The Horror of the Shade: Liberation, Post War Iraq, and America-Phobia

by Morpheus Reloaded

Well it looks like the party is just about over. The US has yo' bum rushed the show. Saddam and his boys are on the run like thugs in a rap video. And Baghdad looks like Freaknic. I'm thought I saw a few brothas walking around in Basra with camcorders.

The jubilant crowds in Baghdad cheering and welcoming US troops look as if they might break into a rendition of "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" like those Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz.

Watching them tear down the statues of Saddam and defame his cult of personality resemble the added scenes from the digitally re-mastered versions of George Lucas' Return of the Jedi, where jubilant members of the Galactic Republic brought down monuments of the dreaded and hated Emperor Palpatine.

And is it really any surprise?

Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, something many have made certain to state repeatedly despite whatever qualms are had over the Bush regime's intentions.

To the common Iraqi Hussein was a madman who plunged their nation into a decade spanning destructive war with Iran that took over a million lives, waged an embarrassing, losing war with the world in 1991 over Kuwait, and allowed his country to become a global pariah, slapped with choking, disastrous sanctions, etc.

Add to this the fact that he brutalized his own countrymen, harshly oppressed the Shia majority with his Sunni Baath party minority, terrorized the Kurds with chemical attacks and more, and you see what I meant before in a prior article when I called Saddam Hussein a snake--even while recognizing the US role as an ogre.

The UN, the Anti-War movement and all those who opposed the US and its empire building were placed in the bind of *indirectly* having to protect a snake (as seen with the conundrum of those volunteer human shields and Kofi Annan's dismissed pleas). Saddam Hussein was never a great poster boy to make the argument about state sovereignty and rights. No matter how one separates opposition for America's pre-emption policy from supporting Saddam's dictatorship, the fact remains that the Iraqi people lived under tyranny. And, other than pointing out the hypocrisy of the fact that members of the current Bush Jr regime were once in bed with the Overlord of Baghdad, the Left never really addressed freeing the Iraqi populace from Saddam's oppressive reign.

And when I say Saddam's regime was tyrannical or he was a dictator, I don't mean oppression like when we complain because a web portal temporarily pulls our political site or even because of horrendous acts of injustice like the Diallo slaying. I mean domestic policies where you can be snatched up for even having a site like playahata.com and disappear *f-o-r-e-v-e-r,* along with your family and close friends just for good measure. Post 9-11 US has been marching towards that New Age McCarthyist-Orwellian nightmare, but thankfully hasn't reached it---yet. Be happy that Bush Jr's daughters are just accused of snorting coke and blazing charm. Saddam's progeny are accused of giving people chemical and electric baths and using rape gangs (sometimes personally) as a form of torture. In the US, that's usually just left up to the CIA to do elsewhere and you can at least bring up the NYPD on charges when they engage in homoerotic acts with bathroom plungers. In Hussein's Iraq, the case wasn't even going to court and your life was in danger for mentioning it.

Who wouldn't be happy to be rid of such a regime? As one Iraqi citizen put it, he's 49 and has never really been allowed to live as a human being until Hussein's dictatorship fell. The Butcher of Baghdad is either dead or gone (the conspiracies range from a secret smuggle out by Russia or a mad dash to Tikrit for a last stand), and a great many Iraqis are quite relieved, ecstatic and greatly thankful.

The jubilation we are seeing is comparable to American slaves celebrating at the end of the Civil War. The North may have fought simply to preserve their Union with no real genuine concern for slaves, at least until the latter years of the war in order to boost troop morale, but to the black men and woman held in bondage intentions weren't important---freedom was. Most didn't care why Lincoln did what he did, but just rather that he got them out from under the yoke of slavery.

So in Iraq there are many who are overjoyed to see Saddam go as everyone should have expected, no matter what the US intentions were. You can't help but smile with them and get caught up in the euphoria. Heck, everyone should run down to their local city square, downtown region or wherever and yank down a statue or two---just to show our solidarity!

