The very fact that there was “piss poor” planning merely demonstrates a callous disregard for the Iraqi people. After the invasion the general secretary of Amnesty International said “There seems to have been more preparation to protect the oil wells than to protect hospitals, water systems or civilians.” In fact the refusal of the US-Government to count Iraqi deaths resulting from its actions loudly bespeaks its disregard for Iraqi lives - and where your claim that VERY FEW Iraqis died as a result of “shock and awe” came from, I don’t know. And how many is the VERY FEW which you obviously believe is OK because you care so much for the Iraqis? One is too many in my opinion, but according to you, I don’t care.

“You didn’t address whatsoever my argument that Iraq would be worse off if the coalition just pulled out.”

I don’t think they could be any worse off than they are now. 1.2 million dead, 4 million displaced, basic infrastructure destroyed. An Oxfam report released in July indicated that 8 million Iraqis urgently require water, sanitation, food and shelter. According to Oxfam, Iraq’s civilians are “suffering from a denial of fundamental human rights in the form of chronic poverty, malnutrition, illness, lack of access to basic services, and destruction of homes, vital facilities, and infrastructure, as well as injury and death. Basic indicators of humanitarian need in Iraq show that the slide into poverty and deprivation since the coalition forces entered the country in 2003 has been dramatic, and a deep trauma for the Iraqi people.”

As I said, don’t even try to pretend that the US-ruling-class, and its allies, have the best interests of Iraqis at heart. Their actions have created the humanitarian disaster – precisely because the war had nothing to do with the interests of ordinary Iraqis and everything to do with gaining strategic control of the region, and particularly of the oil resources. Any continuation of the occupation is solely about maintaining control of the oil and will never be about the interests of the Iraqi people.

Tao,

I was never debating that we all have a specific frame of reference for our understanding of events. Merely that your use of WSW to support your argument is no more persuasive to me than if I quoted you Geraldo Rivera. What I was suggesting was that you might do better to find a more independent or objective source.

WSW is by its very nature anti-capitalist and therefore America, being the spiritual home of Capitalism, is its number one enemy. Socialism is an outdated and patently flawed political system. This has been demonstrated a hundred times over in the last century. Where it still exists, usually in bastardised form, it is maintained by dictators and strongmen.

It is so patently false that there is anything more than a passing commonality between the “working classes” of the world. The division of the world into bourgeois and proletariat has been superseded and it’s simplicity, which was the basis of its appeal, was also its fatal flaw.

>> This means that the capitalist ruling class, including its lackeys in the UN, must be overthrown by the working class.

How can you suggest with a straight face that the UN is a body which should be respected and adhered to, and then talk about destroying it? How can you ask anyone to believe that you and the socialists are in ANY WAY objective when your criticisms of the coalition dovetail so nicely with your aims of overthrowing them? How can you honestly believe all that rubbish in light of the EXTRODINARY damage international socialism has visited upon the world. The biggest mass murderer on the planet was a socialist, remember Stalin. Pol Pot and Mao Zedong’s revolutions for the working class were only marginally less catastrophic.

>> The ‘leftists’ have been opposed to the inevitable destruction of Iraq … since before the war began.

This is utter rubbish, the ‘leftists’ have been opposed to everything the US does, including the humanitarian interventions in Bosnia/Kosovo and Somalia. For the socialists, America is enemy number one. If you were honest you would acknowledge this.

Cont’

>> I don’t think they could be any worse off than they are now. 1.2 million dead, 4 million displaced.

Oh no you did not say that, did you? Your obvious naivety is now beginning to assert itself. They could not be any worse off? Really? The Rwanda genocide left nearly one million people dead in a period of just over 100 days. And they were mostly only armed with machetes. Things could get a lot worse for the Iraqis and for the region. The breakup of Iraq would very likely tip the region into full scale conflict. Already there are serious tensions between the Arabs and the Iranians and neither would stand by while their coreligionists were massacred.

Do you deny Iraq would fall into full-scale civil war if the coalition left before the country was secured? Please no platitudes about it already being a civil war - If the various sects were turned loose on one another the bloodshed would be far, far greater than we see today and Iraq would end up a failed state like Somalia.

