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Loooong post. Feel free to skip bits...
nighthawk:
I'm having difficulty phrasing this post as I'm a little suspicious of the assumptions framing the thread, particularly the use of the collective 'we'
Yeah, but, you know. This is the Switchboard. If we didn't make a few assumptions here, we'd never be able to talk about anything substantive. This is a massive question. I can't do more than spot-check my assumptions when I catch them standing on streetcorners muttering 'skonk'. Otherwise I'd just have to arrest myself and go straight to Paddington Green for a voluntary confession.
Regarding the 'we' of collective responsibility (or of decisionmaking): I don't think anyone living in a developed nation - not even a monk or a catatonic - can entirely escape blame for the actions of that nation's government. Burden of democracy, of living in the developed world, of profiting (even if you don't want to) from the advantages of trade and military force we enjoy. As to the 'we' of 'we should do X', that's obviously a fantasy - it's the academic's privilege to imagine what you would do if someone suddenly gave you the country to play with.
I can't help but think that for a state to have moral responsibility it must be capable of acting morally
You'll have to show me the disjunct. I think that's an entire career's worth of arguing ethics you could have just justifying that, not to mention the kind of sociological work you'd have to do on the actual mechanisms of state action. It's fascinating as a proposition, but it's an open question and I don't agree. Will you do me a favour and take as one of my many assumptions the notion that states are capable of acting morally in some way or other - either by design, or as an emergent behaviour?
The next point I would make is that this isn't entirely about moral action. There is a moral component, but there's also an issue of self-interest; what is the thing we can do which will have the best effect? If we can make Iraq function, we get big brownie points. If we quit now, we are not only invading assholes, we are failing, cowardly invading assholes. That's not an enviable rep.
I find this approach particularly worrying because it (unintentionally) lends credence to the idea of a continuing 'ethical foreign policy', particularly that there were solid moral grounds, or even solid moral intentions, behind e.g. the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan
Well, for background, I tend to hover some way between pacifism and occasionally allowing self-defense or anguished Humanitarian Intervention.
Parenthetically, I'm not comfortable with equating the two. In Afhganistan (where we have also screwed up in a completely different and actually far sadder way) the US did have an enemy, did succeed in seriously damaging that enemy, had been attacked by that enemy, and so on. If you believe in the right of states to defend themselves, you sort of have to accept that one. I don't know whether the response was the best available, but it was in much better shape than this disaster in Iraq, until some idiot decided that it would be better to pull resources from Kabul and concetrate on Saddam, who was completely unrelated to 9/11 and was, for all his other faults, emphatically not involved with Islamicist terror outfits.
As to whether this proposal lends strength to the 'ethical foreign policy' - which seems to be anything but - I don't know. The functional truth is that even this level of engagement is consuming the bulk of our collective military capacity and costing a great deal of money. I doubt we could involve ourselves in another one until this was done - and remember, I'm asking for greater involvement. So, you know. It would keep us off the streets.
I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb in suggesting that the primary aim in Iraq at the moment is to establish a liberal democracy stable enough for reliable circulation and return of capital.
I think that's waaaay more considered than the truth. I think the primary aim is to establish some form of semi-functional state and get the hell out before it falls down. I'm not even sure that would have been the aim if everything had gone perfectly; I suspect the primary objectives were to kick Saddam's ass for calling in a hit on George Snr., to erase the blot on the family name that was the failure to 'finish the job' last time around, and to secure access to Iraqi oil for the US/UK. If that last one meant putting in a Liberal Democratic government (which isn't the worst thing in the world, by the way), then fine, and that would be a kind of shop window for Regime Change. But basically, I think you're massively overstating the sophistication of the political impetus for this war.
As a footnote: like you, I'm uncomfortable with Natty's 'mutiny' contention, but again I think it's a Headshop question. See what I mean about this being a big issue? Sheesh. And you're just my first interlocutor...
Quintum:
I thought one of the main criticisms of the whole mess was that it was an excuse for US/UK contractors to get paid loads of cash by their governments and from oil revenue to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure we bombed to dust?
My bad, I was unclear. I meant that Rumsfeld insisted on using smaller troop numbers for this war. Turns out you can wreck a country with a small force, but not police it.
Couldn't agree more about Halliburton, but again, while money is a good way of keeping score, I think this was in large part a resource war. And whatever the case there, I'm responding to the situation now.
Lurid:
thanks for the civilian casualty update - rather emphasises what I was saying as a jumping off point.
Yes, it would alleviate Iraqi resentment at the imperialist forces in their country.
