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Remember them as you protest in London

36 comments on Remember them as you protest in London

Remember them as you protest in London
: Norm Geras lists the suggestions of the Socialist Worker’s 10 suggestions for what Brits should do when Bush comes to town — and then he adds his own suggestions, for example:

‘Ask all your friends and family to join Thursday’s national demonstration and the local protests. Make sure you have coach tickets to sell.’

> No, ask all your friends and family to think about those Iraqis who saw friends and members of their families disappearing into torture chambers and mass graves, and who welcomed the defeat of the Baathist regime.

: Now hear from Omar, yet another Iraqi who just started a blog. He, too, will remind those demonstrating about the horrors of Saddam and the reasons they should be thanking Bush, if they were true humanists:

I was counting days and hours waiting to see an end to that regime, just like all those who suffered the cruelty of that brutal regime.

It

36 responses to “Remember them as you protest in London”

  1. Oliver Avatar
    Oliver

    So being against deceptive, preemptive invasion makes one in favor of dictatorship? I KNOW you’re smarter than that, Jeff. Bush talks a good game about supporting freedom, but his record of sacrificing that for political and fiscal gain is past overwhelming.

  2. Declan Avatar
    Declan

    Evidence, please?

  3. Maciej Ceglowski Avatar
    Maciej Ceglowski

    The protests are against the unilateral invasion of a small country by a big one on grounds that have proven to be baseless. It is a horrible precedent that will come back to haunt us.
    It would be one thing if Bush had presented the central aim of this war as ridding the Iraqis of an oppresive government, and transforming the middle east.
    Instead, the whole case for war was built around terrorists and WMD, with humanitarian goals tacked on to cover the administration’s ass if (surprise!) the terrorists and WMD didn’t show up. That was the only way to market a war to post 9/11 America, and our leadership knew it.
    Believe it or not, I would have supported a war on humanitarian grounds. Instead, I find myself hoodwinked. It hardly matters if the president hoodwinked himself along with the rest of us.

  4. rds Avatar
    rds

    Maciej:
    There were alays two majkor strategic goals of the Iraq war: (1) keep WMD from sworn enemies of the US), and (2) win the war on terror long-term by beginning to change the political dynamics of the Middle East (poison to the US for at least the last 35 years) by giving birth to a free iraq. Number (2) is the ONE big neo-con idea. How is it neo-cons are constantly excoriated by anti-war people for being the driving force behind the war, and then at the same time their one big contribution to the American strategic debate (win the war on terror by introducing freedom to the ME) is denied any role in why America went to war? Amazing.

  5. billhedrick Avatar
    billhedrick

    Maciej, you were hoodwinked by a “moron” how does that make you feel? Actually if you actually read the speeches on the ramp-up to war you will find there were humantitarian grounds laid out, in fact they pre-war complaint was that Bush didn’t have one clear reason for war.

  6. Bill Avatar
    Bill

    Maciej, I supported the war based on humanitarian grounds and still do. I was not nor am I today ‘hoodwinked’. Apparently, millions of U.S. and other international citizens were and continue to be ‘hoodwinked’ today, being ignorant of the despicable conditions that existed and strive to revive themselves in Iraq.
    Yes, that a group of nations banded together to rid Iraq of a heinous murderer will come back to haunt you. Hopefully sooner than would please you.

  7. Jaybird Avatar
    Jaybird

    One of my biggest problems with “the left” (which I consider myself a part of but, more and more, I find out that it doesn’t consider me a part of it) is that it cares so much more about the intentions than it does about the consequences.
    “I would have supported the war on humanitarian grounds” is a great example of this.
    You could have supported the war on humanitarian grounds. But instead of doing so, you made it a war about Bush…
    And now Bush has invaded a country under false pretenses in order to steal oil from an oppressed people… and in doing so has removed the government that was abusing human rights on a huge scale to millions of people.
    It’s enough to make me upset that North Korea doesn’t have oil to sell. I wouldn’t mind seeing that government toppled and its people freed.
    It seems that selfish motivations are the only way to get governments like Saddams overthrown. The Good People (as opposed to The Evil People) tend to form committees that end up doing nothing at all in the long run.