And while we're on the US liberation tour, I'd like to bring up a few choice spots to send our fighting boys n' girls to---where freedom is threatened by tyranny, oppression and dictatorships. We can kick it off with repairing the US created African semi-colony of Liberia, work on over to the Ivory Coast, end the disastrous wars in Sudan and the Congo (that have killed millions over the years and involved WMDs like forced starvation, mutilations and even slavery) and finish it up with Somalia (which *still* does not have a truly authoritative existing central government) and Zimbabwe. Let's not forget to rebuild the places US backed funds helped create rebel groups and ensured tyranny that shattered and destroyed infrastructures, lives and more during the Cold War (Angola and Mozambique will do for starters).

Declare war on AIDS, hunger and poverty, spend the billions of dollars it took to lob hundreds of missiles into Iraq, stop building MOAB bombs and drop some food and medicines in various corners of the world, and jubilant crowds in the hundreds of millions will be cheering "USA! USA!" Best PR campaign America could ever have---I guarantee it. It's funny because I sent this list to Dick, Wolfie, Rummy, Condi and the whole gang long before this whole Iraq business got popping, and never got a reply. Go figure.

But back to Iraq….the question now is, as with those ex-slaves in the US, how long will the jubilation in the streets last?

After a while there will be a sobering effect in Baghdad and elsewhere, especially as the cities are stripped clean. And the US will find itself in a delicate balancing act---trying not to tip over the edge from greeted liberator to resented occupier.

America will no doubt make many friends in Iraq over time as they attempt to build a new government with outward appearances of democracy, freedom, etc. Compared to Hussein's repressive regime, that won't be very hard. There will probably be some economic prosperity (once the looting stops), the nation will be opened up and welcomed to the world again, and all the nice trappings of the West will pour in en masse---from Starbucks to 50 Cents albums to bad credit. As one person I know stated, you'll know Iraq is "liberated" when there's a Super Wal-Mart in Baghdad.

However there are going to be serious problems to overcome.

The Turkish Ottoman Empire held the region together in the modern era through colonization. After that, the British would do the same. Saddam Hussein's dictatorship has followed in this tradition: unity through forced might. Can the US do differently? Can the Bush regime create a western styled democracy in a region that is not used to it? Can it convince the various dissimilar groups that call modern day Iraq home to unite? And even if these factions work together in a coalition at first, how long will the unity last?

What about the Kurds in the North? Right now they are saying they don't want a separate state, but no one knows their true intentions. The Kurds have wanted an independent state probably since the time of Alexander the Great. Can the US really persuade them to give up that hope now?

When the talk of liberty and freedom starts up, it spreads and can't be contained---like an annoying, wack song played on the radio so often you can't it out of your head. Ask the slaves of 18th century Haiti, or perhaps better put the free mulatto class of the era (les gens de couleur libres), who were weary of oppression and semi-citizenship. Hearing of the French Revolution and grand Enlightenment derived ideas of the freedom of man helped stir the already simmering pot of malcontent that boiled over into the only truly successful slave revolt in modern history. As the Kurdish population watches jubilant "liberated" Iraqis, these sentiments of freedom will no doubt wash over them---inspiring the ever-present desire to have a home of their own.

Whatever the Kurds agree to now, there is little certainty about what they will do months or years from now.

It is assured however that Turkey certainly won't stand by and allow a Kurdish state. With its own significant Kurdish population always clamoring for independence, a Kurdish state in control of the rich oil fields of the North is simply not an option in Turkish foreign policy---ever. Turkey has vowed to crush any such attempt and has troops poised at the Iraqi-Turk border with a very wary eye. These tensions were evident as Kurdish troops sped ahead of US Special Forces into the Northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk and alarm bells immediately sounded in the Turkish capital. You know someone was sitting in Ankara, watching those Kurds rush into Kirkuk, and like ya' boy Rico (the cartoon-ish, perm-weave wearing, Mid West pimp-gangsta in the movie Belly, played by actor Tyrin Turner) was cramming a banana messily into his mouth, shaking his head and muttering, "I don't like that sh*t…I don't like that sh*t at all…"

International law however requires that the US, as occupier, protect all members of the nation. It's like inheriting an estate and all the debt that goes with it.

