The Shoe
lt-smash.us
7/30/03
Chris from Canada writes a nice letter complimenting my writing, but politely expressing a difference of opinion over the legality of the war in Iraq.
You passed along a quote from Paul Gigot saying that if people saw what you were doing and the state of the Iraqui people then everyone would agree that "This was a good thing to do". I must reiterate. It was not the Coalitions decision to make. That should have been up to the Iraqui people. […] It's is not the UN's or NATOs or any "Coalitions" mandate to free the world from tyranny and oppression. Maybe it should be... but it isn't. Only grassroots change initiated by the citizens of a country can effectively do that.
I wish I had brought my digital camera on this deployment.
We purchased one last fall, right before our trip to Italy. It’s compact, easy to use, and takes high quality digital photos. Mrs. Smash is a real pro with the thing—but she will only let me use it if I ask her nicely.
When we learned that I was mobilizing, we briefly discussed having me bring the camera along. But I wasn’t certain what my living conditions would be, and my wife was concerned that it might get lost, stolen, or damaged. Since it is relatively new, we still have a tendency to treat it as something precious and delicate, even though it’s just a camera.
In the end, I brought my old film camera (yeah, I’m hopelessly stuck in the second millennium). This is the primary reason why there are no photos in my journal.
So, instead of countering Chris’ assertion with a simple digital photo, I’ll have to resort to words, reason, and logic.
Chris argues, if I read him correctly, that the Coalition had no right to liberate Iraq, as only the Iraqi people can free themselves. While I would certainly have preferred to see the people of Iraq rise up and overthrow Saddam without our help, I believe that Chris is overlooking the recent history of Iraq.
Let’s review: The Iraqi National Congress (INC), a coalition of Iraqi opposition groups, has been campaigning for international intervention in Iraq and the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime since the end of the First Gulf War. From the INC website:
As mandated by Security Council resolution 688 (1991), the international community has the authority and the obligation to compel Saddam Hussein to end the oppression of the Iraqi people and to provide the suffering people with effective humanitarian relief.
[…]
For this reason, the INC supports international efforts to relieve this oppression and concludes that such action is not prejudicial to the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq, which are threatened only by the continuation of Saddam's oppressive rule.
But Security Council resolution 688 wasn’t the only UN condemnation of the Iraqi regime. Indeed, between 1991 and 2003, the Security Council passed seventeen resolutions condemning Saddam for his humanitarian abuses, and calling on him to cease his banned weapons programs. The final resolution declared him in “material breach” of his obligations and warned of “serious consequences” if he failed to comply.
Saddam never complied with any of the seventeen resolutions.
Iraq has been in a constant state of civil war since the end of the First Gulf War. A large region of northern Iraq was controlled by Kurdish forces, despite the best efforts of Saddam to regain control of the whole country. Many Kurds appealed to the United States for assistance in overthrowing Saddam’s regime.
We going to write to George Bush, please liberate our country as soon as possible. Please don't delay it. Please don't postpone it and--because we want you to remove this guy and overthrow this Saddam Hussein as soon as possible.
Indeed, in the current conflict the Kurds assisted the Coalition in many ways, including helping to locate and prepare sites for airbases, and fighting side-by-side with US Special Forces against Saddam’s military.
In southern Iraq, Saddam faced an uprising of the Shiite population following his defeat in the First Gulf War. Despite requests for assistance from the Coalition, then-President George HW Bush declined to get involved in an “internal Iraqi affair.” Without any outside help, the rebellion was quickly crushed.
It is estimated that over 100,000 Shiites were murdered in the uprising and its aftermath. Entire villages were leveled, and 400,000 more Shiites were displaced when Saddam ordered the marshes where they lived to be drained.
Which brings me back to my digital camera.
A couple of months ago, I visited a village in southern Iraq.
That is to say, I visited the site of a former village in southern Iraq.
You see, it’s not there anymore. Saddam demolished it in 1991, after some of the inhabitants participated in the Shiite uprising. It was only a few square blocks of concrete buildings, but they had all been leveled, and were overgrown with desert weeds.
In the middle of one of those demolished buildings, I came across a single shoe. It was a very small tennis shoe, such as might be worn by a five-year old boy. It was covered in dust, cracked and faded.
I took a photo of that shoe with my non-digital camera.
The people who live in the nearby town don’t know what happened to the inhabitants of that village—but it’s a fair guess that they probably were buried in unmarked graves, or dumped in the nearby river.
Contrary to Chris’ claims, the people of Iraq had been trying to overthrow Saddam for twelve years before we decisively intervened, and had repeatedly requested international assistance. But Chris asserts that no intervention would be valid without the blessing of the United Nations (Kosovo?), ignoring the “serious consequences” clause of Security Council resolution 1441.
All of this is beside the point.
How many more villages had to be destroyed before an intervention was justified? How many women raped? How many families massacred? How many more children had to die?
From the verdant green forests of peaceful British Columbia, it’s easy for Chris to argue that the war violated Iraqi sovereignty, the principle of self-determination, and the UN charter.
But in the grim reality of the Iraqi desert, such arguments ring hollow.
TRANSMISSION FROM LT Smash 1459Z | |