  8. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Why Aaron Spelling can’t bring the delusional, fictive fantasies of these protesters to life in a primetime series a la Dynasty or Dallas is beyond me. Call it “Conspiracy”, and cast every single clown of the Left, from Chomsky to Kucinich in leading roles. The blue half of America could watch it leaning forward with suspense, while the red half could just have a good laugh. Maybe then the overexcitable ignoramuses would have an outlet for their frantic, nervous theories.
    Do these people and their ridiculous “festival of resistance” actually think people take them seriously? We know they care less about real repression and torture (witness their disgraceful silence when Assad or Mugabe came to London). We also know that they and their forebears have been on the wrong side of history with remarkable consistency, fighting attempts to liberate Eastern Europe from their loathsome communist friends in the 80s and 90s. Even their street tactics do nothing but help George Bush back home. If something terrible happens, or if Bush is embarassed, non-Streisandist Americans will be outraged, not delighted.
    They can use the language of protest, print as many signs as they like, but in the end, their words have no meaning. They aren’t changing minds. As a result, their actions are nothing but narcissistic. Have fun, clowns.

  9. Raoul Ortega Avatar
    Raoul Ortega

    People like Maciej are “hoodwinked” by the people who tell him/her/it what to think. People like Maciej want to be “hoodwinked” by those people because it relieves them of the burden of thinking for themselves, and admitting to themselves that the people doing their thinking have been consistently wrong.
    As for Jaybird– it makes people like him feel good about themselves to impune even good motives with the “it’s all about oilllllll!!!!!” nonsense. How about, just for once, admitting to yourself that your opponents aren’t the caracatures you’ve created? (And if you really want to see evil regimes toppled, let’s start with the one directly to our south.)

  10. Howard Owens Avatar
    Howard Owens

    I love how leftists say the war was begun under false pretenses, how we were hoodwinked, how the war was illegitmate, how it was all about the oil, etc. etc. … yet remain absolutely incapable of producing a single credible piece of evidence to support those assertions.

  11. R.C. Dean Avatar
    R.C. Dean

    The protests are against the unilateral invasion of a small country by a big one on grounds that have proven to be baseless.
    Um, Maciej, the whole point of Jeff’s post is that there were ample grounds for overthrowing Saddam, as testified by his victims.
    To continue (although one tires of making the same points over and over again).
    The invasion was not unilateral. It had active participation of other nations. It was in accordance with multiple resolutions of the Security Council. It was justified under the terms of the original Gulf War cease fire, also approved by the Security Council.
    I don’t know what unilateral means on your planet, but around here it means “all by yourself.” The war with Iraq was not finished by America all by itself.
    Grounds that have been proven to be baseless, eh? I must have missed the report that every single document and every single square inch of Iraq had been scoured clean of WMD, because that is what it would take to “prove” the WMD grounds were “baseless.”
    You must have missed the mass graves. What are we up to now, 300,000 dead? I regard that as ample proof of the humanitarian and security grounds for the war.
    What I haven’t seen is any proof of the claim that the war was fought so the US could enslave the Iraqis, or steal their oil, or somesuch. The folks who need to provide proof for their account of the grounds for the war are the “anti-war” types.
    And for those of you sputtering in indignation that you are being charged with support for Saddam. Your interests in opposing the invasion and Saddam’s were perfeclty aligned. The only foreseeable outcome of your policies was Saddam’s preferred outcome. No one will take you seriously until you own up and take responsibility for the consequences of what you advocated – the survival of Saddam and the continued oppression of the Iraqis.

