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TIME TO END THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ
from Wartimes
5/22/07
Life under occupation has been an unending tragedy for the people of
Iraq. Over 34,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in 2006, and the violence
has forced over one million Iraqis to flee their country. One in five
Iraqis are living in poverty and more than half are unemployed, all
while the costs of basic goods have skyrocketed. Many Iraqis still don’t
have enough drinking water or electricity.
No wonder more than 80% of Iraqis want the U.S. military to leave.
THE U.S. OCCUPATION: THE SOLUTION OR THE PROBLEM?
All people of conscience are concerned with the intensifying civil war
in Iraq. But the U.S. military cannot prevent civil war. This was clear
when Sunni guerrillas blew up a sacred Shiite shrine in February 2006,
sparking attacks and counter-attacks among Iraqis. “The [U.S.] military
largely watched the violence from the sidelines,” according to the
L.A.Times.
The only way to end the civil war in Iraq is for the different groups of Iraqis to negotiate a solution. This is impossible as long as the U.S. military remains in Iraq, because many of these groups are opposed to the occupation and the U.S. is openly trying to destroy them. Furthermore, extremist groups who actually do want civil war have very little support among the Iraqi people and are only tolerated because they are attacking occupation forces. If the US troops leave, these groups will be isolated and powerless.
The vast majority of Iraqis think the US military is creating more conflict than it is preventing. They are right. A series of atrocities created widespread anger against U.S. soldiers and fueled the armed insurgency: torture in the Abu Ghraib prison, arbitrary and indefinite imprisonment, massacres such as the shooting of 24 civilians at close-range in Haditha, and the rape and murder of a 14 year-old girl, to name a few.
The occupation makes a civil war more likely, not less. The US military’s main goal is destroying the mostly Sunni resistance, not preventing a civil war. But when the US military attacks a Sunni area with Shia soldiers, they generate retaliatory attacks by Sunni against Shia. The best chance to stop the cycle of violence is to end the occupation.
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