Whining about winning in Iraq

By Saul Landau 

On infrequent news reports from Iraq I occasionally recognize a place I filmed. In late September 2002, I saw Baghdad, Kerbalah, Najaf, Hamidayah and other Iraqi cities…

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By
Saul Landau                                                                       Read Spanish Version

On
infrequent news reports from Iraq I occasionally recognize a place I
filmed. In late September 2002, I saw Baghdad, Kerbalah, Najaf,
Hamidayah and other Iraqi cities through the camera lens. Saddam
Hussein had just announced he would allow UN weapons inspectors to
return to Iraq. U.S. politicians and pundits ignored the implications
of his action. But in Baghdad, visiting foreigners breathed sighs of
relief. If Saddam had weapons, they concluded, the best forensic
experts in the world with sophisticated technology would find them.
Saddam knew this, so it meant he didn’t have WMD. As soon as the
inspectors concluded their search and failed to find the alleged
stash, Bush would have lost his reason to go to war.

Under
Saddam, the ruling Baath Party made sure that fellow Sunnis held key
government
positions.
But they retained space for Shiites, Kurds, Turkomen and even
Christians like Deputy Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. Saddam enforced
this uneasy arrangement with brutal repression, but even after
starting foolish and costly wars (Iran and Kuwait), he still had oil
revenues trickling in, enough to give many Iraqis access to water,
sewage, schools and hospitals. Iraqis suffered hardships of 12 years
of crippling sanctions imposed by the U.S. and UK
as
punishment for Saddam’s Kuwait invasion.

During
that week of filming, no Iraqi introduced him or herself as Shia or
Sunni, despite antipathy to Saddam — which they expressed off
camera. Several pleaded: “Please don’t come here. Saddam is old
and will die soon. His sons are too stupid to govern.”

Meanwhile,
Hans Blix and his [UN]
inspectors
began their search. After several months of finding nothing, Bush
grew impatient and told them to leave, invaded Iraq in March and in
May 2003 declared victory: “Mission Accomplished.”

Five
years later, Republican candidates shout triumphantly: “We’re
winning the war in Iraq,” a war Bush had declared won. Do they mean
fewer U.S. troops now get killed and wounded? That’s it! McCain
walked the Baghdad streets (one block with massive military
protection) and got a gestalt experience: “Thanks to Gen. David
Petraeus and these brave young Americans, we are winning in Iraq and
we will come home with honor,” said John McCain.

Such
campaign rhetoric — reported on Fox Noise as News — collides
painfully with reality. No one questions the relevance of honor in
the context of killing, torturing and humiliating a people. What does
“honor” mean after subjecting Iraq to five plus years of
occupation? No one invited us, by the way! The media and the leading
Democrats do not confront McCain when he twists facts and history.
They also aided and abetted Bush in his lies and war-making by
continuing to fund it; then, they regretted their past behavior and
continued to fund the war. Well, no one’s perfect!

“It’s
just campaign rhetoric,” retort the cynics who supposedly belong to
the Fourth Estate. “No one really pays attention.” If not, then
why say it? Obama at least chastised McCain in the debates for
supporting the push to go to war in the first place. But
Biden also … well, let’s not bring up unpleasant memories
(votes).

Sarah
Palin, who can’t make two coherent sentences on key issues, whined
her “winning” lines and then shamelessly displayed her son,
Track, about to deploy to Iraq. “John McCain refused to break faith
with the troops who have now brought victory within sight,” she
squealed, “as mother of one of those troops.”

Obama
refuses “to acknowledge we are winning in Iraq,” Palin bleats.
“He called it spin. Is General Petraeus spinning the American
people? I don’t think so. I don’t think so.” McCain pied in:
“We’re not gonna let them get defeated. We’re not gonna have
them surrender. And they’re gonna win. And by golly, they are
winning, my friends. They are winning. They are winning.” (MSNBC,
6/13/08)

Winning!
I hope Obama uses a few minutes of his remaining campaign time to
expose the absurd use of language his opponents have chosen to
describe what war has inflicted on Iraq and its people! Iraqis bleed.
U.S. troops occupy their country for no legal or moral reason.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died or gotten wounded in vain.
They have watched their infrastructure get destroyed and their
professionals flee the country — or get murdered.
Millions
had homes destroyed; hundreds of thousands were subjected to
arbitrary imprisonment; 4 plus million have fled, some to internal
refugee camps, 2.2 million to other countries.