  12. Charlie Avatar
    Charlie

    The truth is, I don’t think any reasonable attempt at explanation is going to make any difference. It’s like this, folks: if you are arguing that there should not have been an Iraq war, you are arguing that people like Omar should not have been freed from their chains.
    You believe that? Okay. Stop trying to change the subject. Tell Omar that you would prefer Iraq to still be cutting out tongues and notching ears. Don’t bother to say “of course it’s better than Saddam is gone”, because you are arguing that it’s not better that Saddam is gone. You’re saying that the war which freed the Iraqis from Saddam shouldn’t have been fought: you can’t then escape your complicity in Saddam’s crimes. Yes, I said “complicity”.

  13. vasili Avatar
    vasili

    a world divided into black or white, good or evil, we or them. you poor bunch of morons. i’m feeling with you, i really do.

  14. Yehudit Avatar
    Yehudit

    “Instead, I find myself hoodwinked. It hardly matters if the president hoodwinked himself along with the rest of us.”
    And it hardly matters to you if the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are glad Saddam is gone, or that the entire war killed far fewer than Saddam in one month, or that Iraq infrastructure is now in better shape than it was under Saddam.
    All that matters to you is that you feel hoodwinked.

  15. Laura Avatar
    Laura

    Wow, vasili. That was really deep. You caught us fair and square in the iron grip of your logic.
    Tell me, did you learn your keen debating skills at Oxford? I don’t know where to begin addressing all the arguments and evidence you just presented to us silly, simple morons.

  16. PJF Avatar
    PJF

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9389-898868,00.html
    “Special Branch officers have also warned the American Secret Service that a

  17. Riko Avatar
    Riko

    I wonder if we could put up a couple of large diamond vision screens in front of Buckingham Palace where the protestors would have to walk by videos of the torture that are now circulating in Iraq? Might take a litte of the fun out of the demonstration.
    I know a number of you are going to scream how horrid an idea but I think a shock treatment is the only way for some of these people to look at things a little differently.

  18. Meezer Avatar
    Meezer

    “I hated the U.N and the security council and Russia and France and Germany and the arab nations and the islamic conference.
    I

  19. Maciej Ceglowski Avatar
    Maciej Ceglowski

    To those of you in the thread who use atrocity stories as a justification for the invasion, do you believe we should invade the Sudan? North Korea? Congo? Soldiers are eating people in the Congo to incite terror, for crying out loud. Saddam is minor league compared to these freaks. The question is a serious one – should the US intervene in every case where a despot is killing his own people?
    It’s easier to argue with me if you just put up a straw man, as did many of the people above. But (to give an example) one reason I was ticked off about the Iraq invasion was that I consider (and continue to consider) al Qaeda, North Korea, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia much greater threats to American national security. Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. We fought that war because we could win, and because it would give the neocons a nice lab to run their political science fantasy.
    No question Saddam was evil. In fact, he was evil for his entire reign, a sizable portion of which saw the US supplying him with arms and diplomatic support. No one said a peep about invading in 1988, when he gassed entire Kurdish villages. So forgive me if I take the righteous protestations I hear now with a grain of salt. There is still Realpolitik going on – trying to bring the real motives to light is what the political opposition is for. You can cheer the emancipation of Iraqis while still believing this war to be wrong.
    For those who pretend Bush wasn’t beating the WMD drum as hard as he could, let me refresh your memory:
    “America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
    It’s called “innuendo”. Clear evidence of peril my ass.

  20. Graham Avatar
    Graham

    Just a snarky side note, but it strikes me that Omar made his moving litany that included the line “I

  21. Sandy P. Avatar
    Sandy P.

    Maciej, the war resolution was passed in October of 2002. WMD discussions didn’t start until January 2003.
    The war resolution does not mention WMD at all. If you actually paid attention…. And you can find it on the web and read it for yourself.
    Besides, I really, really want to know about WTC 1993 and Oklahoma City. Was Iraq involved????
    Norks, it’s going to be a looonnnggg cold winter. They’re also eating people, BTW, but they’re doing it to stay alive, not incite terror. So, yes, I’m game. The US has already accepted Nork refugees who are in China. What has your country done?
    As to the Congo, well, that’s Belgium’s turf. But since they have more musicians in the army than soldiers…..they’re just going to have to get thru the tribal thing, last tribe standing wins.
    As for are we going to take out every dictator? No, just those who who are a danger to us.
    As to WMD, the entire country is one big lab, haven’t you been following it? Saddam was more concerned about developing missiles which could hit Europe. He focused on the missiles because his chemists could produce Sarin and Mustard gas quickly. And if there’s nothing there, then why are our inspectors not only being spied upon, but followed and attacked???

