What Do We Owe the Iraqi People?

Dear Thomas,

For me is speaking about faith, religion and ethnicity in the case of tragic Iraq equal to blasphemy. This language is engraved in four years of warpropagande. Already before the occupation of Iraq American gouvernment officials invited Iraqi mullahs, sheiks, tribes big men to the States. An old colonial strategy.

The Netherlands cherished Javenes, Bataks, Ambonese tribes and they were afraid of Indonesian citizens. Nowadays we read and hear only of Shiítes, Sunnites, Arabs, Turkmens, but never is mentioned Iraqi citizens. Colonial (war)language is not allowed anymore.

After the Teheran Declaration of UNO-human rights (1968) all politicians primarly have to speak of citizens of souvereign nations, with their individual rights and obligations.

I my self was a catholic missionary. During ten years I have worked in Indonesia (1964 - 1974). But since about ten years I better understand what it means modernwestern worldhegemony and colonialism. In the Middle East that old period still reigns with the help of 'moderate vazals, marionets, caretakers'. Secret Services, Army, Dictators, Kings, Princes, Presidents. And with bribery too certain tribes big men, sheiks and some treacherous mullah's.

Probably the best way to solve the nightmare of the Iraqi citizens – MEN, WOMEN, YOUTH and CHILDREN - is, that on the same day all four million refugees start their MARS BACK HOME. I expect that such a manifestation will have a tremendous impact for the whole country. Hopefully leading to a lasting peace.

---------------------------------------------

The mars back home of four million Iraqi citizens !!!!!!

One of the greatest things Mahatma Gandhi has achieved against de British colonial power, was to organize his Satyagra Salt Mars. Millions of Indian people stood up and traveled immens distances to the shore of the Indian Ocean as a protest against their British rulers. That was the beginning of the collapse of the colonial occupation.

How salutary would it be, when in our days all the four million Iraqi refugees decided to go back home. All men, women, youth and children stand up and start their journey back to their own houses, their own cities, their own villages. Two millon people marching from Syria, Jordan, Iran, Saudi Arabia. Also starting to march two million people more from their temporary locations in Iraq.

Wearing T-shirts with the logo BACK HOME. Olive branches in their hands.

Because determined, sure all those people would be a tremendous power, really invinceble. Protesting against all violence, rape, sectarianism, ethnic cleansing, robbery, occupation, looting and marauding. Claiming back their own houses, villages, cities and country. On that day no militias or foreign troops will be able to decide anymore. No foreign diplomat or governement can rule anymore.

With a big smile soldiers too will accept T-shirts with the meaningfull logo BACK HOME; they too will accept olive branches.

The mars back home of four million Iraqi citizens will bring about a conversion of minds towards peacefull thoughts and deeds.

The language of war changes to The language of peace.

Signs of war changes to Signs of peace.

I am aware that to organize such an powerfull event is gigantic. But at first: spread the word as much as possible. To anyone ererywhere.

I hope somebody or a group of persons will take the initiative for

The mars back home of four million Iraqi refugees.

----------------------------------

Niek Albers

Zonstraat 53 bis

3581 MR UTRECHT

Netherlands

n.albers@orange.nl

tel 030 – 254 59 33

lsroqjvug dshnyco cvxopkbqh orcpa emtxh pstao komueflz

lsroqjvug dshnyco cvxopkbqh orcpa emtxh pstao komueflz

Sorry don't do blind hatred of Bush or anyone else.

Hell my cheif worry in all of this is that at some point in time we will find it necessary to engage in the largely amoral destruction of Muslim life and limb as little more than an experiemnt to see how many of them we have to kill to get the rest of them to leave us alone.

What Bush is doing in Iraq srikes me as the last best hope to avoid that sort of carnage.

What I meant to say was....you seem like a well read guy, so why the blind hatred and simplistic view on foreign policy.

Do you not believe in "blowback" from our actions across the globe? Are you an unthinking patriot?

Suprising...perhaps you are a new yorker.

Gary, you neo con nazi - get off these boards....

End the wars, vote Ron Paul!

