Iraq: The Chief Legacy of War is Savagery

As a result of my conversation with my American friend where he suggested the current foe, Iran, should obliterated, I have been thinking a lot about what succession war would look like. It is not obvious.

The Second War in Iraq started in 2003 and in 2017 Donald Trump bragged about how the Americans had defeated ISIS in Iraq. Of course he neglected to mention how most of the heavy lifting in that battle was done by the Kurds. Those were the same Kurds he shamelessly abandoned in 2019.

Originally that war was started to remove Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction with which he could not be trusted. Only the US and their friends can be trusted with such weapons. Later, when none of such weapons were found, the purpose of the war switched to defeating ISIS who had rushed into the country to fill the void left by Hussein.

But there is more to this story than victory. Ben Taub wrote a very interesting article for the New Yorker on what has happened in Iraq since ISIS had been defeated (more or less) in 2017.

To begin with, we must remember that the Iraqi government was installed by the Americans after they defeated Saddam Hussein and his army during the second Iraq War. Ever since then the US has been engaged in nation building in Iraq with pretty meager success. They have trained the military and police, since they did not want to keep Saddam Hussein’s Baathist security forces around for fear they would revive Saddam’s government. So really the Americans now own those security forces and the problems they have created. The US can’t really say it is not responsible and wipe its hands of the matter.

Taub described how a trial of Iraqi terrorists proceeded in 2018. After ISIS was largely defeated the Iraqis went on a rampage of revenge.  Taub saw dozens of suspected  terrorists who were crammed into a jail cell. Several of them had not yet seen a lawyer yet but were already dressed for execution.

Taub described the trial of one of those suspected terrorists this way:

“In terrorism cases, lawyers are usually denied access to their clients until the hearing begins. Shortly after ten o’clock, three judges in long black robes shuffled into Courtroom 2 and sat at the bench. Suhail Abdullah Sahar, a bald, middle-aged man with a thin, jowly face, sat in the center. There were twenty-one cases on his docket that day, sixteen related to terrorism. He quietly read out a name; a security officer shouted it down the hall to one of his colleagues, who shouted it to the guard, who shouted it into the cell. Out came a young man named Ahmed. A security officer led him to a wooden cage in the middle of the courtroom. Judge Sahar accused him of having joined ISIS in Qayyarah, a small town south of Mosul.

“Sir, I swear, I have never been to Qayyarah,” Ahmed said.

Sahar was skeptical. “I have a written confession here, with your thumbprint on it,” he said.

“Sir, I swear, I gave my thumbprint on a blank paper,” Ahmed replied. “And I was tortured by the security services.” Sahar listed Ahmed’s supposed jihadi associates; Ahmed denied knowing any of them.

“Enough evidence,” the prosecutor said. “I ask for a guilty verdict.”

Ahmed had no lawyer, and so Sahar called upon an elderly state attorney named Hussein, who was seated in the gallery, to spontaneously craft a defense. Hussein walked over to a lectern, repeated from memory what Ahmed had said, and, without requesting his release, concluded with a plea for “mercy in his sentencing.”

Ahmed wept as he was led out of the room. His trial had lasted four and a half minutes.”

And we should remember that the usual sentence for terrorist cases is death.

The second trial Taub observed lasted 8 minutes while the lawyers in the room yawned, cracked jokes, or closed their eyes. The Defendant said he was charged by mistake because his name was similar to that of someone in ISIS.

The trial of the third Defendant was a 23 year old from a village near Mosul who was charged with being a member of ISIS and again claimed it was a case of mistaken identity.

2 of these accused men had lawyer, which according to Taub was a good sign that they were innocent, since lawyers rarely wanted to represent guilty people because often after doing that the lawyers would be charged with being members of ISIS.  “As the lawyer spoke, the judges tended to administrative tasks. The trial was over in nine minutes. “I hate ISIS—they blew up my house!” the suspect shouted, in tears, as he was led out of court.”

In each case the prosecutor said: “Enough evidence—I ask for a guilty verdict.” It was the only phrase he uttered in court that morning. He did not have to do any more to get convictions from the judges even though many Defendants explained how they had been tortured into giving confessions.

One accused man had waited 4 years for his trial and then had a 3-minute trial during which time the judge paid no attention to his case. As Taub said,

 “The Islamic State has been mostly destroyed on the battlefield, but the war is far from over. Air strikes cannot kill an idea, and so it has fallen to Iraq’s fractured security, intelligence, and justice systems to try to finish the task. But, insofar as there is a strategy, it seems almost perfectly crafted to bring about the opposite of its intent. American and Iraqi military officials spent years planning the campaign to rid Iraq of ISIS, as if the absence of the jihadis would automatically lead Iraq toward the bright democratic future that George W. Bush’s Administration had envisaged when U.S. forces invaded the country, in 2003. But ISIS has always derived much of its dangerous appeal from the corruption and cruelty of the Iraqi state.”

