- by Peter McDonald
The recent war in Iraq has caused a great divide between anybody who cares about politics. Whether somebody stands on the left or on the right of the political spectrum, opinions have been divided on almost every issue involved in this confusing and fractured affair. Political stance has nothing to do with this – there are those who stand for the war and those who don’t, but within these two groups one can find Labour supporters, Conservative supporters, Liberal Democrats, and those who normally avoid politics because they are above the petty squabbling and back-biting involved, and by ignoring the political situation can feel superior and more knowledgeable about their country’s affairs.
The two sides for and against the war have varying arguments. Those against the war (let us call them Conchies), have a few gripes against the acts of the Blair and Bush administrations. They see the attack on a dictatorial regime, which killed and tortured more people than actually supported it, as a huge crime against freethinking. It is not our business, they argue, to go around the world, attempting to make civilians’ lives better. If an oppressed people wish to stop being oppressed, they simply need to get together and hold some sort of a coup – and if they can’t even sort that out, a simple enough affair, then surely they are not deserving of democracy? It is surely a sign of the bullish aggressiveness of the western democratic powers that they cruelly decide to take away a people’s lack of liberty and impose upon them a system where they do not have the right to say whatever they want without mysteriously disappearing overnight.
Conchies are usually vegetarians. They are quite often atheists, and tend to live in bed-sits or squats. Many of them are students, who despite being lent a generous amount of money by the government to sit around reading books and watching Countdown all day long, still have the sheer cheek to complain about having to pay some of this loan back. Your average Conchie probably doesn’t even know what a national anthem is, let alone know the words to ‘Jerusalem’.
The Conchie argument goes on to say that the war has only occurred because of a capitalist desire to have lots of oil, and therefore lots of money; but since when has capitalism been driven by a desire to make a lot of money? It is hardly plausible that an American or British government would actually go as far as declaring war on a country merely to exploit its resources. Likewise, they claim that Bush and Blair have killed many civilians in their campaigns.
The other side of the argument, those who argued for war (let us call them Warmongers) freely admit the amount of civilian casualties involved in this, the second Gulf War; but they point out something that the Conchies have failed to realise; that these civilians welcomed friendly western bombs raining down upon their cities and liberating them from the Hussein regime. Whereas Conchies say that the Iraqi people should jolly well sort things out for themselves, Warmongers say that the Iraqi people need a bit of a helping hand, a bit of a shove. They are generally more humanitarian than Conchies, preferring to try to help the Iraqi civilians in their plight, rather than sit back and tell them to get on with it by themselves. They are the kind of people who organise whist drives at their local churches to help the homeless; the kind of people who go on charity runs in the cause of paraplegics. They want to help, in a purely altruistic way. The Warmongers have stationed friendly military men in Iraq, now that Saddam’s government has collapsed, so that should an Iraqi citizen have trouble understanding democracy, the soldiers can ably demonstrate it, pointing out the differences in their lifestyles already. Whereas under Saddam, the streets were littered with shifty middle-eastern types, holding guns and forcing them to behave in an unusual and wrong manner, now there are friendly western morally strong men holding guns, demonstrating forcefully how natural and right the democratic process is. The Warmongers are moral and good people, who normally own Volvos and live in semi-detached houses with their families and have some decent security in their lives. Warmongers have the words to ‘Jerusalem’ tattooed on their children’s foreheads.
However, recent developments have brought in a new question. Saddam Hussein has been found and arrested by some Warmongers (who happened to be teaching some Iraqis about how to keep minority groups under control by putting them in worse housing and waiting for them to commit burglaries and the like, providing a good reason to imprison them). Conchies and Warmongers alike want to see Saddam put on trial for War Crimes, to give him an opportunity to explain himself and encourage his supporters to form partisan groups and rise against Western influence. This is where I think both sides have ignored a crucial question – should we not charge the Iraqi populace for being complicit in Saddam’s regime? I think a Conchie and a Warmonger would have good reason to accept my proposal. A conchie should say to himself:
‘All that time, 20 odd years, living under a cruel dictatorship and not rebelling against it, therefore must mean that they didn’t want to rebel against this cruel regime, which in turn means that they agreed with Saddam’s policies (many of which broke the Geneva Convention). Should I really get involved with this country far, far away, which barely affects my life, if the people living there themselves didn’t really care? They’re obviously just pretending they didn’t like Saddam, saying they were just following orders etc, to get themselves off the hook, which didn’t work at Nuremberg and won’t work now!’
Likewise a Warmonger should say to himself:
‘All this effort and expense we have gone to, all the flak our leaders have gone through to help these people and what thanks do we get? Nothing, that’s what! Not even a bloody ‘Thank You’ card! In fact, they just keep on whining on about ‘Oh, we haven’t got enough food or money, our economy no longer works, our people are dying etc’… Don’t they realise that OUR people, WESTERN people have died for them, in our generous effort to improve their lives? They obviously didn’t care about us that much, and just exploited us, taking our food etc without even thinking about repaying us! They have, in effect, swindled us. For this reason alone, they should pay for the cost and lives of our people. They should be forced to stand trial for their actions.’
Whichever side of the war you stand; whether you be Conchie or Warmonger, I ask you, no, I urge you, to make the unscrupulous Iraqi people explain themselves in a court of law. We cannot allow their despicable and inhuman behaviour throughout this war to go unquestioned. It would be as ridiculous as questioning the actions of the American and British administrations in this conflict.