Beingness and this Problem With Iraq
Do you think my inquiry into, and discussion about “who we are” is an intellectual exercise? Think again. Every action we take revolves around our self-understanding, or lack thereof. Our willingness to express the wisdom of our own conscience, or simply blend with the ideological herd that is public opinion, indicates the extent to which we will live an awakened and aware life, or go through the motions in a walking sleep.
Some people appear to be betting that we will never wake up.
We are now at the fourth anniversary of our occupation of Iraq, and 3200 American soldiers have given their life, not for our freedom, but for our president’s image. As of this writing, the body count of Iraqis killed since American occupation began is somewhere between 59,000 and 65,000 (Visit www.iraqbodycount.org). The British medical journal, Lancet estimates that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed.
I find it fascinating that as obsessed as we are with statistics, there is NO official estimate of the number of Iraqi citizens killed. Worse yet, there has been no outrage about it.
None of this seems to have phased our president. He fancies himself as a protector of freedom and liberty, making America and the world safer, but it’s certainly not safer in Iraq, and it doesn’t feel safer in America. Yet, he asks for patience, more money, and more American troops, a percentage of whom will certainly give up their lives. In other words, he is asking these young men and women to give up something for him that he would not do for them. These are dear people, indeed.
Let’s be clear on this. The American soldiers who are fighting, killing, and being killed in Iraq, are not doing this because they want to. They’re doing it because they think they must. They think they must because our president thinks he must appear to be a bigger force than his enemy, who must either be subdued, or eliminated. Yet, he takes umbrage with the Iraqis who feel they must defend themselves by fighting back, or be eliminated.
This is a big mistake on both sides because while we’re posturing, putting more people in harms way, killing the rest, and further destablizing the social fabric in both lands, no one is talking about peace. While this may not be the true intent of Iraqi extremists, I suspect that peace is what the majority of the Iraqi people want. It is certainly what the majority of Americans want.
Americans who have become more vocal for peace, know that peace is not a natural outcrop of the president’s strategy, not when we have become as much a source and symbol of repression, death, and destruction as the home grown suicide bombers. They’ve GOT to be tired of their own people blowing up their own.
I imagine that there are some mercenaries operating in the region who are in it for the thrill, but I’m sure that for most American soldiers, surviving one suicide bombing experience, or mortar attack, is more than enough of a “thrill.”
The president’s concern for the American troops that have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan goes as far as getting them enough bullets, body armour, and gadgetry to help them think that they’ll be able to kill and maim others without getting killed or maimed themselves, just like the slash and burn, death and destruction video games many of them grew up playing.
Heck, the president himself is operating under the same mindset. He promotes and fosters policies that keep the incindiary rhetoric and posturing going, giving some nut case a reason to raise the stakes. I believe the president believes he’s doing what’s best for the country. However, he is not. And most people close to him fear his power too much, or actually believe that there is a “gain” for America by continuing along this path, to tell him the truth.
The president wants to hold out for “victory,” but not for peace. Why? Because his approach won’t bring peace. So “victory” means more deaths… of Iraqis, Afghans, Iranis, and Americans. “Victory” means more toxic saturation of the land, and ultimately, poisoning of the people. We’re not counting such things anyway, so it doesn’t matter. “Victory” means an increased sense of inevitability that someone is going to be pissed enough, and their heart broken enough, to not give a damn about the millions of innocent Americans our president is claiming to care for while not giving a damn about the millions of Iraqis who are being put in harms way today. This is the spiral our president has embroiled us in. It can be stopped, but not by force. It can be stopped through the power of love.
There’s nothing like peace. Peace is not the absence of fighting. Peace is the absence of wanting to fight, or needing to, in order to validate one’s particular way. That’s the power of love at work. If we are truly for peace, we’ll explore peaceful means of interaction and adjudication of legitimate grievances. It’ll also mean we’ll be willing to respect, hear, and make restitution for the grievances we’ve caused for others (heaven forbid!).
Peace involves forgiveness. Even if others are unwilling to forgive us, we’ll forgive them, for forgiveness clears our conscience, frees us of agendas, and makes room for freedom to flourish. We can set an example that challenges our enemies to actually hear the caustic tone of their rhetoric when it’s not returned by equally caustic utterances by us.
There is much that we can offer Iraq that would prove to be a “win/win” situation for them, if they were willing to pursue it. If we let them know in no uncertain terms, that we are NOT interested in taking over their country or destroying its people by standing down our weapons and ordering a withdrawal of deadly force, it would remove a very large distraction from Iraq. Right now, we are simply convenient targets of hatred.
The president should not fear what happens if we pull out of Iraq. He should show confidence in the Iraqi people to determine their own destiny since we removed one of our political puppets. He should show confidence in American intelligence and ingenuity to keep our country safe. He should demonstrate a commitment to not continue throwing expensive gasoline and money on an already intense political fire in the Middle East. In this way, he would garner more support from the world community. More importantly, his priorities will be seen to be in order by the people at home. Right now, more and more Americans are waking up to the fact that they’re simply out of whack.