A nightmare scenario for the US is a Kurdish declaration of an independent Northern state, thus provoking a brutal Turkish response. If the US were to get into a military conflict with Turkey, that would pit two NATO allies against each other---unheard of in the history of an organization already suffering from ideological strategic differences by its members.

The US will be doing all it can to keep the Kurds in check. If some separatist movement erupts among Kurdish populations and the US is forced to crack down on the Kurds themselves, to avoid conflict with Turkey, how will that be viewed by the very people who now praise them?

And even if the US can convince everyone to keep Iraq whole, who is going to run the new nation? The US will have to make Iraq a temporary colony, if not in name in deed, with a US military government for at least the short term. But how long will it take to find a leader that all the groups in Iraq will agree with? The tumultuous nature of this endeavor was learned when the simple act of trying to get some religious clerics to bring order to the city of Najaf ended up turning violently ugly. Before US forces arrived on the scene to help back up the cleric, an angry mob attacked and hacked him to death along with six other people. And different groups once held in check by the vise grip of the Saddam Hussein's regime are now vying for power, roaming the streets with leftover arms from fleeing Iraqi troops.

Furthermore, will Iraq ever *really* have a democracy? How truly democratic is a nation that is liberated and occupied? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that anyone in a leadership position in the new Iraq will have to get the nod of approval from the US. An American presence in the region, in whatever form, is not going to last months or years. It will be permanent, like South Korea or Japan. How long will western gifts like DVD players and McDonalds placate the Iraqi people? How long will it take before the jubilant crowds, now promised a chance at freedom, feel they are living in a puppet state ---even a much more free one--- and demand a total democracy under their full sovereignty? Can the US find a way to prevent themselves from changing from liberator to occupier over the months and years? And what role will the US allow the UN to have? What role will the UN demand?

And if this is some attempt to completely rewrite Mid East politics, how will the Iraqis react to the US launching wars against neighbors like Iran or Syria from their soil? The hawks in DC are already setting up Syria for a possible fall, with Ariel Sharon of Israel goading on the whole way. The idea that liberation from Saddam will equal Iraqi indifference to war made upon their neighbors or usher in some new era of Arab-Islamic love for Israel is at best a pipe dream and at worst a serious delusion.

What's more, though there are thousands of people cheering in the streets, Iraq is made up of millions--- not thousands. No doubt there are many, as the television show, that didn't like Saddam and happily topple his statues and spit on his image now that they are given the freedom to do so. But some of those same people, along with those that are not in front of network cameras, don't really like the US either or at least have a limited tolerance level.

One Iraqi expressed this feeling in his statement that he didn't like Saddam, but the thought of his nation as a loser made him feel weak and dejected. Some state derisively that whether Saddam was liked or not, Iraq does not belong in western hands and resent ideas of western control. Remember this is the land after all where ancient Sumeria, Babylon and the medieval powerful Baghdad Caliphate arose. There are Iraqis who see the US as nothing more than inferior western barbarians bent on Crusade that have taken their land. Dislike for Saddam may not translate into love for the US and its occupation, at least not in the long term. And of course there are a few Iraqis who do not suffer from selective amnesia like the American mainstream media, and even recall that the US was one of the many forces that once helped Saddam build and keep his power.

For any of YOU out there suffering from selective amnesia (because the sh*t is more contagious than a bad case of SARS I tell ya'), this picture might help relieve some of your symptoms:

[Reagan era Middle East Envoy Donald Rumsfeld, now US Secretary of Defense, shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq. The meeting took place in Dec. of 1983 during which time the UN and various NGO watch groups were pointing out that Iraq was not only developing chemical weapons, but using them in the field against Iranian troops. These series of high level diplomatic talks would normalize relations between the US and Iraq, make Saddam Hussein an American ally, enable his regime to purchase biological agents from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) and Center for Disease Control (CDC), amass various weapons and receive various other forms of US aid/backing for half a decade.]

Sing the song with me now… "Do you remember the time when we fell in love…Do you remember the time, when we first met…."

But anyway, who cares about the past right? So, back to our story…

One also has to take into account that though Operation Iraqi Liberation (catch the acronym if u got skills) was a quick and successful war for the US, it wasn't what was hoped for. It didn't last 5 days as the administration was alluding to everyone but took near 3 weeks and counting….

