Peace Researcher 30 – March 2005
In mid-November 2004 the US
Department of Defense confirmed the existence of a report highly critical of
the Administration's efforts in the War On Terror and in the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. “Muslims do not hate
our freedom, but rather they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority [of
Muslims] voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favour
of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing,
support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf States. Thus, when American public
diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as
no more than self-serving hypocrisy” (Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
(September 2004), “Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic
Communication” (“SC”), p40).
The report “Strategic Communication”
comes from none other than a branch of the Pentagon itself, the Defense Science
Advisory Board (DSB). The DSB is a US Federal Advisory Committee established to
provide independent advice to the Secretary of Defense. Donald Rumsfeld
received the report on September 23rd, 2004. The Bush Administration
is not known for appreciating official advice challenging neo-conservative
views. Oh to be a fly on the wall that
day. Recently, a number of people in America, from the DSB to Boston Globe journalist Molly Bingham
are asking a similar question. Are US difficulties in Iraq due to an inability
to see American actions through Arab eyes?
In the 2003 documentary “The Fog
Of War” director Errol Morris interviews Robert S McNamara, most widely known
for his role as Secretary of Defense for the 1960s’ Kennedy and Johnson
Administrations (i.e. during the Vietnam
War. Ed.). For me, McNamara’s
discussion of the importance of “empathising with the enemy” was the most
interesting part of the film, especially as his “lesson” has direct relevance
for the US-created shambles in Iraq.
During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis President John Kennedy was lucky enough to
have someone at his side that knew the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev well,
and was able to predict (accurately as it turned out) the kind of compromise
that Khrushchev needed in order to defuse the crisis without the need for war.
Although he may not be a household name, Tommy Thompson, the former US
Ambassador to Moscow, may have saved more than a few households.
McNamara: “We must try and put
ourselves inside their skin and look at us through their eyes, just to
understand the thoughts that lie behind their decisions and their actions”.
Later in the film McNamara makes a very interesting comparison between the
outcomes of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War. “In the Cuban Missile Crisis, in the end
I think we did put ourselves in the skin of the Soviets. In the case of
Vietnam, we didn’t know them well enough to empathise. And there was total
misunderstanding as a result. They believed we had simply replaced the French
as a colonial power and we were seeking to subject South and North Vietnam to
our colonial interest, which was absolutely absurd. And we saw Vietnam as an
element of the Cold War. Not what they saw it as, a civil war".
Could “we did not know them well
enough to empathise” be a plausible explanation for the chaos and gross
misunderstanding in Iraq right now?
Even a cursory glance of Iraq’s 20th Century history reveals
a long struggle to gain and retain Iraqi independence, first from the Ottoman
Turks and then from the British. The failures of previous empires left a legacy
in Iraqi politics, a strong distrust of foreign rule. The ousted dictator,
Saddam Hussein, knew how to turn this distrust into power, and (falsely) promoted
himself with anti-imperialist rhetoric. The US has shown little understanding
of this dynamic, perhaps apart from a relatively transparent attempt to include
Iraqi troops in the November 2004 invasion of Fallujah, only to make the
“collaborators” into prime targets. Unfortunately, other American actions have
understandably reminded Iraqis of the colonial past, notably US plans for a
network of military bases and US enforced law changes that open Iraq up for
unrestricted foreign investment and repatriation of profits (read
plunder). Seen through these eyes, it
is reasonable for Iraqis to fear that the US will act like another colonial
power.
I refer you to three Foreign Control Watchdog articles on the American occupation of Iraq. These are in number 107,
December 2004, “Iraq’s New Patent Law: A Declaration Of War Against Farmers”,
GRAIN and Focus on the Global South; number 106, August 2004, “War. Trade By
Other Means: How The US Is Getting A Free Trade Deal With Iraq Without The
Negotiations”, Mary Lou Malig; and number 105, April 2004, “The Hijacking Of A
Nation: Democracy And Self-Determination Are A Farce In Occupied Iraq”, Joe
Hendren. They can be read online at http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/07/09.htm;
http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/06/13.htm
and http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/05/05.htm. Ed.
The widespread use of embedded
journalists enables us to see the war through the eyes of Coalition soldiers,
as long as the military gain editorial input (read ability to censor), but no
Iraqi equivalent exists to provide the old journalistic maxim of balance. Instead,
the mainstream media follows the dictionary of the occupier, dismissing the
Iraqi opposition as terrorists, insurgents or militants, often with a
suggestion of a possible connection to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (the Jordanian who is al Qaeda’s leader in
Iraq. Ed.). These terms actually
tell us very little. But the use of
empty nouns does make it easier for those supporting the occupation to create
the impression that any “violence” (but never US violence) is somehow without
reason, or simply an attempt to “disrupt elections”. Create a “fog”, discourage empathy and the payoffs can be
political.