Anon you're getting desperate now. Typically leftist you wouldn't recognize real logic if it swatted you between the eyes.

Any training ground that kills ninety percent of the terrorists in traing is a good thing. And almost eighty per cent of the victims are other Iraqis. I don't care for that but it is some what better than it being Americans even ones as dim as you and your cohorts.

Anon,

You poor soul you cannot even get past giving yourself a name. Hmmm, "Gore sore loser"???

No problem help is on the way. Fred Thompson will save you from your torment? Or will he?

Concerned the Christian Now Liberated is just a bigoted right wing idealogue! His motto: Talk nonsense and keep repeating it over and over till you are so sick that you finally give up in the hope he just shuts the *%^@ up! And "Goritis"? That's the best his pea-brain can come up with? His brain is sure giving Frank Collins' brain a run for his money. One bad thing about online forums like these: idiots like CCNL and Frank Collins can cut and paste absolute BS and then sit back and feel good about themselves the rest of the day. These people need to get a life...maybe "serve" the country a bit more. On second thought, I dread what that might mean.

Correction ---
Concerned: I meant to say you served 44 years ago, not 1944.

Concerned: Have I served my country? If your postings are an indication of what you might mean by ´served´, though I have no doubt that what you mean by said term is light years from anything that is remotely decent, let alone human or just.

You served in ¨1944¨? That probably means Vietnam (the country that never invaded the US or threatened to, and in which 2 million were killed after US intervention). Vietnam was not enough for you?

Concerned, you are a necrophiliac, neither ´liberated´ nor 'Christian'.

I prefer to serve life and the living.

Gary, how does having an army trapped in Iraq protect anyone in America from terrorist criminals?

The fact is Iraq is just a training ground and recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. And lobster trap for America's military.

Well anon old buddy old pal its nice to see you're as delusional as ever. Anyone that thinks That CNN MSNBC and the rest of the alphabet soup boys don't lean to the left is at best delusional and at worst incapable of making a rational judgement concernng the Issue.

The only choices we have as to fighting Al queada is where and for how long. If we choose to fight them here (and if not over there it will be here) the length will be until hell freezes over. Or Christ returns.

Nice propaganda, Steve-O...

If you had a smidgen of intelligence you would know that there is NOWHERE that radicals would rather have us than in the bloody quagmire of Iraq.

It justifies their radical teachings among moderate Muslims and drains our resources.

Wow...you are a smart one. Keep watching that Fox news.

What liberal media? The one that SOLD the American people this war in the first place?!!!

Get it straight, it is the neo con media...

I am by no means a pacifist nor do i like the idea of war just for the hell of it. But thats exactly what this war is. I mean don't get me wrong, I support the troops but only bc they are over there risking their lives for us. But they shouldn't be. The war over there will never be "over" but we don't have to be apart of it anymore. We have caused so much damage and killed a lot of citizens. Not to mention our own soldiers and what good has it done so far?! We need to just leave and let them settle their own country out, and we need to focus on ours. It has gotten so bad over here but everyone is more concerned on other countries instead of our own!

Father, you don't have the facts, you unfortunately don't see what the soldiers see because you get your news from the LIBERAL media.

Father- the terrorists thank you in advance for surrendering. I'm sure this will make bin Laden's day if we wave the white flag to al qaeda in iraq now.

Father- the terrorists thank you in advance for surrendering. I'm sure this will make bin Laden's day if we wave the white flag to al qaeda in iraq now.

Father- the terrorists thank you in advance for surrendering. I'm sure this will make bin Laden's day if we wave the white flag to al qaeda in iraq now.

GaryD, you zionist propaganda machine, you...

Last time anyone checked it was the Israelis stealing land in the occupied territories from the Pals and treating them like dogs while doing so.

Are you writing from Israel...an IDF soldier on break??

To Jacob Jozevz:
Sir you have too much free time.