A great deal of Iraqi troops did surrender and many defected, but not in the masses that were expected. The Iraqi army fell, but not exactly like a deck of cards. Instead, though outnumbered and heavily outgunned, many fought to the death. On taking the renamed "Baghdad Airport" alone, it's thought that *thousands* of Iraqi soldiers were killed by US forces merely in a day or so. In places like Basra and other regions, foreign newspapers printed private US casualty figures for the Iraqi troops sometimes reaching a staggering 300 to 500 on separate days. Even after the capital fell, Iraqi troops/irregulars continued to fight in other parts of Baghdad and further North. It's baffling to the US Central Command why a clearly losing army continues to fight for a fleeing or dead dictator against a superior power. The answer normally given, that they are forced, is rather simplistic. A better understanding is that there obviously exists an element in Iraq who is willing to die either for Saddam or fights out of dislike for an invading force---no matter what that invading force's claimed intent.

Are these die-hards ever all going to be rounded up or will they simply melt into the populace and appear sporadically without warning to kill at will, as happened with a suicide bomb attack recently on US troops? I think it may become commonplace that for months or years to come you will hear of an American soldier in Iraq being sniped, a car bomb and other acts of mayhem, as Saddam loyalists and others who are as anti-US occupation as they are anti-Saddam, wage a continuous guerilla war.

This will of course cause US troops, ill prepared for peacekeeping, nervous, distrustful and suspicious of every Iraqi. Disasters have already occurred due to this inexperience at policing, including the shooting deaths of children by US troops who mistook them for enemy combatants. Anti-American forces driven underground will no doubt try their best to exploit this situation. If they manage to cause the US forces to grow increasingly heavy handed with the local populace, this could also sour many against their American liberators. Imagine if you will the sentiment towards US military forces firing into a crowd and causing a massacre. Actions such as these in Somalia quickly turned the local populace against the American troops who claimed to be there to help, but instead seemed to be doing a lot of killing.

The US is hoping desperately that over the next months they do not end up looking like Israeli troops in Gaza, making house to house searches, destroying neighborhoods with civilians to root out one rebel or causing anti-American fervor to be whipped up at the sight of small coffins being carried through the streets. The goal will be to create an Iraqi police force and army to take care of such things, but the US troops will have to remain to back up any such groupings.

There is also the matter of the thousands of Iraqi soldiers killed during this war. Though they don't get mini television "biopics" like US soldiers and remain nameless and faceless to us, the fact remains that they didn't just erupt from the ground. They're someone's fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, cousins, friends, etc---just like their American counterparts, minus the airtime. Many of these surviving relatives will forever view the US as the occupying force that killed their loved ones, whatever their thoughts of Saddam's regime are. The US really wanted Iraq's army to crumble and surrender rather than fight and die because everyone knows that as these bodies are returned home, the anger over their deaths may create numerous new enemies.

One can only guess the conflicting emotions of the Iraqi children born to any of those thousands of dead Iraqi soldiers: forced to make the decision of viewing the US forces as liberators or the people that killed their father. Perhaps they'll blame Saddam Hussein for it in the end and welcome the American presence. Or perhaps they'll grow up as a perfect candidate for the extremist underground groups bound to arise who will preach a hatred for the western occupiers.

What the hundreds of civilians that were maimed, killed, left homeless or aversely affected by this war will think of their liberator-occupiers is anyone's guess.

All those and more are the problems of "liberation" even when good intentions are meant. In the case of the US, where liberation is just a nice tactical side product that looks good on camera and the real goal is consolidating American power, these problems I think will be ten-fold.

And who can forget those pesky and yet unseen WMDs. That the US has not been able to find more than drums of pesticide at every turn is already a sore point that is steadily growing. Whether Saddam had such weapons or not is still unknown. It's certainly possible that he did. In fact, knowing Saddam's legacy, it's almost probable that he had a few stashed somewhere. However if the US doesn't hurry up and find such things, given the massive amounts they were claiming existed, there will always be unanswered questions over one of the claimed reasons for going to war. And it better be enough to have threatened America's shores.

