Iraq: A Moral Reckoning By Charles Krauthammer Friday, May 16, 2003; Page A29 There is a large and overlooked truth about the American occupation of Iraq: Whereas in postwar Germany and Japan we were rebuilding countries that had been largely destroyed by us, in Iraq today we are rebuilding a country destroyed by its own regime. In World War II we leveled entire cities (Tokyo, Dresden, Hiroshima, many more), targeted and razed the enemy's industrial infrastructure, killed and displaced countless civilians. We turned the countries to rubble; then we rebuilt them. In Iraq, it was Saddam Hussein who turned the place to rubble. By any historical standard, the amount of destruction caused by the coalition was small. Most of the damage was inflicted on the symbols, barracks, ministries and communication organs of the Baathist regime. The infrastructure -- roads, bridges, dams, sewage systems, schools, mosques and hospitals -- was barely touched. And as for the people, one of the more unnoticed facts of this war was the absence of refugees -- the Iraqi people's silent homage to their trust in the stated allied purpose of coming to liberate and not destroy. Iraq today is a social, economic, ecological and political ruin not because of allied bombing but because of Baath Party rule. Since 1979 Hussein had managed the economic miracle of reducing by 75 percent the gross domestic product of the second-richest oil patch on the planet. That takes work. Hussein's capacity for destruction was up to the task. He reduced the Shiite south to abject poverty. He turned a once well-endowed infrastructure to rot by lavishing Iraq's vast oil resources on two things: weaponry and his own luxuries. And in classic Stalinist fashion, he destroyed civil society, systematically extirpating any hint of free association and civic participation. And don't talk to me about sanctions being the cause of this misery. First of all, Hussein willfully brought on the sanctions by violating the disarmament conditions that he signed to end the Persian Gulf War. Moreover, the billions he skimmed and scammed from the U.N. oil-for-food program and from even shadier oil deals went into schools filled to the rafters with machine guns, into cold cash stashed behind walls and into shagadelic palaces -- about 50 built after the Gulf War and thus under sanctions. Upon the detritus of 30 years of indigenous misrule, we come to rebuild. This is not to say that we lack self-interest here. We are embarking on this reconstruction out of the same enlightened altruism that inspired the rebuilding of Germany and Japan -- trusting that economic and political success in Iraq will have a stabilizing and modernizing effect on the entire region. But our self-interest does not detract from the truth that what we are doing in Iraq is morally different from what we did after World War II. In Iraq, we are engaged in rescue rather than the undoing of our own destruction. We've undertaken the maddening task of cleaning up someone else's mess. As the extent of the horror inflicted by the Baathist regime is documented day by day, opponents of the war are increasingly shamed. With every mass grave discovered, those who marched with such moral assurance just two months ago under the banner of human rights and social justice must make an accounting. In the name of peace, they supported the legitimacy and defended the inviolability of a regime that made relentless war on every value the left pretends to uphold: • Human rights: Outside of North Korea, Hussein was the greatest violator of human rights in the world. The list of his crimes, the murders and the tortures, will take a generation to catalogue. • Economic equity and social justice: Hussein was not just a murderer, he was the king of robber barons. Since 1983, Iraq has not even had a national budget. Every penny of its wealth was plundered by Hussein and his fellow Mafiosi and spent on the most grotesque extravagances, while his people were made to starve. • The environment: Hussein was unquestionably the greatest eco-terrorist in history. During the Gulf War he produced the worst deliberate oil spill ever. He followed that with the worst oil-well fires ever. Then came perhaps the most astonishing ecological crime in history: deliberately draining the marshes of southern Iraq in order to depopulate and starve out the Marsh Arabs, who were hostile to his regime, creating a wasteland that will take years for the world -- meaning Iraq's American rescuers -- to undo. Torturer, murderer, plunderer, despoiler. "We've gotten rid of him," said presidential candidate Howard Dean, prewar darling of the Democratic left. "I suppose that's a good thing." It was a very good thing. A noble thing. And rebuilding the place that Saddam Hussein destroyed is an even nobler thing. It is fine to carp about our initial failures at reconstruction; it is well to remember, however, the nobility of the entire enterprise. © 2003 The Washington Post Company
DD, I always look forward to Krauthammers work. He rarely disappoints his readers. I didn't expect many responses to this article, because it is not controversial. I am sure everybody who took the time to read the article agreed with the conclusion- the world is far better off without Saddam in charge of Iraq. Americans need to somehow move past the bickering about why Saddam was overthrown and concentrate on an incredibly important question- In this new era of asymmetrical warfare, in which small groups of men can potentially killions millions of people, can mankind afford to allow murderous thugs and criminals to rule counties? I say that the answer is clearly NO. We need to continue the job that our forefathers started, and do our best to spread Democracy across the rest of the globe using all ethical means available. A world full of Democracy is the best defense our people have against external threats.