They are entitled to at least what was mandated them. Sir. The Palestinians would like to take even that away from them and yet according to all together to me peole that isn't an extreme or warmongering view. Again Prior to 1880, the place was largely uninhabited it was about that time that the Jewish movement to return to their homeland after centurys of Oppression most every where else in the world. It was also about this time that the population began to increase largely because the few Jews with money enough to afford to return needed labor and paid a lot better than anyone else around at the time.

V.O.T.E ((((((( Peace-Love-Rock-n-Roll-n-Rap, Mitt-ROMNEY For Prez. Vote Yes "Fat-Tue" 2008 ))))))))))

GaryD
No one knowledgeable would deny that the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of Palestine were Arab in the 1880's and World War I era. There is Turkish Empire census data available by this time. Figures for earlier times are more speculative. I don't bring this up to claim Israel has no right to exist, but to rebut the claim that Israel is entitled to all the land under dispute, an extreme and warmongering claim that is fairly popular in Israel.

Mr. Reese concludes his article with the proposal that we allow the Iraqi people to vote on whether we stay or go.

This idea is logically flawed for the following reason: If Iraq is indeed a major front on the war on terror and vital to our national security -- as the President has asserted -- it makes no sense to allow Iraqis, many of whom are anti-American islamic fundamentalists, to decide our presence there.

If Iraq is not vital to our national security, as many Americans believe, then whatever we're trying to do there is not worth the $500 billion and 3,500+ lives we've spent, and we should exit immediately.

The idea that we should stay there, spending billions of dollars and sacrificing the lives of young Americans simply because we "owe" something to the Iraqis (which we may or may not be able to deliver) is unprecedented in the history of international relations. Countries do not squander blood and treasure simply to be nice or avoid feeling guilty.

Mr. Reese concludes his article with the proposal that we allow the Iraqi people to vote on whether we stay or go.

This idea is logically flawed for the following reason: If Iraq is indeed a major front on the war on terror and vital to our national security -- as the President has asserted -- it makes no sense to allow Iraqis, many of whom are anti-American islamic fundamentalists, to decide our presence there.

If Iraq is not vital to our national security, as many Americans believe, then whatever we're trying to do there is not worth the $500 billion and 3,500+ lives we've spent, and we should exit immediately.

The idea that we should stay there, spending billions of dollars and sacrificing the lives of young Americans simply because we "owe" something to the Iraqis (which we may or may not be able to deliver) is unprecedented in the history of international relations. Countries do not squander blood and treasure simply to be nice or avoid feeling guilty.

CONCERNED THE CHRISTION might have put some thought into his rant but most of his post is still irrelevant and wrong.

1.Saddam and sons never bothered me. Never attacked me or my country.

2. Iran is contained?!! If they are contained then while the Bush admin blather about the threat posed by them.

3. Libya?! Are you kidding me? Libya hasn't been a threat since Reagan almost killed Khaddafy in 1986.

The rest of his item are ridiculous. OBL is still alive due to Bush bungling and he thinks that is just hunky dory.

1/2 TRILLION DOLLARS and 4,000 dead American and both the US and Iraq are in worse off than if Saddam were still in power.

My biggest regret - voting for Bush in 2000.

California Condor,

Ahh, another "Goritis" sufferer.

And just think Fred Thompson will be our next President.

Morality has no place in strategic thinking, Father. People do evil things all the time to increase their power; the least they can do is be honest with themselves. Entertaining "just war" theories is just an act of denial. Case in point: witness the massive pre-war support for the Iraq war among evangelical Christians. Were they standing up for humanity, or for their corner of humanity?
Speak of peace and doing good or take off your collar. Leave strategy to the strategists, lest you become one who prays for peace and counsels war.

ooooh, good comeback there CC; got right to the meat of the matter, didn't you? I'm devastated by your impeccable logic and masterful grasp of the facts...

/sarcasm

GaryD, there's really no reliable data on the actual population of Palestine during the Ottoman era; my point was that, unlike the Czechs and Slovaks, who have been relatively stable population groups for centuries, Israel/Palestine's population, both Israeli and Arab, has been largely relatively recent immigrants, therefore CC's attempt at drawing an analogy between the two is ill informed and pointless. Like most of his comments...

