Baghdad Protests

I saw this initially at Ken's site, and also noticed it at a few other places. Two days ago, a large demonstration was organized in Baghdad around the theme of "Stop Terrorism." I've mostly tried to stay out of the fray on this--for several reasons. One, I'm all in favor of people speaking their minds--whether or not I agree. Two, it's been goddamned busy at work, leaving me little time to really follow what's going on. Three, I didn't want to get wrapped up in some of the progressive posting on the subject, which was primarily aimed at pointing out the irony of Glenn Reynolds showing support for the protests. You see, the Iraqi Communist Party was one of the groups at the rally. Normally, Glenn has little use for communists, and I've heard he dismissed the anti-war protests here due to the involvement of A.N.S.W.E.R. Yeah, in a nutshell, I'd say that makes Glenn a tad hypocritical.

But, back to the demonstration in Baghdad. I took a look at Heaning Iraq--by the way, call me naiive if you want, but I believe Zeyad when he says he is an Iraqi living in his capital city--and he's in favor of the invasion and occupation. Here's what he had to say:

The rallies today proved to be a major success. I didn't expect anything even close to this. It was probably the largest demonstration in Baghdad for months. It wasn't just against terrorism. It was against Arab media, against the interference of neighbouring countries, against dictatorships, against Wahhabism, against oppression, and of course against the Ba'ath and Saddam...

All political parties represented in the GC participated. But the other parties, organizations, unions, tribal leaders, clerics, school children, college students, and typical everyday Iraqis made up most of the crowd. Al-Jazeera estimated the size of the crowd as over ten thousand people.

You can find a list of some of the parties that we noticed there at Omar's blog. At one point it struck me that our many differences as an Iraqi people meant nothing. Here we were all together shouting in different languages the same slogans "NO NO to terrorism, YES YES for peace".

OK. But the interesting thing about the internet is that there is rarely just one side to a story. Over at Riverbend, pseudonym for a young Iraqi woman (or so I believe--see my remarks above). Riverbend has much more complicated feelings towards the invasion and occupation. I think, on the one hand, she's not sad at all to see Saddam go, but I'm pretty sure she's been more than a little unhappy over seeing her country--where Western Civilization was born--degenerating into chaos so quickly. Anyway, here's her view of the same demonstration (no permalink, but it's the latest post. Given the electricity situation, it will probably be the latest post for a while):

There was a demonstration in Baghdad yesterday of about 4,000 people. The parties who are a part of the GC took part in an 'anti-terror' protest. The roads were closed for security reasons and helicopters were hovering over head. There were a couple of women's groups I recognized some women from Al-Da'awa Al-Islamiya- Al-Jaffari's party. The Iraqi communist party and SCIRI were also involved. The irony is seeing SCIRI members hold up the "NO TERROR" banners (they could start by not terrorizing the Al-Iraqiya station because the anchorwomen don't wear hijabs).

There were other demonstrations in some provinces, and they've all been lobbed together with the one in Baghdad. The truth is that some of them were actually anti-occupation demonstrations, like the one in Khaldiya. There were large crowds demonstrating in Khaldiya, demanding the release of boys and men who have been detained for over 3 months in American prison camps.

Today (well, technically, yesterday) there was another large demonstration in Baghdad which was a peaceful anti-occupation demonstration. The demonstrators were mainly university students and teachers who were opposing the raids occurring in some colleges and universities. They were demanding the release of three women who were detained when the Technology University in Baghdad was raided. Their spokesperson, a professor, I think, said that this was going to be the first demonstration in a long series of anti-occupation activism being organized by teachers and students.

So, I post, and let you, the reader, decide. I took a look at some of the pictures, and, to be honest, the demonstration looked a little larger than the anti-war rally I went to in New Orleans earlier this year, but not a LOT larger. But, again, I'll point out that the hornet's nest that Iraq has become makes this appeal against terror a nice but basically futile gesture.

You could have 4,000, or 10,000, or 40,000, and it still won't mean anything. Why? Because many of those AGAINST the occupation aren't going to simply accept it and go home. It's clear that they have the resources to engage in hit-and-run tactics that, while not being enough to drive off the US forces, will make the price of occupation significant. Some may scoff at the "relatively" low level of US deaths--to which I'll say it's only "low" for those who haven't lost a loved one or family member. Additionally, by focusing only on those who've died, we're forgetting a MUCH larger number of wounded. Many of the wounded have survived only due to remarkable advances in battlefield medicine. In earlier wars (Gulf War I included) these soldiers would never have made it home. And while we can all be grateful for their return, let's be very clear about the severity of the injuries many have suffered. Nerve damage, missing limbs, serious burns--the cost of occupation for these individuals has been quite high.

And I haven't even mentioned the Iraqi dead. Sorry folks: they're no less human than we are. Aside: when I went to the anti-war march in New Orleans, I carried a poster that pictured a twelve year old Iraqi girl. I have no idea if she survived the battles, but I certainly hope so. The sign was given to me for the march--I have no idea where it ended up. Anyway, while in Jackson Square, someone struck up a conversation with me about the event. It became clear that this person was itching for invasion. When I showed him my poster, he literally told me that he hoped she'd blown to bits by the US Military. Why? Because she was a "future enemy."

I don't think this guy represents the mainstream view towards the war--but I can tell you that he certainly didn't look like the lunatic he is (judging from what he said). Instead, he looked like a very normal, sane person--not the variety of person you normally see in Jackson Square, to be honest. But hoping for a young kid to be blown to bits--and, that was such an insane thing to say, I asked him to repeat himself, just in case I hadn't heard, which he did--man, that to me is one step short of child molestation.

By the way--just so no one thinks I'm anti-soldier: this person was NOT in the military. He was just someone who apparently has been brainwashed into wishing the most horrific of violent acts upon people whom he has never met.

Man, that was a long tangent. Sorry to those who didn't want to follow. Sorry about the low links as well. Might try to correct this a little later with the edit function.

Back to the topic at hand: I've said this before on this site, and I'll mention it again: Iraq cannot be judged in any manner even approaching the industrial west. And I don't want to make that sound insulting to Iraqis, because it isn't. I don't think Iraqis are incapable of stable self-government--but I think that, given that Iraq as a country was cobbled together from three provinces of the old Ottoman Empire, given that the history of the region (whether called Babylon, Baghdad, Mosul, Basra, Ur, whatever) goes back AT LEAST 4000 years, given that within the three major (and dozens of minor) ethnic/political/religious divisions you've got literally hundreds of political and quasi-political organizations who will DEFINITELY NOT BACK DOWN now that they literally have the chance of a lifetime--given all this, and more, I think the invasion and occupation of Iraq will be remembered in history as pretty disasterous--both for Iraq, and the United States...


Final note: might be posting much later this evening, but I couldn't pass up the rare chance to see John Prine tonight over at the Centroplex--and then there's the usual Friday night happenings here in the Capital City. If I do make it back tonight, it will probably be to add some links to my rambling statement above...