UGLY MEME: blame the Iraqis

I've heard this from Al Franken, Ed Schultz, a lot of Democrats in Congress, and now even some of the Republicans who are abandoning Bush. The thrust of it is, we offered Iraqis the gift of democracy, and they couldn't handle it or get their act together to police themselves and are too cowardly and disorganized to fight the insurgents. Therefore, we must threaten them with leaving or just leave since they are hopeless.

I can see why this "blame Iraqis" meme is popular. Congress doesn't want to admit they agreed with Bush's true venal goal of robbing Iraq, or that they were bullied into approving it, or least likely but most claimed, "fooled." And no one wants to be caught saying something that sounds like they are accusing our troops of going to Iraq to steal oil even though the culprits of that crime are the civilians in suits in Washington. It is also useful to calm the chest-thumping knuckle-draggers who still listen to Rush Limbaugh who only think in terms of their team "winning" or "losing."

It ignores the fact that the "gift" came with strings that were more like steel cables, prodding to vote for things like the coming hydrocarbon law that will screw Iraqis and favor oil companies, and vetoes from Washington whenever the elected Iraqis actually put their people's interest ahead Bush's cronies, up to and including dismissing a prime minister the Iraqis chose for themselves. Likewise, the police and military will be hesitant to do their duties to our satisfaction because they may rightly see some of their orders as looking after American interests not their own. When you look at polls of Iraqis, it is clear that they side with the goal of the insurgents, ending the occupation, so the true measure of Iraqi democracy would be how much they stand up to Bush.

This will likely have no effect on Iraqis themselves who are worried when they will have electricity, clean water, whether it's safe to go to the police station to ask about the father taken in the middle of the night, or whether to give up on looking for their baby in the rubble of the last airstrike.

Neither will it have much effect on the discourse here. Those who oppose the war will sift through the rhetoric to find the bottom line of whether our elected representatives will actually represent us and act to end the war, and the right will interpret it the way they do everything, as an excuse to hate and kill more people.

But there's something profoundly immoral and ugly about doing this to a country then blaming them for it.

It's like a wife-beater who pushed his wife down a flight of stairs is leaving her for being so goddamn clumsy.

for not being the puppethood the administration wanted.

the people they elected to the Iraqi parliament, the heavy hitters of which control the government, are not exactly great statesmen or all on the same page here.

Blaming the Iraqi public might be a bit much but, blaming the Iraqi government for not getting anything done, isn't so misplaced.

Bush's cronies?

How well would we do putting together a government if everyday was 9/11, foreign troops and mercenaries were wandering around, and a foreign country had arbitrary veto over anything we did?

Bush cronies?

Or in those with a financial interest in robbing Iraq judging how effective the Iraq government is since their standard is how obedient Iraqis are to our business interests rather than how responsive they are to their own people?

It's their lives, not just their money, that's at stake. For the Iraqi government figures I mean.

stray too far from serving cronies, get a Bush bullet. Serve Bush too openly get an Iraqi bullet.

this complete and utter failure. Don't admit that going into Iraq was a huge (not to mention illegal) blunder. Don't admit that destroying the country's infrastructure and murdering hundreds of thousands of its citizens was wrong.

Instead, blame the victim as a preface to walking away - hoping Americans are stupid and gullible enough to buy into it.

The meme that "Iraqis need to stand up and take care of themselves" completely ignores the context of many decades. When the social fabric of any country has been as ripped as Iraq's has, structural violence is going to be the result. Moreover, people predicted exactly this outcome before the military action occured -- lots of folks here. Take a country and give it a coup, a human rights abusive regime, a purging of "communist" elements, sanctions, extra-legal "no fly zones," a horrific decade-long war with a neighbour, the Gulf War and its consequences, plus an invasion and overthrow of previously mentioned "he's our bastard"... what would we expect to happen?

and sold them to the dog food factory.

K/R

I'm glad I'm not the only one that's noticed this.

be against the law-

and so should any social safety net that might save the life of the child once it is born.

The average Iraqi did not ask for this hell to be visited upon them, nor do they have any true control of what is happening.

Imagine living their life??????

We cannot begin to understand what that must be like.


Thank you for this post Yurbud- this is something that needs to be said, repeated and remembered.

road. "We're not going to baby sit a civil war," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told NBC's "Today" Show Thursday." I think this is is totally outrageous. Whatever happened to the notion, as stated by Colin Powell that "if you break it, its yours"? :mad:

I do understand the frustration with this "talking point" and/or political tactic.

Someone (I believe Molly Ivins??) mentioned how it's a frustrating catch 22 because the Iraqis want us to leave, so they "fight" yet the violence encourages our staying.

nt

the recycled ideology of America the exceptional, Manifest Destiny and all the rest of the imperial clatrap.

This from Richard Durbin:

"And we have given the Iraqis so much. We have deposed their dictator. We dug him out of a hole in the ground and forced him to face the courts of his own people. We've given the Iraqi people a chance to draft their own constitution, hold their own free elections and establish their own government.

We Americans, and a few allies, have protected Iraq when no one else would.

Now, in the fourth year of this war, it is time for the Iraqis to stand and defend their own nation."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/10/durbin.transcript/

This is an outrageous thing to keep hearing from the mouths of Democrats.

:toast:

Although I think the war was a bad idea, the damage could have been mitigated if we split immediately--but of course that would defeat the purpose, just as Bush listening to all the advice he got, including from people like Gen. Jay Garner who said if elections were delayed and the oil were privatized, the Iraqis would rise up. Bush fired him and did both.

...we shouldn't blame the American people for letting all this shake out, should we?

There is something to be said for a people who allow a dictator to take power over them. And it's not a very nice thing to say.

It is standing up... against US aggression. the fact that so many US servicemen have been killed and maimed is tragic testimony to that.

(I've just cut and pasted a comment I made on this subject a month or so ago. My views are the same as then, and my typing skills are still pathetic. The discussion that followed is at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=2807356 )

Every time I hear "Democratic" Party representatives repeat this phrase, I loathe them even more for their complicity in the brutal invasion and occupation of Iraq and/or their unwillingness to tell the truth about what has been done to the people of Iraq and The US (and the planet).

Oh, I get the Rovian "brilliance" of the phrasing. It implies that the US invaded in order to give a "helping hand" and that has been now done. And it covers the asses of the Imperialist backers of the PNAC agenda, so the Dems won't risk get trashed by Big Money. And it appeals to the most xenophobic elements of The Masses who regard all foreigners as less than human, as well as those who just want to stop US participation in the butchery. So it sells well.

Yes, it's long past time to get out of a war that was started for the most evil of reasons, but this blaming of the Iraqis for having had their society destroyed disgusts me.

There is the Big Lie, and then there are the little lies that give credence to the Big Lie. Will they ever have the decency to tell the truth, or will they just keep "playing the game" and pretending that the massacre of Iraqis was just "good intentions gone bad."

when you just hanged Saddam Hussein and purged all the Ba'athists...

treay other nations like toddlers? Who asked us to start a war anyway? An Iranian spy named Chalabi?

get their shit together.