unitedblues -focus points: safety for Iraqi civilians

UnitedBlues is back! --Still with the goal of victory of electoral progressives, in the Democractic Party.

(This is the same blogger from unitedblues.blogspot.com)

My major concern these days is stopping the sectarian civil war in Iraq.

Yet, the way to do this is to avoid a U.S. withdrawl. Progressives are sadly not thinking this problem through. We say we are for human rights and no needless loss of human life. Yet, a hasty withdrawl with result in a sectarian bloodbath of dimensions worse than what we are currently seeing.

Out-now progressives are saying that the United States' presence in Iraq is fueling the insurgency. This is only partly true now. In addition to anti-US motivations among insurgents, there are anti-Sunni and anti-Shiia motivations among the various militia in the country. Individuals from these groups are setting off the bombs at civilian markets. At the very least, as is plain from the body counts, Iraqi civilians, rather the members of the U.S. (or British or Australian) military, are the targets of those committing violence in the nation.

If the United States leaves in the next few months we can anticipate an escalation of human rights abuses against Sunnis by Shiias and abuses against Shiias by Sunnis. Under the constellation of forces in early February 2007, one can anticipate that Shiia militias, particularly the JAM (Jaish al Mahdi, or Mahdi Militia) --or Mahdi Army, would target Sunnis with an even freer rein.

Of course, the JAM and other militants loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr might become weaker or less active in March 2007. Moqtada al-Sadr (also spelt Muztada al-Sadr) --to which the Mahdi army was loyal- has left Iraq for Iran --or so claims the U.S. military.

The direction of the civil conflict rests so much on whether the Bush administration's Baghdad district stabilization strategy works. If this succeeds, i.e., the Baghdadis will experience peace, the respective sectarian communities will have greater security.
On the American political scene, the pro-war candidates, particularly Sen. John McCain and Rudolph ("Rudy") Giuliani would appear vindicated by their positions --if Bush's stabilization strategy succeeds. If the stabilization strategy fails, this would strengthen the anti-war candidates. (Of the Democratic candidates, former Sen. John Edwards is the most opposed to the war or Bush's current buildup/ "surge;'" followed by Sen. Barack Obama, and then by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. -I have omitted Rep. Dennis Kucinich who is the most anti-war of the candidates. He has a scant chance of election in America.)

Yet, what would be truly tragic, would be a hasty withdrawl spurred by Congress amidst a worsening civil war. Specifically, this would mean the massacre of hundreds of thousands of people. Additionally, it would involve the further displacement of hundreds of thousands of people -internally and to other countries. Already Iraq has seen an internal displacement of 1.7 million people and 2 million people had fled to other countries (principally to Syria and Jordan), according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees this month. BBC News estimated in December 2006 that 3000 people were fleeing abroad per day.

One issue that is only lately getting the attention it deseserves is rape and other sexual violence. Iraq is a very conservative society and rape victims are doubly victimized, first as victims and second as feeling shame for being raped. Women are stigmatized as shaming their families. Murder, torture, graphic violence of other sorts are readily discussed and publicized --not so with rape. There is some change in the area of women's silence. Some women are departing from convention and are coming forward and are testifying via television as to the crimes that have been committed against them. (Two Sunni women were vicitimized by Iraqi security forces; they brought their sufferings to light during mid-February 2007, as reported by Marc Santora, in "Rape Accusation Reinforces Fears in a Divided Iraq," in the February 21, 2007 "New York Times.") We could presume that it an intensified civil war in an Iraq which the U.S. has departed women would be further victimized. Frankly, we cannot be naive; we cannot see virtue in the leadership in Iraq, particularly we cannot see it in Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Most shamefully, after initially promising an investigation into the rape of one woman, Prime Minister al-Maliki within one day contradicted his first position and called the victim a liar. Furthermore, he defended the accused officers in question and he publicized the name of the woman.

Realistically, the mission of truly stabilizing the nation could take a few decades. Nation-building is what the nation needs, not merely nation-building of an infrastructure sort, but of a civil sort. We can recall the Wars of Religion in the last forty years of the 16th Century in France and the Thirty Years War in the 17th Century, resting on Protestant-Catholic division in Germany, as reminders of the time that it can take for a nation to exhaust its violent sectarianism. (Now, I am not suggesting that we remain with anything like our force for more than a few years. And for those with a good sense of history, I am not forgetting that the conflicts in France and Germany had much to do with royal power conflicts. The parallel remains: sectarian discord had a basis for violent repercussions for civilians for a generation.)

It would be terrible if the U.S. hastily withdrew and hundreds thousands more suffered. We should not be so easily swayed by facile equations of the Iraqi situation and Vietnam. Yes, we erred by embarking on this imperialist escapade, justified with deception and lies about supposed weapons of mass destruction. But we created the disorder that we now see. Prior to 2003 there was peace in Iraq -sure, there was no democracy, and Shiites suffered discrimination and human rights abuses, but there was none of the daily chaos and brazen murder that we have been seeing. We started the mess in the china shop; it would be immoral and irresponsible to abandon Iraq in this mess.
A half century ago, conservatives baited liberals with the question of "Who lost China?" after China fell to Mao Zedong and his Communists. It would be tragic if in a few years people could ask, "Who lost Iraqi civilians' lives?" It would also bring shame on leftists and liberals if they would have to answer that they were the ones responsible for innocents' lives and safety.

A word to blogger.com officials: please assist with linking with the old blog. (I started this new blog because all attempts to re-enter steered me to the same page, "Forgot your password?")