Bloodless Coup

Only Americans could create a colonial army we pay to kill us.

It's funny 'cause it's true.

All this talk about a model city reminded me of a particularly gory incident during the Terror of the French Revolution. The city of Lyons was basically the Fallujah of their resistance. Leveling most of the city with cannons and renaming it Ville-Affranchie - the Liberated City in order to serve as a deterrent to others didn't do much for ending the rebellion. Napolen tried it too the 'unruly' Vendee. So much for creating a 'model city'. What comes next? I've got a great plan, maybe we should just start executing 500 Iraqis for every American killed. That should stop the resistance.

If they don't want to work, they can stay away. Is that so difficult? The reason they want to put all the men to work is because they know the Fallujans will spend their days planning attacks against fellow Iraqis and Americans if they're not working. This is exactly how parents are supposed to teach children, providing them an alternative appropriate behavior instead of just punishing the inappropriate behavior.

thanks, morris, for a) agreeing that the ethos at work here is fundamentally paternalistic / colonial, and b) for allowing well-meaning iraqi civilians the choice (and it is all about choice, right?) between being subjected to a war crime (forced labor) or being refugees in a country where increasingly the invading power considers all iraqis to be potential enemies (as, admittedly, it must, my point being only that being a refugee within iraq and anywhere near falluja isn't such a great option at the moment).

the pragmatic problems also remain: the iraqi national guard, those few that don't desert, can't defend themselves against insurgent attacks. why would a chain gang be able to? the insurgents are having the desired effect of creating animus toward us in picking off civilians, especially those perceived as collaborators. now we're proposing the equivalent of giving anyone who dares to return to his home in falluja red white and blue coveralls and sending him out into the streets with a shovel and a bottle of water. great plan.

Most Fallujans have not heard about the US plans. But for some people in a city that has long opposed the occupation, any presence of the Americans, and the restrictions they bring, feels threatening.

"When the insurgents were here, we felt safe," said Ammar Ahmed, 19, a biology student at Anbar University. "At least I could move freely in the city; now I cannot."

we're not doing anything to help our cause here.

Mo - I was under the impression we were fighting to free Iraqis, not enslave them.

Yes, Joshua, the Sunnis could move safely through the city when the insurgents were there...it was only the shiites and americans whose bodies were burned and paraded through the streets after committing the crime of trying to help rebuild their country, those Haliburton thugs.

It's also wonderful how you point out how dangerous it is for anyone in Iraq now, then say it's too much to ask them to work as pretty much more than 90% of the world's population has to do to survive.

Let's not forget the issue of responsibility here. If the people of this city were living in our free society and knew of crimes planned by others be it husbands or neighbors, they would be charged as principles and put in prison following the murders the Fallujans have committed. This was not the first solution we offered the people of this city, we tried negotiating, we tried helping them to be part of a democratic process, and it didn't work, they kept killing us and others supporting a peaceful Iraq. For people who supported the candidate for president who claimed to be more intelligence (despite those pesky military tests from NBC), don't you realize how it is absolutely non-adaptive to keep trying the same tactic again and again when it doesn't work? Does no one else remember how it worked for Bart after he kept reaching for the cupcake that Lisa had rigged with electricity?

the rules of war are what they are, morris, and our ongoing disregard for them is an embarrassment. and i'm pretty sure that 90% of the world doesn't go to work in the morning at the tip of a bayonet with their only alternative to be homeless in a society crippled by the destruction wrought by an occupying power.

and talk about reaching for lisa's electrified cupcake -- when are you going to learn to shy away from making affirmative propositions of law you know very little about? mere knowledge of the intent to commit a crime does not create liability as a principal; only in very narrow circumstances can it even create accomplice liability. a substantial step in furtherance of the crime is required to create the sort of co-conspirator principal liability you have in mind. stick to beating up on michael moore; you're better at it.

Mo - You honestly believe no one in Fallujah would work? What, were they all welfare queens or something? The issue isn't getting them to work - it's "forced labor" or slavery. Not only that - it's "forced labor at the tips of bayonets and in a situation that will make them sitting (oops make that working) targets for future attackers.

Also, what's with this assumption that everyone in Fallujah is some hardened horrible person? EVERYONE should suffer this fate? Collective punishment on this scale seems the sort of thing we'd associate with Hitler or the Syrian regime or Saddam Hussein - do we want Americans emulating that model?

