2008 Woodie Awards
Iraq war illusions circulate, confuse
By: Amro Jayousi
Issue date: 8/27/08 Section: Opinion
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These years have produced a large opposition of the war, but this opposition is influenced by the effects and results, rather than on the principle of going to war in the first place.
Many opponents of the war in Iraq make their case using statements such as "we should withdraw because we're losing many troops," or because "we already got Saddam" or because "we're losing the war." Such opposition implies there would be no problem with the war if the outcome were different, if we didn't lose troops or if Saddam was still alive.
This line of logic neglects the hundreds - sometimes thousands - of Iraqi civilian and militant deaths every month, and handles the issue as if the United States had a right to be there in the first place.
The war in Iraq started more than a decade before 2003, when Saddam Hussein made the first mistake that mattered: the invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990.
Ever since, his country has witnessed a policy of economic strangulation by the international community, led by the United States, using severe sanctions that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq.
In fact, Saddam's worst war crimes did not occur after 1990. They happened well before, during the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988, when he was "[our] favored friend, trading partner, and ally," in the words of Noam Chomsky in "Middle East Illusions." Back then, Saddam was not as denounced as in recent years, because as long as he didn't run against the United States' interests, his crimes were considered fine.
As soon as he stepped out of line by invading Kuwait, these crimes mattered and became some of the guiding justifications for the war in Iraq.
Only after 2003 did this economic genocide turn into an economic and continuous militaristic one. Awareness among the American public started to rise and they noticed the direct effects of the war such as spending big money and losing troops. Only then did the war in Iraq become an act we should oppose.
Such opposition is fundamentally indecent because it is based upon the harm this war inflicts on us, and not based upon whether the victims deserved it.
To avoid finding ourselves standing on Iran's doorsteps, suspension of this way of thinking is urgently needed. The opposition to the war in Iraq should be that it is illegitimate for the United States to be there in the first place.
We should judge the war on moral grounds, not on results. Loss of our dear troops should not be the principle for opposition to the war, but the motivation to stop it.
We must not run with statements such as "it's self-defense" or we should "avoid a mushroom cloud," because those are illusions and covers for maintaining hegemony by subjugating innocent people and exploiting their resources. They are illusions made to instill fear in our population, which transforms us into misguided proponents of the worst of evils, tricked by dreaming we're nothing but preservers of survival, democracy and freedom.
Amro Jayousi can be reached at
ajayousi@theorion.com
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Hoop
posted 9/07/08 @ 10:32 AM PST
Yep. Glad to see the Orion isn't afraid to print the truth, even if it hurts or offends. Good job Amro.
Shane
posted 9/07/08 @ 2:01 PM PST
I guess countless U.N. violations and the torture and slaughter of millions of truley innocent victims, along with Saddam's determination to obtain WMD's would never have justified an intervention to the left. (Continued…)
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