Iraq's New Leader

Now that we've deposed Saddam Hussein and have him under arrest in some undisclosed location; and now that the deadline for handing power back to Iraq from our interim administration is very near; it's time to start deciding what kind of a leader we need in Iraq.

There are two primary requirements of the new Iraqi government. It must not become an Islamic republic, and it must be able to prevent civil war between Shiite and Sunni Muslims and the Kurds. The integrity of an Iraq with the current borders is important to prevent the creation of a Kurdish state which would almost certainly demand land from our ally Turkey, as well as from Iraq. (I say this partly "pen in check.")

And now that we've been in the country for a year we have an idea of what it will take to govern this country. So here's a list of qualifications for the new leader of Iraq.

1. He must be male. The number of Muslims in Iraq is so overwhelming that the non-Muslim minority is almost non-existent. Muslims would never accept a woman in a position of power.
2. He must make a show of being a devout follower of Islam. We probably don't want a true follower because of the danger of his turning the country into an Islamic republic. But while he may not gain the respect of the Muslim clergy with his show of piety, he can probably keep the average "Iraqi on the street" satisfied that their leader is not an infidel who must be killed at whatever cost.
3. He will need a large military and police force. And because of the problem with assuring the loyalty of all the commanders of such a large security organization, he will need an elite force he can use to squash any disloyalty as soon as it surfaces.
4. The Islamic clerics of Iraq all lust for political power. They will act to destabilize any government that doesn't meet their ideal -- namely an Islamic republic. The new leader of Iraq will have to deal ruthlessly with these clerics and their followers. It may even be necessary to outlaw certain religious gatherings which these clerics can use to stir up the masses.
5. Because of the general instability of the region the new nation will need a strong defense. This will include weapons capable of striking targets anywhere in any of its neighboring countries, countries that might decide to take advantage of a fledgling government for their own ends, such as territorial enlargement. Given the general level of disregard for human life in the region, including in Israel which is currently engaged in a policy of targeted assasinations, these weapons should have frightful destructive capabilities or they will have no deterrent effect.
6. This leader needs to have covert ties to the United States. This will insulate him from the charge of being a puppet leader while we gain the advantage of an ally in this region.

Actually, it sounds like I've just described Saddam Hussein. Can you explain for me again what we're doing in Iraq?

Now You've Done It!

I've just changed my mind. Now that the pictures from Iraq's U. S.-run prisons have been published in the Arab world the best thing we can do is leave Iraq post haste. It doesn't matter that a very small minority of U. S. soldeirs perpetrated these alleged crimes; if in fact that turns out to be the case. It won't matter if we deal out terrible punishments to those found guilty. It won't matter if it turns out that the photos are forgeries, which is very unlikely.

These recruiting posters for Al Qaida have been published in the Arab press, and for most Muslims they simply confirm what they already knew about Americans. We are decadent, Godless, uncaring infidels who delight in flouting our immorality. They won't hear this country's religious right crusading for a ban on homosexual marriage because one of them is in the White House, and he's the one who decided to send these infidels into Iraq without invitation.

They won't hear the ACLU standing up for the rights of Islamists in this country, and they won't hear the left screaming foul over these incidents. And only part of their deafness will be due to the relative lack of press freedom in the Arab world. Most of it will come from the standard human tendency to hear those things that confirm our deeply-held beliefs, and not hear those things that contradict them.

We have just erected a barrier to success in Iraq and the greater Islamic world that no military might can ever overcome. The ripples from this event will go on forever, especially since it's more like a tsunami than the plop of a small rock.

Mind you, the pullout must be accompanied by a maxima mea culpa that is at least as publicly given as the photos have been circulated. The problem is that the current administration has shown a pathological inability to admit mistakes. We can be certain that it will NEVER admit that the decision to invade Iraq was wrong.

What these few soldiers have done is despicable on many levels. First of all, of course, it violates the keen sense of sexual propriety that's so fundamental to Islam. These crimes are unforgiveable. Even if we executed the soldiers responsible Muslims would not change their minds. The fact of the rape rooms in Saddam's Iraq will be forgotten in the current environment.

But the terrible results of these crimes reach much further. By guaranteeing that we won't succeed in Iraq, these soldiers have made the deaths of every soldier who left Iraq in a body bag meaningless. It's as if they were singlehandedly guilty of the blood of every one of them, as well as of aggravated assault on those injured.