Joshua,
Maybe we should just give everybody in Fallujah welfare, it's worked great for the UK. And the Soviet Union was a wonderful example of a utopia where no one had to work. Don't you see the genius in these work groups? How are they going to spend a month building a power plant and then blow it up? They're not going to, because then they're going to have to go build it again. But maybe it takes knowledge of psychology to understand that, and you should stick to law.
Bro,
I love how you and Joshua both quote "forced labor at the tips of bayonets." The M-16s and shorter rifles I've seen carried in Iraq don't have bayonets, but you guys jump on the bandwagon of this liberal propaganda without questioning it. It's true, many weapons can have a bayonet attached to them, but if you gave me the choice I'd go for the grenade launcher anytime. You act as though it's our fault these people are targets for future attackers; have you considered maybe it's the responsibility of the ATTACKERS themselves? Let's see how much longer they hold off ratting out their neighbors when their neighbors start killing off their other neighbors working to rebuild their city. Even Al Jazeera wouldn't air the execution of the English relief worker, and what you're talking about is worse in their eyes because these are other Sunni Muslims, not Shiites or Turkish. Oh, I was just waiting for you to compare this to Hitler. It wasn't like the Nazis negotiated with the Jews before putting them in camps, it wasn't like the Jews kept blowing up Germans and so the Nazis thought they were a threat. Nobody bitches about Saddam putting people to work, he was a monster because he killed a hundred thousand people for reasons like they were of a different tribe and faith from him. He wasn't trying to establish a peaceful democracy and prosperous nation, he was stealing about twenty billion dollars from the corrupt officials at the UN, essentially out of the pockets of Americans. We tried to treat the Fallujans with respect, we extended the olive branch and welcomed them into the Iraqi democracy. If they want to act like criminals, we need to do what it takes to protect the civilized, peaceful Iraqis. This was not the first option we offered them, or the second or third time we offered to make peace.

Tips of bayonets, tips of bullets ... the point was not literal accuracy. In lifting that phrase from Joshua my point was to provide the feel of the environment these poor souls will have to expeience. Whether or not there are actual bayonets isn't especially relevant.

As to it being our responsibility - if you take some one to a pit filled with vipers and you push them into the pit, true, it might be the vipers that kill them, but I don't see how you're off the moral hook for pushing them into the pit.

As to "we need to do what it takes to protect the civilized, peaceful Iraqis" - you honestly think that turning them (b/c with this kind of collective punishment you are going to inevitably be punishing some civilized peaceful people) into forced laborers who may well be murdered by other Iraqis is the best way to do this?

As to the rest of your comment, of course Jews blew up Nazis. And what does how bad Saddam was have to do with anything? Was Saddam worse than the US government? I certainly hope so. Care to set the bar by which we should measure our behavior a little higher? I do.

What we are talking about here is the 1) morality and 2) chance of success of a US government policy. I don't see how people can possibly make the argument that it's moral or likely to be successful.

"The point was not literal accuracy." Exactly, the point is inflammatory language, the point is an appeal to pathos as opposed to reason. How are we pushing people into a pit with vipers? The apropos analogy is we protected some people from being killed by a gang of thugs, and now you're acting like it's our responsiblity the thugs are trying to kill other people; it's their responsiblity, we're trying to protect the people they were trying to kill, so they're trying to kill us too. You keep pushing this idea that to save the rights of the fraction of the Bathists in Fallujah who are peaceful, a fraction of a fraction of a fraction the people in Iraq, it's better that we not hurt anyone, put them in prison where an abuse might occur, put them to work on public service projects, but you're not getting that they are going to keep killing Shiites, Kurds and Americans if we do nothing, and what about their rights to life and liberty? That's what the Fallujan Sunnis were doing before we invaded, that's what they're still doing, and that's what we're doing our best to stop in the best way possible.
And you're the one who made the comparison with Saddam and Hitler, I'm just making the point it's inaccurate. The difference is that the jews didn't attack first, the Nazis did and the jews defended themselves, just like the Shiites and Kurds are trying to do now.
The point here is morality, but it's utilitarian rather than this deontological business of guaranteeing the rights of all to the point that no one's rights are protected as you suggest. As to chance of success, I think the goal is to stop the Fallujans from killing more and more Shiites and Americans, and that's something everyone agreed was necessary for democracy in Iraq to succeed until it became Bush's policy.

Your burn-the-village-to-save-it disregard for the rights of the few is noted. And at this point your willingness to let some be trampled if in the end it achieves a greater good is well known in these parts. Myself, I'm not that arrogant. I don't think it's my place to ruin the lives of some so that the lives of others may get marginally better.

I swear, sometimes reading your stuff you'd think you were a Communist pamphleteer from the first half of the 20th century (how's that for inflammatory?).

And stopping the insurgency might well be the goal - but you and the president haven't done a thing to make me think this move will achieve that goal.

Marginally better? Saddam killed a hundred thousand people and buried them in mass graves. I don't think the next hundred thousand Sunnis and Kurds who Saddam would have killed would consider their lives marginally better, rather they exist when without our protection they would not. And it isn't burning the village to save it, it's giving everyone there three weeks warning after numerous attempts to make peace were met with murder and desecration of the bodies, after so many who went there to rebuild their country were killed for their kindness, it's destroying a few thousand murderers in one city to save the other twenty million citizens who want to live in a peaceful, democratic Iraq. Considering the research literature on unemployment and suicide risk, we're probably doing wonders for the self worth of those who will work to rebuild the city that their own hatred and fear destroyed. Thanks for the backhanded compliment about my writing. Peace out, Bro.