The best thing Saddam or his troops could have done was actually *use* such weapons, giving the US all the legitimacy and "told ya' so!" it needed. But, thus far, they haven't.

I suspect that one way or the other, the US will eventually "find" some WMDs---whether it's because of a lucky break, rounding up Iraqi scientists and demanding they reveal what they know, or (of course) just planting it.

But the window of opportunity of convincing the world may have slipped by in many places, no doubt wondering why these very abundant WMDs (as claimed by the Bush Jr regime) haven't been found as US forces now control most of the country. I suspect that whenever the US makes its "find," it will be greeted with vindication by some and strong skepticism by others. As the Chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix admitted recently, he too shared the thoughts of many---that the concern over WMD's was never a primary concern of the US and that this war was planned long ago. Blix, like much of the world, suspects that the entire UN inspection game was just a false pretense by the US. Whenever these weapons do surface, American legitimacy will have been eroded to the point of making the find moot, void and with little affect on world opinion. When you win the race by a false start, the crowd doesn't erupt into cheering.

There will be more world problems as well. As if wishing to confirm everyone's fears, Assistant Secretary of State for Disarmament Affairs John Bolton boasted the Bush regime's belligerence stance loudly and proudly upon the fall of Baghdad.

Speaking on the U.S.-financed Arabic station Radio Sawa, Bolton triumphantly declared: "We are hoping that the elimination of the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein and the elimination of all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction would be important lessons to other countries in the region, particularly Syria, Libya, and Iran, that the cost of their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is potentially quite high."

The hope is that such belligerent saber-rattling will cause probable US enemies to cower and tremble. However, as with North Korea, there is the problem that it is more likely to have an opposite effect. The idea that other countries in the world will simply roll over and grovel at America's feet to save itself from the power of superior US military might is arrogant---and dangerous. Using the fate of Iraq as a smug warning to other nations aren't the words of benevolent liberators. They ring closer to the cantankerous intimidations of an Empire now drunken and in awe of its own ability to crush others through mere force. It is reminiscent of the Pax Romana at its height that would brutally crush foreign states, peoples or dissidents in its own sphere and hang them upon crosses as a warning: bow to the might of Rome or suffer a similar fate.

Are threats going to cause smaller countries to build less WMDs, or will they now do their best to get them as the only hopes of fighting an increasingly more aggressive and superior military force? If the theme around the world becomes like that of North Korea, "get a few nukes with long range missile capability and the US will think twice about invading unless it wants to see California reduced to fiery ash," the likelihood of nuclear proliferation grows substantially. And we will all be plunged into a deeply unstable world where everyone is secretly working to get the bomb due to "America-phobia." To paraphrase one observer, the US has used its might to trade a semi-free Iraq for a world that will now be arming itself to the teeth.

If the global ideology becomes that the US will do what it wants to whomever it wants without regard to international law, what becomes of the UN? Who will let any UN weapons inspectors into their country now, if they think it is just a precursor to a war led by the US along with the "coalition of the bribed and coerced?" The UN, an organization that can only exist with the cooperation of its members in a type of world-wide honor system, could soon find itself becoming either a "yes man" for the US or fade into irrelevancy. Dictatorships and repressive regimes will then cozy themselves up the US and agree not to create WMDs, but yet continue to brutalize their people - knowing they can do as they wish because America will turn a blind eye just to have company in the coalition. Worked during the Cold War, why not now?

As the line from the poem Invictus goes, this is just "the horror of the shade." The Bush regime should enjoy the jubilation and props while it can, but they'll have a job ahead of them in this new world they have created and that we have all just been thrust into.

If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions who knows where Paul Wolfowitz's pre-emptive policies (that have little to do with liberating the world but instead the dangerous vision of a Pax Americana), will lead us all.

I'm glad the Iraqi people are happy the snake is gone. I'm sure their jubilance will continue for a while. But in the days, months and years to come, it will be very interesting (and perhaps frightening) to see what happens next both in the Mid East and the world.

Morpheus_Reloaded

[Released: April 11th, 2003]