Iraq
An examination of freedom and democracy vs. pacifist tenets.
This page is a response to various comments I've seen from pacifists concerning the subject of warfare, specifically the Iraq War (Operation Iraqi Freedom), and the regime of Saddam Hussein. There will also be references to George Orwell's writings, the Nazi's, Imperial Japan, and Communism.
Just like everyone else, pacifists are entitled to their opinions. What I've noticed though, is that pacifist beliefs are generally narrow in focus, and ignore those who are oppressed and suffering.
A world without war would be wonderful. The question is though, how to obtain it? We see statements proclaiming "War Is Not The Answer." If not, then what is it? Another frequent comment is, "There has to be another way!" Again, what is it?
And while we ponder what to do, despots, dictators, and terrorists are warring on their own peoples.
What's interesting is that projected humanitarian aura of concern for human life. One would think there would be a "call-to-arms" when and wherever humans were being murdered. However, if you look at the reality, pacifists did nothing all those years when Hussein waged genocide in Iraq, or made war on his neighbors. There were no protests, no demonstrations against the horror, the loss of life.
It seems that the only time pacifists are motivated to protest about the loss of human life, is if it's politically motivated and directed against nations that are doing something to end the killing of "innocents." This often is accompanied by accusations that the "truth" is that the motive of these nations, namely the United States, is some type of sinister plot, some conspiracy, usually headed by the CIA, that is being withheld: covered up, by the media, who if not directly controlled by the government, is closely aligned.
Of course, I use "innocents" because it is a favorite term pacifists use to express their disdain. But that raises the question, where was this disdain when it was really needed? We wouldn't expect them to protest in Iraq itself, for that would invite certain death, but there are Iraqi embassies all over the world where mass demonstrations could have been held. But they weren't.
Though only speculation, it strikes me that had their been anti-torture, murder, and genocide protests against Hussein, the need for war might have been averted.
Just like everyone else, pacifists are entitled to their opinions. What I've noticed though, is that pacifist beliefs are generally narrow in focus, and ignore those who are oppressed and suffering.
A world without war would be wonderful. The question is though, how to obtain it? We see statements proclaiming "War Is Not The Answer." If not, then what is it? Another frequent comment is, "There has to be another way!" Again, what is it?
And while we ponder what to do, despots, dictators, and terrorists are warring on their own peoples.
What's interesting is that projected humanitarian aura of concern for human life. One would think there would be a "call-to-arms" when and wherever humans were being murdered. However, if you look at the reality, pacifists did nothing all those years when Hussein waged genocide in Iraq, or made war on his neighbors. There were no protests, no demonstrations against the horror, the loss of life.
It seems that the only time pacifists are motivated to protest about the loss of human life, is if it's politically motivated and directed against nations that are doing something to end the killing of "innocents." This often is accompanied by accusations that the "truth" is that the motive of these nations, namely the United States, is some type of sinister plot, some conspiracy, usually headed by the CIA, that is being withheld: covered up, by the media, who if not directly controlled by the government, is closely aligned.
Of course, I use "innocents" because it is a favorite term pacifists use to express their disdain. But that raises the question, where was this disdain when it was really needed? We wouldn't expect them to protest in Iraq itself, for that would invite certain death, but there are Iraqi embassies all over the world where mass demonstrations could have been held. But they weren't.
Though only speculation, it strikes me that had their been anti-torture, murder, and genocide protests against Hussein, the need for war might have been averted.
Iraq War
I have no problem with those who oppose war. What I find questionable though, are those whose pacifism only manifests itself when it serves a political purpose, and otherwise remain silent. Practically 100% of the time, these are biased with a profound omission of fact.
What follows is my response to a Facebook post that cites a causality figure, a representation of “innocents” killed by the invasion of Iraq following the 9/11 Terrorist attacks.
<><><><><><>
1,455,590 innocent causalities?
The biggest offense with this statement is that it deliberately ignores the suffering and deaths of millions of innocents at the hands of Saddam Hussein. The reason these innocents don’t count, is that they are politically inconvenient to the sanctimonious “Let’s Prove How Superior We Are By Hating America” message that so many intellectual types like to practice.
What is it about human nature that makes people assume that the claims of a pop band, “Self Provoked The Mc”, defines the reality of a situation? Taking time to investigate accuracy, and ascertain the full scope of a situation seems to be of little concern.
As jazz musicians, we know these type of “artists get by on a minimum of talent, and that the adulation they receive is based on a lack of understanding.
