[lit-ideas] Re: Iraq: civil war, or something else ?
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 14:52:46 -0400
Okay, I read it. What jumped out at me is the quote, "With the
infrastructures of Iraq absent, what once held up a sense of civic society
is now being replaced with [sic] of a sectarian nature." How I'm
interpreting that is that the writer is in denial that the society could
have so easily fallen apart without Saddam to hold it artificially
together. Therefore, it has to be a conspiracy by the U.S. to induce civil
war, because certainly the Iraqis wouldn't do it. Well, in fact the U.S.
did *not* destroy the infrastructure. The U.S. kept futilely rebuilding
the infrastructure and the insurgents kept destroying it. It was the
insurgents, composed initially of Iraqis, that destroyed the
infrastructure. In addition, it's possible, even probable, that al Qaeda
waited in the wings to immediately begin stirring up trouble. But again,
that?s hardly a conspiracy by the U.S.
Regarding whether there would have been a civil war without an American
presence, I think it's well established that the U.S. presence was in fact
a major source of conflict, but only because the insurgents got the upper
hand, and also because they were seen as occupiers. The U.S. painted
themselves into a corner. They couldn't stay and they couldn't leave and
things spiraled more and more out of control. To suggest that the
Bushites, for all their incompetence, wanted civil war, when civil war is
the *last* thing that would ensure control over oil or over the Middle
East, is, in my opinion, an effort to exonerate the Iraqis from facing the
fact that their society fell apart as soon as the glue of the dictatorship
was removed.
> [Original Message]
> From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 4/1/2006 11:29:45 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Iraq: civil war, or something else ?
>
> You could read the article if you wish to comment on
> it. Of course, the US didn't just want to destroy
> Iraq, but also to keep control over its oil and place
> military bases there. If it just went out and left
> Iraqis to an all-out civil war, that wouldn't have
> been accomplished. Also, the article rises doubts as
> to whether the civil war would have happened without
> the continued US presence.
>
> O.K.
>
> --- Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > I wonder though, if that was the original idea, why
> > struggle with an
> > insurgency? Why go through the gyrations of "peace
> > with honor" (Johnson's
> > mess in Vietnam)? Why not just say, well, they
> > voted with their feet, let
> > them break up and do what they want. The pieces of
> > this premise aren't
> > fitting in place. I admit I didn't read the
> > article, but if the intent is
> > to sink the ship, then sink it. Why shoot one's
> > self in the foot and then
> > sink it?
> >
> >
> >
> > > [Original Message]
> > > From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
> > > To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > Date: 4/1/2006 8:00:08 AM
> > > Subject: [lit-ideas] Iraq: civil war, or something
> > else ?
> > >
> > > The inability to talk about Iraq in an appropriate
> > > context has been one of the greatest setbacks to
> > the
> > > anti-war movement here in the United States of
> > > America, and to describe Iraq solely in terms of
> > being
> > > in civil war contributes to this problem. Iraq is
> > > under occupation and the current rivalry between
> > what
> > > are indeed Iraqi factions has to be interpreted
> > within
> > > this context. The possibility of civil war in Iraq
> > is
> > > not the result of mismanagement on the part of the
> > > Bush administration or some inherent hostility in
> > > Iraqi society; civil war, rather, is and has
> > always
> > > been the favored alternative should the United
> > States
> > > fail to dominate Iraq politically. The pirates of
> > both
> > > the Right and Left side of the establishment
> > agreed
> > > before hand that if they could not steer the ship
> > they
> > > would sink it.
> > >
> > > http://www.counterpunch.org/laith03312006.html
> > >
> > > __________________________________________________
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