As if this is not bad enough, we must remember that by far most of the young men and boys who were convicted of ISIS never made it to trial. They were disposed of without trials!

Ben Taub reported this way:

“Thousands of men and boys have been convicted of ISIS affiliation, and hundreds have been hanged. But, according to the senior intelligence official, these cases represent only a small fraction of the total number of detainees. “A few of the suspects are sent to court, but only to maintain the illusion that we have a justice system,” he said. (emphasis added)

 From 2014 to 2017, ISIS controlled about half of Syria and 1/3rd of Iraq. This territory was about the size of Great Britain. Millions of people lived inside this territory. Some of ISIS’s military leaders were former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime. They combined a police state with what Taub called “the certainty of Jihadism.” He describe the situation in Iraq this way:

“The group blew up mosques and ancient archaeological sites, and pursued a campaign of ethnic cleansing through mass murder and sexual slavery. It conscripted local bureaucrats, doctors, and teachers, often on pain of death, and devoted enormous effort to radicalizing a generation of children and inuring them to violence, suffering, and loss. At the height of its success, in 2014, there was a real possibility that ISIS would capture Baghdad, and the Iraqi state would collapse. Now, more than a year after ISIS lost Mosul—its largest source of legitimacy, wealth, and power—hundreds of thousands of civilians are suffering at the hands of their liberators. Anyone with a perceived connection to ISIS, however tenuous or unclear, is being killed or cast out of society.’

 Nothing is more dangerous than such incinerating certainties. Iraqi forces, supported and trained by America, were laying waste to what was left in Iraq. As Taub said,

 “Not long ago, I met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official who is deeply involved in counterterrorism operations. For three hours, over tea and cigarettes, he described systematic criminality within the security forces, detailing patterns of battlefield executions, murders in detention centers, and coverups organized by the state. He spoke as a witness, but also as a participant; although he is in a position to have stopped certain abuses, by intervening he would have risked incurring accusations that he is sympathetic to the group he has sought to destroy.

He believes that the Iraqi government’s response is as much a tactical blunder as it is a moral one; it plays directly into the jihadis’ narrative—that Sunnis, who make up a minority of the Iraqi population, cannot live safely under a government dominated by Shiites. “The reaction is one of vengeance—it is not well thought out,” he told me. “We rarely abide by the law.”

It is noteworthy that the conviction rate in Iraq is 98%.  I wonder how that compares with the regime of Saddam Hussein. I suspect the similarities are overwhelming.  The real problem, according to Taub is that “We’re deleting thousands of families from Iraqi society,” the official told me. “This is not just revenge on ISIS. This is revenge on Sunnis.”

This is the regime that Bush and Cheney thought would encourage all of the Middle East to jump on board the democracy train. This is the regime the Americans have spent billions (if not trillions) to uphold.  As Taub told the story:

“Nine years ago, two C.I.A. officers walked into an Iraqi prison and saw a hallway filled with hooded men, about to be executed for supposed affiliation with Al Qaeda in Iraq, the group that gave birth to ISIS. “We were hammering A.Q.I., but the Iraqi government was just rounding up Sunnis,” one of the C.I.A. officers recalled. “And, for a moment, it worked.” But, instead of releasing the innocents, the Iraqi government sentenced them to death. “So, of course, they came back,” the officer said, of Al Qaeda in Iraq. “What do you expect? You literally killed their dads.”

 Now the people of Iraq are in the unenviable position of deciding who is better: ISIS or the Iraqi government?  It does not matter that the Americans have spent billions supporting the current Iraqi regime. Ben Taub has a significant warning for the rest of us:

 “Iraq is now entering one of the most delicate moments in its recent history. To the extent that ISIS functioned as a state, it was entirely predatory. But, by having lost on the battlefield rather than being toppled by its own depravity, the caliphate lives on as a fantasy of Islamic justice and governance which is measured against the corrupt reality of the Iraqi state. What is at stake, in this post-conflict period, is whether the Iraqi government can win over the segment of the population for whom ISIS seemed a viable alternative.

Of course none of this should surprise. This has happened around the world over and over again. The Americans back one side of a dispute, support them with equipment, training, and money and then discover, much to their surprise, that these “good guys” are just as bad as the regime they were to replace.   And again, much to their surprise the people they were saving were not very grateful. All too often this is what “success” in war looks like.

5 thoughts on “Iraq: The Chief Legacy of War is Savagery

  1. sir

    i think the main difference between your view of the yanqui and mine is that you feel that things like slavery, genocide, war in the middle east, mass deportation, mass incarceration, etc. are aberrations by your “great country” where you winter regularly and walk on eggs while socializing with the yanqui right wingers, while i feel all of this is normative and that what we are talking about is not a “great country” regardless of what the constitution says.
    this is a decidedly average place, the only country ever to use nuclear weapons on another people, a country that just a few decades ago used chemical weapons on a PROLONGED MASS basis in southeast asia. not even the fascists like assad and hussein who you feel should have been dealt with militarily by your “great country”, as in the 1st iraq war, used chemical weapons like that when they used them in their countries.
    michell alexander makes my point about history better than i ever could in her op-ed piece in the sunday nyt. she links mass deportation AND mass incarceration and justifiably critiques obama for his own mass deportation.
    this is an extremely politically socially conservative, and fanatically religious place and always has been. trompito is not an aberration.