Why should their political awareness and its acceptance be any different?
In war, there can never be an exact count of causalities, which is why there are a number of estimates. According to Wikipedia, the highest, 1,033,000, is reported by the Opinion Research Business survey. The next lowest, 654,965, is from the scientific medical journal, Lancet.
The other five sources range from 151,000 to 109,032, the figure reported by WikiLeaks. Of that number, WikiLeaks reports that 66,081 were civilian deaths.
While that original 1,455,590 figure could be considered reasonably accurate, the entire presentation is still a form of propaganda, known as a Half-Truth. In order to fool its readers and achieve the desired emotional state of indignation, key facts have been ignored and omitted. Things like:
1) A nation of 26,000,000 was liberated from a brutal dictator. Most applaud when people are freed from oppression. Does anyone feel that Iraqis should have been denied this liberation?
2) After the invasion, the excavation of Saddam’s mass graves began. Several months later, as reported by NPR, Human Rights Watch, and others, over 400,000 bodies had been exhumed, and not even half of the known graves had been worked on.
“Dr. Rafit al Husseini is overseeing the volunteers -- neighbors and friends from his village -- who have come to exhume the remains. He is also looking for what remains of his relatives.” - NPR
Who would want Saddam to still be in power, and still filling mass graves.
3) The PBS program Frontline had an episode, Gunning For Saddam (1999) that I’ve seen twice. Part of it involves Saddam’s intent to develop nuclear weapons. There are interviews with high-ranking defectors, and video footage taken (before they were kicked out) by UN Inspectors of documents and the machinery intended for this purpose.
In the First Gulf War, we witnessed Scud missiles being fired into neutral Israel. Now imagine if there were atomic warheads.
4) In one of his ethnic purges, Saddam drained the salt marshes of South Eastern Iraq, which was considered to be a major environmental disaster (It was this purge for which Saddam was executed).
“In the early 1990s Saddam Hussein ordered the construction of massive diversion canals and dams that drained more than 90 percent of the original marshlands. His motive was to retaliate against the Marsh Arabs for a Shiite uprising. After siphoning away the water, Hussein ordered the land poisoned and burned, leaving the wetlands a cracked, dusty salt pan … Today the wetlands are in recovery. The Goldman Prize says that about half the historical area is now reflooded. Water levels fluctuate due to seasonal changes, drought and upstream water diversions but fish, birds, animals and people are returning..” – New York Times, 2013
This recovery would not have happened without the US lead invasion.
5) Finally, Saddam used WMD chemical agents like mustard gas, nerve agents, and hydrogen cyanide, not only in his war with Iran, but also against the Kurds of Northern Iraq.
“The attack killed between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injured 7,000 to 10,000 more, most of them civilians. Thousands more died of complications, diseases, and birth defects in the years after the attack. The incident, which has been officially defined as an act of genocide against the Kurdish people in Iraq, was and still remains the largest chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian-populated area in history.” - Wikipedia
WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER
Fair enough. Sane people should not only strive to end war, but also work to eliminate its beginning in the first place. The trouble is, complaining and blame seem to be all that would-be liberators can muster, and then only when it serves a political purpose.
To my knowledge, no simple solution has as of yet been devised. When the US does lend aid or intervene, it is accused of meddling in the affairs of others, by the very same people who demand the end to war.
Comments are welcome. Consider though, that I do research everything I talk about or is presented as contrary evidence, and I don’t suffer bigots lightly.
"Pacifism Is Objectively Pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other.” – George Orwell, Pacifism and War.
“If the counsel of the peaceniks had been followed, Kuwait would today be the nineteenth province of Iraq. Bosnia would be a trampled and cleansed province of Greater Serbia, Kosovo would have been emptied of most of its inhabitants, and the Taliban would still be in power in Afghanistan. Yet nothing seems to disturb the contented air of moral superiority of those that intone the 'peace movement'.” ― Christopher Hitchens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifcx_Epa2gk Thank you, America
I have no problem with those who oppose war. What I find questionable though, are those whose pacifism only manifests itself when it serves a political purpose, and otherwise remain silent. Practically 100% of the time, these are biased with a profound omission of fact.
What follows is my response to a Facebook post that cites a causality figure, a representation of “innocents” killed by the invasion of Iraq following the 9/11 Terrorist attacks.
<><><><><><>
1,455,590 innocent causalities?