We need to continue the job that our forefathers started, and do our best to spread Democracy across the rest of the globe using all ethical means available Here we go again. The conservatives believe in democracy all of a sudden. NOw I can't tell if Heath is being cynical like Bush and gang or is a naive true believer type. Here's a chance to prove it when it doesn't involve the "collateral" unintended (yeah) consequence of seizing the world's lowest cost producing oil fields. 1) DOMESTICALLY ---Have all weekend elections in the US, like many countries, to make it easy to vote. To encourage democracy. 2) Make it easier to register to vote. 3) Allow ex offendrs to vote. Let's face it the conservatives and the Republicans won't do this as they are playing cynical electoral politics rather than encouraging democracy. They want the vote to be lower if it will mean more voters from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. INTERNATIONALLY-- There are many examples of enthusiastic CURRENT support for dictatorships.. Our support for Indonesia's dictator, the emiratates of the Middle East that support our Iraq policy, the Muslim new repuplics from the Soviet Union that supported us in Afghanistan. Let's take another example from that noted neocon and one of the principle proponents of the Iraq invasion, Paul Wolfowicz. He recently called for essentially the Turkish military to force the democratic government to overturn the elected prepresentatives, who polls showed were supported approximately 90% of the population who were against Bush's invasion of Iraq. ******************** Democracy, neocon style By H.D.S. Greenway, 5/16/2003 NEOCONSERVATIVES, who have risen to great power and influence within the Bush administration, have told us of their sweeping design to transform the Middle East into a model of democracy. Skeptics have demurred, but the neocons have countered that the doubters lack vision. There have been recent events, however, that bring into question the sincerity of these grand visionaries. Take, for example, the recent remarks of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, perhaps the most influential of the right-wing conservatives in government. Although the State Department got most of the blame for the diplomatic debacle over Turkey's failure to allow US troops to transit en route to Iraq, it was Wolfowitz who conducted much of the negotiations. As it was, Turkey's new, democratically elected Parliament said no, much to Washington's chagrin and to the embarrassment of the Turkish government, which had urged a ''yes'' vote. Turkey was not the first government in a democratic state to be rebuffed by legislators. It happens in the United States all the time. But last week, in an interview with CNN, Wolfowitz lashed out at the Turkish military for the failure to fall into line. ''I think for whatever reason, they did not play the strong leadership role that we would have expected,'' he said. Consider the ramifications of this statement in the Turkish context. Democracy in Turkey is alive but fragile. Open elections began only in the 1950s. Traditionally the Turkish military has seen itself as the guardian of the secular state that Kemal Ataturk put into place following the end of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. The Turkish generals have made it a habit to step in from time to time to dismiss governments they do not like, returning rule to civilians only when it suits them. The last time this happened was in the late 1990s, when Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan was chucked out of power by the military for being too anti-Western and too Islamic. Islam is a growing force in Turkey, especially among the rural poor now flooding into cities. Turkey's armed forces and the elites are determined to keep the country secular. Recent Turkish elections swept all the establishment parties away and brought to power a new Parliament with a decided Islamic bent. Its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former mayor of Istanbul, was at first banned from becoming prime minister because of a nationalistic poem with Islamic imagery that he had once read aloud. But Erdogan and his party had gone out of their way to be pro-West and moderate, and the military kept to its barracks. Eventually, Erdogan was allowed to assume the prime ministry, which he deserved, but not before he had been received by President Bush in the White House. Bush rightly decided that, far from being a threat, Erdogan's clean government ticket could serve as an example of how a Middle Eastern government could be Islamic, democratic, moderate, and pro-Western all at the same time. Erdogan and his government wanted to allow US troops to use Turkish soil to attack Iraq, and not just because of the huge bribe the United States had offered. But the government couldn't persuade enough legislators. Many Turks felt the Parliament had made a mistake, that Turkish interests had been hurt, but the Parliament didn't agree, and that was that. End of story; or so it should have been. One might have thought that anyone interested in true democracy would have been impressed and delighted. Here was Parliament defying the government, and the military didn't intervene. An American foreign policy goal is to get the European Union to accept Turkey. One of the EU's legitimate complaints is that the EU is a grouping of democracies and that the banana republic-like actions of the Turkish military over the years indicate that Turkey's democracy is only a sometime thing. But this time around, the Turkish military was not interfering. Then up steps Paul Wolfowitz, saying that the Turkish military had not played ''the strong leadership role that we would have expected.'' Does that mean that, in Wolfowitz's view, there should have been a military coup? Or that the Turkish generals should have threatened the Parliament? In the Turkish context there is every reason to interpret the deputy secretary of defense's remarks in that way. The Turks are perfectly aware of the Pentagon's creeping takeover of US foreign policy. There will be some who consider Wolfowitz's remarks as encouragement to boot out Erdogan as they did Erbakan. Americans have a right to ask: Do the neocons really want democracy, or do they simply want to bully the Middle East into a semblance of democracy that will toe the American line and further neoconservative imperial fantasies? H.D.S. Greenway's column appears regularly in the Globe.
