Iraq, Iraq, Iraq: A Retrospective
Here we are in the summer of pandemic (2020), adjusting and re-adjusting to the quarantines and lock downs, the social distancing and the virtual connections and the wearing of the masks. Also, with the tragedy of George Floyd, we (and I mean black, white, brown, pro-law enforcement and anti-police brutality, Democrats, Republicans, people of all faiths and socio-economic groups) are thinking and re-thinking our relationships to society, to each other, to ourselves, our politics, ideologies and philosophies, and yes, our privilige[s] and racism[s].
Thinking about my topic of Iraq, I realize that my topic is bigger than just this country; it has a lot to do with U.S. foreign policy and the threats that it perceives over time. The U.S. sees threats and does what it can to thwart or prevent them.
U.S. Worldwide Posture and Necessity
The Two World Wars, 1914-1918, and 1931-1945, first from belligerent Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empires, then later Germany, Italy, and the power hungry Japan, showed the world that the United States was a necessary part of global defenses against tyranny and genocide. If it were not for the United States ending both global conflicts, aiding Great Britain in a bereft Europe, and liberating China and the Pacific from the Rising Sun, it is likely that most of the world would be speaking either German and/or Japanese even now in the 21st century. Perhaps spoken Russian would be kept in their homeland, and English, Spanish, and Portuguese in the Western Hemisphere would have remained, but that in itself is a sobering thought. All under German and Japanese control, as some have theorized.
The United Nations was subsequently formed to prevent such existential threats in the future, but the Soviet Union under Stalin and quickly China under Mao posed further authoritarian threats to the world, more or less embedded within the foundations of the U.N., hence the U.S. involvement in the Cold War and proxy bloody insurrections ever since.The wars that were resultant of the anti-communists were plentiful, bloody, and awful throughout the world, to include devastating coup d' etats, plus actions on smaller yet closely felt levels, espionage and maneuvers related to arrests, torture, and murder in the duel between the bipolar giants of the later 20th century.
All's fair in love and the Cold War. Millions and millions suffered and died because of this power struggle.
And yet, there were other virulent (yes, I am a Western idealist, informed by my point of view) ideologies that were in force throughout the 20th century that would wind up lasting beyond over surpassing Marxism and its attempts for power and control, which had their own ideas of economics and geo-political control, which would be: 1. militant Islam and 2. dogmatic martial nationalism. These two movements are most auspiciously identified in the 21st century in the forms of Al-Qaeda, the Iranian Islamic Republic, and the sovereign nations of North Korea, China, and Russia. One could throw in some hostile or anti-American regimes like those found in Cuba and Venezuela as of 2020, which have Marxist claims, but the two biggest strains or anti-U.S. and anti-Western movements and groups are extremist Muslim militants, to include the government of Iran, and the nations that are nationalistic to an extreme, totalitarian as opposed to democratic, in North Korea, China, and Russia. All are using capitalism for their survival and existence, but ideologically some of them vehemently oppose or more subtly subvert the ways of democratic capitalistic liberalism to accomplish their aims.
Their aims are not "our" goals or objectives, so we fight and bleed and sweat and toil in order to prevent them from gaining more power and influence, but it is a tricky and greasy and often times corrupt slope, because there is oil and energy and regular commerce that benefits all, the sellers and the consumers on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, the largest earthly body connecting the world super powers, to include always formidable Russia along the same ocean paths...
U.S. and Coalition Intervention and 2003 War in Iraq
So back to Iraq.
Saddam Hussein proved an untiring irritant for both of the above reasons: he was both a brutal nationalist and fascist dictator who, like Hitler or Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot, or take your pick of sycophant mass killers over the centuries, combined the worst of authoritarian terror while simultaneously harboring those of Al-Qaeda and the deadly religious extreme of militant Islam. He even had the bald audacity to claim to be a good Sunni Muslim, thus justifying the long terrible war with his Shia neighbors the Iranis, and systematically exterminating and leveling the predominant Shia south of his own troubled land, not to mention sending them as fodder in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. But, how could we or he justify the gassing of the Sunni Kurds to the north? Certainly not for religious loyalties or reasons, right? He was simply a mass killer, plain and simple.
Did he need to be removed? Of course! Did Adolph Hitler need to be removed? Yes, same answer! But what year would be most appropriate for the latter of the Third Reich? 1935? 1938? 1941? A little late by then, as the "Final Answer" genocide of the Jews and others came into full effect, forever altering the balance of Europe and the Middle East in the newfound refuge Israel, pushing out millions of land owning or other peasant Arabs of the Holy Land...
This current day miasma, a complicated web we have weaved surrounding Jerusalem.
So people in 2020 glibly and openly declare that the Iraqi War was a mistake? Hardly.
There were many mistakes committed, very clearly, but the underpinning reason to remove Saddam Hussein in 2002-3?
It was completely and utterly justified (it was beyond the charges of Weapons of Mass Destruction, which Saddam had in the chemicals he used, besides). The U.S. and British and others, particularly the Iraqi lives lost and sacrificed to end his tyrannical reign? Like in World War II, it was done for the greater good. No question. Job well done. Mission accomplished, as the chided president prematurely declared in May of 2003. But history has and will prove him right. George W. Bush did the correct thing in toppling Hussein, intervening in Iraq. 17 years later it is more a democracy than most other Arab states.
Hussein was the one to stop, and we did. Good riddance, and blessed be the martyrs who sacrificed all for that cause of his removal. The French and other cowards who opposed it in the early 2000s? We saw what happened to you in World War Two, and you needed us to save you from a similarly despotic Germany. You're welcome.
