Tuesday, March 20, 2007
18% of Iraqis have confience in the U.S. forces
After seeing results that only 18% of Iraqis have confidence in the U.S. forces, it’s hard to have an optimistic point of view. While it’s great that Americans have such a strong belief on how we should handle this war, it seems like we should see what the Iraqis want. Why haven’t we been thinking about the people stuck in the middle of this war? Where are the polls that show that even the Iraqis aren’t confident in the U.S. forces? This information wasn’t even published by an American news company, but by BBC. The polls show that Iraqis have become less optimistic about their future compared to a poll in 2005. Do you think Americans are being inconsiderate to the Iraqis interest?
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Most of the articles I found ignored the good aspect of these polls, but here it is-
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-03-18-iraq-poll_N.htm?csp=34
"The Iraqi Army and Iraqi police got relatively high endorsements by those surveyed. Nearly two-thirds said they had confidence in them. Just under half said they had confidence in the national government of Iraq and local leaders in their communities. One-third trusted local militias"
In my opinion promoting this kind of thinking has moved in front of "winning hearts and minds", as it should at this part of the conflict. The last thing we need is to let the Iraqis (or Afghanis) become totally dependant on us- that would ensure failiure AND in the long run the US being blamed for pulling out. Instead we should be (and I think for the most part we are) giving the ICDC, Iraqi Army and Police, and Iraqi elected officials, full credit for anything good that happens, whenever possible.
The more Iraqis that support the Iraqi government, over their tribe or sect or umma, especially with regards to willingness to pay taxes for security, the more stable Iraq will be.
I think that we have been inconsiderate of Iraqis' interests from the beginning. How else can you explain us illegally invading a country, killing their leader, and changing their way of life? Granted, Sadaam wasn't the greatest of guys, but when he was in power Iraq was safer than it is now.
Unless you are a Kurd. Then you lived in a country where your most powerful political leader has no problem with deploying chemical weapons into your city to kill you and your family. Or if you weren't Kurdish but believed in democracy or fairness or women's rights or just didn't want Saddam's son to legally rape your daughter, you may still be considered a dissident. Then Saddam's regime may torture you for information about other people that threaten his power, or build a military blockade around your city and not let any food in until the town is starving so much they give him what he wants (and actually, both of these apply just for living next to a dissident, you don't have to actually be one).
And let's not forget economic loss. Before Saddam took power the Iraqi dinar was worth 4 US dollars, but it soon dropped to 1000 Dinar per US dollar.
This is why most Iraqis were visibly happy to see us in 2003, (even in Fallujah and places in the "Sunni triangle", btw) and why the day news broke about Saddam being captured, celebrations erupted. And it's why THEY killed (as well as tried and sentenced) their own leader.
Also, the US and the UK are sovereign nations, and they both decided that under their own laws, they do not need the UN's approval to go to war in Iraq. Anything countries do that the UN wants is simply to help world opinion of themselves, not because the UN has actual world sovereignty and sets "laws" that everyone has to follow. The invasion was completely legal.
There is probably somewhat of a "political correctness" in the poll responses. I don't imagine that the people who say they didn't trust the militias would tell the militias the same thing they told the pollsters. What we have to figure out is which side are they lying to...
The Kurds definitely support us, even at this point -- at something over a 90% rate last time I heard. And while Hussein's atrocities were quite bad, they were less frequent than the current bombings, bigger, but less often. And it's pretty clear by most reports that the conditions for women in Iraq have deterioriated significantly since Hussein was removed from office.
The claim that the war was completely legal is difficult to defend. Under Article VI of the Constitution, all treaties properly approved through the Senate are the "supreme law of the land." Our membership in the United Nations was adopted by treaty. The treaty was the actual U.N. Charter. So, according to our Constitution, the U.N. Charter is the supreme law of the land.
Iraq is a sovereign nation and is a member of the United Nations. It violates that charter for one member of the United Nations to engage in combat with another, except in self-defense in response to an actual attack.
Furthermore, Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter states that countries should "refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." Iraq is an independent state that is a member of the U.N. Attacking them would obviously violate this portion of the Charter, as well.
I'm not the Supreme Court and this is really a moot point anyway, four years into the war, but it would be easy for a court to find that the invasion was unconstitutional.
"And it's pretty clear by most reports that the conditions for women in Iraq have deterioriated significantly since Hussein was removed from office."
I'd tend to disagree. While I do know anti-women violence is up, just like all other forms of such, it doesn't have the legal authority to continue when security is finally attained. That's a far better scenario than a government that was progressively *restricting* women's rights, in a society that had previously been ahead of it's region and time in that respect.