Would it? I think it could compound the sense of betrayal. That would make twice in two wars that we've left them with a nightmare after promising to make it all okay. Plus, we've invaded, gotten caught torturing people, secured the oil, and gone home leaving them a civil war. That would piss me off. My suggestion is we stay, take the hit, and start to show that we are also capable of healing and rebuilding.
The tone of this question is pretty dodgy, to be honest, since the presumption is that we, rather than the Iraqis, should be the ones to decide the fate of both Iraq and its people. Calling this position one that is informed by racist assumptions about the inability of Iraqis to self-govern is probably going a bit too far...but not by much.
Think again. The presumption is that we cannot evade the decision. Whatever we do, we're making that choice for them - and incidentally, we have been since the sixties and before. They're living the consequences of our poltical timeline. It's not a question of them being racially incapable of governing themselves - although the neo-cons seem to be putting out the word that they're 'too tribal' to have a proper state as a reason to leave - but rather, that we have taken that possibility away. It's done. Giving it back is not simply a matter of going home.
I would propose to you that any people subjected to what the Iraqis have undergone might well be incapable of healing the damage without further violence and internal strife, possibly on a large scale, for some time. Destroy access to basic utilities, foster poaranoia and distrust for decades, introduce torture and gang mentalities etc. etc., and I imagine bloody Hampstead would turn 'tribal and violent'.
there is nothing to stop us supporting democracy, moving troops out and paying substantial reparations
Well, aside from the fact that we could not expect those reparations to reach the people and pay for utilities in the current climate, and the fact that a democratic election at this point would be lucky to produce an Iraqi Putin-figure.
our good intentions are highly questionable
That, at least, we can agree on.
We alienate a country which has now lapsed into civil war, and use that failure as a reason for our continued control of their resources?
Or, as I said, we acknowledge the heritage of imperium inherent in this situation, take the hit, and start conferring the advantages of empire and committal. We've been 'in' Iraq for decades. This is where we have a change to justify our presence.
Why invade, after all, if you are just going to get another anti-US state?
Good question. Doesn't seem to have slowed anyone down to this point.
the presumption should be that this is up to the Iraqis to decide, not for us to decide for them.
It should be. Currently, of course, they don't have any mechanisms to decide, and they are rapidly reaching a point where there won't be a country so much as a conflict-zone. Because of us.
Let me put it another way around: do the Iraqis possess some quality of self-organisation and self-awareness which we have been imepeding, which will allow them at this late date to form a cohesive and functional system? Are they capable, as I believe no other people are, of making decisions of this kind in the conditions they currently live with?
No? In which case, saying "it's up to them" is a cop-out. You're proposing to give them a freedom to decide which they cannot possibly deploy, in a situation where the absence of decision will cause their position to worsen. It's like giving them their oil back, on fire, so that they can try to get value from it without protective clothing.
diz:
All parties are powerless at this juncture.
Well, you may be right, in which case, yes, the only thing to do is get out. On the other hand, it's also possible that we might claw back some ground by making an attempt against impossible odds.
But if you are right, we live in a very dark place. I choose to see light, because I believe that the consequence of not doing so is that eventually you start to make some very bleak choices.
If they're doomed to civil war, do we owe it to them to fight it?
Do you think that would actually help? I'm not sure one way or the other, honestly, which is why I'm asking.
It's weird what forges bonds of respect between nations and peoples. I can't shake the idea - atavistic though it is - that if after years of posturing and finger-wagging we finally shed some blood in their land on their behalf, trying to do something for them, we might find friendship. The British relationship with the Afghans is still totally connected with the Empire. My brother was out there years ago, and was asked by a hilltribe chieftain whether the Queen remembered her Afghan subjects fondly, and when would she return? There are logics and narratives of war which override more rational considerations. I think there's a strong sense now that we're somehow cheating at the war-game. We might find common ground if we just played.
Yuck.
I think it's a huge leap to presume that an American dictatorship in Iraq would be anything resembling "functioning" or "fairly just," or that it would be anything other than "a self-serving kleptocracy," in the service of Halliburton and American oil companies as opposed to a local strongman.
That's true, of course, although it would depend ultimately on the order and how it was couched. And a full occupation would bring with it treaty obligations and requirements to adhere to the Rule Of Law and so on. It might be a start. If the system is so entirely corrupted that things would only be really bad, then again, we're in a dark place. But I believe there is a difference between the current Invasion Lite, which presumes that western troops are leaving soon and have no responsibility to the place, and a full-on occupation/imperium, where we're in for as long as it takes, and troops are obligated to the land itself. Psychological difference yielding behavioural change, perhaps.
Going to breakfast. |
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