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July 2003

 

Right Hook

   

J.J. McCullough
Op Columnist

Though the war in Iraq is over, the debate is not.
Despite the fact that 30 million people have been lib-
erated from the clutches of one of history's worst dic-
tators, the North American left continues its cam-
paign to discredit the American resolve with a barrage
of guilt-trips and second-guessing. As is often the case
following a war, the first allegations are those of “mas-
sacres” of civilians by US and coalition forces.

We may never know how many civilians were killed
in the Iraqi conflict. This was not a clean-cut war by
any means. Much of the fighting occurred in towns
and cities, with the lines between civilian and military
areas becoming increasingly blurred.

Regardless of the ambiguities, the anti-war left is
eager to assume the worst, throwing out terms like
“genocide” and “war crimes.” Though they claim to
be the great champions of human rights, leftists nev-
ertheless seem to take a sick pleasure in cataloguing
civilian casualty counts—the higher the better. After
all, civilian deaths make for great propaganda, espe-
cially horrifying photographs of bloodied women and
children; just ask Al-Jeezera.

The Associated Press estimates it is possible that
somewhere between 2,000 to 3,200 civilians were
killed in Iraq. The latter number will no doubt be
taken as the God’s truth by many leftists (interesting
how the “evil imperialist press” rhetoric only applies
when the facts don’t support your argument). While
these numbers are certainly tragic (even one civilian
death is too many) we must attempt to view these
numbers in somewhat of a proper context. Though
the anti-war left will be quick to throw out all sorts of
crazy allegations of an all-out American-led slaughter-
fest, the blame for the majority of these casualties rests
sorely on the epauletted shoulders of one man-
Saddam Hussein.

Saddam has always been the master of propaganda
and manipulation. He may be a genocidal madman,
but he isn’t stupid. As an avid watcher of CNN,
Saddam was well aware of the mass protests that had
occurred all over the world as the Bush
Administration pressed for regime change. Saddam
was no doubt equally familiar with the viciously anti-
American anti-war texts being churned out by
America’s leading leftist detractors, including every-
one from movie stars to university professors. He was
well aware of the attitudes and feelings of the
American (and by extension Canadian) anti-war left,
and he liked what he saw. After all, no war meant
more decades of murder and embezzlement for him.
Thus, as he had done in the first Gulf War, when war
finally came Saddam adapted his battle strategy to
play on the feelings of North American leftists, and
thus orchestrate even further opposition to the war.

Iraqi soldiers were ordered to wear civilian clothes,
and mingle in packed civilian areas so that when they

The politics of

casualties;

of an American

victory

fired on approaching US troops, innocent Iraqis
would be helplessly caught in the crossfire. Other
civilians were ordered to take cover in designated “safe
spots” that were anything but. These “safe” areas were
usually located within military bases and factories;
areas that Saddam knew would be among the first to
be bombed by American pilots. For face to face com-
bat with American troops, Saddam helped propagan-
dize his forces by making them watch American-made
films on Vietnam, and the recent blockbuster Black
Hawk Down to show how American soldiers can be
easily demoralized by dirty fighting and orchestrated
civilian uprisings.

To Saddam, civilian lives were a political tool to be
used to save his regime. Like many Arab leaders before
him, Saddam was hoping to turn the Iraqi war into a
full-blown Vietnam-style quagmire that would humil-
iate and weaken US troops, leading to an early depar-
ture. He had pulled it off in 1991, and hoped for sim-
ilar success the second time.

Luckily this was not the case. A week or so of fight-
ing and Saddam’s regime was quickly added to the
dustbin of history. Hopefully, American forces will
remain vigilant in their attempts to find the former
dictator himself, so he too can face a fitting fate for his
actions.

Saddam's demise must no doubt come as a massive
upset to many of the leading leftists of the world, who
during the war had cheered so eagerly for the “Iraqi
people” (ie: the Ba’ath Party thugs) to overcome the
“Imperialist American aggression.” Unsurprisingly,
much of the leftist anti-war rhetoric employed many
of the same techniques as Saddam himself had used.

As usual, the voices on Canada’s “left coast” were
among the most viciously anti-American in their sup-
port for the Hussein dictatorship. Vancouver's numer-
ous “alternative” newspapers were full of articles
denouncing the war against the “Iraqi people” with
vicious anti-American propaganda. “[The Iraqi] peo-
ple are sitting ducks,” said a column in Vancouver's
leading Marxist publication, The Republic. “The word
genocide has been raised, and I can see why. It is the
murder of a whole people.” Another Republic article
featured a fawning interview with one of the many
moronic Canadians who ventured to Iraq to be a
“human shield” and a voluntary part of Saddam's vast
propaganda campaign to demoralize the West. An
article in the Georgia Straight accused President Bush
of planning “war crimes” and warned Prime Minister
Chretien not to lend support to the war, lest he too
become a war criminal through compliance. College
newspapers were even worse. SFU’s The Peak ran
more than a few editorials encouraging Iraqis to attack
American soldiers. Nearly every college paper in the
province reprinted a ridiculous Znet interview with
Leftist Cult hero Noam Chomsky in which the

http://otherpress.douglas.bc.ca_e

The Leftist tainting

Communist sympathizer repeated his belief that the
only regime worth changing was the one in
Washington. The list of articles goes on
and on, each surpassing the other in the level of out-
rageous and illogical charges leveled against the Bush
Administration. One theme was constant, however:
America is a bloodthirsty Imperialist regime bent on
global domination. The war in Iraq will be a bloody
crusade—no, genocide—that will leave tens of thou-
sands of mangled corpses lying in the streets.

The evil of the Saddam regime was rarely men-
tioned in these columns. If it was, it was done dismis-
sively, as a sort of throat-clearing before launching
into an anti-American tirade. Though they may not
have openly professed to support the Iraqi dictator,
there was neverless an underlying compliance to their
arguments. Since America is apparently the Great
Satan, surely any alternative to American rule must be
a better choice for the Iraqi people, even when that
alternative is the Hussein dictatorship, or as Professor
Chomsky advocated, an Iranian-style theocracy.

President Bush’s statement that you are either “with
us or against us” in the War on Terror has under-
standably been severely mocked by these publications.
After all, no one likes to think that they are on the side
of the terrorists, even when they clearly are.

As terrible as it was to see innocents get killed in this
war, we should also keep in mind that innocent Iraqis
getting killed is hardly a new phenonenom. In his 30-
some years in power, Saddam Hussein has murdered
somewhere around 300,000 of his own people, and
including Iranians, Kuwaitis, Kurds, and Israelis, is
responsible for the deaths of over a million human
beings. While American forces went out of their way
to avoid accidentally hitting civilian areas, Saddam's
regime had no such moral qualms.

Under the Hussein dictatorship children were fre-
quently tortured in front of their parents, women
were mutilated with electric drills and diodes, and
men were fed feet first into gigantic metal shredders,
so the torturers could hear their screams. The crimes
of such victims was often nothing more than being a
family member of an enemy of the regime, or some
other equally convoluted and trumped up charge of
“guilt by association.”

The sheer horror of Saddam's decades of terror is
only now becoming fully known. Mass graves contin-
ue to be uncovered, and secret torture chambers full
of barbaric devices not seen since the Middle Ages
continue to turn up all over the country. Saddam was
truly one of history’s worst tyrants, and though the
anti-war left continues to deny this, the Iraqi people
will find it hard to ever forget.

In the end, history will no doubt judge the civilian
causalities of the 2003 Iraqi war as a small price to pay
for the liberation of 30 million people.

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