They have also managed to cast a pall over those veterans who return from Iraq. It won't be any more correct to despise returning Iraq veterans than it was to despise returning Vietnam veterans, but people will do it anyway. Guilt by association, we call it. I'm not a proponent of the death penalty, but as with Timothy McVeigh, I woudn't get too riled up about it in the cases of the soldiers involved in abusing Iraqi prisoners.

A word about Iraq's rape rooms. We misunderstand what was happening there because we misunderstand Iraqi culture, as demonstrated by the fact that we didn't strongly warn our soldiers against the acts alleged. Not long ago a number of Iraqis in our prisons were killed in an attack on the prison. Experts now believe these deaths were intentional, because there have been allegations that women in the prison were raped.

What's that got to do with anything? If you have to ask, then you're as ignorant of other cultures as the bulk of Americans. You're in good company. In Arab culture, a woman who has been raped is "damaged goods." She has no real life ahead of her and she would rather die than face the shame of her forced infidelity. Those who attacked the prison were simply acting to give the raped women what they would have wanted.

So when Saddam's sons raped women they were acting to put an end to their lives. They didn't have to kill these women themselves. And they were making a strong statement that the men associated with these women had grossly displeased the regieme.

Yes, we find such activity despicable, just as we detest the actions of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison. But as far as most Arabs are concerned we have demonstrated that we're no better than the regieme we invaded Iraq to replace. So our invasion was nothing more than an unwarranted loss of life and property, and nothing we can say or do will ever change their minds. Time may heal all wounds, but one wonders if there's enough time left on this planet to heal the wounds we've created.

I can't quit without commenting on the causes for this misbehavior. These events, like the alleged atrocities in Vietnam, are almost inevitable in a war situation. In order to fight a war we have to take citizens, strip them of their individuality, put them under a chain of command to insulate them from their consciences, and teach them to kill, destroy, maim, and mistrust.

Today we have an all volunteer military. That means that at least some of the people in the armed forces are there because they like to kill, destroy, maim, and mistrust. I've seen these tendencies in boys of elementary school age, and I'm not entirely suprised that some of them chose a military career. I've seen them destroy for the sheer joy of destroying, and been appalled that such evil could express itself so starkly at such a young age.

Once in the military these persons undergo the same environment and training that's designed to insulate a normal person from her conscience. They didn't have much of a conscience to begin with, and when that was supressed they really had no way of knowing what was right and what was wrong.

The story is told of the soldier who reenlisted after a few months of civilian life. When asked why, he replied, "Nobody's in charge out there." Military discipline teaches its subjects to replace self control with the control of superiors. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the soldiers responsible for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners are baffled by the sudden turn in their fortunes. "What'd I do wrong?" they'll be thinking.

But there's another factor at play here. In World War II American soldiers were generally noted for their trustworthiness and sense of morality. I'm sure there were cases of malfeasance, but they aren't widely recorded or talked about today. And I think I know why.

The second World War followed close on the heels of the Great Depression. Most of the soldiers we sent to Europe and the Pacific grew up during hard times. This enforced privation developed a different mindset than that in soldiers today, who grew up during the Reagan Revolution and the economic boom of the late 1990s. The Depression probably put an end to the decadence of the 1920s (flappers, speakeasies, and the like).

And there was another difference. The armed forces then relied on the draft, and the general public support for the war meant that it was a lot harder for people to evade the draft. The result was that those lacking in conscience were far more diluted in the military than was the case in Vietnam or today.

The best solution, of course, would be to stay out of wars when there isn't ovewhelming public support and clear moral grounds for them. But another helpful step would be to reinstitute the draft. While we should maintain the conscientious objector provisions, other deferrments should be eliminated so that the privileged classes would find it as hard to avoid the draft as the poorer classes.

Right now, however, any steps we take will be "closing the barn door after the horse got out." The longer we stay in Iraq, the more young Arabs we recruit for Al Qaida, and the less safe we will be tomorrow. I haven't heard George W. say lately that America is safer because we took out Saddam. But saying it a million more times won't change the fact that we are currently fueling the flames of anti-Americanism for at least a generation to come. We won't be safer no matter how large a military we recruit or draft. All we can hope to do is limit the damage, and the sooner we leave Iraq the less damage we'll suffer.