You should have known we'd fight (Iraq) (huh?)

guardian UK ^ | Tuesday March 25, 2003 | Burhan al-Chalabi

[dennisw]

You should have known we'd fight

The invading forces will never win over Iraqi hearts and minds

Burhan al-Chalabi
Tuesday March 25, 2003
The Guardian

It is now five days since the British and US governments launched an unprecedented military invasion of my country of birth, its people, land, towns and cities. This attack was launched without UN authority, public support or the will of the international community. To win support for this unjust and illegal campaign, it has been claimed that this is not a colonial war of occupation but a war of liberation; a compassionate war. Britain and the US will save the Iraqis by bombing so they can thrive in a democratic Iraq and live at ease with their neighbours. Those who believed the hype expected the Iraqis to welcome the invading armies. After British troops were forced to retreat from Basra yesterday, a military spokesman said: "We were expecting a lot of hands up, but it hasn't quite worked out that way."

It is now clear to everyone that ordinary Iraqis are resisting this military aggression with their lives and souls. Commentators and politicians in Britain and America seem taken aback: how come the Iraqis are putting up such a fight? Why do they so passionately resist this attempt to liberate them from the brutal dictator, Saddam? But Iraqis aren't surprised at all.

When Iraq was first colonised by Britain in 1917, Iraqis were fed the same British propaganda about liberation through occupation. We fought the best part of last century to get rid of colonial Britain and, since then, have helped a great number of independence movements worldwide. Iraqis may wish for the current regime to change, but anyone who understands our culture will know that in this war Iraqis will fight and die, not to save President Saddam Hussein, but to protect their home, land, dignity and self-respect from a new world order alien to their way of life. We are an enormously proud people.

And so history repeats itself. Just as in the past century, the military superiority of the Anglo-American invaders may eventually overwhelm the Iraqi army, which is weak and ill-equipped because of sanctions, containment and isolation. But there is also no doubt that in the end this military crusade against Iraq will fail just like the previous British occupation of Iraq, led by General Maude, where the military odds were just as much in favour of the British army. Iraqis - in particular the Arab-Iraqi Shi'ites - fought bitter and hard and suffered thousands of casualties in order to liberate Iraq from the British occupation. They will do so again.

It is true that, this time, the British and US forces may assume control of sea, air and deserts of Iraq, but they will never win the war for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Not only do the people of Iraq face devastation by the US and UK aggression on a scale not previously known to mankind, but they also face death and destruction by another war - the civil war that would inevitably follow. We know what this means, because we have been there before.

    (Pre-Saddam) As a young lad in the town of Mosul I lived through the horror of the civil war in Iraq in 1959-60, when the communist and Kurdish coalition fought the nationalists for control of the country. With my brothers and parents, we used to hide huddled together, in a small concealed basement for days on end, absolutely terrified of being slaughtered because we were considered to be on the Nationalist side.

   (Pre-Saddam) I saw Iraqis split in half, while alive, by two cars. Girls were hanged from telegraph posts, with fish hooks through their breasts. Men were hanged outside my school gates. We were forced to watch mass hangings in public squares. Dead bodies with their throats slit lay in the streets.

Forty years on, in the comfort and safety of London, (He gets to live nice in the West) those images remain vivid. A scar of fear for life, and one shared by a great many of my people.

This is the fate that awaits "liberated" Iraq. Only today, the Kurds - backed by the US - have even more violent scores to settle. There are many, many people in Iraq today who fear the sectarian violence that may result from the breakdown of the secular regime; and Iraqi history shows that they are right to fear it. I do not wish this future to await anybody in the world, friend or foe.

Neither the British nor the American forces will be able to react quickly enough in order to prevent the slaughter of innocent civilians in the ensuing civil war. In the aftermath there will not be an Iraq to re-build, but simply chaos.

So the message from Iraq is clear: go home and leave us alone. You will never be welcome in Iraq as colonisers.    (We don't come to colonize. Might this guy be a leftist?) Stop destroying Iraq. Do not bury our nation. Stop the war and give peace and the UN inspectors a chance in the name of humanity.  (Yeah, right)

Dr Burhan M al-Chalabi is chairman of the British Iraqi Foundation and a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs

bmcltd@aol.com

 

[joesnuffy]

Put a vice grip on their balz and their hearts and minds will follow

[gedeon3]

He needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

[Howlin]

and, since then, have helped a great number of independence movements worldwide.

I suppose he means Arafat, eh?

[ysoitanly]

Clue time - I didn't even read this obvious '$hit-to-follow' article as soon as I saw the phrase 'winning hearts and minds'. Can any of these press people: a) quit smoking weed at least an hour before they file their story? b) untie their gray ponytail and perhaps take a much-needed shower c) GROW UP ALREADY - the phrase "winning the hearts and minds" CR@P is getting as bad as Daschle being 'deeply saddened' about something. Get a NEW phrase that's in this CENTURY!! Sorry - just showing my sensitive side. ;)

[Howlin]

In case you missed this last night:

The Children of ’91 Young Survivors of First Gulf War Recall Bombing of Baghdad

[dennisw]

Here's another one from him. He turns out to be an Arab ideolouge, not the objective observer the posted article makes him seem. The Guardian is a leftist newspaper as far as I know.


http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=4669

[dennisw]

Thanks for that one!