    1. I am not sure you have categorized my views of your country correctly. I am deeply concerned that Trump is not an aberration. 50 million plus people support him. What does that say about the USA? I am also concerned about the loss of democracy in this country. E.g. the Mueller report and this impeachment proceeding that will go no where. No one seems to care that democracy is disappearing. Millions don’t care that
      Russia interfered in your election. Even Democrats lost interest when they realized the report would not help impeach Trump, but what about Russian meddling? Is that acceptable? Millions don’t care that Trump is trampling the democracy. Yet they purport to be freedom loving. How can people in an undemocratic society be free? Or does freedom just mean not paying taxes? Farmers don’t care that Trump is removing environmental regulations they don’t like. They want the right to pollute. I know that your country is based on genocide, slavery, domination of women, and domination of nature. These are not minor flaws. They are fundamental I am currently reading about the southern border (Cormac McCarthy). I think it demonstrates the profound violence and white male supremacy that is at the heart of your country. Until it discharges these original sins it will not heal. Yet I also love this country. My American friend I have blogged about because he wants to take out Iran is also one of the kindest friendliest guys I know. Something goes awry when the people act corporately or in groups. Then everything seems to be permitted.

      1. you need to specify which country you are referring to in my regard for a variety of reasons.

        one being that i am also a citizen of your country. two your/my country certainly qualifies as genocidal. indeed, your/my country has a horrendous environmental record of destroying the canadian environment through the famous “drawing of water and hewing of wood”, not the least notorious example being the ongoing savagery in alberta, essentially being the 51st state.
        and of course your/my mennonites have all too often moved into geographical locations where the nation state governing those locations need “good” people to replace the indigenous people who were being butchered and invited them in. in that regard certainly the mennonite arrival in saskatchewan and manitoba was important to avoid the dumont/riel threatened takeover of the those western territories.

        i sense this common canadian supercilious stance relative to the “states.” all the while sucking at the teat of same, even allowing what essentially amounts to economic and cultural colonialization.
        to this day your/my country has completely failed to diversify its economic relationship, continuing the categorical dependence on the colonizer.
        never mind all the snowbirds spending their cash money down here while the “states” continues to screw them economically, like the recent trade wars, and flat out disrespect the confederation, its politics and its culture over and over.

        you would think that the first colonization by the english might have taught some lessons in order to deal with the second.

        when will your/my country stop being “nice?” forever a colony?

  2. I have a writing acquaintence in Iraq. He reads my stories about Manitoba and winter and ludicrous Mennonite skirmishes about ticky-tacky differences and other juvenile nonsense and he thinks, I guess, it is all a comical make-believe world. I get nervous for him when I see his tweets about how rotten the regime is. The recent downed jetliner landed “in his neighbourhood,” he wrote in one tweet.

    Another young writer from the region wrote about literally having never known life without war. I wrote her that our Cdn generation had never known war in our own country and that, strictly in terms of percentages, we had been spared much; almost all military loss of life (not that that lessens death, only that our civilian populations have been largely unharmed), compared to her homeland and those nearby. She said she could understand our situation, but only conceptually. Not really–she had no experiential context.

    It struck me this morning that the people who find their way to Canada seeking refuge– those with little money and few possessions–are certainly not the current “victors” of the wars that rage endlessly. If they were among the victors they would have stayed with their families and homes. The refugees coming here are the neutrals, the unfortunate bystanders, the “collateral damage.” And they are those trying to avoid death or imprisonment of the type you describe–they are the enemies of the cruel victors. Or at least they find themselves on the wrong side of a public relations picket line that puts them at mortal risk; part of the 98% conviction rate. They are also the enemies of the victors, but only those who have chosen to flee, not to stay and resist.

    I don’t know these fleeing people. I don’t know the victors. I don’t know those who stay to resist. I don’t know who is the Sheriff, who is Robin, who are the merry men, and who are the rich and the poor. That’s my context, one horribly incongruent and pathetic in its infantile outlook. And yet, that’s how politicians, nativists, and PR opinion leaders tend to frame the situation for us here. On balance, I suppose that I have more to fear–if that’s in fact what I should rightly be doing; being afraid–from those who are winning the wars than from those who have lost.

    mjt

    1. You raise many interesting questions. I also don’t know who the refugees are. I just know that no one would undertake to become a refugee if there was any other choice. I have a hard time trying to find “good guys” on either side of any of the disputes. All we can do is try to understand.And that is hard. At least for me.

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