Saddam Hussein – Page 2 – Engaging Peace

Here we go again!

Posted on July 1, 2016July 1, 2016 by kathiemm

By Guest Author Paul Shannon

Here we go again! Our leaders have learned nothing from their disastrous war in Iraq. That brutal intervention destroyed Iraq as a country, caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, created a terrorist government in Baghdad, and set off a sectarian war, opening the gates of hell. Through those gates still another extremist group called ISIS has emerged. And then, of course, we decided to change the regime of Libya, opening the door to ISIS and all kinds of extremist groups there.

Over the past 15 years our country has already spent one trillion, five hundred billion dollars for war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the Middle East and South Asia. These military actions have drained our country of the resources needed to create jobs and support a well-functioning society.

And yet, after all this bloodshed and all this treasure wasted, we are now told that the dangers in the Middle East are even greater than before we got into these wars!

A sane and moral person might see by now that war is not the best “solution” to the tragic and complex developments we are now seeing in the region. But our leaders have neither common sense nor morality. War seems to be the only thing they know how to do.

In response to being bombed by the U.S., ISIS has called for and stimulated violence against the West wherever it can. Now these brutal acts are being used by most of the U.S. foreign policy establishment to whip up war fever once again.

In its earlier sweep through Syria and Iraq, ISIS used modern American weapons that we sent into the region during previous military actions. We were promised that these weapons would bring stability; instead, they were and are used by ISIS to conquer large swaths of territory. ISIS’ success has also been possible because of the brutality inflicted on the Iraq people by an Iraq government that we armed to the teeth, but that refused to fight when challenged by ISIS.

A war on ISIS coordinated by the United States will cost billions more dollars and further weaken programs that all Americans need. It may or may not stop ISIS, but what new horrors will emerge in response to still another military incursion by foreign “Crusaders”?

The United States does not have an answer to the turmoil in the Middle East, a turmoil that we helped to create, starting with our military support to Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan to fight “Communism” and “religious fundamentalism” in the 1980s.

We oppose the President’s long term war in Iraq and Syria, an enterprise involving air combat, thousands of special forces and weapons, and training to some very shady groups. We especially oppose all efforts to promote a bigger war against the Syrian regime.

Now is the time for the United States to play a different role, a role designed to promote peaceful solutions over time and support humanitarian aid to war victims through international institutions.

Now is the time to change course, and that change begins with the policy: No War in Iraq and Syria. We promote this policy not because we are blind to the suffering now occurring in the area, but because we know that any real solution must come from the peoples of that region themselves, not from a new U.S. war.

Paul Shannon is a member of the program staff of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in New England and a coordinator of the local Budget for All campaign and the national Peoples Budget Campaign. He is past editor of the Indochina Newsletter and director of the national film library of the AFSC. He has been teaching social science courses at a number of colleges for 39 years, including a course on the history of the Vietnam War. Currently he is working on several efforts to bring social justice, climate change and anti-war efforts together into a convergent movement for social change.

American Sniper, Part II

Posted on January 15, 2015January 14, 2015 by kathiemm

By guest author Ross Caputi. This is the second in a series discussing the implications of the new film, American Sniper.

It is not my intention to accuse Chris Kyle of committing war crimes as an individual, or to attack his character in any way. Some critics have pointed out the many racist and anti-Islamic comments Chris made in his autobiography (significantly toned down in the film). Others have noted his jingoistic beliefs. However, I too participated in the 2nd siege of Fallujah as a US Marine. Like Chris, I said some racist and despicable things while in Iraq. I am in no position to judge him, nor do I think it is important to do so. I am far more interested in our reaction to Chris Kyle as a society than in the nuances of his personality.

In both the book and the film, Chris Kyle comes off as a man who is slightly embarrassed by the labels his comrades-in-arms and his society throw on him, such as “legend” or “hero.” And the financial success of his autobiography and Clint Eastwood’s cinematic adaptation of it reveals just how willing America is to embrace him and his story, despite its factual inaccuracies.

Perhaps the only thing that is important to say about Chris Kyle the individual is that he has the power to legitimize a sanitized version of events in Iraq. Somehow in our culture, combat experience is mistaken for knowledge about a war. And Chris Kyle’s status as a Navy SEAL with mountains of medals and ribbons, multiple deployments to Iraq, and battlefield accolades makes him an “authority” on the topic of Iraq to those who don’t know better.