I don’t deny the difficulties the Iraqi people face, although I do debate your figures.
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimates the number of people currently displaced within the country at 1.9 million although 46,000 refugees returned to Iraq in October alone due to the significant downturn in violence.

What I am suggesting is that your solution is not a solution to the Iraqis problems, it’s a solution to yours and the socialists. The socialist don’t have a plan for how to help Iraq, because their primary goal is to defeat the capitalists. This is best achieved by lobbying for America to get out of Iraq, thus striking a blow against American prestige.

Personally I would prefer that the UN moved into Iraq and the coalition left but this won’t happen, for two reasons.

1) The good govt’s of the UN would never be prepared to provide the necessary number of peacekeepers.
2) The willpower to face down the terrorists especially in the face of significant casualties, is lacking.

PauLL,

As to your comment “What I was suggesting was that you might do better to find a more independent or objective source”. The point is that there are no truly independent or objective sources – if you believe you have one, you are deluding yourself. There are facts, then there is the reporting of them, or not, according to a perspective.

You failed to explain how many were the VERY FEW who you claim died in the initial attack, which, considering how much you seem to think you alone care for the Iraqis, and your approval of the invasion, is obviously an acceptable amount of deaths to you – no doubt “collateral damage”. Nor did you explain where you got such a claim from since the US Government does not bother to count deaths.

I see you also failed to address my comments that the poor planning for the aftermath demonstrates how little the coalition cared for Iraqi lives, and how they will now miraculously know what is best for Iraqis.

It is a despicable twist to suggest that others don’t care about the Iraqis when you quite clearly dismiss the significance of, and apparently approve of, their deaths. Enough really, to indicate that any argument you make about what is in their best interests is a pretence.

continued....

Also this habit you have of disputing figures – you don’t seem to care that they might actually be true – just that they might make the war look bad. You cited the internally displaced figure of 1.9 million, but there are about 4 million displaced BOTH internally and externally – 15% of the population. You seem to be trying to distort the truth. And even if it were only 1.9 million, isn’t that horrific enough?

As to your comments that in Rwanda nearly a million people were killed – at 1.2million, the death toll from the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has now surpassed that. Where is the outrage in the media? I notice that the ORB report was barely mentioned in what you presumably believe are “independent or objective” sources. You yourself don’t seem disturbed about what has actually happened, you are more interested in hysterically speculating about what might happen should the US not continue the occupation – it’s the same thing they did to justify the invasion in the first place – and it turned out to be lies.

It is pointless continuing this discussion with you.

Tao

OK, maybe there are no truly independent or objective sources in the postmodern sense, if you really want to be anal about it. But the WSW and socialists in general, as followers of a specific dogma, have no objectivity at all. There are many sources available which do their very best to remain unbiased and objective. But the WSW take on the coalition is like sourcing a Liberal politician for opinion on Labour policy. The chances of any objectivity are nil.

For analysis of shock and awe campaign see John Keegan, the worlds pre eminent military historian; or John Simpson’s “The Wars against Saddam”. Simpson especially is a BBC journalist and is highly critical of the American planning for the peace. I am ambivalent about the original invasion. For me the question of what to do now is of much greater importance.

Your sanctimonious pap about an acceptable number of deaths is sad but predictable. I don’t dismiss the suffering of the Iraqis, in fact I have specifically acknowledged it in my recent posts. Just remember that the socialists did nothing to stop Hussein torture, oppress and murder hundreds of thousands of his citizens. And the socialists were the ones who wanted to give sanctions time to work. Those were the sanctions which caused the starvation and malnutrition of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis as well as impoverishing the country and allowing its infrastructure to wither and die.

The Iraqis have a democratically elected gov’t which is responsible for the rebuilding of the country. The coalition are only in Iraq to provide the necessary military muscle to stabilize the country and allow the gov’t to get on with the task of reconstruction.

You deliberately missed the point with respect to Rwanda. I was pointing out for you what a country mostly only armed with machetes could do in 100 days. Most Iraqis have guns so the possibilities are far worse. Iraq is not even remotely near to the worst it could get, even at the height of the violence.

cont'