[G.Mason]

Colonise, liberate, what's the difference, and who the hell cares?

The socialists have tought us long ago that words don't have meanings.

[11B3]

"The invading forces will never win over Iraqi hearts and minds."

Uh, OK, then I guess we'll just have to KILL ALL OF YOU!

How's that? Better now? Then go back to your homeland instead of spreading your inane lies from the comfort of the west. Mostly just STFU, goatblower.

[Grampa Dave]

Easy for this Islamofacist living the good life in London to say this.

This Islamofacist maggot, sounds like our armchair generals and admirals who want our guys and gals to get killed because Viagra doesn't work for them.

[Grampa Dave]

Yep, the SAS should grab this POS and parachute him into some battle zone filled with our guys and a whole lot of Kurds.

Or just hand him over to the Kurds and give him a knife to fight the Kurds.

[WOSG]

Total strawman alert. He think we want to occupy iraq, when in fact we just want Iraq to stop being a brutal terrorist-supporting WMD-making regime.

If Iraq were a country like Jordan or Turkey, we wouldnt need to be in there. And we wouldnt need to stay there.

But any Islamofascists that want to be martyrs 'will be 'accomodated' according to Rumsfeld.

[Free_at_last_-2001]

Clue time - I didn't even read this obvious '$hit-to-follow' article as soon as I saw the phrase 'winning hearts and minds'. Can any of these press people: a) quit smoking weed at least an hour before they file their story? b) untie their gray ponytail and perhaps take a much-needed shower c) GROW UP ALREADY - the phrase "winning the hearts and minds" CR@P is getting as bad as Daschle being 'deeply saddened' about something. Get a NEW phrase that's in this CENTURY!! Sorry - just showing my sensitive side. ;) - Excellent!

[Redcloak]

This writer, Burhan al-Chalabi, has been railing against the UN sanctions and against US/UK intervention in Iraq for some time. This little screed looks pretty typical of what I've located on him. What's disturbing, however, is that he seems tight with the Conservative Party. (For example, giving £5,000 to Michael Portillo's campaign to gain control of the party.)

Perhaps MadIvan can chime in on this: Just how much influence is there on the Conservatives from Ba'athist loyalists like this guy? I hope that the party isn't as guilty of adopting a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" attitude as is the Democrat Party here in the States.

[Nick Danger]

I don't have much use for this guy, but I also suspect that he's right about the one thing: the ethnic and sectarian divisions inside this mythical "Iraq" are going to be a lot more difficult to manage than anyone is talking about. Iraq may well be another Yugoslavia, where only the iron boot of a dictator kept these animosities under control. The minute he disappears, all Hell breaks loose.

I keep hearing this noise about how the territorial integrity of "Iraq" will be maintained, and in post-war Iraq we will see Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites joining in some multi-cultural paradise where democracy rules and "diversity is our strength."

I wouldn't put money on that.

The Iranian Mullahs will be shoveling money and arms across the border into Shiite territory, hoping to create another Shiite Islamic Republic that owns a nice big oil field.

The Kurds will eventually figure out that there is a deal with Turkey in which the Kurds in Turkey migrate South into an indepependent Kurdistan which is created by chopping off a bigger chunk of Iraq, including the Northern oil fields. So long as "Kurdistan" does not come out of Turkey's hide, I suspect Turkey will be glad to be rid of the problem.

That leaves the Sunnis in the middle, with most of the good farmland but none of the oil, surrounded on three sides by people who hate their guts.

Unless we plan to hang around forever, this kind of strife is bound to erupt. I think it's a joke to pretend that it won't.

[dennisw]

This writer, Burhan al-Chalabi, has been railing against the UN sanctions and against US/UK intervention in Iraq for some time. 

I never heard of him and thought he was just writing an straightforward article. Now it seems he has a major axe to grind. http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=4669

This little screed looks pretty typical of what I've located on him. What's disturbing, however, is that he seems tight with the Conservative Party. (For example, giving £5,000 to Michael Portillo's campaign to gain control of the party.)

Islamic guy supports the gay Conservative Party member. Wonderful!

[patriot5186]

once the physical threats of Saddam and his goons are gone we will see the true hearts of ordinary Iraqi's. It's probably too fresh in their minds that the US left 10 years ago leaving Saddam in place. So why should they trust us until we remove the threat of Saddam?

[goldstategop]

I would say a weak and divided Iraq is far better than one that poses a constant menace to its neighbors. We're better off having friendly relations with an independent Kurdistan and if Iran undergoes a democratic revolution, even the Arab Shi'ite state to the south of Baghdad will be far less worrisome than an Iraq led by Saddam. That leaves the Sunni minority in the center of the country. I suspect they'll have a state but dreams of an Arabian superpower astride the Middle East will be gone forever. If that's the outcome Operation Iraqi Freedom produces so be it and we'll be long gone and no we won't try to hold together by force an unnatural colonial construct imposed by the British against the will of most of Iraq's people in the last century.

[ChadGore]

Re: It is true that, this time, the British and US forces may assume control of sea, air and deserts of Iraq, BUT . . .

Move "Victory through defeat" blather.