An outer ring will be set up by U.S. forces and thus trap the citizens of Baghdad inside the outer ring and force them through an inner set of transit zones. We know where this will end up just as it has in other nations whenever it has been tried.

Soldiers will use the checkpoints to shake down the populace and seize the goods and valuables that citizens have. It also leads to neighborhood sweeps where soldiers break into the homes of residents and loot households and rape the women inside. An already rampant black market will be further fueled and will grow in importance using the seized goods and valuables as assets. Protection rackets for the black market dealers will spring up and lawlessness will increase and not diminish as the dealers raid one another. The police will become the criminal element. Who will police the police?

The military theory is that might makes right but it doesn’t. Might makes for crime followed by rebellion against injustice served. The government and its forces automatically become the enemy and not the friends of the citizens of Iraq.

There can be no peace in Iraq until the hearts and minds of the people are won over and they become determined to form a government on their own. That act requires that third parties get out of their way and not harass them or demand that things be done their western way. That is hardly the intent of the Bush Administration.

Normally the UN acts as a buffer in these situations, separating the combatants, establishing a working society and restoring order and control. The UN can’t act here because the U.S. will not let them. We are in Iraq illegally where the UN is concerned. We are the problem as far as the UN is concerned. The people of Iraq agree with the UN. The mere presence of the U.S. is causing violence and increasing the carnage. The result has been tens of thousands of Iraqi’s urging the U.S. to leave Iraq.

As stories abound of abuse, torture, and civilian mishandling of the people and insults to their religion and culture we see America as ham handed dictators using a puppet government to make the lives of the Iraqi people miserable beyond all levels of conscience and morality.

Now it is time for the USA to withdraw to border patrol duty and to give the government of Iraq an opportunity to run the nation. The job of the U.S. is to police the borders and prevent munitions and foreign troops from entering Iraq. The job of the Iraqi people is to clean out the nest of vipers among them and to throw them out of the country. The Iraqi people must determine the religious component of Iraqi government. They must work out the compromises that allow them to exist in peace and harmony.

The U.S. must stop looting the resources of Iraq and return to the government what belongs to them. The U.S. Congress must demand this in the name of the American people. Any sort of review of Iraq will quickly convince the panel that the U.S. is losing the War in Iraq.

The UN must be invited back to act as a friend of the people and to help with nation building even as the U.S. does its border duty and plans a withdrawal from Iraq.