Commenting on Iraq in 2004,
McNamara made his views clear. "It's just wrong what we're doing. It's
morally wrong, it's politically wrong, it's economically wrong" (Canadian Globe & Mail, 25/1/04, “Its just
wrong what we are doing”). He says the US is not omniscient enough, on its own,
to properly analyse the actions and ground-level conditions necessary to
achieve the complex and ambiguous goals of a war, whether it is reversing the
influence of Communism in Vietnam’s case, or bringing democracy to the Arab
world, in Iraq. In both cases the US failed to grasp the complexities of the
local culture, and therefore to anticipate the extended guerrilla war it became
involved in.
While the Defense Science Board
report contains valuable analysis of America’s relationships with the Muslim
world, it also contains some worrying commentary. To call digital cameras in
Abu Ghraib Prison a “strategic problem” is to stretch the bounds of tasteful
euphemism too far (presumably meaning
that the problem there was not the systematic torture of Iraqi prisoners by US
soldiers and Intelligence agents, but the fact that the torturers photographed
their handiwork, which caused huge political problems for the US in 2004. Ed.).The
DSB says the use of embedded journalists in Iraq has won broad support in
Government and the media, as it “reduced the potential for Iraqi disinformation
(e.g. on civilian casualties) that could have undermined political support in
the US and in other countries” (“SC”, p23). But on the few occasions such
journalists did report civilian casualties, their figures appear implausibly
low, especially when compared to more credible casualty surveys such as the Lancet report (which estimated Iraqi civilian deaths at 100,000. Ed.).
The Defense Science Board makes
an insightful point when it criticises the US government for relying on Cold
War responses to the new “threat” following 9/11, as if they were a reflex
action, without a “thought or a care as to whether these were the best
responses to a very different strategic situation” (“SC”, p 34). “In stark
contrast to the Cold War, the United States today is not seeking to contain a
threatening state empire, but rather seeking to convert a broad movement within
Islamic civilisation to accept the value structure of Western Modernity – an
agenda hidden within the official rubric of a 'War on Terrorism,” (ibid., p36).
The DSB says it is a strategic
mistake to compare Muslim masses to those “oppressed” under Soviet rule, as
there is “no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-US groundswell among Muslim
societies” (ibid., p36.They appear to assume that all Communist countries
yearned to be liberated by the US, a doubtful assumption at best). It says
there is a religious revival occurring within Islam, taking form through a wide
variety of movements, both moderate and militant. An overarching goal shared by
these movements is the overthrow of the “apostate” regimes: the tyrannies of
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan and the Gulf States. During the Cold War
the US accepted such authoritarian regimes as long as they were anti-Communist.
“Today, however, the perception of intimate US support of tyrannies in the Muslim
World is perhaps the most critical vulnerability in the American strategy”
(op.cit.), as US attempts to promote democracy in the region are seen as
hypocritical and self-serving.
If there is a groundswell of Muslim
opinion following the Iraq War, it is going against America. A June 2004 Zogby
International survey shows the US is viewed unfavourably by overwhelming
majorities in Egypt (98%), Saudi Arabia (94%), Morocco (88%) and Jordan (78%),
representing an average 18% jump in unfavourable attitudes in these countries
when compared with the 2002 survey. While Lebanon reported a tiny decrease in
unfavourability, from 70% to 69%, feelings of favourability also decreased,
from 26% in 2002 to 20% in 2004. Of the
countries surveyed, only the United Arab Emirates showed a decrease in
unfavourability ratings and an increase in favourability (from 10% to 14%), but
a strong majority of 73% continue to view the US in an unfavourable way
(surveys quoted in “SC”, p44).
Just as the DSB question the use
of Cold War routines in the War on Terrorism, a related point could be made
about Iraq. A Cold War mindset may have driven the overblown attempt by Paul
Bremer (the first US viceroy of occupied
Iraq. Ed.) to wipe Saddam Hussein’s former ruling Ba’ath Party from Iraqi
society, as it resembled an ideological witch hunt for Communists. Under the
“de-Ba’athification” policy, members from the top four ranks of the Ba’ath
Party were immediately fired from the jobs. All Iraqis working in the top three
ranks of the State sector, affiliated corporations, hospitals and universities
were “interviewed for possible affiliation with the Ba`ath Party, and subject
to investigation for criminal conduct and risk to security”, with those found to
be ordinary members fired from their jobs and banned from working in these
sectors (Coalition Provisional Authority [CPA] Order 1 {16/05/03},
“De-Ba`athification of Iraqi Society”, http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/index.html).
