01-13-2007, 10:44 AM
A Response from the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation
By Ibrahim Ramey
To the surprise of virtually no one, President Bush announced on January 10th his plan to deploy 21,500 more U.S. combat troops to Iraq, in yet another escalation of the United States war. These troops will be supplemented by 10,000 to 20,000 more U.S. military advisors to be "embedded" within Iraqi security forces.
The new Bush "plan" proposes to provide economic assistance for provincial economic reconstruction in Iraq (to the tune of $414 million) and some $750 million earmarked for a "quick response" fund and for field commanders to solve "local problems." In military terms, it calls for these 21,500 troops to defeat the Iraqi insurgency-first in Baghdad, and then in the Anbar Province-while bolstering the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and further isolating both Syria and Iran as havens for anti-American insurgents.
This announcement, despite clear popular opposition to the war and the electoral defeat of both House and Senate Republicans last November, effectively draws a line in the sand between the advocates of this increasingly unpopular war, and the great majority of people in the United States who want to end it. In fact, every opinion poll indicates an overwhelming popular American opposition to the current war and the demand to establish a timeline for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.
Leaders from both major political parties continue to oppose the war. U.S. military commanders on the ground in Iraq have also expressed grave reservations about the effectiveness of deploying additional American troops in the face of growing sectarian violence, civilian casualties, and civil war. The Iraq Study Group report, released in November 2006, gave a detailed analysis of the failed war policy that has resulted in more than 3,000 U.S. combat deaths, thousands more casualties, and untold hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths over the course of the last 46 months.
But none of the moral arguments, the legal arguments, or even the empirical realities on the ground in Iraq, were able to persuade Bush and company to end the U.S. war.
Because imperial hubris, not sober analysis, apparently motivates the war lords in Washington, and the legion of private contractors and public corporations that feed on our war tax dollars.
But this bravado, in the face of the clear failure to either "pacify" Iraq or address the horror of civil war in that nation, will only, in the most likely scenario, further inflame popular Iraqi sentiment against the U.S. occupation and set the stage for increased violence in Iraq, and possibly in neighboring countries. It may also serve as a stimulus for even more vehement anti-occupation violence directed against U.S. forces.
It is worth noting that while President Bush acknowledged the "mistakes" of his Iraq policies to date, there was no mention of the much bigger, original mistake of the invasion of March 2003 itself. There was also no recognition of the enormous cost of the war in both resources ($400 billion and counting), and the toll it is taking on the lives of U.S. service people-both those who are deployed, and those who return home with the scars of physical and psychological wounds.
And, as always, the enormous cost of the war to the people of Iraq, both combatants and civilians, was never considered at all by those forces who seek to expand the conflict.
We believe that the continuation of the U.S. war in Iraq is an affront to the significant majority of people in America who demand that the war be brought to an end. This was the resounding message delivered last November to the Republican majority in both the House and the Senate. It has been the consistent message of advocates for peace and reconciliation in Iraq since the Gulf War of 1991.
Democrats in the House and the Senate may equivocate about how to respond to the Bush plan for escalating the war. They may argue over whether to try to cut off funding for expanded U.S. military operations in Iraq.
But we are convinced that the only way to address the tragic "mistake" of the Iraq war is to end the war itself, and bring the troops home. Period.
The weak and sectarian government of Mr. Prime Minister Al-Maliki won't be able to end the internecine warfare between rival religious and ethnic communities in Iraq. Only the Iraqi people themselves will be able to accomplish that task. And the prospects for ending the internal violence will be made easier, not more difficult, when the invading U.S. military leaves the country.
The imperial hubris of Bush and company is a plan for even greater levels of violence and destruction in Iraq. It is a failed, old plan camouflaged in new rhetoric. And it must be confronted by increased mass opposition to the war, and our demand that the elected officials who were swept into office on a tide of resistance be held accountable for standing up to an administration that refuses to bow to the democratic will of the people.
We reiterate our opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq. It was launched on false pretenses, and for strategic reasons that had nothing to do with bringing "democracy" to Iraq, or freedom to its people.
War has broken Iraq, but war will not restore that nation. We must not allow the Bush administration to send more U.S. troops to Iraq, or increase the intensity of the war.
The people of the United States, and the world, must end it.
Ibrahim Abdil-Mu'id Ramey
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Ibrahim Ramey, the author, is the Director of the Human and Civil Rights Division of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation. He has traveled to Iraq on two occasions (in 1998 and 2000) as is one of the founding members of the humanitarian Campaign of Conscience for the Iraq People, which openly challenged the sanctions against Iraq.
Ramey, in addition to having lectured at numerous U.S. universities on the issue of the Iraq war, served as a member of the U.S. Tribunal on Iraq, which investigated violations of international law committed by U.S. military forces during the initial months of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.