Somehow, leftists believe that the US govt's role in Hussein's despotic ascension contradicts its current effort to correct that mistake. Christopher Hitchens regards that initial mistake as an obligation to set things right.
"The United States can contemplate leaving Iraqis to settle their sharp internal differences by themselves, but it cannot abandon them to a victory for clerical and political fascism and has its own reasons for demonstrating that such a threat can be met, engaged, and defeated. Those who believe, or half-believe, that the insurgency is produced by the Coalition presence are deceiving themselves, and have paid no attention to the countries where such tactics are used against the population in the absence of any Western involvement or even concern. At present, then, the United States is acting as a militia for the majority of Iraqis who do not have a militia of their own. (It is not without significance that when sectarians are found operating private or semi-official squads and prisons, the victims take their complaints to the Green Zone.)"
Also:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/special/roundtable_hitchens
2006-09-04
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"The United States has not claimed territory in Iraq, as the French did in Algeria: it is not the inheritor of a bankrupt French colonialism, as Eisenhower and Kennedy were in Vietnam; and it is not pursuing a vendetta, as was Sharon in Lebanon."
The nature of neo-imperialism is to place proxy governments in place claiming only the spoils of colonialism without the expense of running the government. That expense is placed on the populace of the given nation who now have fewer resources available to pay because the neo-colonial corporate masters take the profits.
"The ostensible pretext for American intervention — the disarmament of a WMD-capable rogue state and the overthrow of a government aligned with international jihadist gangsterism — was in my opinion based on an important element of truth rather than on a fabrication or exaggeration. But the deeper rationale — that of altering the regional balance of power and introducing democracy into the picture— is the one that must now preoccupy us more."
Only because the first pretext has revealed itself as a ruse and a sham.
"At present, then, the United States is acting as a militia for the majority of Iraqis who do not have a militia of their own."
But alas, that militia would not be needed had the invasion never occured.
"A possible solution — ask the Iraqis what should be done — is insufficiently canvassed. As a means of concentrating all minds, one could either propose a vote in the Iraqi parliament, or a national referendum, on the single question of a date for withdrawal to begin."
This is the only point of the article with which I agree.
Yes, Nadir, had the invasion not occured, no Iraqis would need a militia. They'd have Hussein's mafia to protect them! If the Union army had never invaded Alabama, blacks during reconstruction would not have needed fedl troops to protect them!
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