The biggest offense with this statement is that it deliberately ignores the suffering and deaths of millions of innocents at the hands of Saddam Hussein. The reason these innocents don’t count, is that they are politically inconvenient to the sanctimonious “Let’s Prove How Superior We Are By Hating America” message that so many intellectual types like to practice.
What is it about human nature that makes people assume that the claims of a pop band, “Self Provoked The Mc”, defines the reality of a situation? Taking time to investigate accuracy, and ascertain the full scope of a situation seems to be of little concern.
As jazz musicians, we know these type of “artists get by on a minimum of talent, and that the adulation they receive is based on a lack of understanding.
Why should their political awareness and its acceptance be any different?
In war, there can never be an exact count of causalities, which is why there are a number of estimates. According to Wikipedia, the highest, 1,033,000, is reported by the Opinion Research Business survey. The next lowest, 654,965, is from the scientific medical journal, Lancet.
The other five sources range from 151,000 to 109,032, the figure reported by WikiLeaks. Of that number, WikiLeaks reports that 66,081 were civilian deaths.
While that original 1,455,590 figure could be considered reasonably accurate, the entire presentation is still a form of propaganda, known as a Half-Truth. In order to fool its readers and achieve the desired emotional state of indignation, key facts have been ignored and omitted. Things like:
1) A nation of 26,000,000 was liberated from a brutal dictator. Most applaud when people are freed from oppression. Does anyone feel that Iraqis should have been denied this liberation?
2) After the invasion, the excavation of Saddam’s mass graves began. Several months later, as reported by NPR, Human Rights Watch, and others, over 400,000 bodies had been exhumed, and not even half of the known graves had been worked on.
“Dr. Rafit al Husseini is overseeing the volunteers -- neighbors and friends from his village -- who have come to exhume the remains. He is also looking for what remains of his relatives.” - NPR
Who would want Saddam to still be in power, and still filling mass graves.
3) The PBS program Frontline had an episode, Gunning For Saddam (1999) that I’ve seen twice. Part of it involves Saddam’s intent to develop nuclear weapons. There are interviews with high-ranking defectors, and video footage taken (before they were kicked out) by UN Inspectors of documents and the machinery intended for this purpose.
In the First Gulf War, we witnessed Scud missiles being fired into neutral Israel. Now imagine if there were atomic warheads.
4) In one of his ethnic purges, Saddam drained the salt marshes of South Eastern Iraq, which was considered to be a major environmental disaster (It was this purge for which Saddam was executed).
“In the early 1990s Saddam Hussein ordered the construction of massive diversion canals and dams that drained more than 90 percent of the original marshlands. His motive was to retaliate against the Marsh Arabs for a Shiite uprising. After siphoning away the water, Hussein ordered the land poisoned and burned, leaving the wetlands a cracked, dusty salt pan … Today the wetlands are in recovery. The Goldman Prize says that about half the historical area is now reflooded. Water levels fluctuate due to seasonal changes, drought and upstream water diversions but fish, birds, animals and people are returning..” – New York Times, 2013
This recovery would not have happened without the US lead invasion.
5) Finally, Saddam used WMD chemical agents like mustard gas, nerve agents, and hydrogen cyanide, not only in his war with Iran, but also against the Kurds of Northern Iraq.
“The attack killed between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injured 7,000 to 10,000 more, most of them civilians. Thousands more died of complications, diseases, and birth defects in the years after the attack. The incident, which has been officially defined as an act of genocide against the Kurdish people in Iraq, was and still remains the largest chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian-populated area in history.” - Wikipedia
WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER
Fair enough. Sane people should not only strive to end war, but also work to eliminate its beginning in the first place. The trouble is, complaining and blame seem to be all that would-be liberators can muster, and then only when it serves a political purpose.
To my knowledge, no simple solution has as of yet been devised. When the US does lend aid or intervene, it is accused of meddling in the affairs of others, by the very same people who demand the end to war.
Comments are welcome. Consider though, that I do research everything I talk about or is presented as contrary evidence, and I don’t suffer bigots lightly.
"Pacifism Is Objectively Pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other.” – George Orwell, Pacifism and War.
“If the counsel of the peaceniks had been followed, Kuwait would today be the nineteenth province of Iraq. Bosnia would be a trampled and cleansed province of Greater Serbia, Kosovo would have been emptied of most of its inhabitants, and the Taliban would still be in power in Afghanistan. Yet nothing seems to disturb the contented air of moral superiority of those that intone the 'peace movement'.” ― Christopher Hitchens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifcx_Epa2gk Thank you, America
It's not a "slam." In a true democracy, people are free to have their opinions. I respect that. I'm sharing information you might not be aware of. Besides it’s a quote from George Orwell, and not mine.
