Former Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld: The consequences of
the misbegotten Iraq War are
still playing out - and the worst may
be yet to come.
Iraq's Sectarian Disaster - Still Courtesy of Rumsfeld & Co.
(Trouw, The Netherlands)
"Can the mutual bloodshed in Iraq honestly be credited wholly
to the Yankees? Isn't the struggle between Sunnis and Shiites the result of a
schism within Islam that goes back to the seventh century? Did they really need
encouragement from the Americans to beat each other's brains out or cut off one
another's heads? ... By sowing fear and making enemies of one-time neighbors - for
which historical stereotypes were obviously very useful - leaders seek to
secure their own dominance."
The last president of Yugoslavia, then president of Serbia, and finally convicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic: As in Iraq today, sectarian differences always existed in Yugoslavia. However, the reason such differences erupted into violence is the way he and his associates manipulated them to remain in power. Trouw columnist Stevo Akkerman writes that Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration was guilty of allowing and even encouraging similar behavior among the Iraqi leaders they put in power.
In
fact, it was not my intention to read the
articles in The New York Review of Booksabout Donald Rumsfeld. The man is gone
now, and there are now more pressing matters than the rise and fall of the
architect of America's Iraq invasion. Nevertheless, again I succumbed to
Rumsfeld's irresistible arrogance, his sardonic one-liners, and his political
poetry about "unknown unknowns, the things we do not know we don't know."
[Editor's
Note: Rumsfeld's
full quote was: "There are known knowns;
there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to
say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also
unknown unknowns - there are things we do not know we don't know."]
Nevertheless,
he remains, as Mark Danner says in The
Review, responsible for a war that has turned Iraq into a breeding-ground
for jihadists, perhaps even the epicenter of a conflict between Shiites and
Sunnis that ranges across the entire Islamic world.
During
a recent interview with Trouw, a former editor of Al-Jazeera said something similar: "Americans
have awakened a sectarian conflict in Iraq - and with horrific consequences.
All without any need to do so. Out of absolute ignorance, they have divided [Iraqi]
society along ethnic and religious lines - a recipe for destruction."
Not
that I harbor any illusions about the cultural tact of Americans, but even I had
some trouble believing this one. Can the mutual bloodshed in Iraq, this week in
Anbar Province, where black al-Qaeda flags fly openly,
honestly be credited wholly to the Yankees? Isn't the struggle between Sunnis
and Shiites the result of a schism within Islam that goes back to the seventh
century? Did they really need encouragement from the Americans to beat each
other's brains out or cut off one another's heads?
CIVILIAN DEATHS AGAIN ON RISE IN IRAQ [CLICK FOR JUMBO VERSION]
However,
I also remember how similar things were said about the people of Yugoslavia, when
that country so bloodily disintegrated. Ancient feuds had cropped up, exposing
hatred as unreasonable as it was uncontrollable. It was a simplistic
explanation especially popular in Western countries which, undeterred by self-knowledge,
liked to look down their noses on the primitive Balkan peoples.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
Of
course, there were ancient wounds between the various groups in Yugoslavia, but
that wasn't the cause of the violence. The reason was the manipulation of the
citizenry by their political leaders, first of all Slobodan
Milosevic. By sowing fear and making enemies of one-time neighbors - for
which historical stereotypes were obviously very useful - such leaders sought to
secure their own dominance.
Something
similar is now occurring in the Middle East, which, after the intervention of
Rumsfeld & Co., has never come to rest. Autocratic rulers play the
sectarian card to maintain their undemocratic rule - and if that is about to
fail, they go the extra mile and unleash a real war against their opponents -
see Assad in Syria. From the moment the demonstrations against his regime became
significant, he began to describe the opposition as Sunni terrorists against
whom all means could be employed. Thereafter, the real terrorists came
naturally.
Such
a game can only be played where serious differences exist between peoples -
religious, ethnic or otherwise. While the differences among such peoples aren't the
cause, they are inevitably put to abuse by malicious leaders.
