POLICING
MUTUAL GENOCIDE:
NOT A WAR ON TERRORISM,
NOT A CIVIL WAR
The occupation of the nation of Iraq by the military
forces of the USA
is not a meaningful way to combat Islamic terrorism
and it is not a civil war that one side will win and another lose.
Rather, US soldiers are attempting to control mutual genocide.
Because politicians will choose their rhetoric
to
support whatever position they take,
it is important to describe the current situation in Iraq as accurately
as possible.
Several of the commonly-used terms miss that mark:
1.
U.S. FORCES IN IRAQ ARE NOT FIGHTING ISLAMIC TERRORISM.
2.
U.S. FORCES IN IRAQ ARE NOT TAKING SIDES IN A CIVIL WAR.
3. "MUTUAL GENOCIDE" MIGHT BE THE BEST DESCRIPTION.
4.
POLICING MUTUAL GENOCIDE IN IRAQ.
5.
HISTORIC EXAMPLE OF MUTUAL GENOCIDE: INDIA IN 1947.
6. MUTUAL GENOCIDE IN IRAQ WILL BECOME
WORSE BEFORE IT CALMS DOWN.
POLICING
MUTUAL GENOCIDE:
NOT
A WAR ON TERRORISM,
NOT
A CIVIL WAR
by James Park
1. U.S. FORCES IN IRAQ ARE NOT
FIGHTING
ISLAMIC TERRORISM.
Islamic terrorism is well exemplified by the attacks
on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City
and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Altho some politicians keep confusing such terrorism with Iraq,
there is no evidence that the 9-11 terrorists came from Iraq
or were meaningfully supported by any group in Iraq in 2001.
Only since the 9-11 terrorism
has a new group been created in Iraq
calling itself "Al-Queda in Iraq".
Most of the 9-11 Islamic terrorists came from Saudi Arabia
and they were trained by Al-Queda in Afghanistan.
The 'war on terrorism' does need to be continued,
but Afghanistan and Pakistan are the places
where Al-Queda will be
found, not in Iraq.
One argument put forward by those
who favor
continuing our occupation of Iraq
is that if we withdraw now,
Iraq will become a new center for terrorism.
This does not seem likely.
Rather, it is more likely that the various factions in Iraq
will fight one another more violently for ownership of the oil revenues
and in order for their group to control as much of Iraq as possible.
Fighting terrorism means finding individual
terrorists wherever they are,
including terrorists now living in the United States of America.
Whatever happens in Iraq,
individual terrorists everywhere will continue to be a threat.
Continuing to occupy Iraq or withdrawing our troops
will make little difference in the war on 'Islamic' terrorism.
And after the U.S. occupation of Iraq ends,
there will be one less reason for Muslims to become terrorists.
2. U.S. FORCES IN IRAQ ARE NOT
TAKING SIDES IN A CIVIL WAR.
What is a civil war?
In all examples of real
civil wars in world history,
there were at least two sides, with military forces battling one
another.
They fought over land, political power, or religion.
In the United
States our Civil War arose because the
South
wanted to separate itself from the rest of the USA
in order to continue the institution of slavery.
Soldiers from the North wore blue uniforms.
Soldiers from the South wore gray uniforms.
The military forces of the North had to defeat the military forces of
the South
in order to prevent the Confederate states from seceding from the USA.
And a slave-free USA has prospered since the end of our Civil War.
In Vietnam
the civil war arose because North Vietnam
wanted to re-unite all of Vietnam into one country
and South Vietnam wanted to continue to be a separate country.
France and later the United States
fought on the side of the various governments of South Vietnam
to prevent the re-unification of the country.
It was said to be an anti-Communist war,
but nationalism was much stronger
than the desire of the North Vietnamese Communists to rule the world.
When the US military forces finally withdrew in 1975, that civil war
ended.
One side lost and the other side won.
And a unified Vietnam has prospered since the end of that civil war.
The violence in Iraq is much more complex
than
either of these real civil wars.
There are two main kinds of 'Muslims' who want to kill each other.
But there are also many factions within each major group,
which are struggling now and will continue to struggle
for some kind of dominance after the U.S. soldiers
leave.
There is no fighting over territory, no front-line with battling armies.
There is no combat in
the ordinary senses of that word.
Rather there are isolated bombings and killings in many parts of Iraq.
These murderous efforts are directed mainly at rival groups,
attempting to kill 'infidels' whenever that is possible or convenient.
And some bombings are directed at the occupying U.S.
military forces.
