Having
served in the United States Army for some period of time, the following
question has been repeatedly posed to me by others, “What do you think of this
thing in Iraq right now?” Unfortunately, for me (and for those asking) this is
not a simple question for me to reply too. As I have not blogged in some time,
I determined that this would be a good subject to take up, thereby clearing my
conscience, and hopefully enlightening some of my friends on my view of this
complicated subject.
I did
serve in the forces that aided in the removal of all U.S. Forces from Iraq by
31 December 2011. You must know that we left some forces behind, not only those
Marines normally assigned Embassy Guard duty but also Airmen to help continue
to form and prepare the Iraqi Air Force for ultimate transfer/purchase of US
Fighter Jets, and Army Soldiers, from various backgrounds to aid in the
establishment/continuation of maintenance and training of the Iraqi Army. I can’t
give you any numbers, as I’m sure they are a closely held secret, as is the
location of assignment etc… all for good cause, as wanton disclosure would
certainly place them in great harm. I’m sure that this didn’t go through the
heads of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, as their disclosures may possibly
have caused undue harm to our military men and women. Edward Snowden probably
does belong in his own special category; I’m not sure exactly what that is,
regardless of the outcome I am not positive that the ends justified the means.
There were other avenues for him to get his message out, and certainly there
are aspects of his message that needed to be heard by us Americans. But I
digress, this is not about that subject.
Having
established that I was there, let us then determine what the ‘objective’ of the
Iraq War was. According to reporting by the New York Times on 22 March 2003,
the Secretary of Defense laid out 8 objectives:
The first of
the eight specific aims, Mr. Rumsfeld said, is to ''end the regime of Saddam
Hussein by striking with force on a scope and scale that makes clear to Iraqis
that he and his regime are finished.''
Second, Iraq's arsenal of biological and chemical weapons, and any program
to develop nuclear weapons, are also targets, as the American military has been
ordered ''to identify, isolate and eventually eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction, their delivery systems, production capabilities, and distribution
networks,'' Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Troops will then ''search for, capture, drive out terrorists who have found
safe harbor in Iraq,'' he added.
Next, he said, the allied forces will ''collect such intelligence as we can
find related to terrorist networks in Iraq and beyond.''
The fifth goal, Mr. Rumsfeld said, is to ''collect such intelligence as we
can find related to the global network of illicit weapons of mass destruction
activity.''
The United States also seeks ''to end sanctions and to immediately deliver
humanitarian relief, food and medicine to the displaced and to the many needy
Iraqi citizens,'' Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Military forces also will ''secure Iraq's oil fields and resources, which
belong to the Iraqi people, and which they will need to develop their country
after decades of neglect by the Iraqi regime,'' Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Lastly, Mr. Rumsfeld said, the war effort is ''to help the Iraqi people
create the conditions for a rapid transition to a representative
self-government that is not a threat to its neighbors and is committed to
ensuring the territorial integrity of that country.''
People can make their own determinations on what they feel
our objectives were, I think we have to discount any stated objective related
to ‘terror networks’ – they could not operate under Saddam’s regime; we also
discount objectives related to chemical weapons or weapons of mass destruction –
there was never a shred of proof to lead us down that path, contrived
intelligence perhaps, but absolutely no proof; it’s like saying, “Al-Qaeda is
operating from within Iraq to attack the US”…now our ally, Pakistan, perhaps
another story, eh ? So I’ve discounted reasons 2-5, reason 1 was the removal of
Saddam Hussein from power. I believe there to be some legal issues with us
going into another country and toppling their government. That said, Saddam’s
sons, Uday and Qusay, were pretty rotten people. There is not a shred of doubt
in my democratic, republic, libertarian, freedom loving mind that these two
people deserved to die by the worst imaginable means possible. The stories told
of their atrocities are unimaginable. Reason 6 was the removal of sanctions,
that we had prodded the United Nations and the Security Council to put into
place since Desert Storm, and increasingly added pressure on the sanctions over
the ensuing years. The sanctions were in place mainly due to reasons 2-5 stated
above, which we’ve discounted already. Reason 8 is really Democracy, I mean isn’t
that what self-government is all about. We’ll discuss that below. Reason 7 is about Oil, but is it really about
‘belonging to the Iraqi peoples’?