  22. CGeib Avatar
    CGeib

    Well, Maciej, I believe James Lileks, as he frequently does, summed it up best:
    “The same people who accuse America of coddling dictators are sputtering with bilious fury because we actually deposed one.”
    As for our arming Saddam, you might want to look at this list:
    http://rantingscreeds.blogspot.com/2002_11_17_rantingscreeds_archive.html#84868343
    Yeah, we did give him nominal diplomatic support during the Iran-Iraq war. You know, the one that happened only a couple of years after the Iranians held our diplomats hostage for a year and a half.

  23. greg Avatar
    greg

    Maciej- We judged Saddam as both dangerous and vulnerable. We took him out because we could.
    WMD was a form of legal argument. WMD was thrown into the conversation b/c Saddam had violated U.N. Sanctions.
    As a political reality, I doubt a President could have rallied the U.S. and Britain to invade for strictly humanitarian purposes. People like you would have raised a large and effective ruckus. Even myself. Its easy to see the Saddam atrocities and the freed Iraqi people. But we are looking after the fact. In 2002, I’m not sure I would have supported a difficult war on strictly humanitarian grounds.
    On another issue: there are solid slivers of evidence that point to Saddam involvement in 9/11. Someday I believe a large body of evidence will exist to prove his involvement in that tragedy.

  24. Riko Avatar
    Riko

    Maciej,
    I think that you are putting up the straw man. Are you really serious about doing something to North Korea? What, specifically? I doubt that we can talk Kim into therapy so the only answer may be action. Last time we agreed to provide oil if he stayed away from nukes. He evidently was less than honest. We should act quickly because people are dying every day during our inaction. If we did anything other than talk, would you still think its a good idea?
    Riko

  25. hugh macleod Avatar
    hugh macleod

    What surprises me from the Left Brits (and the Left Yanks) is their total lack of Realpolitik.
    The events that drove the Iraqi invasion were long term (20, 30, 50 years). A Pan-Arab world going down the sinkhole is no longer sustainable. This is so much larger an issue than one tinpot dictator and his WMDs.
    If any real lasting benefit is seen from this, Blair and Bush will be out of office long before then. By then Ken Livingstone will have been long forgoten. By then the Left will have no doubt found new and fresh things to gripe about.

  26. Andy Freeman Avatar
    Andy Freeman

    > It is a horrible precedent that will come back to haunt us.
    Really? How? Provide details.

  27. Andy Freeman Avatar
    Andy Freeman

    > To those of you in the thread who use atrocity stories as a justification for the invasion, do you believe we should invade the Sudan? North Korea? Congo? Soldiers are eating people in the Congo to incite terror, for crying out loud. Saddam is minor league compared to these freaks. The question is a serious one – should the US intervene in every case where a despot is killing his own people?
    So, if we’re not going to to every possible good deed, we’re wrong for doing any good deed?
    Various folk favor other approaches. We’re trying things our way in Iraq and they’re trying their way elsewhere. We’ll see who has better results.
    What? You’re not willing to take responsibility for ANY of the other horrorshows?

  28. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    I actually think a “new imperialism” (bad but useful name) IS a noble idea and I do think that the democracies of the world should gather together and seize away from despots the levers of power they use to oppress their peoples. The tyrants violate rule of law with their every breath — why are people so eager to defend international rule of law for countries that do not observe its principles in their own operations?
    At the very least, it’s a position that is somewhat defensible. The Left’s idea of idly sitting by while sniping at Bush et al. is pathetic.

