Yes, we've done such a great job of bringing a Human Rights-respecting Democracy to Iraq that the traditional Sharia punishment of death is being levied on homosexuals:
Hardline Islamic insurgent groups in Iraq are targeting a new type of victim with the full protection of Iraqi law, The Observer can reveal.
The country is seeing a sudden escalation of brutal attacks on what are being called the 'immorals' - homosexual men and children as young as 11 who have been forced into same-sex prostitution. There is growing evidence that Shia militias have been killing men suspected of being gay and children who have been sold to criminal gangs to be sexually abused.
The threat has led to a rapid increase in the numbers of Iraqi homosexuals now seeking asylum in the UK because it has become impossible for them to live safely in their own country. ...
Eleven-year-old Ameer Hasoon al-Hasani was kidnapped by policemen from the front of his house last month. He was known in his district to have been forced into prostitution. His father Hassan told me he searched for his son for three days after his abduction, then found him, shot in the head. A copy of the death certificate confirms the cause of death.
Homosexuality is seen as so immoral that it qualifies as an 'honour killing' to murder someone who is gay - and the perpetrator can escape punishment.
Section 111 of Iraq's penal code lays out protections for murder when people are acting against Islam.
We have failed in Iraq. We failed because we did not believe in our own principles enough to insist that they be enforced. We allowed Sharia to be enshrined in the Iraqi constitution as a source of law. We are beginning to reap what we have allowed to be sown.
Here's a question for us to ponder. We would never have allowed such a situation to have developed in a Western country, so why did we allow this to have in a Middle Eastern country?
I have my own answers, but I'd love to hear yours.
Tim K,
ReplyDeletePlease let me be clear that I do not fault the US military for the situation in Iraq. The military has done their job magnificently well.
However, that being said, I have to question your assertion that we have a more friendly government in the new Iraqi regime. Is that really true? And, if so, by what degree? Was it really worth all the blood and money?
Given our track record of success in Japan and Germany, and in the American South after the Civil War, couldn't we have expected to have done a better job in remaking the Iraqi culture?
I mean, think about it, we remade Japan. We remade the American South. They are as different from what they were as night is from day. Did we accomplish anything of the like in Iraq?
Now, it may be true that it isn't our fault. Maybe Islam is an impermeable membrane. Maybe, I don't know. If so, we must learn from the mistake of trying to help, and we must move on to another method of dealing with our future problems in the region, which are sure to be many.
So, will the answer lie in brute war, the simple and utter decimation of enemies? Will we move on to good old fashioned imperialism; the white man's burden of colonization? Or will we be forced to completely disengage from that part of the world?
My 2¢ on the US's failure in Iraq and Afghanistan...
ReplyDeleteThe USA, like Israel, suffers from heeding world opinion too much.
Remember, after 9/11, Bush talked about "this war, this crusade... we will rid the world of the evildoers". Remember the world outrage? Bush probably had the casual meaning of the word "crusade" in mind, like in "the crusade against drunk driving". But in such a context (reaction to religiously-motivated terrorism), no one was receptive to that meaning. Foremostly the Islamic world, but also the appeasing West, decried Bush's use of the word "crusade" as a declaration of a war between Christianity and Islam, as fundamentalist Christian Armageddonism on Bush's part.
As a result of that, the USA has been wary of world opinion, and exercised great care not to convey the impression of waging religion-motivated wars. The long-term consequence of that has been the handicapping of the USA from doing the thing, the one thing, that could possibly lead to peace in the newly-occupied lands: de-Islamicization, as important as de-Nazification was after WWII. The establishment of Western schools, and, more importantly, Christian missions to yank as much as possible of the population off from the death cult, would have gone a long way toward lasting peace. Now, I know it's death to apostates in Islam, but an occupying power like the USA could have blocked that with an iron fist.
The British and French had the chance to do that until the half of the 20th century but didn't, because they were busy with recovering from the first world war and then fighting the second one. The USA now has the chance, but again is missing it, for different reasons: the existing world sentiment according to which only Muslims are allowed to act politically in the name of their religion.
One of the sorest realizations I've gotten from recent events is that the West needs to be pushed horribly far in order to move its butt. It's like even a slap in the face isn't enough to wake the sleeper, only several buckets of cold water can do the job.
TimK,
ReplyDeleteI think you are correct that the biggest reason we are not successful in our endeavors in Iraq is that we did not "flatten" it.
In order for military victory to be achieved, the one who is defeated must be convinced he is defeated. That requires brutality. That is a law of war. And, it is one we ignore at our own peril.
That being said, you are also correct that we have achieved the objective of being in a position to kick Iran and Syria's asses. Of course, I'm sure that is one of our objectives, but it was not the grand arching theme of the war as articulated by Bush and the neo-cons in whom I have believed.
Am I a sucker, or are they just lousy planners?