I sympathize with Chris, because while I was in Iraq, I believed many of the same things he believed: That Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. That our mission was just and good. That the people we were fighting against in Iraq wanted to kill Americans because of some irrational political ideology or fanatical religious beliefs. And that most Iraqis wanted us in their country.

Notice how within this ideological framework, the emotional turmoil that Chris goes through and the strain his multiple deployments put on his family gets interpreted as a sacrifice that he bravely and consciously makes for a noble cause. Our mission in Iraq is, of course, understood as a peace keeping and nation building operation, not as the imposition of a political and economic project against the will of the majority of Iraqis. “Hearts and minds” become objects to be won, rather than something to be respected. The lives that Chris ends become “confirmed kills,” not murder. And the people he kills are interpreted as “terrorists,” not as people defending their country from a foreign, invading and occupying army.

This ideological framework is America’s war culture. Absent these ideological assumptions, the suffering that Chris and his family go through, and his tally of confirmed kills, do not get interpreted as brave sacrifices or heroic acts—they can only be tragic.

Russian war fever: Will it spread? (Part 1)

Posted on March 10, 2014March 26, 2014 by kathiemm

By guest author Alfred L. McAlister, Ph.D.

The chapter on “War Fever” in the forthcoming International Handbook of Negotiation and Mediation (M. Gallucio, Ed., Berlin: Springer) analyzes the psychology behind ploys used to gain popular support for military aggression. These include:

Vladimir Putin. Photo by Cherie A. Thurlby in public domain; from Wikimedia Commons.

Invocation of a moral obligation
Advantageous comparisons with worse actions by other nations
The demonization of enemies

Usama Bin Laden described his followers’ attacks on the U.S. as a defense of threatened Palestinian people and children dying because of economic sanctions against Iraq, contrasted it with the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan at the end of World War II, and labeled the people of the U.S. and other Western nations as godless infidels.

In the U.S. attack on Iraq, the action was portrayed as a morally imperative act of self-defense, much less reprehensible than Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical warfare against his own people, while Hussein was depicted as a snake in political cartoons.

Following this pattern, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his followers justify the invasion of Crimea as a humanitarian act to protect threatened compatriots, contrast it with the certainly less defensible U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and describe the new leaders of Ukraine as terrorists and Nazis.

These patterns are predictable and, unless people learn to anticipate and reject them, will continue to be effective ways to stir up popular national support and make international excuses for military aggression.

Dr. Alfred McAlister’s essay “War Fever: How Can We Resist?” will be published this spring in the International Handbook of Negotiation and Mediation, edited by Mauro Gallucio (Berlin: Springer).

I promised that I would return (Liberate THIS, Part 11)

Posted on February 6, 2012April 29, 2012 by kathiemm

A continuing series by Dr. Dahlia Wasfi

My father was one of ten children, so we have a lot of family in Iraq. Seemingly everywhere I was escorted during those six days in Basra, I met blood relatives or my father’s former students.

U.S. Marines fire on Fallujah. Image in public domain.

Most Basrawis (pronounced “bas-RAO-weez,” meaning people of Basra) live their whole lives in their hometown. My father, though, had traveled to the U.S. and become successful.

I heard so many wonderful accolades about him and his teaching during my short stay. I later joked with my father that all the images of Saddam Hussein that had been destroyed after the invasion soon would be replaced with his picture to honor his courage and success.

I experienced joy with my cousins that I had not felt for long as I could remember. My spirits were up, so much so that I stopped my anti-depressive medications. I felt cured.

Because of the unpredictability of a country without law and order, my stay was cut short. I had to return to Amman via Baghdad to make my flight home. But I promised my family that I would return for a longer stay—very soon, we hoped—when conditions in the new Iraq had improved. I left in early March 2004.

While we looked toward the horizon for better days, conditions in Iraq went from bad to worse. Electricity and water became scarcer, as did jobs and security. But the lack of these basic necessities was quickly overshadowed by the monstrous obscenities of the American-led occupation.

The atrocities committed against Iraqis by occupation forces at Abu Ghraib prison (and many other prisons throughout the country) came to light. With good reason, anti-American sentiment in Iraq skyrocketed to new highs. The indiscriminate slaughter of Iraqis continued, exemplified by the April 2004 siege of the city of Fallujah, the October 2004 bombings of Fallujah, and the November 2004 massacre of the people of Fallujah.

That November, I had wanted to take my return trip to Iraq, but U.S. Marines had blocked the route of my last trip, the road from Amman to Baghdad.