  29. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The Administration was long desperate for a strong coalition of countries similar to that in the last war with Iraq. This time around, there was a new and difficult issue of invasion over soveirgn borders, and right into the capital city of Baghdad.
    The prospect of getting this coalition together was looking grim and the U.S. was facing the very real possibility of instigating a unilateral invasion as Mr. Bush was already setting into motion the activation of reserve units and the early deployment of advance personnel and equipment.
    It was apparent to me that a war was going to start with or without UN security Council approval. Veto threats flew right and left as the French, Russian, German, China and Middle East bloc threatened to paralyze any UN approval with Security Council vetoes. The timing had become very critical. We wanted to avoid the appearance (or reality) of a unilateral invasion.
    Meanwhile, the military machine was moving ahead with a life of its own as carrier groups with their attendant flotillas of support craft and attack planes, ground units of the Army and Marines, supply and transport ships with supplies and weaponry were all starting to move toward Iraq.
    Concurrently, the Bush Administration was spearheading a desperate search for WMD inventory and/or labs and factories in support of their contention that Saddam posed an immediate local threat and a potential international threat with nuclear and biochemical weapons. The British government was also gathering intelligence in support of this effort as it had become our only viable ally.
    The humanitarian goal of deposing a murderous despot had a seen the adoption of a bigger, bother motive that would surely give greater credibility to our invasion plan – to disarm and destroy what had to be stockpiles of WMD. After all, Saddam had an interim period of years in which his scientists surely had been busy helping to update the country’s weaponry. There was no way Saddam was ever going to be able to survive with normal weaponry; and his aggressive posturing indicated he was a confident man.
    After a lot of wrangling, threatening, compromising, the UN gave tacit, if not implicit aproval through Saddam’s failures to meet UN directed disarmament deadlines.
    As our armada of coalition troops came into Iraq, it was clear that finding definitive evidence, if not proof, was going to be a major objective as we moved forward to Baghdad. By this time, nothing could stop or slow down our advance; even a failure to find the promised WMD.
    As we advanced, the prospects of finding these horrible weapons was diminishing. Search parties surely were dispatched with the specific mission of finding evidence that these weapons did exist – or at the very least, that Saddam had the ability to manufacture them. We all remember following the various tantillizing discoveries that didn’t pan out.
    Eventually, the WMD justification melted away under the greater urgency of the vicious ground war and occupation that followed. We didn’t, however, give up the search for WMD.
    The emphasis placed on the importance of proving that WMD existed is the reason why it is a strong issue of contention right now as both sides gather their physical and their political resources for the campaigns ahead. This would be a major issue if the proverbial shoe was on the Democratic foot.
    I don’t believe that it will carry too much weight as a weapon against Mr. Bush, because the failure to find WMD was greatly outweighed by the destruction of a lethally brutal regime. This is more about an embarrassment by omission; failing to have accurate information upon which to make the claims that could be seen as a major justification to conduct a war. Don’t expect any admissions or apologies – not this year.
    Right now, Mr. Bush and cohorts have to explain the failures of his intelligence agencies and his security advisors. After all, this is his watch.

  30. Marcel Perez Avatar
    Marcel Perez

    Sorry. In my frenzied haste, I forgot to sign in.

  31. John Anderson Avatar
    John Anderson

    “Believe it or not, I would have supported a war on humanitarian grounds.” OK, did you? I mean, we may not have known about things like the children’s graveyard, but we certainly knew about a lot of other things. So if you supported the war because you (and every intelligence agency in the world) were “hoodwinked” about WMD, then you are less than truthful when you imply you would not have supported it without WMD or are being less than truthful now that you “would have” supported it for other reasons.
    “To those of you in the thread who use atrocity stories as a justification for the invasion, do you believe we should invade the Sudan? North Korea? Congo? Soldiers are eating people in the Congo to incite terror, for crying out loud. Saddam is minor.” Perhaps we should, as the French did – unilaterally, by the way – in the Ivory Coast area. Or not – Sudan, for example, has been slowly bowing to pressure and doing things like outlawing slavery. Liberia’s Taylor, after thumbing his nose at the UN and other “peacekeeping” groups, gave up rather abruptly when a mere 300 US Marines showed up with orders to enforce peace in areas other than the UN compound. Even North Korea, which I do consider a “clear and present danger” to its neighbors if not directly to the US, has calmed a bit since it realized China was not about to pull NK’s feet out of the fire this time around.

