|
|
Failure And Betrayal Has America lost its way, if not its soul, in Iraq ? Richard Boegner 05/10/04 "ICH" -- The columnist William Safire recently considered it necessary to remind the Bush administration as well as the Iraqis that "the goal-theirs and ours-remains Iraqi freedom ". Yet, considering the bloody and trying month of April, and the ghastly news emerging daily from Iraqi prisons, is the US still in a position-assuming it ever was-to deliver that freedom ? The wrecking of entire neighborhoods in Falluja, the inhuman treatment of Iraqi prisoners in American and British custody destroyed whatever may have remained of MM Bush and Blair’s credibility in Iraq, in the region, if not everywhere else. If faith and confidence in their motives have vanished, what can we expect to come next but more resistance , repression and war ? Where are the Shiites, the secular Shiites, the decent Sunnis, the former Iraqi exiles now back home in Iraq, where are they indeed and why are they not rushing to the rescue of the beleaguered American president and British prime minister ? Why are they not actively supporting the occupation forces and the nascent, precarious political process meant to grant them sovereignty and now in the care of a UN diplomat, Mr Brahimi ? Why ? America has failed them. America has failed in Iraq. The US invaded Iraq to bestow democracy to its people, we were repeatedly told, especially after it was established by America’s own weapons experts (David Kay among them) that there were no WMDs in the country. It attacked Iraq, we were repeatedly told so that its people would at long last recover their sovereignty and live in a free, democratic society. Yet, there will be no such sovereignty come June 30. Ultimate authority will reside with General Sanchez and the US army of occupation. The US attacked Iraq, we were repeatedly told, in order to redeem its people and restore their dignity by destroying a wicked and cruel regime particularly adept at maiming and murdering its own. The vile treatment meted out to Iraqi prisoners by American and British MPs in Saddam’s very own jails, and, in particular, in Abu Ghraib, the scene of so many beastly crimes committed against the Iraqi people by the former regime, has convinced many that the words of MM Bush and Blair, though noble are but hollow…hollow and deceitful as they conceal torture (the expression was used by the International Committe of the Red Cross) and humiliation, while extolling freedom and democracy… America has failed in the slums of Iraq. In Sadr City alone, a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad re-christened one year ago in the young radical cleric’s father’s honor, there are some 350,000 unemployed, and idle men… For many Iraqis there and elsewhere, the Interim Governing Council (the Iraqi face of the US occupation) has been found wanting, if not useless. " We hear about a lot of money being spent on us, and we’ve seen nothing here ", said Sadr City police chief Colonel Marouf. The inability of the US to restore basic public services has infuriated and alienated many Iraqis. We are repeatedly told that these services have been restored to their pre-war, Saddam-era levels. But these were vastly inadequate to begin with, and Iraqis expected more, much, much more from America, and rightly so : why remove Saddam if you cannot do better than Saddam ? Some Iraqis in Baghdad were not even able to watch Mr Bush’s TV interviews with Arab networks on May 5th, in which he attempted to assuage Arab anger following the despicable conduct of his troops in Abu Ghraib, because of power shortages ! Furthemore, according to Christine Hauser of the NYT, " many Iraqis complain that a year after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government, they do not have security, electricity, water or jobs ". These failures have dissolved much if not all the goodwill the US had earned by overthrowing the despised Saddam regime. America has failed in the streets of Iraqi cities. The lack of security has been particularly galling. As one Iraqi told Ian Fisher of the NYT, " since the collapse of the regime, we feel something has been taken from us . And what’s that ? Security ". What good are promises of freedom, democracy and sovereignty if an Iraqi cannot walk down the street without fear ? If the US is unable to provide security, water, electricity and jobs, why, many are asking, should it be able to provide the rest ? Why should Iraqis believe MM Bush and Blair when they pretend they can, and intend to deliver what they promised ? Many Iraqis, sensing they have been tricked, that real sovereignty is but a dream, and that genuine power will reside in Mr Negroponte’s new $1 billion embassy staffed by over one thousand employees, and in sole control of some $18 billion worth of reconstruction funds ; many Iraqis, grieving over the makeshift graves of women , children and the elderly hastily dug in the field of Falluja’s soccer stadium, and now disgusted by revelations of American crimes in Iraqi jails may yet decide to seize the moment and support if not join the ever-growing resistance to foreign occupation ! That would be an ominous development, one fraught with danger for
MM Bush, Blair, Bremer, and Sanchez… What can be done to regain the trust of the Iraqi people, if that is also still feasible ? Give back to them what is rightfully theirs : their country, their independence, their own future, and then leave, leave as quickly as possible… A country that invades another in the name of freedom and democracy does not besiege its cities and torture prisoners. Would an orderly but speedy withdrawal be sufficient to atone for the crimes perpetrated in Iraq ? MM Bush and Rumsfeld have done a great disservice to America : they have durably sullied its reputation and more importantly, given democracy a bad name, one it neither needed nor deserved. They have only strengthened and further empowered those fanatics who have always claimed that America and the other democracies were ruled by hypocrites and that democracy was only a hoax, a weapon used by the corrupt and morally bankrupt Christians to dominate and humiliate the Muslim world. They have bolstered autocratic regimes everywhere who can now easily dismiss, and with good reason, American criticism of their human rights practices. They have betrayed all those around the world who believed in America and in its capacity and vocation to serve as a model of democracy for all to admire and follow… What a legacy……..What a devastating legacy this self-styled war president will leave behind him… Richard Boegner <richard.boegner@free.fr> Biographical information Born in 1960 in France 1978 : The American School of Paris 1981 : BA in European Cultural Studies, American University of Paris 1987 : " Maitrise " in English, Université de Paris, Sorbonne 1990- American Airlines Paris CDG, supervisor © 2004 Richard Boegner
Join our Daily News Headlines Email Digest
|
|||||