Democracy
isn’t easy. We’ve watched the Arab Spring on CNN, seen fighting and marching in
the streets, we’ve seen people fighting for the right of self-determination,
somewhat, because underlying it all is Islam, the religion of true Muslims. If
we were to take our own history into perspective then we would have to concede
that Democracy and therefore Freedom is something that you must want very
badly; it is something that you are willing to lay your life down for; it is
something that cannot be given, it must be earned and yearned for. In my
advanced training, upon becoming a Sergeant Major, I had to do a country study
and present my findings to my classmates. I chose the country of Sudan, this
was prior to them formally splitting into two countries, and as I watch the
news I see that many of the predictions I made are coming true. Will they be successful
ultimately, I don’t know, I do know that I gave it about a 60/40 chance of
succeeding as two countries, and no chance of remaining as one. As the lines
were drawn, I now give the chance of survival as two separate countries a
chance of zero, unless the international community can aid in the development
of the South. Democracy is not easy; it cannot be handed over, like a rift of
papers, there is no written exam that one can study for and pass; you have to
want it so badly that you’ll stop at nothing to get it, and then stop at
nothing to defend the right to keep it.
Oil
from Iraq historically flowed to the U.S., much like Iranian oil during the
Shah of Iran’s tenure (wasn’t Saddam, like the Shah, initially our propped up
pawn to ensure the cheap flow of their mineral resources to our country?) Does
anyone recall the ‘Energy Meetings’ that Vice-President Cheney held, behind
closed doors not that long before we ‘freed’ Iraq? According to the Washington
Post, he met with over 300 different institutions while drafting our National
Energy Policy, from oil to natural gas, to wildlife protection, to Canadian
officials, coal representatives from Virginia and West Virginia, etc., etc… My experience, during the Bosnian
conflict and before we went into Kosovo, was that the major contributing
nations had to agree on who was going to share in the spoils of this little
war, namely the contracts to rebuild those nations. Protecting families, saving
lives, ensuring freedom of religion…..no, money to be made, and whose turn is
it this time. My experiences drive that comment, no other proof offered. I was
never in a meeting that discussed this, just second hand and comments overheard
while working to fix some critical communications links. Critical to that
discussion, I concluded. However, we are discussing reason (objective) 7:
securing the oil. The news from 2003-09 was certainly about how Exxon-Mobil,
BP, and Royal Dutch Shell would benefit greatly by the U.S. restoring access to
the Iraqi oil fields. Again, the New
York Times reports on 2 June 2013 that the Chinese are reaping the greatest
benefit. I especially like two paragraphs in that report:
“We lost out,” said Michael Makovsky, a former
Defense Department official in the Bush administration who worked on Iraq oil
policy. “The Chinese had nothing to do with the war, but from an economic
standpoint they are benefiting from it, and our Fifth Fleet and air forces are
helping to assure their supply.”
and
Notably, what the Chinese are not doing is
complaining. Unlike the executives of Western oil giants like Exxon Mobil, the
Chinese happily accept the strict terms of Iraq’s oil contracts, which yield
only minimal profits. China is more interested in energy to fuel its economy
than profits to enrich its oil giants.
Having discussed our ‘objectives’ in the Iraq War let us
move onto a little history lesson, and why I believe that the real question is,
“Is it our business?”
From the Al-Islam.org website I’ve taken some background,
written by their contributors, which I think is very important to this
discussion. It follows:
As a statesman, Muhammad ranks among the
greatest in the whole world. He was endowed with amazing perspicacity, vision
and political genius. During the last ten years of his life, he was called upon
to make the most momentous decisions in the history of Islam. Those decisions
affected not only the Muslims or the Arabs but all mankind. He was also aware
that his actions and decisions would affect the actions and decisions of every
generation of the Muslims to the end of time itself.