Us Americans are not that dumb or bloodthirsty. There were huge costs at stake, and many people have suffered, assuredly. But, we, the United States, know a big, bad bully when we see one, we have learned from history, and we are not afraid to tangle with him. Hussein, the modern day genocidalist. We are used to saving millions and millions of innocent and brutalized people. And we will do it again. God bless America.
More later.
Blogged it.
Thinking about my topic of Iraq, I realize that my topic is bigger than just this country; it has a lot to do with U.S. foreign policy and the threats that it perceives over time. The U.S. sees threats and does what it can to thwart or prevent them.
U.S. Worldwide Posture and Necessity
The Two World Wars, 1914-1918, and 1931-1945, first from belligerent Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empires, then later Germany, Italy, and the power hungry Japan, showed the world that the United States was a necessary part of global defenses against tyranny and genocide. If it were not for the United States ending both global conflicts, aiding Great Britain in a bereft Europe, and liberating China and the Pacific from the Rising Sun, it is likely that most of the world would be speaking either German and/or Japanese even now in the 21st century. Perhaps spoken Russian would be kept in their homeland, and English, Spanish, and Portuguese in the Western Hemisphere would have remained, but that in itself is a sobering thought. All under German and Japanese control, as some have theorized.
The United Nations was subsequently formed to prevent such existential threats in the future, but the Soviet Union under Stalin and quickly China under Mao posed further authoritarian threats to the world, more or less embedded within the foundations of the U.N., hence the U.S. involvement in the Cold War and proxy bloody insurrections ever since.The wars that were resultant of the anti-communists were plentiful, bloody, and awful throughout the world, to include devastating coup d' etats, plus actions on smaller yet closely felt levels, espionage and maneuvers related to arrests, torture, and murder in the duel between the bipolar giants of the later 20th century.
All's fair in love and the Cold War. Millions and millions suffered and died because of this power struggle.
And yet, there were other virulent (yes, I am a Western idealist, informed by my point of view) ideologies that were in force throughout the 20th century that would wind up lasting beyond over surpassing Marxism and its attempts for power and control, which had their own ideas of economics and geo-political control, which would be: 1. militant Islam and 2. dogmatic martial nationalism. These two movements are most auspiciously identified in the 21st century in the forms of Al-Qaeda, the Iranian Islamic Republic, and the sovereign nations of North Korea, China, and Russia. One could throw in some hostile or anti-American regimes like those found in Cuba and Venezuela as of 2020, which have Marxist claims, but the two biggest strains or anti-U.S. and anti-Western movements and groups are extremist Muslim militants, to include the government of Iran, and the nations that are nationalistic to an extreme, totalitarian as opposed to democratic, in North Korea, China, and Russia. All are using capitalism for their survival and existence, but ideologically some of them vehemently oppose or more subtly subvert the ways of democratic capitalistic liberalism to accomplish their aims.
Their aims are not "our" goals or objectives, so we fight and bleed and sweat and toil in order to prevent them from gaining more power and influence, but it is a tricky and greasy and often times corrupt slope, because there is oil and energy and regular commerce that benefits all, the sellers and the consumers on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, the largest earthly body connecting the world super powers, to include always formidable Russia along the same ocean paths...
U.S. and Coalition Intervention and 2003 War in Iraq
So back to Iraq.
Saddam Hussein proved an untiring irritant for both of the above reasons: he was both a brutal nationalist and fascist dictator who, like Hitler or Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot, or take your pick of sycophant mass killers over the centuries, combined the worst of authoritarian terror while simultaneously harboring those of Al-Qaeda and the deadly religious extreme of militant Islam. He even had the bald audacity to claim to be a good Sunni Muslim, thus justifying the long terrible war with his Shia neighbors the Iranis, and systematically exterminating and leveling the predominant Shia south of his own troubled land, not to mention sending them as fodder in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. But, how could we or he justify the gassing of the Sunni Kurds to the north? Certainly not for religious loyalties or reasons, right? He was simply a mass killer, plain and simple.
Did he need to be removed? Of course! Did Adolph Hitler need to be removed? Yes, same answer! But what year would be most appropriate for the latter of the Third Reich? 1935? 1938? 1941? A little late by then, as the "Final Answer" genocide of the Jews and others came into full effect, forever altering the balance of Europe and the Middle East in the newfound refuge Israel, pushing out millions of land owning or other peasant Arabs of the Holy Land...
This current day miasma, a complicated web we have weaved surrounding Jerusalem.
So people in 2020 glibly and openly declare that the Iraqi War was a mistake? Hardly.
There were many mistakes committed, very clearly, but the underpinning reason to remove Saddam Hussein in 2002-3?
It was completely and utterly justified (it was beyond the charges of Weapons of Mass Destruction, which Saddam had in the chemicals he used, besides). The U.S. and British and others, particularly the Iraqi lives lost and sacrificed to end his tyrannical reign? Like in World War II, it was done for the greater good. No question. Job well done. Mission accomplished, as the chided president prematurely declared in May of 2003. But history has and will prove him right. George W. Bush did the correct thing in toppling Hussein, intervening in Iraq. 17 years later it is more a democracy than most other Arab states.
Hussein was the one to stop, and we did. Good riddance, and blessed be the martyrs who sacrificed all for that cause of his removal. The French and other cowards who opposed it in the early 2000s? We saw what happened to you in World War Two, and you needed us to save you from a similarly despotic Germany. You're welcome.
Us Americans are not that dumb or bloodthirsty. There were huge costs at stake, and many people have suffered, assuredly. But, we, the United States, know a big, bad bully when we see one, we have learned from history, and we are not afraid to tangle with him. Hussein, the modern day genocidalist. We are used to saving millions and millions of innocent and brutalized people. And we will do it again. God bless America.
More later.
Blogged it.
Re-touched a little, July 26 2020.
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