All factions of the Iraqi mutual genocide agree on killing U.S. soldiers
whenever that is possible or convenient.
The only Iraqis who do not want to kill Americans
(or at least expel them from Iraq)
are the few who form whatever current government is supported by U.S.
troops.
And such Iraqis who are deeply identified with the U.S. occupation
will have to flee Iraq when the U.S. troops are eventually withdrawn.
The United States of America has no ideological,
political, or religious reasons
for supporting one faction of 'Muslims' over another.
We do not care which group will ultimately rule Iraq.
And if Iraq divides itself into a few smaller countries,
each with a dominant ethnic-religious group,
that would not be a vital U.S. interest either.
Such are entirely the internal affairs of Iraq.
And no other countries ought to interfere to assure who gets what.
Sometimes the conflict in Iraq is identified
as a fight between U.S. troops and "insurgents".
But these "insurgents" are now mainly focused on expelling the U.S.
occupiers.
When these foreign occupiers paid by the U.S. taxpayers are finally
gone,
the "insurgents" will turn their wrath on one another.
3. "MUTUAL GENOCIDE" MIGHT BE THE
BEST DESCRIPTION.
When the situation in Iraq is described as any kind
of war,
then we naturally assume that one side will achieve 'victory'
and another side will be 'defeated'.
But the deepest roots of Iraqi violence are
religious and
sectarian,
not political, economic, or geographic.
The most violent Iraqis want to kill one another
simply because the ones who deserve to die are 'infidels'.
This is very hard for civilized societies to
understand.
But we can remind ourselves of similar violence in Northern Ireland.
Both violent Protestants and violent Catholics believed that they were
Christians.
But whenever law-and-order broke down,
the most violent of these 'Christians'
took that opportunity to kill some members of the "opposite religion".
The Irish Republican Army had some vain hope
that if they could get the upper hand in Northern Ireland,
they could take those northern counties out of the United Kingdom
and re-unite them
with the rest of Ireland.
Outsiders cannot hope to understand the religious
differences
among the various kinds of Muslims in Iraq.
And probably these Muslims themselves do not understand
their automatic hatred of the other groups.
They have just grown up knowing their ethnic identities,
which are defined against the ethnic identities of the other groups.
They know which family they belonged to.
And they know which religious leader to follow.
When members of another group are defined as 'infidels',
then it is not sinful to kill them.
(The present writer might have been the first on the
Internet
to apply the expression "mutual genocide" to the violence in Iraq.
This appeared in an earlier cyber-sermon entitled:
Exit Strategy
for Iraq:
Arabic-Speaking Peace-Keepers,
which was published on the Internet on July 8, 2006.)
4. POLICING MUTUAL GENOCIDE IN
IRAQ.
The basic function of the U.S. military forces in
Iraq
today (January 2008)
to to police the large populations centers of Iraq
(most notable Baghdad, where 25% of the people live)
in a mostly-futile attempt to prevent various groups from killing one
another.
It
is extremely
difficult for U.S. soldiers
to be the main police force in Baghdad,
since most U.S. soldiers do not speak the language of Iraq—Arabic.
Thus, there are numerous occasions when the U.S. soldiers
must shoot first and ask questions afterwards
—if
there are any
survivors.
All sides of the mutual genocide in Iraq hate the
U.S.
soldiers,
except when this foreign army can be used to further their own causes.
The violent 'Muslims' know that the U.S. soldiers will eventually be
gone.
They only hope that their own private armies will be strong enough
when the U.S. withdraws in order to eliminate their enemies
and thereafter be able to control large portions of Iraq.
They especially hope to control those parts where the money comes from
—the
oil-producing regions of Iraq.
This is similar to gang violence in the USA:
Various gangs fight each other over the money—the
drug trade.
The most likely resolution of mutual genocide in Iraq
will happen after the U.S. troops are mostly or completely withdrawn.
Then the various private armies
(some trying to control the established police and military forces)
will fight it out among
themselves.
Thousands more Iraqis will die.
And this killing will eliminate the most violent of 'Muslims' on all
sides.
Eventually reason
will prevail
(as it sometimes does in gang warfare in the United States),
and the wiser heads will establish some new order
in which it is no longer acceptable to kill the 'others'
simply because they belong to another group.
Mutual genocide is a self-limiting phenomenon:
After enough of the violent people on all sides are dead,
then those who remain alive will see the futility of further killing.
And they will establish some form of law-and-order,
perhaps enforced by a neutral police force that all sides trust.