Muhammad, the Messenger of God, therefore, did
not make any decision, no matter how trivial, on an ad hoc basis; nor
did he make decisions by a “trial and error” method. His decisions were all
inspired. They were precedents for the Muslim umma (nation or community)
for all time. It was with this knowledge and understanding that he said or did
anything and everything.
Muhammad had succeeded, after a long and
sanguinary struggle against the idolaters and polytheists of Arabia, in
establishing the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth so that his umma (people)
may live in it in peace and security, admired and envied by the rest of mankind.
The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth was the lifework
of Muhammad. He knew that he was a mortal, and would die some day, but his
work, as embodied in the “Kingdom” would live. He knew that after his death,
someone else would have to carry on the work begun by him. He also knew that
orderly succession is the anchor of stability. He knew all this and much else
besides. No Muslim would ever presume to imagine that Muhammad, the Messenger
of God, did not know all this better than anyone else.
I’m not
interested in discussing beliefs with anyone, at this time. I suspect that the
Messenger of God and the Son of God had much in common, and that is where I
stop with that.
Our problem, now explained, is that upon Muhammad’s death on
8 June 632 there was no selection of a successor defined by Muhammad. He had
brought a new religion, and new ways of life to a region that was tribal in
nature, and constantly warring with each other. Shia Muslims’ maintain that
Muhammad declared Ali as his successor and thus sovereign over all
Muslims. Abu Bakr was elected leader of
the Muslims by some of Muhammad’s companions in the city of Medina, immediately
following his death, this being the Sunni sect of Islam. Battles followed, that
turned into wars, that returned to battles, but always there was, and still is,
the feeling by the Shia Muslims that the Sunni’s stole the position of the rightful
heir to Muhammad.
It may seem rather juvenile to continue fighting about
something that occurred fourteen-hundred years ago, but then Devil Anse and
Randolph McCoy fighting, and killing, over a pig might seem a little childish
in retrospect also.
It is
unknown exactly what the division of Sunni and Shias’ are throughout the world,
it’s thought that it could be as close as 60/40 or as far as 85/15 in favor of
one or the other. What is known is that they do not trust each other, to this
day. In one of my recent discussions, I invoked a proverb said to be attributed
to Arabians, it states that, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Hence the
situation in that part of the world is not one that a ‘Christian’ nation could
ever hope to solve. I’m not always positive that we are a ‘Christian’ Nation,
but I believe that we are purported to be, and will therefore accept it as
fact. While I discuss Muslim, Islam, and Arab’s in this piece, do not make the mistake
that they are one and the same. All Muslim’s follow Islam, but not all Muslim’s
are Arabs. This is a pretty simple idea…not all Christians are white. There,
understand now? However, making a mistake of calling someone who is not an Arab
an “Arab” could get you shot, immediately, by someone standing bye who is an
Arab. Confusing a Sunni and a Shia during conversation, or within documents and
discussions will get you no-where, zip, zero, end of discussion and whatever
the objective may have been – you will never achieve it now. Ever. Remember,
they have been practicing hatred and revenge for almost fourteen-hundred years
now – who are we, at a relatively young 238 years of age, to think that we can ‘solve
the Arab/Muslim/Islam/Middle East’ crisis.
Hell, we don’t even know what the exact crisis is, we
certainly don’t understand it, and therefore we certainly cannot ‘solve’ it.
So, what do I think about what is going on in Iraq right
now? I think we spent over 1.7 trillion dollars, witnessed the loss of 4,486
American lives, and significantly increased our national debt – for what? What
exactly was our Objective? I’m not sure, but I do know that we do not belong in
their problem. If it’s democracy that they are to have, then they must fight
for that; failing that, we’ll see a return to whatever tribal form results, and
yes, the supply of oil to China will be greatly impacted. Let’s spend the money
on R&D for a post-petro world, reclaim and improve our infrastructure,
build new energy sources and national and local forms of transportation that
operate oil free. I think it’s possible, and I think that companies can reap
their profits, return value to stockholders, and continue to evade paying taxes
just like normal.