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/wrd/iraq-women.htm
The new Iraqi constitution states that Iraqis are equal before the law "without discrimination because of sex." And it guarantees that 25% of the seats in parliament will be held by women.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060101faessay85104-p0/isobel-coleman/women-islam-and-the-new-iraq.html
I'm not trying to claim that Iraq is already just peachy, or that actual violence levels are down (for women or Iraqis as a whole) because Saddam is gone. What is down is intimidation; Saddam didn't reduce violence by bringing peace, he reduced it by proving he could kill or torture or starve out anyone until all were too scared to oppose him. So I challenge the notion that "safer" means "better" when the only reason you remain safe is you do everything your supreme overlord says.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
It's a mistake, though, to think that because the government is better, that the overall situation is better. In addition to the increased violence, a lot of which specifically targets women because they are women, there is an increasing imposition of Shariah law against women and a rise in honor killings in which the murderers get little or no punishment. The Iraqi government doesn't have the ability, at this point at least, to prevent this type of thing or to prevent religious groups from enforcing Shariah law, which is incredibly restrictive for women.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde140012005
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1890260,00.html
http://www.womensorganizations.org/pages.cfm?ID=155
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article717570.ece
http://madre.org/articles/me/iraqreport.pdf
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/womeniraqrights
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/78853.htm
(Scroll down about 80% of the way for the section on women)
Well according to my second link Shariah can be interpreted that way or just the opposite, but it's a moot point. We all agree that for women in many places in Iraq it may have been too soon to practice their newly re-earned rights, because of the negative backlash from parts of the population, but...
1) If they had tried the same thing under Saddam, the response would have been equally bad, or worse. The only reason anti-women actions are up now, is because women didn't even try to assert these rights back then.
2) Iraqi women have very good reasons to believe each day will get better for them. Most Iraqis are working towards something crucial to Iraqi women's rights- government-provided security. Certainly the potential to progressively get better is not "deterioration" when before there was only the certainty of expanding inequality.
Shariah can be interpreted in different ways, but clearly there is an increase in the more fundamentalist version in Iraq. Also, many of these things that are forbidden now were actually allowed under Saddam Hussein. While he was incredibly terrible to certain women, most women, if they stayed out of his way, his sons' way and the way of his other favored people, they had amongst the broadest rights in the Middle East. Much of that is gone now.
"they had amongst the broadest rights in the Middle East"
See my first link, the pre-war background on Iraqi women's rights, for the basis of my stance on this. 'Among the best in the middle east' sounds good on paper, but when you're talking about a region with recent and widespread sexist violence and oppression, that becomes meaningless. (Whenever there's a last place, there's countries that didn't come last.) The fact is, Iraqi women were used to having MUCH more rights than they did in the last 10-12 years of Saddam's reign. And perhaps most importantly, while (as it seems a natural progression of human society) most countries around the world were decreasing their class, race, and gender stratifications, Iraq was increasing one of its own.
If the US government started trampling all over the constitution and bill of rights, and taking away your fundamental rights, with signs of doing more of the same, would a comparison that Canada or Mexico is still worse make you feel any less abused?
"Also, many of these things that are forbidden now were actually allowed under Saddam Hussein."
What things are those?
"if they stayed out of his way"
By not driving a car, they 'stay out of his way'? Or by not working, or traveling, or doing any number of things they probably did back in the 70's and 80's?
Like I said, being safe only because you don't complain when your rights are violated is not any kind of desirable safety.
"his sons' way"
This one's the most laughable; one of his sons used to cruise Baghdad university, and point out the female students that he liked to his bodyguards, who would kidnap her for the son to rape later. I'd have to assume staying out of the son's way in this case means not trying to escape?
"Much of that is gone now."
Nothing significant is gone, in my book. Instead of having no rights on paper and no rights in practice, they have all rights on paper and some to all rights in practice, depending on where they live. It is very unfortunate that in some areas a prevalence of extralegal restrictions exist that the government does not yet have the power to stop... but it's a start.
I think we aren't thinking of the people and that we stepped in with the right mind to help them but forgot to ask for there help as well as what they wanted. I understand if we were to just leave would they attack us or as well as continuing to blow up there own country. I think we should try and see what they want and work around that.
I didn't say women had a good situation in Iraq before the war, but compared to places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria and others in the Middle East they were better, even if they were getting worse in the last decade or so. And whatever they were before, it seems that everyone with any knowledge of the situation in Iraq from first-hand knowledge says they are worse now.
>What things are those?
Read the links I provided.
>By not driving a car, they 'stay out of his way'? Or by not working, or traveling, or doing any number of things they probably did back in the 70's and 80's?