The soldiers of the United States of America
cannot be this police force, preventing sectarian killing in Baghdad.
This is because of the U.S. soldiers are regarded as
'enemies'
by all sides in the mutual genocide.
The most violent people in Iraq want to kill not only the 'infidels'
but also the foreign troop who are occupying their country.
These foreign soldiers are easier to identify.
(They have uniforms, guns, bases, convoys, etc.)
And everyone in Iraq automatically knows that U.S. troops are infidels.
It is difficult to predict how many Iraqis will have
to die
before reason will prevail and establish a new law-and-order for Iraq.
At best, a few months of mutual genocide should be enough.
At worse, the mutual genocide will continue for some years
after the U.S. occupiers are withdrawn.
This will be a deep tragedy for Iraq.
And we must admit that we got it started
by overthrowing the government that existed in 2003.
But a few more millions of Iraqis will be able to
leave their country
when the U.S. military forces begin to withdraw.
Iraq is not a large country.
And there are other countries not part of the mutual genocide,
to which Iraqis can flee.
Then after the killing stops and law-and-order is re-established
by some new Iraqi military force,
then the exiles can return to Iraq if they want.
Policing Baghdad will be taken over by some police
force
that is trusted by the majority of people in that city.
And the people of Iraq can return to their daily lives,
as they lived them in the years before the U.S. took over their country.
We are sorry that we caused so many needless deaths.
And we mourn also for our own dead in this foolish occupation.
We can only hope that we have learned some important
lessons
from our misadventure in Iraq.
5. HISTORIC EXAMPLE OF MUTUAL
GENOCIDE: INDIA IN 1947.
Sixty years ago, the British who had been ruling
India for 200 years,
finally agreed with the demands of the Indians to grant them
independence.
There were two major ethnic-and-religious groups: Hindus and Muslims.
Two corners of India were carved out to form the new nation of Pakistan,
which would be the homeland for Muslims.
What remained of India was assumed to be a Hindu nation.
The new borders were hastily drawn by the colonial power,
not giving the population any advance information
about which nation they would find themselves living in.
The result was mutual genocide when the
British left:
About one million Hindus and Muslims killed one another.
Whichever group was in the minority in the new countries
was most subject to being slaughtered by the new ethnic majority there.
Eventually law-and-order was established by the new governments.
But since independence, India and Pakistan have fought a few wars
over disputed boundary lines.
And one region of the former India (Kashmir)
is still disputed by India and Pakistan 60 years after partition.
In retrospect, the partition of India should have
taken 5 or 10 years.
This would have allowed everyone who wanted to move
plenty of time to sell homes and businesses
to members of the majority population,
some of whom would be moving
in from the other country.
Giving additional time for independence
would also have allowed the population some voice
in the exact location of the boundary between Pakistan and India.
A peaceful separation could have saved most of those million lives
of Muslims and Hindus who were killed merely because of their ethnic
identity.
6. MUTUAL GENOCIDE IN IRAQ WILL
BECOME WORSE BEFORE IT CALMS DOWN.
Because the U.S. has been occupying Iraq for only 5
years,
we probably have no legitimate role in sub-dividing Iraq.
When U.S. troops leave, the various factions of Iraq
will increase their slaughter of one another for a few months.
Then some form of law-and-order will emerge,
which might involve dividing Iraq into ethnic enclaves.
Iraqis who foresee this outcome are already moving to places of greater
safety.
About 2.5 million have already moved within Iraq.
This is 10% of the population.
An equal number of Iraqis have fled the country.
These population movements will increase when U.S. soldiers begin to
leave.
Instead of attempting to impose an alien concept of
'democracy' on Iraq,
our departing role might be to discover what the Iraqis really want
and to help them to move to that resolution
with the least possible
mutual genocide.
Created
October 5, 2007; Revised 10-6-2007; 11-4-2007; 11-11-2007; 11-16-2007;
1-24-2008; 3-22-2008
AUTHOR:
James Park is an independent existential philosopher,
living and writing in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Much more will be learned about him from his website:
An Existential
Philosopher's Museum.
SEE RELATED CYBER-SERMONS:
How a World
Peace Force Would Handle Situations Like Iraq
Better than the United States as Policeman.
Peaceful
Muslims & Violent Muslims.
Deprogramming
Osama Bin Laden.
Holy War
Against Terrorism.
Exit Strategy
for Iraq: Arabic-Speaking Peace-Keepers.
Policing
Mutual Genocide: Not a War on Terrorism, Not a Civil War.
Lessons from
Iraq.