Regards

A Hermit

Counterpunch to our alleged "Concerned Christian"

1. Iraq is not "a major part of our War on Terror". In fact, unneededconflict there has greatly impeded that "war" by giving Islamists a proving ground for urban guerilla war, training and recruiting cadres; inflaming the Muslim world against us; and removing the tyrant Saddam who was a bulwark against Islamist fanaticism. Bush gave Osama a splendid gift by invading the wrong country.

2. War is bad. Ante Bush the U.S. tried to confine it within the rules of the Geneva Conventions. Now Bush has legitimized torture, naked aggression, and a myriad of abuses. The end can never justify the means. The Iraq "war" can't be compared to previous "just" wars -- it is unjust on its face and the Iraq invasion was illegal based on lies. It can in no way advance the national security of the United States or the interests of our people.

3. Saddam is gone, in a farcical kangaroo court of Shiite executioners that, unlike Nuremburg, failed to credibly establish his criminality, notably his gassing of the Kurds for which the Bush 41 administration furnished intelligence and possibly funding and afterwards covered up its role. Saddam never had WMDs and in 2001 even Rice and Powell said publicly he was contained without threat.

4. Iran has been enormously empowered by the elimination of its chief regional counterweight and Bush's installation in Baghdad of a milita-backed gang of pro-Iranian Shiite Islamists. This will only help Iran more as chaos unfolds and deepens.

5. Libya has become civil, no thanks to Bush's invasion of Iraq. Libya's renunciation of its nuclear program culminated diplomacy begun years before by U.S. realists, including Clinton.

6. North Korea may or may not bel "uncivil but is contained thanks to the both the Clinton and Bush administrations". But if so, why could not the formula used with North Korea, after having been resisted for years by hardline neocons in the Bush Administration, not have been used for Iran and Iraq?

7. Whatever the Patriot Act has to do with Northern Ireland lies mostly hidden in the imagination of a few.

8. The "Jews and Palestinians are being separated by walls" but Israel, its leaders discredited, has never been less secure, with violence-prone Islamists now running southern Lebanon and Gaza, the U.S.-backed Palestinian authorities in disarray, and an embittered, enraged, illegally occupied subject people just waiting for the chance to wreak revenge on the Jews. Bush's hands-off policy toward Palestine and his partisan stance favoring Israel has made things worse. No honest broker, he.

9. Bin Laden has never been brought to justice although he, not Saddam, authored 9/11. Bush abolished the CIA unit charged specifically to catch Bin Laden and his presumed haven in Waziristan now has become a mini-state controlled by Taliban
terrorists eager to spread into shaky, occupied Afghanistan. So does the Bush clan's longstanding financial ties to the Bin Laden family come in here somewhere? Does Bin Laden have things to say that Bush can't afford being said? Or is Bin Laden's continued freedom convenient for Bush to monger as a threat?

10. The CIA says "fanatical Islam" is gathering strength throughout the region and enlisting adherents and econstituting itself in many places. Casualties from global terror have steadily increased, according to the Department of State's tallies. Every free election in the Middle East seems to register Islamist gains.

11. Stock markets and economies around the globe continue to show fine growth and opportunity for the the "have mores", George W. Bush's base. But the rich-poor gap is widening, and unfettered globalization has been raping the world's resources and damaging the global environment at an increasingly unsustainable pace.

So "George and his guys and gals have not only NOT been perfect" -- they have pressed a totalitarian project domestically and a a neoconservatively imperial agenda abroad. Bush's tenure has been an unrelieved series of disasters and blunders relieved only by the comic interludes of bungling incompetence and stumbling malapropisms. Only those few remaining completely outside the reality-based community can maintain their faith in this unfortunate president.

The good Father must be getting his news from the liberal media. Iraq has 40 million people, who are not engaged in a civil war and 8,000 cowardly bomb makers who want one. If there was truly a civil war the casualties would be MUCH higher.

How exactly are stopping car bombings in marketplaces and schoolhouses not justified by Just War Theory?

