Thank you for your comment, Sniper One. I actually have never understood exactly what we were trying to accomplish in Iraq, and I am not alone in this. You must be aware of the mountain of evidence refuting the administration’s original claims, which in many ways they are still trying to make. I understand the rhetoric of this administration, and think that maybe they are sincere in what they say. But if you look at what actually happened, as well as key opinion and policy documents, it is unlikely that we were ever really trying to “bring democracy” or “peace” to Iraq. More likely it was about controlling Iraqi oil reserves and demonstrating imperial power. This is hard to prove, but as an interpretation of operative political motives it makes much more sense than the administration’s rhetoric. The thing is, you can’t sell that to the American people…you can use fear to sell a mythological imminent threat and try to link Saddam Hussein and 9/11. You can paint it as “bringing democracy”, or “fighting evildoers” and terrorists, but really it’s about oil and power, isn’t it? Not that our leaders don’t have concern for the Iraqis or the troops…they probably do, it is hard to speak to their personal motives. It is not hard, however, to figure out that our presence there has not helped. You ask “Aren’t Iraqi deaths just as important as American?” Indeed they are…the figure of 655,000 Iraqis probably dead as a result of our invasion is much more significant, to my mind, than the figure of 3,000 U.S. troops, though that figure is repeated more in the press and by national leaders, and strikes closer to home as I know several troops (personal friends) who have at least been badly injured there. In Vietnam, the figure of millions of dead Vietnamese as a result of our atrocities is also more significant than the figure of 58,000 of our troops, though the same “close to home” factor applies there too.

No one thinks that immediate withdrawal will solve the problems in Iraq. The point is just that the current policies are disasterous, it is near impossible to bring democracy through forceful takeover (no matter how altruistic the expressed motives), and something new needs to be tried. Bush is not really trying anything new. He is deepening a ridiculous and tragic policy that is opposed by the Iraqi government and by the Iraqi people, and probably has no plans to leave anytime soon.

I encourage you to read a couple of documents carefully, like the study of the costs of U.S. invasion in the leading medical journal The Lancet, the writings of the influential think-tank Project for a New American Century, and any of the number of good books demonstrating the deceptions of this administration and the failures of our elected leaders in the run-up to this war and the response to terrorism. It might also help to know about the role the U.S. played in fueling the situation in Iraq through support for Saddam Hussein and early Islamic militants in the 1980s. On these subjects, I suggest books like Michael Klare’s Blood and Oil, Daniel Yergin’s The Prize (which unfortunately only covers up to the early 1990s). On Afghanistan, I suggest Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars. The Bush deceptions are covered in any number of popular works also. I will be writing frequently here and at my website, reviewing other sources as well. I would love to discuss these issues further with you, as that is part of the reason I have started blogging.

Thanks again.

I do not make the argument that the war was just for oil, but I say it plays a big part, and this should be obvious enough. There is a long history of this involving the British, United States, and others. John Tirman, executive director of the Center for International Studies at MIT, calls access to oil one of the “sturdiest pillars of American foreign policy”. Yergin and Klare, also experts in the field, are quite good on this point as well. Since you seem to be so trusting of the statements of our leaders, no matter what the evidence suggests, though, let me give you a quote from Paul Wolfowitz, who as you know is a major voice within this administration. This is taken from The Guardian, the London newspaper on June 4, 2003:

‘Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the [Wolfowitz] said: “Let’s look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil.”‘

If it wasn’t obvious enough already given who the leaders and major players in this administration are (you must know that oil executives and people representing oil companies and lobbies make up this administration and many of its most outspoken supporters), there it is from a foreign policy expert and policy maker within this administration. If this does not convince you, pick up any scholarly history of international affairs like the ones I suggest. It has much to do with resource control, not getting “free oil” (there is no such thing), and may or may not have anything to do with lower gas prices (only people who are strapped for cash benefit from lower gas prices, oil companies and the government do not). And Saddam Hussein? During the Reagan administration, and during some of Saddam’s worst crimes, our government supported him, and this had everything to do with access and even control over natural resources in Iraq and the wider Middle East.

Your assumption that it would be disasterous if we left Iraq depends entirely on the mythological altuistic effects we have had on the region. The reason that the administration used the deceptive rhetoric about Iraq being part of a wider “war on terror” and Saddam being an imminent threat to the United States is that they could never sell it otherwise. You have to decieve people and make them afraid to get them to fight your insane and destructive wars of aggression. Very few people are in support of “blood for oil” policies, after all.

The architects of these policies may want ‘democracy’ for Iraq, but the truth is that they don’t use the same concept and spirit of democracy that has worked pretty well in America and that people (myself included) like so much. American democracy, for what it’s worth, did not come from an occupying country coming in, waging war, and establishing it somehow. In fact, it happened in spite of colonial domination. This should be trivial enough, and should cast doubt on the idea that democracy can or should or is being spread by destructive military occupations.

You suggest that I am not concerned with the fate of the Iraqi people. I wonder how you come to this conclusion, given that I am primarily using the most accurate figures of resultant Iraqi deaths from U.S. occupation to argue for the end of the occupation and suggest humanitarian aid instead. I do not question your concern for the Iraqi people, nor that of my friends and other troops over there, but it is largely based on the deceptions and manipulations of some of our national leaders that have been thoroughly debunked.

I understand, to some extent, the moral degradation that can come from U.S. soldiers realizing that perhaps they have not risked their life for a good cause, but to further a destructive imperial agenda. However, it is the policies that are mistaken and destructive, not necessarily the people involved on the bottom, who sincerely want to serve their country. The radical historian Howard Zinn, a long-time critic of American foreign policy, writes in his autobiography that he unknowningly dropped an early version of Napalm on civilians towards the end of WWII. Later, in addition to studying the event as a historian, he was able to return to that city and see the destruction he participated in. I cannot imagine what that must have felt like. But in truth, we all play a part in these acts of destruction, be it through using too much gasoline or buying clothes made in oppressive sweat-shops in third-world countries. I myself, as someone who tries to understand his place within the wider world, feel moral degradation as well. But the thing to do, I think, is face up to this, and try to improve ourselves and our country. It does not do any good to cling to comforting illusions; in fact, that may be a large part of the problem.

Also, the ‘Iraqi government’ was installed by the U.S., like so many governments over the decades. Have you read any of the polls of the Iraqi people? They, like the American people, seem to want us out.