Proud to be an American

You can send this to all your "But aren't the Iraqis better off without Saddam Hussein?" friends:

Ibrahim Khalil, who five years ago took part in the iconic toppling of a giant statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad, said on Wednesday he now regrets taking part in the hugely symbolic event.

"If history can take me back, I will kiss the statue of Saddam Hussein which I helped pull down," Khalil told reporters on the fifth anniversary of the statue's toppling. ...

"All my friends who were with me that day feel the same as me," Khalil told reporters in Firdoos Square ...

"Now I realise that the day Baghdad fell was in fact a black day. Saddam's days were better," said Khalil, who along with his brother runs a car repair shop.

"I ask Bush: 'Where are your promises of making Iraq a better country?'

"These days when we go out we have to carry a pistol. In Saddam's regime, we were safe. We got rid of one Saddam, but today we have 50 Saddams."

Whether or not Americans think the Iraqis would have been better off with Saddam Hussein is (and always has been) beside the point, but the fact that they do beggars the imagination.  It took truly mythic levels of incompetence to create a disaster of this magnitude, and—as always—this nation was equal to the task.

So sure, it's true that we're not very good at our professed goals of spreading freedom, democracy, and hope.  But when it comes to killing people by the hundreds of thousands and shattering the lives of the survivors to the point that they'd prefer to live under a vicious dictator rather than having us there, we're second to none.  U-S-A!  U-S-A!

Comments

John Caruso

Are you sure this story is true? It's easy to believe because it has been obvious for years that life in Iraq is even worse than it was before the US invasion or than it would be now if the US had not invaded but that is no guarantee that this story is true. I am remembering the Dan Rather memo which supported the true story that Bush had skipped out on his National Guard Service but which was, itself (the memeo) probably a hoax.

[Save the Oocytes]

Must learn to practice competent war crimes?

[John Caruso]

"": I can't verify it, of course, but not even signed affidavits, video evidence, and DNA samples would convince those who'd be inclined to question it. And it's easy to find quotes like "I wish Saddam's awful regime would return," or "We wish Saddam Hussein would come back to power again", or "A lot of people want, well, 'We just want Saddam come back. We don't want to live this life. OK, dictator? We don't care; doesn't matter anymore. We just want Saddam get back. We just want our life to get back to before.'" So I don't (personally) see a reason to question it.

StO: In this particular case I thought about the incompetence first (before the infinite array of other sins and shortcomings) because it struck me just what an achievement it's been to make Saddam Hussein look like a better alternative. Not to harp on a theme, but one of the dangers of Democrats is that they do practice more "competent" war crimes, in terms of making them palatable enough (here and abroad) to defuse effective opposition. Imagine that a Democrat had run the war and occupation and had managed to make Iraq a little less than the disaster it is today, and how that would be used to retroactively justify the attack itself and the use of force in general.

[Duncan]

Whatever happened to "Democracy, whiskey, sexy"? I believe that Senator Clinton has often pointed out that the real problem is that the Iraqis have not done their part, whatever that part was supposed to be. They're so ungrateful.

From what I read at the time, it isn't quite certain that the memos used by Dan Rather *were* forgeries. Certainly Bush supporters claimed that they were -- lying is always a good first offensive move, but I think FAIR did some reporting that cast doubt on those claims. A lot of today's conventional wisdom is false. Big surprise, huh?

[John Caruso]

I was leaving the Memogate comments alone, but you're right. The official investigation (pdf) wasn't able to show that the memos were forgeries...but since they also weren't able to show that they were authentic, the forgery claim stuck in the public mind (thanks to the volume of the echo chamber). And as "" said, the fact that the claims about Bush's National Guard service were true (regardless of the memos' authenticity) was ignored.

If only the same standard were applied to reporting about Iraq, or any other thing that actually matters.

[SteveB]

There must be a lot of Russians who wish for a return to communism, I wonder if we can also chalk that up to American incompetence (or malice). I'm just now reading the part of Shock Doctrine about post-communist Russia, and she quotes Jeffrey Sachs, who was expecting some sort of Marshall Plan, as being shocked at the unwillingness of the US to provide any assistance to the Russians, and the general indifference on the part of US government officials to the looting and pillaging that was going on. Klein's theory is that the first Marshall Plan was put forward to win the Europeans away from the alternative offered by the Soviets, and now that "There is No Alernative", we no longer need to offer anyone anything. So the US has lapsed back into "we don't give a shit" mode, our natural state.

Which is a long way of saying a Democratic administration would have left Iraq just as fucked up as Bush did.

[Thomas Daulton]

SteveB: Odd but interesting parallel there, between the US saying "There Is No Alternative" to conquered countries... versus the Democrats undermining the Greens at multiple levels and then saying "There Is No Alternative" to Greens and Independents. Projecting the parallel forward, that would imply that the Democrats will go into "we don't give a shit" mode if and when they win back the government, -- "whatchoogonnadu, vote Bush back into power?" -- a scenario I believe very likely. Human nature, perhaps: the winner rests on his laurels.

[SteveB]

Duncan:
I'm assuming you've seen An Unreasonable Man so you probably remember the quote from the guy who had worked as a Dem poitical operative (can't recall his name) who said, "I knew that I never had to give anything to the left, because they had no place to go." Damn right.

Dem voters misunderstanding what motivates the leadership of their own party and Sach's misunderstanding of what might motivate the US to help the Russians are just two examples of a widely held, and false, belief: that those with wealth and power will give up some small part of their wealth and power if they can be convinced that doing so will be to the common good, and will return them some benefit in the long run. Thus Roosevelt "gave" us Social Security and guarantees of the right to organize unions because he was wise enough to see that this would create a stable middle class, and vastly increase our national wealth. Bullshit. Fear is the only motivator that really works with the powerful - fear of losing Europe to the Russians, fear of losing your head in a revolution, fear of losing the next election. We haven't had the ability to strike fear into their cold, cold hearts for years, and the consequences of that fact are all around us.

[Save the Oocytes]

The eXile did some nice summarizing of how Yeltsin et al. sold off the old state-owned industries for political power. Taibbi's recent obituary for Yeltsin gives a recap.

[SteveB]

Umm... sorry, but I got my "Duncan" and my "Daulton" confused.

[cemmcs]

John Caruso

It is abundently clear that life for most Iraqis is far worse under US occupation than it was under Saddam but a lot of Americans have a hard time accepting this. A story such as this one which really does not proves the point because it's just an anecdote does, nonetheless, have a certain Je ne sais quoi which might make it very persuasive with my "But aren't the Iraqis better off without Saddam Hussein" friends. I just want to be sure it's true before I use it.

You say, " I don't (personally) see a reason to question it." But I do. Here it is: The websites where I heve seen this particular story attribute it to AFP but I cannot find it on AFP's website, http://www.afp.com/english/home/ and so I wonder where it comes from. I just emailed AFP and asked if it's their story. I'll let you know if I hear anything.