Poor A Hermit, still suffering from "Goritis". Nice job "googlizing" all you ever wanted to know about the Czech republics. Hmmm, do I smell a bit of Bill Clinton in the room or is he under the desk????? Bill was always tough to pin down.

Anon,

Concerned on the Pentagon payroll? Hardly, but I did serve my country some 44 years ago. Brief stint of two years active duty, four years in the Reserve. Hopefully Anon, you have also served your country in some capacity.

One of our "obligations to the Iraqi people" is to indict and
convict the war criminals who initiated the debacle that has triggered immense suffering and the total ruination of a nation that had already suffered under its previous tyrant and U.S.-imposed sanctions. Clearly, Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq were illegal, as well as violating Christian principles of "just war" and the Powell Doctrine. The Secretary General of the United Nation and the UN's Chief Weapons Inspector and even the King of Saudi Arabia have confirmed the invasion's illegality. Legitimation of torture is a side element in the crimes alleged. There have been perhaps a half-million Iraqi civilian victims of the violence overall, not to mention the refugees, the sundered professional classes, the best people murdered or in flight. We are hated there: polls show 80 percent of Iraqis want us gone, 50 percent want us killed. No conceivable combination of war and diplomacy can fix that soon. The Iraqi parliament has voted to consider repudiating Bush's invasion as early as next fall. The parliament is resisting Bush's push for a new oil law that will turn over 75 percent of Iraq's reserves to Bush's oil mogul partners in the U.S. petrostate. So now the issue is, how to bring the chief criminals to justice. Early action recommendation: IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST lest he bomb Iran and make things even worse. By this one move, we could start the process of redemption of our moral standing in the world that Bush and Cheney have brought so very low.

Moslem governments lie as much as any other governments. Mark TWain's story of his trip is available on line check it out.

GaryD
I think your figures are way, way off. The figures I've seen are about 400,000 Arabs in Palestine in the 1880's (about 95% of the population) when Jewish resettlement started to become significant, and about 600,000 before World War began (about 85% of the population).

Father Reese:

Often I agree with you and I agree with your conclusion here, but for different reasons. For here you begin by writing: "No matter what you think about the justification for initiating the Iraq war (I think it was unjustified), the issue of withdrawing is a separate question."

Is it really an absolutely separate question? If someone commits a crime, and has not even acknowldeged it, how can he or she be considered acceptable as his or her victim's rescuer?

Consider that for many Iraquis, the US are assasins and with abundant justification.

It's not only that the US is uneffective rescuer, but that it's morally unqualified. Indeed, the US is a mayor part of that from which Iraq needs to be rescued.

And there would be no walls if the Palestinians could be trusted to quit trying to steal from the Israelis what the Israelis had built between Mark Twains trip through a 'Holy' land which at that time contained probably less than 20k people. Most of the Immigration after about 1920 came from Arab lands seeking Jobs with the Israelis who had transformed a place that was according to Mark Twain a wasteland into a thriving commercial center.

In thanks for these numerous opportunites for his people the Mufti of Jerusalem sought help from the Nazis in how best to eliminate their benefactors.

And lets not forget that a few Jews had remained in the area for centuries and that Jerusalem was essentially meaningless to Islam until relatively recently.

Concerned is perhaps on the pentagon payroll?

"The Czechoslovakia Republic was divided into two separate sovereign countries/republics, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. Borders/"walls" now separate them."

You do understand that's not "two Czech republics" don't you? One is Slovak, and I think you would be well advised not to tell a Slovak he's really just another Czech...

And most borders bear no resemblance whatsoever to the barrier being built in the West Bank. The Berlin Wall, maybe...

The Czech/Slovak split, by the way, was mutual and peaceful; an agreement between two independent and long established entities which had existed as co-equals states or provinces for centuries and an independent federation for decades, unlike the Palestinian Israeli situation involving a territory which had been occupied by one empire after another, arbitrarily divided by external actors, and subject to a massive wave of immigration, particularly after WWII.

