Moral Values and the American War in Iraq

As with all wars, the question of what to do about the American war in Iraq must involve both considerations of tactical/technical issues AND of values. Well intentioned people, including DUers, can and do disagree on precisely what to do about the Iraq War, for a variety of tactical and technical reasons.

But on the pertinent moral value issues I believe that the vast majority of DUers see the situation very similarly: We have a reverence for human life, including the lives of those who are of different racial or ethnic groups than us; we abhor violence, especially torture; and because of our strong belief in human rights and the inherent dignity of human beings, we believe that our country has no right to impose its will on the citizens of other countries because of our imperial ambitions or the profit motives of our corporations.

Before going further, I will make some concessions to those who believe that we should stay in Iraq until “victory” or some other elusive goal is achieved: I agree with the assertion that the fact that the United States invaded Iraq under false pretenses is not by itself sufficient reason for pulling out of Iraq; I acknowledge that we do have a commitment to the Iraqis because of our invasion of their country; and, I acknowledge that violence in Iraq might intensify upon American withdrawal from Iraq. However, at the same time we must beware of those who speak of our “commitment” to Iraq as an excuse for the furtherance of American imperial and corporate ambitions.

The question of how best to get out of Iraq is very complicated. In two recent posts I criticized the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report because of its apparent lack of moral underpinning, and I described and touted George McGovern and William Polk’s plan for getting us out of Iraq. Some DUers criticized the McGovern plan that I touted because they believe that it could or is likely to open the way to increased violence as American troops withdraw from Iraq. That’s fair enough. I am no military expert, and I must admit that a large part of my belief in McGovern’s plan is based on my great respect for him, for his role in getting us out of the Vietnam War, as well as his subsequent leadership in such areas as combating world hunger. Also, unlike the ISG report, McGovern’s discussion of how to get out of Iraq emphasized crucial moral issues.

This post does not deal with any of the tactical or technical issues regarding our role in Iraq or how to get out of Iraq. Rather, it deals with the relevant moral value issues. I do this because I believe that those moral value issues must be addressed as a prelude to any considerations of how we should proceed in Iraq. If they are not, then whatever we do in Iraq is likely to continue to result in a human and moral catastrophe of monumental proportions.


Some thoughts on the current anti-American attitudes and violence in Iraq

A consideration of some of the current difficulties in which we now find ourselves in Iraq provides a necessary background for consideration of the moral choices that we are now faced with.

In addition to the civil war now raging in Iraq, it is necessary to recognize that a considerable amount of the violence there is directed against America troops. That fact is acknowledged as early as page 3 in the ISG report, which notes four sources of violence in Iraq, including the Sunni insurgency, al Qaeda, Shiite militias, and organized criminality. It notes that “most attacks on Americans still come from the Sunni Arab insurgency”. Of Shiite militias, it says: “The Mahdi Army, led by Moqtada al-Sadr, may number as many as 60,000 fighters. It has directly challenged U.S. and Iraqi government forces, and...” And the role of the U.S. presence in Iraq in encouraging violence from al Qaeda and al Qaeda recruitment is well known.

Thus there is a widespread belief that American withdrawal alone could result in a lessening of the violence in Iraq. As noted by Major Brent Lilly, head of a Marine civil affairs team in Iraq, “Nobody wants us here, so why are we here? That’s the big question. If we leave, all the attacks would stop, because we’d be gone.”

It is also clear that the Iraqi people do not want us in their country, as shown by numerous polls of Iraqi citizens, including a World Public Opinion poll taken in September of this year. That poll showed that 78% of Iraqis believe that the U.S. military presence is provoking more conflict than it is preventing, 71% want us out in 6 months (which is McGovern's suggestion), 61% say that if U.S. led forces withdrew within 6 months that would increase security, and most striking of all, 61% (of Iraqis in general, not just the fighters) approve of the attacks on American forces. And as ominous as those poll results are, they are even worse among Shiites and Sunnis, who account for the vast majority of the violence directed against American troops.

