The Global War Lords

I feel happy that the different Iraqi parties got together in the reconciliation conference that took place in Cairo last November and started solving their problems, and I feel happy that I voted in the last Iraqi general elections along with other millions of Iraqis.

The ink on the nail of my index finger is fading away slowly, and the elections results are expected to be announced soon after a very slow finalizing process.

Whether we were against the occupation or not, and whether we celebrated the fact that Iraqis wouldn’t have voted in 2005 if Saddam was still in power, this doesn’t justify the illegal war and the huge cost Iraqis paid for it. It’s very important to have an elected government, but the price Iraqis paid to have their elections made it look like a small victory lost in a sea of failure and blood.

So if there was a question whether this war and occupation was worth the cost paid by Iraqis and U.S. people, I would say: “definitely not”. The right change should have come from the inside, and the right type of democracy should have emerged from a long-term grassroots movement growing within Iraq.

The foreign occupation turned the dream of having an Iraq without Saddam to a darker nightmare, a nightmare where Iraqis lost even the smallest benefits they used to have before the occupation while the political oppression stayed the same if not worse. The biggest irony in this nightmare is when the “liberators” compare themselves to the former dictator to market their “new” Iraq. “Saddam killed 300,000 but we just killed a 100,000 to make you vote”, this is the how the logic of the mainstream pro-war activists and media sounds like. The same people who used Saddam’s crimes to justify the war on Iraq are committing the very same crimes against Iraqis.

It’s true that the emerging Iraqi democracy is still very new and primitive, even when you compare it to other local democracies in the Middle East, but this doesn’t reduce its importance. The Iraqi elections system falls short when compared to the Iranian, Lebanese, Egyptian and Jordanian experiences, or in the best scenarios is as good as some of them. But still, Iraqis can work on it in the future and build their own local trend of electoral system and democracy.

Whether we liked the war or not, we should agree that it didn’t make Iraq a safer place for anyone rather than the extremists. People like AMZ (aka Zarqawi) freak out when the Iraqi political parties have an united stand, and at the same time, extremists in the US freak out as well. A stable Iraq with a strong national government rebuilding the war-torn country is not in the interest of both AMZ and GWB.

The bush administration told us they’re going to invade Iraq to find the WMD and to bring “democracy” to Iraq. They didn’t find any WMD in Iraq, and the new Iraqi “democracy” is building itself day by day, so what’s the reason of keeping the US troops in Iraq anymore?

The occupation turned Iraq into the heaven and haven of violent extremists, and everyday of occupation is a happy day for extremists. I’m sure AMZ never dreamt of having such a comfortable space where he can work and launch attacks against Jordan, Israel and other countries in the region.

The only way to stop the violence in Iraq is to pull out the US troops. The British troops are pulling out after the elections; most of the smaller troops are pulling out as well. The only people who know how to stop violence in Iraq are Iraqis themselves. They’ve done that for the last decades, and they can do it again when the occupation troops give them back their country.

But for bush, nooooo… Pulling out the US troops is a red line! Pulling out from the holy war against Zarqawi is not an option!

Bush is preparing the US public opinion for another year of sacrifices! “We will see more tough fighting and we will see more sacrifice in 2006” he said today.

Why?! Why should anyone see more sacrifices? And for the sake of what?

If we believed in democracy, we should give Iraq back to Iraqis. The US army should give Iraq back to the elected Iraqi government. It’s that simple!

Why should we all wait until the Iraqi elected government starts fighting against the US army?! Why can’t bush listen to what Iraqis are saying? They are asking the occupation troops to leave the country… How come all the other coalition governments are listening to what Iraqis want but bush Jr. won’t?

I hope the year 2006 will be the year when extremists from both sides will be exposed and lose their supporters.