  32. Moose Rifle Avatar
    Moose Rifle

    The hypocrisy of both the left and the right is astonishing.
    All the so-called right wing humanists, including Rumsfeld had no trouble whatever with Saddamn when he was gassing Iranians and Kurds. There is that photo of Rumsfeld shaking hands with him after he gassed Iranians. Now, 17 years after his atrocity with the Kurds and 12 years after his killing of the Shias, suddenly these people develop a hyperactive moral conscience about overthrowing Saddam. Note that this conscience doesn’t extend to not supporting military dictator Musharaff in Pakistan and a dictatorship in Uzbekistan. The large majority of these people care nothing for the IRaqi people at all, otherwise they would have suggested acting earlier. Most of these Heritage and other neocons were suggesting confronting China earlier — simply because its a global rival for the US.
    The left is as bad. Their prime concern is American military power and “hegemony”. They care little about the IRaqi people — they would rather see Saddamn remain in power.
    A pox on both houses.
    Omar, or whoever, if you’re for real, learn this — YOu cannot count on another country for your liberation. You can rely only on yourself and your own people. Saddam was an internally created tyrant, not an outside imposed one. Yes, various countries supported him and others attacked him. But they did so only for their own selfist interests. The United States attacked in its own selfish interests. Russia and the other Arab countries acted in their own selfish interests.

  33. Moose Rifle Avatar
    Moose Rifle

    Actually, NK has not calmed down. Both the US and NK have closer to each other (and China has been prodding North Korea) and made concessions. IF the intention of the war was to intimidate the Great Leader, its unclear that it worked.
    My personal take on humanitarian style intervention is that it may be morally justified when there is a clear and present atrocity taking place. Otherwise, its moral underpining is weak. Intervention in Rwaada/Burundi would have been justified morally during the genocide ( but the strategic and miltary reasons for doing so were weak).
    So Iraq — I believe that there were strategic and military reasons for intervening, which is why I supported the war. The moral grounds would have been very strong in 1991 or 1987 — weaker now, but in any case, we should make our decisions primarily based on enlightened self-interest — and IRaq was clearly a war that was justified on those grounds.

  34. An Observation. Avatar
    An Observation.

    Moose Rifle:
    You quickly made your arguements moot with your blatantly incorrect condemnation of “the left” in the following quote:
    “The left is bad. Their prime concern is American military power and “hegemony”. They care little about the IRaqi people–they would rather see Saddamn remain in power.”
    I don’t know how far left you’ve gone, here, but you are really off the page.

  35. Moose Rifle Avatar
    Moose Rifle

    Observer,
    You’re right, I was exaggerating both the left and the right’s actions and motivations. But there is definitely a great ambivalence, if you will, in even the anti-Saddam left — yes, Saddam should have been toppled, but no the US should not have done it.
    There are more principled leftist and rightist views on the war — but the moral superioriry exhibited by at least some of the left and right are hypocritical in the extreme. I wonder who the leftists think would have toppled Saddamn if we didn’t. I wonder if the rightists so concerned about Iraq think the US government should spend 165 billion dollars in development aid in Africa, where it would doubtless save far more lives.

  36. An Observation. Avatar
    An Observation.

    Moose Rifle:
    With your caveat, I accept your position. It is somewhat difficult to carry on a conversation not readily helped by continuous feedback; and we all find ourselves trying to make a point with no one in particular.
    I try to be careful about exaggeration because there always will be someone there to jump on your case or you may be ignored, altogether.