Monday, April 17, 2006

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A brief history of Iraqi violence – the death rate today is lower than at anytime since 1932

1300 years of violence will not end if we leave

by Ferdinand III


The British in the best interests of ‘perfidious’ Albion in 1925 made plans to leave Iraq which was a newly acquired and constituted state taken in World War One. In 1926 the British signed a 50 year pact with their Iraqi vassal government pledging to stay for 50 years. The British had no intention of remaining in Iraq and constantly drew down troops as an Iraqi ‘insurgency’ killed thousands of British soldiers. By 1932 the British had left and Iraq descended into a military dictatorship that allied itself with Hitler during World War Two. It was re-conquered by Britain in 1942 to safeguard both Egypt and India. Choosing to ignore recent history the British again did not remain choosing a policy that has had disastrous consequences to this day – leaving the Middle East and allowing the Arabs manage themselves and our oil.

This imbecilic foreign policy decision to allow the Arabs to form their own nation states and control oil will reverberate for centuries. Who says current political decisions don’t have massive future impact? This single decision was taken to appease a torrent of hostile media and activist groups which from 1925-1932 relentlessly pounded British governments and ministers. Much like today’s criticism of the Iraqi war, the British occupation of the 1920s was demonized for its ‘imperialism’; ‘anti-Arab racism’; ‘insensitivity’; ‘thousands of dead civilians’; ‘young military men needlessly lost’; and the supposedly non-strategic value of Iraq. Even T.E. Lawrence of Arabia who should have known better declared that Iraq was not a strategic prize and that offending Muslims should not be British policy.

Today the same arguments are recycled. The left wing media, modern day ‘Lawrences’, the toothy coiffed international jet set elite, and the UN which presided over the Oil for Food scandal which left 300.00 dead and thousands of infant mortalities per annum, are suggesting that a pull-out is necessary and Iraq should be left to terrorists and fascists – in effect those who ran and supported the Hussein regime. They advocate the 1925 policy of perfidious Albion. Their short sightedness is shocking. Foreign adventures are never cheap, nor bloodless, nor are they usually of short duration. Leaving Iraq would be the same as leaving Germany in June 1945 to the Soviets. A major premise of the media and the left wing jet set is that Iraq costs too much money in treasure and blood. However containment costs in the 1990s were the same or higher than current occupation costs. And the cost in men while tragic is low by the standards of war. More US military personnel have died in accidents in the past 2 years outside of Iraq, than have died in 4 years inside Iraq. But the media does not deal in objectivity or analysis – just crass deception and virulent left wing nonsense when it comes to Iraq.

Iraq has never been peaceful. Sectarian conflict which the media pronounces a current novelty has been in existence in Iraq since the first bloody civil war of 657-661 A.D. This war and many subsequent ideological battles for power and control left millions dead. Not only were Muslims killed. Over the centuries millions of Jews and Christians were forced to flee, convert to Islam, or were executed. Hussein’s torture chambers were not novel. Fascism and oppression are historical facts for Iraq. Intolerance of non-Muslims permeates both sunni and shia history. Sectarian violence between the 2 sects has been a bloody reality as well. Not only were kaffirs or non-believers exterminated, and not only did Iraq ally itself with Nazi Germany, but sunnis and shias have fought a centuries long war over trade, political and ideological control, and of course in the modern era, oil.

Establishing a nation state on the chaos of centuries old fascism and repression is bound to be tough work. Iraqi society has always been a competition of warring interests – militant sunni’s, fanatical shia’s and independent kurds. For 1400 years the sunni’s have dominated. The apogee of such domination was Hussein’s supposedly secular but profoundly fascist regime. Now the tables are turned. Shia’s dominate the US protected state’s police and military forces. The sunni’s, Iraq’s historical masters, have nothing to gain from a shia dominated nation. Their jihad against civilization taking root in Iraq, has of course attracted a host of terrorists, zealots and like-minded fascists. The only way to resolve the disputes is through the current political and Constitutional process and the formation of a real national government – and the utter military destruction of the terrorists. When this happens then perhaps political negotiations will replace violence. Perhaps.

Even if Iraq forms a new government and the current crop of terrorists are annihilated and even if the nation at large broadly supports the Constitution, violence will still continue. New fascists will rise up to replace the former. The violence today is in historical perspective however, sharply reduced. During Hussein’s rule about 30.000-50.000 per annum were murdered. Various civil wars and sectarian clashes dominated the period from 657AD to 1925AD killing thousands per annum on average. Today the death rate is about 20-30% of that of Hussein’s regime and lower than the medieval and pre-modern periods. Thanks to the US invasion literally hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved. Yet media analysis and political commentary ignore this fact.

If the US was to pull out of Iraq would the violence stop? Of course it would only accelerate. There would be a full sectarian war once the US left. Revenge killings, control of oil, the use of Iraq’s new model army by its Shia commanders, the support of the Sunni’s by fascist terrorist groups, would presage a far bloodier epoch than currently experienced. The moralists and do-gooders should recognized this reality. Iraq is now, regardless of media spin, a far better place with a growing economy and a semblance of civilized normality, than it has ever been. Leaving Iraq would not only be a geopolitical disaster on the scale of the 1932 British withdrawal, it would be a humanitarian catastrophe as well.