Another Big Lie

We’ve all heard the big lies that led to the war in Iraq. First it was that Iraq was behind 9/11. Easily proven false. Then it was that Iraq had WMDs. Also proven false, but it took longer for it to become accepted among the public. The next lie was that the United States government cared about democracy in Iraq. This idea is still widely accepted by the mainstream press, and as a consequence, the public still generally believes this as well. The more honest reporting does not make this assumption.

One idea that still receives rather universal acceptance is that violence is largely sectarian. Sunni against Shiite, Shiite against Sunni. However, Anthony Arnove’s Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal put forth the claim that the majority of violence in Iraq is pro-occupation against anti-occupation, and anti-occupation against pro-occupation. So, Iraqi police, government, and military are pro-occupation. Remove the American occupation, he says, and you remove a majority of the violence.

I hadn’t heard this idea before reading Arnove’s book, and he didn’t provide much evidence, so I was a bit skeptical. But after reading it, I started paying attention to why massive amounts of Iraqis are being killed over there. In the news articles, they usually say where the killing was done. At a market, at a police ceremony, at a military checkpoint, at a school, et cetera. You can easily separate the sectarian killing from the occupation-influenced killing. And this isn’t meant to be a thorough study, but I have noticed that since I have been looking for it, the vast majority of Iraqi-on-Iraqi killing is indeed anti-occupation against pro-occupation, or vice versa. I am just ashamed that I hadn’t noticed it before, on my own. And of course this is to say nothing of US against Iraqi violence and Iraqi against US violence.

I, of course, was an advocate for withdrawal all along. It is not our country, and the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want us out. This alone is reason enough for us to leave. But having a clearer picture of what is going on in Iraq just reinforces the case for withdrawal for me. Not only do we have no right to be in Iraq, but if we leave the violence will likely drop significantly.