Though a socialist, many of Orwell’s essays condemn leftist politics: the evasion of facts: the “Intellectual Dishonesty.” Considering that he is regarded as one of the greatest political writers, who stressed honesty and accuracy in reporting facts, one might ask “Why was this so?”
“And this differs from your previous question/pacifist slam how?”
The point is that the war against the Nazi’s stopped Hitler’s systematic extermination of Jews and other undesirables, and returned democracy to Western Europe.
As the clip I shared shows, the Kurds of northern Iraq are thankful for the invasion of Iraq. It stopped Saddam Hussein’s genocide, and gave them democracy.
In addition, not only did it end the genocide against the Marsh Arabs of the south, it restored a massive wetland that was decimated on Hussein’s orders., that some believe to be the historical Garden of Eden.
“After siphoning away the water, Hussein ordered the land poisoned and burned, leaving the wetlands a cracked, dusty salt pan.”
“A wildlife conservation organisation, of which Mudhafar is the bird man, and which would not have been allowed under the tight control of Saddam, is holding a Green Festival to celebrate the restoration of one of the world's great wetlands.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22706024
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/world/middleeast/restoring-iraqs-garden-of-eden.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Great. We can then thank Halliburton for liberating Iraq from a brutal dictator. ending his filling of mass graves with innocent men, woman, and children, stopping his genocide against the Kurds and Marsh Arabs, restoring the vast area of wetlands he destroyed, and ending his nuclear ambitions, as was reported in the episode of Frontline "Gunning for Saddam" - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/
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N.D. -
Pacifist. No thanks from me. Halliburton's all about profit, deserves no prize. Ends, even good ones, never justify evil.
"Ends, even good ones, never justify evil." If I read you correctly, you'd still prefer Saddam to be in power, filling mass graves with innocent men, woman, and children.
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N.D.
It's not about what I prefer. It's about methods. Some IMO are immoral, no matter how good the short-term ends. You're anti-pacifism, I see.
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"It's about methods." Then what was your method for stopping Saddam from waging genocide on his people, and waging war on Iran and Kuwait?
There are plenty of nations where demonstrations in front of Iraqi embassies could have been held, but I don’t recall there being a single one.
My feeling is that if people had indeed protested early on, as they had during Operation Iraqi Freedom, there may have been no need for intervention in the first place.
“You're anti-pacifism, I see.”
That depends. If we talk about pacifism that actively and unconditionally works to save human life and eliminate suffering throughout the world, in the manner of Satyagraha, the philosophy Gandhi embraced (Firmness in Truth), then I’m all for it. Martin Luther King, Jr., also used the same method. As you recall, it involves putting oneself in harms way to achieve the goal.
If it’s pacifism that’s politically motivated, ignores ongoing suffering, and instead replaces it with self-indulgent, self-centered, delusional intellectual drivel, then no thanks.
----------------
N.D. -
Pacifist. No thanks from me. Halliburton's all about profit, deserves no prize. Ends, even good ones, never justify evil.
"Ends, even good ones, never justify evil." If I read you correctly, you'd still prefer Saddam to be in power, filling mass graves with innocent men, woman, and children.
-------------------
N.D.
It's not about what I prefer. It's about methods. Some IMO are immoral, no matter how good the short-term ends. You're anti-pacifism, I see.
----------------------
"It's about methods." Then what was your method for stopping Saddam from waging genocide on his people, and waging war on Iran and Kuwait?
There are plenty of nations where demonstrations in front of Iraqi embassies could have been held, but I don’t recall there being a single one.
My feeling is that if people had indeed protested early on, as they had during Operation Iraqi Freedom, there may have been no need for intervention in the first place.
“You're anti-pacifism, I see.”
That depends. If we talk about pacifism that actively and unconditionally works to save human life and eliminate suffering throughout the world, in the manner of Satyagraha, the philosophy Gandhi embraced (Firmness in Truth), then I’m all for it. Martin Luther King, Jr., also used the same method. As you recall, it involves putting oneself in harms way to achieve the goal.
If it’s pacifism that’s politically motivated, ignores ongoing suffering, and instead replaces it with self-indulgent, self-centered, delusional intellectual drivel, then no thanks.