McCain
and Palin have elevated the word “surge” to the level of
religious faith. No need to explain! In fact, the reduction of
violence in Iraq against U.S. troops has resulted from paying former
enemies to stop fighting U.S. forces and from encouraging — by not
stopping — ethnic cleansing in the country.

Violence
remains a daily occurrence, but U.S. troops are less the victims of
it. Iraqis now bear nearly the full brunt of tactics like
kidnappings, a very common occurrence.

On
October 12, Pamela Hess (AP) reported “a startling statistic”
from U.S. intelligence: “a 500 percent increase in foreigners taken
hostage around the world as militants adopt the methods of the most
violent figures in the Iraq insurgency.” In 2004, “342 foreign
and U.S. hostages were taken by terrorist and insurgent
organizations. By 2006, that number had grown to 501. By 2007, it had
jumped to more than 1,500, and it is on track to rise even higher
this year, according to Thomas Brown, director of the office that
analyzes information about prisoners of war and those missing in
action.” This figure does not include the total kidnappings
of a
country’s own residents by terrorist or insurgent groups — a much
more frequent and long-standing practice. U.S. military hostages —
not included in the magical shield of “surge” — are almost
guaranteed execution.

Ask
the residents of Mosul about the magical surge. Over the last weeks,
thousands of Christians have fled this predominantly Sunni city, 225
miles north of Baghdad. These “almost winners” ran from Islamic
extremists who declared holy war on this ancient Christian community.

Iraqi
police rushed to Mosul to try to stop the murders. Some 5,000
Christians fled over the past weeks, according to Iraqi officials.
Mosul’s provincial governor Duraid Kashmula, called the violence
“the fiercest campaign against the Christians since 2003.”
(Patrick Cockburn, The
Independent,
October 13)

How
will the Iraqis who fled respond to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s
claim that they can now safely return to their homes? So far, only
20,000 families (120,000 individuals) have returned, according to
Abdul-Khaliq Zanqana, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s
displacement and migration committee. Two million refugees still live
in Iraq; most of the others reside in Syria and Jordan.

In
2006-7, some 3,000 Iraqis died each month from sectarian violence.
This figure has dropped, but not because more U.S. troops arrived.
Rather, ethnic cleansing has meant that either Sunni or Shia dominate
neighborhoods or whole cities. A Sunni trying to reclaim his house in
a Shia neighborhood or vice versa can hardly expect a warm welcome —
except for arson. Baghdad has become lined with concrete blast walls
and checkpoints. This means greater security, but not a better
lifestyle.

U.S.
troops did train Iraqi army and police forces so that they could
develop their politics, which they did. But senior members of Iraq’s
government tend to live in the Green Zone, protected by U.S. troops
and with regular electricity and potable water. Other parts of Iraq
suffer from cholera due to bad water.

Iraqi
leaders still travel in armored convoys and rely on huge concrete
barriers. Murder has replaced political killing. Thanks to the five
years of war, Iraq has become a training ground for professional
assassins.

In
this atmosphere, who is winning? And who is whining about winning?
Prime Minister Maliki, whom the White House selected as Iraq’s
leader, leans toward Iran in his allegiances. He has tacitly
supported Obama’s position of withdrawal within sixteen months. He
also embraced Iranian President Ahmadinejad when he visited Iraq in
March, without the vast display of body guards and military
protection John McCain received.

No
gratitude! For four years, Bush policies backed the pro-Iranian
Shiites and helped them consolidate political power. Once the U.S.
military force has gone, Maliki can order Iraq’s U.S.-trained army
to target the Sunnis — and they can count on Iranian help in doing
so. Maliki’s sectarian Shiites and their allies in Tehran have
emerged from a formerly Sunni-run state to govern, thanks to U.S.
help. McCain and Palin refer to this dreary scenario when they whine
about Obama not accepting “winning.”

How
would they define “losing?” Obama could retort: “Stop whining
about winning and explain how you’ll rebuild Babylon!” I filmed
in that biblical spot in 2002. Six months later, winning U.S. army
members watched looters steal and destroy Iraq’s treasures while
protecting the oil assets — the behavior of “winners”!

Saul
Landau’s film, IRAQ:
VOICES FROM THE STREET,
is on DVD in English and Spanish (roundworldproductions@gmail.com).