Voting, unlike freedom, is a privilege and a responsibility. Unlike you, I don't want felons, apathetic people, disinterested people, or lazy people voting. I want all the people who are politically informed and industrious voting in our elections. The last thing we need is the Democrat party promising more programs for lazy people in exchange for their internet vote that can be cast from a couch. We should all have to make an effort to cast a vote- to keep the riff raff out of our political process. Guess what? It doesn't cost a damn thing to vote. If the lower socioeconomic classes are represented at the ballot box, it is because they were too lazy to make the effort. Too bad for them. So what? That is irrelevant to my message. I want to see all these dictatorships disappear eventually. Our support of any dictatorship in the past only makes the case stronger for their removal, because we are partly responsible for their grip on power. We need to do what is right, and clean up any messes left from our miscalculations. btw, the argument that we can't do what is right because we have sinned in the past is ridiculous, and you should feel silly for advancing it in the first place. Earth to Glynch, I argue for Democracy in generic terms. I realize that we actually endorse a type of Democracy- a Republic. We Americans don't believe that government should be ruled by the Mob, so polls are irrelevant. The Turks made a mistake by not honoring their NATO committment (my opinion) and supporting us in Iraq. Wolfowicz is right to criticize them. True Democracy, which is one vote for one man concerning every subject, has never worked. Our Republic is the most successful political experiment ever, and we are only getting stronger and more influential. We owe it to all the oppressed people in this world to allow them access to freedom. Does this sound simplistic? You bet. Nevertheless, this is the route being taking by our President and his team. Watch and marvel, because these men are going to fundamentally change the world for the better.
By the way, Wolfowicz did not call for the Turkish military to usurp the power of the Turkish legislature. The author of your article knows this to be true, so he uses the word "essentially" to cover his lie.
No Worries, the above type of comment is all that I have come to expect from you. Keep doing your best.
Your understanding of NATO is lacking. NATO is a DEFENSIVE alliance. If the US could have made a clear case of Iraq's imminent danger to the US, I am very sure that all of the NATO members would have stood by us. Your understanding, as well as the Bush Admin's, of how democracies work is also lacking. Isn't it telling that France, Germany, and Turkey, all democracies, stood against the US's invasion of Iraq? At the end of the day, I will be very suprised if Iraq has a recognizable democracy. That is not what the Bush Admin wants. What they want is a pro-American government in Iraq. Given the Shiite majority in Iraq, a democracy is simply not in the cards.
Historically and expectedly, the US has done what serves its interests. If it means propping up dictators or enabling Israeli human rights violations and imperialism to happen then that is fine by the US. It is ridiculous to say that the US is primarily motivated by spreading "democracy" as such but this is a good way to make your actions acceptable and look good and to gain public support. As usual the public is duped.
What the Bush administration wants (and Clinton and Bush, Sr, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, etc...) is for people in poorer parts of the world to be brought up into the middle class. You'll never eliminate poverty but if we can make more parts of the world as prosperous as Europe and North America it would make the world a much better place. If most people were in the "middle class" then you would find fewer people trying to revolt or join terrorists organisations. Plus, you would create a globe full of consumers. You want to balance the U.S. trade deficit? Ensure that there are more consumers outside the U.S.
Just a note on Turkey and its military, which explains Wolfowitz's comments: Under *the Turkish constitution* the Turkish military is obligated to overthrow any government that comes to power that is not secular in nature. Post-WWI, Ataturk took a good hard look at what had happened to his country/empire, and decided that Turkey would never again be an Islamic state. That is why Turkey has been a bastion of muslim state secularism for over 80 years, is a member of NATO, and has been in the past one of our best allies in the region. BTW, the Turkish military has overthrown governments there before to keep them secular. In that country, Islamicism is too much of a threat to regional stability for the military - which is very secular, and has kept their government both secular and democratic for quite some time - to sit idle.