Saddam Hussein and his sons were not in every place in Iraq at the same time, and when he and his immediate circle were not around, things were significantly better than when he was. And most of the time in most of the country, women were not under direct threat. Now, most women in most of the country are under direct threat because they threats come from more than just the inner circle of the Ba'ath party, they come from everyone who interprets Shariah in the more restrictive way, which is millions of Iraqis.
>Nothing significant is gone, in my book.
Then you clearly aren't an Iraqi woman. Substituting your judgment for theirs about the way life is for them isn't particularly valid.
>I understand if we were to just leave would they attack us or as well as continuing to blow up there own country.
No Iraqi has ever attacked us first.
"And whatever they were before, it seems that everyone with any knowledge of the situation in Iraq from first-hand knowledge says they are worse now."
First of all, like the standard you would hold me to, 'first hand' more or less equals 'anecdotal'. Secondly, I'm someone with first hand knowledge that says they aren't worse now, so it's clearly not "everyone". In March 2003 you would be hard pressed to find a woman, even in northern Iraq, driving a car or wearing anything less than traditional clothing (not necessarily Burkas, but drab 'dresses' with head scarves). By around November 2003 women drivers were common all over Iraq, and it became clear to us that Burkas etc. can't always be justified as "their culture" and "what they want to wear," as contemporary clothing, even somewhat revealing types, began to appear in the streets of Kirkuk, the biggest city in our Area of Operations. That is of course simply the first-hand observable knowledge; in the second hand there's conversations with interpreters and other soldiers, who told me of several conversations with Iraqi women who could now vote or have a job outside the home.
"Saddam Hussein and his sons were not in every place in Iraq at the same time, and when he and his immediate circle were not around, things were significantly better than when he was. And most of the time in most of the country, women were not under direct threat."
He ran the Iraqi government. Therefore his immediate circle aren't the only people you would need to worry about. Women everywhere had the potential to run across a police officer or soldier or spy or just a supporter, of Saddam's regime, and women everywhere also followed his rules. Certainly the millions of Iraqis you spoke of who believe their religion restricts women in this way would report rule-breakers to the government, if they had someone else to do the job of enforcement for them.
>First of all, like the standard you would hold me to, 'first hand' more or less equals 'anecdotal'.
My use of the word "knowledge" was meant to imply actual study of the issue on the ground, not a individual's personal knowledge. A systematic study of the issue is not anecdotal.
>Secondly, I'm someone with first hand knowledge that says they aren't worse now, so it's clearly not "everyone".
This contains two fallacies. The first is anecdotal evidence. Have you talked to everyone in Iraq? Or a representative sample? Have you traveled over the entire country? Or a representative sample? Did you obtain this data from all-over or from a representative sample both before the invasion and after? If not, then your personal observations are not valid evidene of the overall situation in Iraq.
The second is, of course, inconsistency, since you just leveled the charge of anecdotal evidence in the previous paragraph. Either anecdotal evidence can be used or it can't, not both. And if you believed that my evidence was anecdotal -- which it wasn't, although I see how it could've been interpreted that way -- that doesn't give you licence to commit the same error. Two wrongs, they say, don't make a right.
>In March 2003 you would be hard pressed to find a woman, even in northern Iraq, driving a car or wearing anything less than traditional clothing. By around November 2003 women drivers were common all over Iraq
This is inconsistent with every account I've read of the situation. Beyond that, my point would still be valid if there was an improvement in November 2003 that has since been erased.
>That is of course simply the first-hand observable knowledge; in the second hand there's conversations with interpreters and other soldiers, who told me of several conversations with Iraqi women who could now vote or have a job outside the home.
This is, of course, anecdotal as well. Unless these people have surveyed a representative sample of women in the nation, this evidence is essentially meaningless, since these examples could easily be outliers.
>He ran the Iraqi government. Therefore his immediate circle aren't the only people you would need to worry about.
President Bush runs the American government. By your logic, that means that all government officials do what he wants and enforce laws the way he wants them enforced, right? There is widespread evidence that many in the Iraqi government were not supporters of Hussein and his policies.
I've seen no evidence to suggest that such things were widespread outside of Hussein's immediate circle. I have seen evidence to the contrary and have seen evidence (linked above) that as bad as it was before, things are worse now.
>Certainly the millions of Iraqis you spoke of who believe their religion restricts women in this way would report rule-breakers to the government
Except that Shariah law wasn't enforced by Hussein in any systematic way, so it wouldn't have made sense to report violations of Shariah. Even now, the supporters of Shariah aren't reporting violations to the government, they are killing or stoning women in "honor killings" themselves or reporting it to the non-governmental militias.
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