Qais Nawwaf – Roberts Owes Iraqi People an Apology
By Guest Post • Mar 5th, 2010 at 8:30 • Category: Analysis, Counter-terrorism, No thanks!, Human Rights, Newswire, Religion, War
From Dissident Voice
As an Iraqi, I took serious offense to Paul Craig Roberts’ patronizing article, “Muslim Disunity: A Religion Divided Among Itself,” in Counterpunch, March 2, 2010. Roberts audaciously states that the “reason Americans are still in Iraq is because the Iraqis hate each other more than they hate the American invader.” Roberts blames the vast majority of the violence in the war on Iraqis themselves. It almost defies logic that, after the murder of 200,000 people in the 1991 war, the death of about 1.7 million under 12 year-long sanctions, the murder of more than 1.2 million under yet another war, brutal military occupation and the unrestrained use of white phosphorus and depleted uranium, Iraqis have caused more damage to themselves than the United States has. It is a claim as bizarre as Zionists’ complaints about Palestinian resistance in an asymmetrical warfare setting; while Israel possesses nuclear weapons, tanks and F-16’s, with which they murdered over 1,400 people in Gaza last year, Palestinians get the brunt of the criticism for killing 13 Israelis. Roberts’ condescending assertion, that Iraqis have harmed themselves more than the US has, echoes Donald Rumsfeld’s delusional statement: “The sooner the Iraqis can defend their own people and generate revenue, the sooner they will be self-reliant and not dependent on either foreign troops or international assistance.”
Roberts also insults the Iraqi resistance by stating it inflicted losses on the American superpower “in their spare time” off from fighting Shi’is. Completely disregarding 1,400 years of Islamic history, a single athletic dispute leads Roberts to conclude that “Muslims cannot even play together”. This focus on an isolated event is selective, as Mr. Roberts doesn’t appear to recall that Sunnis and Shiis both celebrated the Iraqi soccer team’s victory in the 2007 Asian Cup. Even if we were to assume Iraq’s Muslims aren’t united enough for Roberts’ taste, he seems to have ignored the USA’s critical divide-and-conquer role in Iraq. He doesn’t appear aware of the USA’s deployment of Shii and Kurdish troops to battle Sunni cities, such as Fallujah in November 2004. He ignores the USA’s political and financial support of sectarian parties, politicians and clergymen. He also neglects to mention the Israeli role in sowing the seeds of conflict in Iraq, outlined in Oded Yinon’s infamous A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties. Roberts is unaware of 17-year old Othman from A’athamiya, a young Iraqi who drowned after rescuing nearly a dozen Iraqis when the A’imma Bridge in Baghdad collapsed in 2005. He also overlooked the joint Sunni-Shii celebrations of Muntathar Zaidi’s throwing his shoes at Bush. The US corporate media, which cheerlead for the war, has every interest to blackout, marginalize and ignore stories of Iraqi unity. It is regretful that Roberts condescends Iraqis in the same manner.
One wonders whether Mr. Roberts would’ve displayed this same white man’s burden, vilifying misbehaving oppressed peoples, by admonishing Native American tribes who may have been at odds during the theft of their land by white settlers. Would Mr. Roberts have weighed in on the dispute between the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X? Would he have demonstrated moral authority to arbitrate between Martin Luther King Jr’s philosophy of nonviolence and Malcolm X’s commitment to freedom by any means necessary? Would he have appointed himself as judge between the North and South Vietnamese? Dictating derogatory suggestions to the oppressed is no business of “solidarity” activists. If Roberts is entitled to instruct Iraqis to unite, surely Iraqis are far more entitled to tell Americans, including Roberts, to put their right-wing, left-wing, class and racial divisions aside to meaningfully mobilize to end their seven-year occupation of our country (by “meaningful”, I mean more substantive than symbolic anti-war protests every anniversary of the war). When they have extra time on their hands, Iraqis could probably tell Americans to unite on their debilitating healthcare disputes.
It is frustrating enough when the operators of the US war machine and their mouthpieces in mainstream media refer to Iraqis in demeaning sectarian language. It is far more disappointing when those involved in the “anti-war” movement, who are supposedly in solidarity with Iraqis, use such divisive, disrespectful discourse. I call on Mr. Roberts to apologize to the beleaguered Iraqi people, victims of two decades of his country’s ruthless foreign policy, funded by his tax dollars, for publishing such an undeserved portrayal.
Qais Nawwaf is one of millions of displaced Iraqis. He resides on a colonized part of Indigenous territory commonly referred to as the "United States." He has a degree in a discipline invented by his ancestors: writing. He may be reached at: qnawwaf@gmail.com.
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The omly real us winners are the soldiers who saw through the lies and rejected the cruelty inflicted on Iraqis and deserted
"It is far more disappointing when those involved in the “anti-war” movement, who are supposedly in solidarity with Iraqis, use such divisive, disrespectful discourse."
Hello. I am sorry to suggest that it is only "disappointing" because the pious mind of the 'untermensch' un-attuned to Machiavelli does not comprehend the diabolicalness behind the concept of 'Manufactured Dissent', or notions like "cognitive infiltration", and "beneficial cognitive diversity: – all derived from political science to help carry the white man's burden.
Manufacturing Dissent with several case studies is examined here:
print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/06/wmd-master-social-science.html
The theory of the intellectualism of dissent is examined here:
print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2007/12/responsibility-of-intellectuals-redux.html
And here is the reality of Mr. Paul Craig Roberts, just as you too have discovered:
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/12/letter-paul-craig-roberts-rebuttal.html
PCR is no friend of the 'untermensch'! He fits in the empirical model that is captured in the following passage:
'No big deal that a supposed dissent-chief and a great supporter of justice only heaped slander upon the Muslims in the guise of critiquing his own nation: “The attack on Mumbai required radicalized Muslims”. His masters have done much worse – bombed entire civilizations into smithereens. See Weapons of Mass Deception – The Master Social Science to understand the dialectics of deception, and the concept of manufactured dissent among the rebels to complement the manufactured consent among the mainstream, both of which retain all core-axioms of 'empire' intact! The difference is that for consent, the empire is projected as good. For dissent, the empire is projected as bad. But the same external enemy is retained, and only re-incarnated either as “jihadis” and “Militant Islam” (consent), or “revolutionaries” and “blowback” (dissent). Neither manufacturers will ever extend their discourse to covert-ops, to forensic analysis of overarching agendas, and to “inside job”!'
Therefore, in my view, rather than the 'untermensch' pleade in this way:
"I call on Mr. Roberts to apologize to the beleaguered Iraqi people, victims of two decades of his country’s ruthless foreign policy, funded by his tax dollars, for publishing such an undeserved portrayal.",
I suggest that the fate of all Manufacturers of Consent as well as Dissent, each according to their measure – for justice is not to transgress in retribution/compensation/restitution beyond anyone's contribution to the monumental crimes against humanity lest one become the transgressors, "an eye for an eye" from their own books will do just fine – will be the same as that of Goebbels.
And would there have been any point to asking Goebbels to apologize for his concoctions? He invented the concept of the 'big lie'! And PCR is only maintaining it according to his own pecking order in the hierarchy of hectoring hegemons!
What is interesting to observe is how many supposed alternate media who specialize in "dissent" publish PCR. And that is a litmus test of both, their own integrity, as well as their inability to tell chaff from wheat. And I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Muslims, Arabs, Pakistanis, and yes Palestinians, have often gravitated to anyone who opposed our enemies. "Enemy of my enemy" is not necessarily my friend! And neither do I want such "friends".
The trouble is we can't always identify them as easily as PCR – because, many of our own peoples are House Negroes!
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org