You also remark that you hope that "the walls will follow the 1948 UN accords" but if you were paying attention you would know that the walls don't even come close to the 1967 partition agreement, never th e1948 boundaries! That wall cuts through the property of Palestinian farmers, separates workers from their jobs, children from their schools and family from family.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/israel-palestine/occupindex.htm#maps

It's clear from your ignorance in this one little comment (and I could post lengthy, detailed rebuttals to the rest of your nonsense in that cut and paste throwaway comment of yours) that you simply don't know what you're talking about on this subject. Maybe you should pick another one, or start paying attention to what other people are telling you and maybe learn something.

Look at the facts presented in the video linked below, and you'll see that a decision about Iraq, based on humanitarian reasons, is most unlikely.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6105

This discussion is useless, because the decision of staying there or leaving is made on economic and energy-political reasons.

Christians are scary

What we owe the Iraqi people is a shot at freedom and a government of the Iraqis buy the Iraqi and for the Iraqis. It something they'll have to take possession of themselves. We can't give it to them.

By the way well state Concerned.

A Hermit,

Please note the small "r" I used for the two Czech republics.

If you want capitilization then:

The Czechoslovakia Republic was divided into two separate sovereign countries/republics, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. Borders/"walls" now separate them.

Which means A. Hermit that if you would come up with something original - which almost no leftist here has to date all we are getting is warmed over talking points from Moveon.org and worse places and believe me there are worse places - he'd come up with something new.

"...you seem to have put some real thought into this...."

No, he's posted that same list a dozen times before, and it's been knocked down at least as many times. There's no thought involved on CC's part there, I'm afraid. He hasn't even corrected the demonstrably false idea that there are two Czech republics separated by a wall...

Speed123,

Glad to see you are still around. Still suffering from "Goritis"?

Concerned cut and pasted:

2. "Iran has been contained."

HA!

Great neo con talking points, Concerned.

The REALITY is that region is a living hell thanks to Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle (i.e. the neo bolsheviks) and their plan for "liberation" of the Iraqi peoples.

Looks like Gaza is the newest disaster thanks to our liberation policies and refusal to fund the DEMOCRATICALLY elected government.

I will be rude, Concerned: you are an idiot!

Concerned,
your points one through five(which I will accept for the sake of argument) are about what good results have come so far -- past tense -- from our Iraq action. Points six through eight are about other places and issues besides Iraq. The question is about Iraq and the future. Can we do any further good there?
I'm not trying to be rude: you seem to have put some real thought into this....

Iraq is a major part of our War on Terror. War is not easy and things are done that typically violate human rights and basic morality. Without taking such actions, however, we would all be either saluting the Third Reich, marching in May Day celebrations, or bowing to Mecca five times a day, and have no human rights whatsoever.

As noted previously, the status of our War on Terror:

1. Saddam, his sons and major henchmen have been deleted. Saddam's bravado about WMD was one of his major mistakes.

2. Iran has been contained. (besides fighting the civil war in Bahgdad, that is the main reason we are in Iraq. And yes oil continues to flow from the region.)

3. Libya has become civil.

4. North Korea is still uncivil but is contained thanks to the both the Clinton and Bush administrations.

5. Northern Ireland is finally at peace thanks to the Patriot Act that stopped the financing of the IRA also thanks to finally some pragmatic political leaders.

6. The Jews and Palestinians are being separated by walls (analogous to the two Czech republics). Hopefully the walls will follow the 1948 UN accords.

7. Bin Laden has been cornered under a rock in Western Pakistan since 9/11.

8. Fanatical Islam has basically been contained to the Middle East but a wall between India and Pakistan would be a plus for world peace.

8. And the stock markets and economies around the globe continue to show good growth and opportunity for the common stock holders.

So George and his guys and gals have not been perfect but there are some major accomplishments. Bill Clinton and his crew definitely had their accomplishments but were not "pretty wingie talking thingies" either.

Nothing to add except complete agreement with A.

"the U.S. has a moral responsibility to the Iraqi people, I do not think that this obligation can be effectively fulfilled by the U.S. military."

That's it in a nutshell; excellent post Reverend Reese.