The fact that there is so much anti-American feeling among the Iraqi population poses tremendous if not insurmountable obstacles to “winning” a guerilla war, as we should have learned during our involvement in the Vietnam War. But aside from those tactical difficulties, it is crucial that we ask ourselves why there is so much violence directed against American troops in Iraq and so much widespread anti-American opinion that more than 60% of Iraqis approve of the violent attacks against us.


Reasons for anti-American attitudes and violence

It is crucial to understand the causes of the anti-American feelings and violence in Iraq because we must understand and acknowledge them before we can redress them. And we must redress those causes, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because as long as the current degree of anti-Americanism remains (and getting out would be one way to lessen anti-American feeling in Iraq), it is highly unlikely that the current ugly situation will improve.

The most obvious reason for anti-American feeling among Iraqis is that we invaded their country under false pretenses. That is one cause of anti-American feeling that we cannot reverse, though it would help to apologize for it when a new U.S. President assumes office in 2009. But that alone does not come close to explaining the breadth or intensity of anti-American opinion today in Iraq. There are numerous other reasons as well:

Botching of promised U.S. help to reconstruct their country
As explained by Anthony Shadid, the only journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of the Iraq War, in his book “Night Draws near – Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War”, many Iraqis were initially so glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein that they welcomed the American invasion at first, with varying degrees of ambivalence. However, as subsequent chaos ensued and months passed with little or no electricity, clean water supplies, health care or basic security, and as Iraqi deaths accumulated into the tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands, Iraqis increasingly came to disbelieve American claims that the invasion was conducted for their benefit. For example, three and a half years after the invasion of Iraq, residents of Baghdad were receiving an average of only 2.4 hours per day of electricity. And a World Public Opinion Poll taken in January 2006 showed very low approval by Iraqis of American services provided in all areas, including: economic development – 29%; helping build Iraqi government institutions – 23%; infrastructure – 20%; helping to mediate between ethnic groups – 17%; and, helping Iraqis organize their communities – 25%.

As Shadid notes in his book, many Iraqis could not understand why a country as wealthy and powerful as the United States could not restore basic services to them following the initial invasion of their country. Probably Executive Order 13303, “Protecting the Development Fund for Iraq”, has something to do with that. Signed by George Bush shortly after the Iraq invasion, that order calls for the transfer of billions of dollars from the United Nations Oil for Food Program into the “Development Fund”, much of which has found its way into the hands of Halliburton, operating under no-bid contracts to supply reconstruction services for Iraq. But instead of going into reconstruction, billions of dollars have gone unaccounted for, and Bush’s executive order prohibits lawsuits that could potentially retrieve the missing funds.

U.S. oil interests
It did not help in alleviating concerns about U.S. motives that shortly after our invasion of Iraq we rushed to protect oil supplies while allowing the rest of the country to descend into chaos. The ISG report recommends that George Bush reassure the Iraqis on that score by issuing a public statement that “rejects the notion that the United States seeks to control Iraq’s oil”. But at the same time the report is full of oil related recommendations, with no explanations on how they would be expected to help Iraqis, and nothing said about collaborating with the Iraqis or seeking their views on those issues. With regard to the ISG recommendation concerning oil, Antonia Juhasz points out in the Los Angeles Times that the ISG report implicitly recommends that “the U.S. government should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil interests and those of its corporations are met”. In stark contrast to that, the McGovern plan recommends that we allow the Iraqis to void all oil contracts made during the occupation, so that they can be renegotiated on fair terms or opened to fair bidding.

Permanent U.S. bases in Iraq
As a good indication that George Bush intends the U.S. occupation to be permanent, regardless of the outcome of the current war, 14 permanent military bases are under construction there. McGovern notes in his book that five of them are already massive, “amounting to virtual cities”. Nor does this fool the Iraqis, 77% of whom believe that the U.S. intends to have permanent military bases in Iraq, and 78% of whom believe that the U.S. would not withdraw its forces even if asked to do so by the Iraqi government.