Similar motives were behind the disastrous decision to disband the Iraqi Army.
But in a one party state like Iraq, party membership does not necessarily
entail support for Saddam, as many Iraqis joined the governing party as a
pragmatic way to advance their careers. Due to the “de-Ba’athification” policy
thousands of Iraqi teachers, civil servants and military officers were unable
to work. Thankfully, the CPA relaxed the policy a little in April 2004 allowing
some former Ba’athists back into their professions (Guardian, 24/4/04, ‘U-turn on hiring of Ba'ath party members’). But
as the Sunnis widely boycotted participation in the January 2005 elections, the
US could still achieve its original goal of engineering a government largely
free of former Ba’athists (by its broad definition).
In the Boston Globe, Molly Bingham
explained why elections won't quell Iraq
resistance. “The composition of the Iraqi Resistance
is not what the US Administration has been calling it, and the more it is
oversimplified the harder it is to explain its complexity.... My objective is
not to romanticise the fighters or their fight, but merely to better understand
what our realistic choices are in Iraq and the Middle East” (Boston Globe, 15/11/04,’Why elections
won’t quell Iraq resistance”).
Like McNamara, Molly Bingham is advocating
empathy, an empathy informed by her experiences while researching the Iraqi
Resistance in Baghdad from August 2003 to June 2004. In her article she
countered some of the myths that have been promoted by the US Administration.
Rather than a response to the disastrous US occupation or a reaction to the
lack of elections, Bingham found the vast majority of the fighters joined the
Resistance within days of the end of the ground war on April 9th,
2003. Bingham says it is misleading to
describe the Resistance as “Ba’athist dead enders”, former regime loyalists,
criminals, Islamic extremists or driven by a vast number of foreigners with
contacts to al Qaeda. While she did not discount the influence of such
elements, this is not who she met in Iraq. “Shia and Sunnis fighting together,
women and men, young and old…people from all economic, social and educational
backgrounds. The original impetus for almost all of the individuals I spoke to
was a nationalistic one – the desire to defend their country from occupation,
not to defend Saddam Hussein or his regime”.
Not one fighter had recently been released from
prison, not one knew of any connection with al Qaeda. She met one foreign
fighter. Despite US attempts to portray the Resistance as having a tightly
organised structure with a leadership that can be obliterated, led by the
“Jordanian militant” al-Zarqawi, Bingham says that the many levels of
violence seen in Iraq after the US attack on Fallujah in November 2004
demonstrated that this is another myth.
“Of the 15 Resistance fighters who told me
about their lives, most were from the same small neighbourhood of Adhamiya in
Baghdad, but were not necessarily in the same cell or command structure. By the
end of 2003 these cells had grown while maintaining their independence. They
were no longer carrying out attacks in their own home turf but were travelling
to other areas of the country”.
Since the capture of Saddam in 2003, Bingham
sensed the growing power of Islam among the fighters. But in the absence of a
solid government or civil structure she does not regard it as “surprising that
a Muslim community would revert to Koranic law, even if only temporarily.
Attacking Fallujah neither decapitated the Resistance nor eliminated its
support. Rather it is a powerful
recruiting poster for Iraqis not yet engaged in the struggle and for foreigners
motivated to join what they view as a Jihad”.
The struggle, as seen by the Resistance, is a
“fight for their homes, their nation, their honour and their faith against the
imposition of a political structure by a foreign nation”. The January 2005
elections will not stop the violence, as the Resistance will not regard a
political process led by the US as being legitimate. Bingham concludes: “the
violence will remain until we are gone”.
Despite US attempts to champion “Iraqi democracy”, the presence of the
troops could act as the most significant barrier to the ballot box, and thus a
barrier to the formation of a government regarded as legitimate by the Iraqi
people.
The DSB reports “[I]n the eyes of
Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy
there, but only more chaos and suffering. US actions appear, in contrast, to be
motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best
serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self
determination” (“Strategic Communication”, p40).
I think the Left has been a little unsure of itself in deciding whether or not
to support the Iraqi Resistance, largely because many have felt unsure about
exactly what they were supporting. But a first step is to give up the erroneous
impression, created by the occupiers, that the “insurgents” represent a uniform
group with the common goal of hating democracy. Attempting to ignore the
Resistance is a more common response. More understanding and empathy is
required.
Much of the Resistance sprang up
immediately in response to the illegal US invasion. Given that the Resistance
is a nationalist response to the invasion, it seems safe to assume that no elections
will be regarded as legitimate while Americans remain in control of the
political process. Empathy is something the Left usually does well. So let’s
have more of it.
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