Lest we forget...

The British media has of late been filled with stories of the British withdrawal from Basra and the handover of power to the Iraqis. A long overdue and very much welcome move. However, the inference of a 'job well done' bothers me immensely.

So, lest we forget...

3897 American military deaths (as confirmed by US DoD)
174 British military deaths
approx. another 130 deaths of other coalition forces

The 'coalition of the willing' don't count Iraqi deaths... ("We don't do body counts" - General Tommy Franks, US Central Command), but thankfully Iraq Body Count does as good a job as it can - their database of war/occupation caused deaths currently sits at around the 80,000 mark.

So... that's approx 84,000 deaths in total... not including 'insurgents' or non-Iraqi civilians.

84,000 individuals are dead.

Why?

Our governments told us that Saddam Hussein had WMDs that he could deploy within 45 minutes. So, despite the outspoken opposition of the chief weapons inspector and the resistance of the general public (60% of the British public opposed the invasion of Iraq on the eve the war broke out) they took us to war without a UN mandate in order to protect us and the international community as a whole.

We now know that that was a lie. There were no WMDs to find. There was no imminent threat. Rather there was, at best, dodgy intelligence and incompetent politicians, or, at worst, a deliberate attempt to deceive the public in order to validate a war that was motivated by factors we can merely speculate about (which I will do later in this post).

How about 'regime change'? After all, that Saddam was a nasty bit of work wasn't he? Well yes, I'd be inclined to agree. BUT, BUT, BUT... Under international law it is simply ILLEGAL to invade a sovereign state in order to secure regime change.

In fact, under international law there are only three justifications for war:
1. Self-defence in the face of actual or imminent attack (even the WMDs story doesn't qualify as this - whilst preventative strike is justified, pre-emption is not - there has to be real and tangible danger)
2. Defence of others - this is harder to define, but generally is accepted that human rights abuses per say isn't adequate justification... evidence of widespread, large-scale, systematic human rights violations is imperative (think genocide).
3. Law-enforcement - quelling an aggressor (as with the first Gulf War).

At this point I would like to clarify my position. I am not a pacifist. I am not opposed to war. In fact, whilst peace is always preferable, I believe that under certain circumstances war is not just the only option, but the best option. For example, should we have gone to war against Fascist Germany in 1939? Categorically YES (imho). That was a justified and necessary war. Should we have gone to war against Iraq in 2003? Categorically NO.

Let me explain a little further. I have stated that I'm not a pacifist. So, what am I? Well, the most apt description would be to say that I subscribe to 'Just War Theory', which explains why I'm talking about international law...

Just war theory is embodied within current international law via what Walzer terms ‘the legalist paradigm’ – that is an acceptance of the existence of an international society of independent states, which possess rights to political sovereignty and territorial integrity. Within this system non-intervention and peace are the norms and aggression is thus a crime. Therefore, war is (as I have already outlined above) only justified when it occurs in response to aggression against ourselves or our allies.

Additionally, there are a number of conditions that are applied to the pursuit of war... ‘just cause’, ‘right intention’, ‘proper authority’, ‘last resort’, ‘likelihood of success’, ‘proportionality’ and ‘discrimination’. I could go through them one by one, but this is getting long enough all ready. In brief, some of them are criteria that must be fulfilled before embarking on war and some of them are criteria which apply to the conduct of war - the current war/occupation in Iraq fails on a number of counts... once again leading to the inevitable conclusion that this is an illegal and unjust occupation.

I want to dwell a little on just one of those criteria listed above - that of 'right intention'. It means exactly what it says - that in order to justify a war the intention must be right, ie: the intention must primarily be centred around quelling the aggressor and restoring order/the status-quo.

Here's where the speculation comes in... I genuinely don't believe that there was anything 'right' or justified about the intentions of the coalition of the killing...

ok... so some people argue that the human rights abuses in Iraq and the liberation of the Iraqi people was the primary motivation/justification for war... perhaps that could be classified as 'a right intention'... protection of a people against an aggressive leader... I accept that that can be a justification for war. What I don't accept is that that is what George W. Bush was thinking when he decided to put those 84,000 lives on the line...

If he was...

Why did the international community (inc. the USA) try their hardest to avoid intervening in Rwanda in 1994? Nearly 1 million people were slaughtered in a 100 day period (a faster rate of killing than the Holocaust) and the international community refused to define it as genocide... because they knew they would then have an obligation to intervene and they didn't want to.

What about Afghanistan under the Taliban (before 9/11)... Bush didn't want regime change there... despite the public executions, torture and widespread abuses against women... in fact, he had the Taliban come visit him in Texas. (I have other thoughts on Afghanistan, but I know it's a sensitive issue, so I'm going to leave that alone for now)

Why isn't the international community intervening in Darfur? I don't pretend to be an expert on African politics and I don't fully understand the situation there... but I do know that it's a damn site worse that Iraq under Saddam.

Why? Why? Why?
Because they had nothing to gain?
Because those nations didn't occupy strategic political/economic/military territories in the Middle East?
Because they weren't rich in natural resources?
Because they have NO OIL??????????????????
(got there eventually... you all knew what was coming didn't you?)

So, the sum of my speculation is this...

84,000 people have died for oil.

What kind of world do you want to live in?

Not one where tens of thousands of people die for oil that's for sure...

I'm going to leave you with the words of Rose Gentle (mother of Fusilier Gordon Gentle, killed in Basra on 28 June 2004):
"Soldiers in Iraq have told me they don't want to be there. They want to come home. They have told us to step up our campaign of resistance to this government's war policies. We must act now, bring the troops home and end this illegal occupation."

Thanks for reading.