Iraq 2K

Andrew Lodge, Volunteer Staff

In October the U.S. Army reported its 2,000th casualty of the Iraq war. Since the conflict began, 15,000 American men and women have been injured. At the same time, estimates of Iraqi casualties range from 30,000 to well over 100,000 (the latter figure having been measured by the established British journal, the Lancet). It’s difficult to know because, as the U.S. General Tommy Franks tersely pointed out when asked about civilian casualty counts, the U.S. doesn’t “do body counts.”

Two and a half years ago, the Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful country in the world declared that major conflict in Iraq had ended. This was either wishful thinking, stupidity or outright dishonesty. Since the Lancet study was published, a multi-front war has exploded in the region, giving no reprieve to the embattled and brutalized population. Liberation has indeed come at a price.

Baghdad easily tops the list of the most violent cities in the world. As such, most Western journalists do not cover the country except from the Hotel Palestine and the heavily armed and guarded Green Zone. For the U.S. occupation, this is probably one of the few positive consequences of the severe destabilization present in the country. During wartime, no occupying force wants journalists around (unless they are embedded, of course); after all, it was reporters who helped blow the lid off the lies surrounding Vietnam.

As we all know, the original justification for the pounding of Iraq was to get at those pesky Weapons of Mass Destruction. Never mind that there were already inspectors looking for them. The U.S. et al. knew the weapons existed, so it was perfectly justified in carpet bombing the country into submission. Then secretary of state Colin Powell made the case in front of the UN with a few grainy photos of trucks (with super-imposed arrows pointing at the trucks as a visual aid) that were supposedly carrying the weapons. The UN Security Council was unconvinced, apparently, and did not support going into Iraq, despite pleas from the U.S. and Britain, along with a few client states that were drooling over promised aid packages.

Except there weren’t any weapons. The WMD rationale quickly morphed into “regime change.” Under the new paradigm, the world was to be a safer place without Saddam Hussein on the loose. Furthermore, by capturing and trying him, the U.S. would bring justice to the yearning Iraqi people, just as they have done to that endless list of poor countries over the years.

The U.S. eventually got Saddam. They threw him on TV, checked him over for lice and made sure his dentition was intact. Given that the man/monster is a known mass murderer, you’d think he would have been put on trial with some expediency. Not so. But finally, after much anticipation, the Iraqi public and the rest of the world got to hear the charges being brought against him.

Saddam will be tried for the deaths of 143 people who were killed following an assassination attempt on the dictator. He will not be tried for invading Iran in 1980 and causing hundreds of thousands of deaths. He will not be tried for using poison gas on Iranian troops and on rebellious Kurds inside Iraq. He will not be tried for slaughtering tens of thousands of Iraqi Shias in the course of putting down the revolt that followed the first Gulf War (a revolt that the U.S., incidentally, did nothing to support at the time, leaving the Shia uprising vulnerable).

This may seem strange, until one thinks back to the ‘80s. In that wonderful decade, Saddam was our friend against the wave of Islamic revolution spearheaded by the recently reborn Iran. (As for the Kurds, well, no one has really cared about the them until recently when they became of some use. Our friends in Turkey have been busy maiming them for decades and that is, apparently, just fine with us.) Saddam can’t very well be allowed to take the stand and talk about the days when he and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld were buddies.

That Saddam was a brutal man is beyond doubt. Should every brutal person in power in this world be taken out? Maybe. Maybe not. It is somewhat difficult to defend, however, the notion that the plight of the Iraqis (with the possible exception of the Kurds, the prized son of the new “state”) has improved with the departure and subsequent occupation of their country.

It is a very noble thing to bring justice to a world so sorely in need of it. It’s just that there are plenty of dictators out there like Saddam. Worse, like Saddam, plenty of horrible dictators receive or have received Western assistance and support. If we are to be consistent in our approach, we should be blowing the hell out of all those countries to get at these very bad men. Countries like Burma, which consistently has one of the worst human rights records in the world. Countries like the Congo, the Sudan, Colombia and so on. Sadly there’s no shortage of examples.

But there is a lot more oil in Iraq. And that’s what those 2,000 boys and girls have died for. We got fuel to burn and roads to drive.

Andrew Lodge is a third-year medical student.