As with the perception of U.S. oil interests, the ISG recommends that this should be dealt with simply by having George Bush publicly “reject the notion that the United States seeks permanent military bases within Iraq.” McGovern, on the other hand, recommends that further construction on the permanent military bases cease and that they be closed as American forces withdraw.

Torture of Iraqis
The approval of torture by the Bush administration and its widespread use in Iraq and elsewhere, much of it on victims who were arrested by mistake, are well known. Not only is this immoral, against international law, and destroying the international reputation of our country, but it must be contributing to the toxic anti-American attitudes and consequent violence in Iraq. And that conclusion is consistent with statistics that show 540 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq in the year beginning April 2003, compared to 929 during the year beginning April 2004, concurrent with and following the revelations of the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib under the auspices of the U.S. government, and approximately concurrent with the rather abrupt rise in the percentage of Iraqis who feel less safe with Coalition forces present than absent.

Excessive American violence against Iraqis
Fighting a guerilla insurgency, especially when large segments of the civilian population are against you, is an extremely difficult task, which often tempts the counter-insurgency forces to take massively violent measures against civilian populations. The U.S. military in Iraq has proved to be no exception to that.

For example, it could be said that the anti-American insurgency in Iraq began in April of 2003, when the U.S. military fired into a crowd of protesters in Fallujah, killing 13 Iraqi civilians. The intermittent and continuing violence in that densely populated city eventually led in November 2004 to a massive American bombing and military attack that resulted in the destruction of 10,000 building, the permanent displacement of 100,000 Iraqis, and the use of white phosphorous leading to the deaths and permanent mutilation of untold numbers of Iraqi civilians. According to independent journalist Dahr Jamail:


All told, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, mostly civilians, may have died as a result of the American war in Iraq. Not only is no great care taken to avoid civilian deaths, but sometimes, as in Haditha earlier this year, the killing of civilians is intentional.


Conclusion – The need to bring moral values to the table when considering what to do about the American war in Iraq

George Bush has often said that we did not go to war against the Iraqi people, but rather (after the weapons of mass destruction rationale fell through the floor) we went to war to remove an evil dictator. After the evil dictator was removed, Bush’s line was that we stayed in Iraq to bring democracy to the Iraqi people. And now, his justification for staying in Iraq (in addition to fighting terrorists) is to honor our “commitment” to Iraq.

But when one considers all of the above noted events and circumstances – the unfulfilled promises to reconstruct the Iraqi infrastructure that we destroyed, the widespread torture of Iraqis under the auspices of the American military, the deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, the looting of the country by American corporations operating under no-bid contracts, and the apparently permanent American military bases that provide evidence of our intention to stay in Iraq indefinitely regardless of the outcome of the current war – it should be evident that our war in Iraq IS against the Iraqi people. And that is how it is seen by most Iraqis.

So, when the Bush administration or others speak of our “commitment” to Iraq as a means of justifying continued American military presence in Iraq, and yet they fail to talk about how to redress and make amends for the multitude of damage that we have caused the Iraqi people, or even mention that subject, that is worse than hypocritical. What those people are essentially suggesting is that, in order to fulfill our “commitment” to Iraq we should indefinitely continue on essentially the same course that has caused so much human catastrophe.

I believe, as George McGovern does, that due to the intense anti-American feeling that fuels so much of the violence in Iraq, continued American military presence there is likely to do far more harm than good for the Iraqi (and American) people. But whether one believes that, or whether one believes that an American military presence in Iraq is required for an unspecified amount of time in order to achieve stability there, when we talk about “commitment”, we must talk about it in terms of concrete human meaning, recognizing the damage we have caused the Iraqi people and how to redress that damage (as the McGovern/Polk plan does), rather than in the purely abstract terms that are usually meant only to justify the furtherance of American imperial and corporate ambitions. Failure to do so is likely to lead only to an indefinite continuance of the current catastrophe in Iraq.