 | |||||
|
| |||||
|
| DownUnder | May 2004 |
|
Donna and the Clown: The Fallujah Kidnappings by Ian McPherson
I have written about Donna Mulhearn previously in NetNacs! Donna is a Christian working in Iraq on humanitarian aid and relief projects, mostly to do with children. Recently, she and a group of journalists and foreign aid workers were kidnapped by Mujahadeen fighters in Fallujah, the scene of the murder of four private US security guards by Iraqi insurgents, and a major new US offensive into the streets of this northern Iraqi city. First, some background... I have no doubt that most of you have seen the barbaric Fallujah images, either on TV or in the press. The murders were condemned by the civilised world. Unfortunately, these actions provoked a response from the US armed forces that was equally barbaric -- an outright attack on the city, that has led to the death of up to 600 Iraqis, many of them civilians, women and children. Mosques were bombed, and innocents shot, using snipers, helicopters and tanks within the city perimeter. Even the British army was unimpressed. The ABC recently reported "friction" between the forces, with British commanders complaining the US was too brutal, while US commanders complained the British were too soft. Both commanders are wrong, of course, as the military occupation of a foreign country is inevitably brutal -- and as history teaches -- rarely successful. Ominously, as I write this, over 3,500 US marines are camped outside Fallujah, and their commanders have indicated that the insurgents have only a matter of days to relinquish their heavy weapons, or face another assault of even greater magnitude. A front page article on the New York Times today featured this statement; "Facing one of the grimmest choices of the Iraq war, President Bush and his senior national security and military advisers are expected to decide this weekend whether to order an invasion of Falluja, even if a battle there runs the risk of uprisings in the city and perhaps elsewhere around Iraq." It is a tragedy that this uprising has descended into urban warfare, as it will result in the deaths of many innocents. It will reflect poorly on the US internationally, and turn the majority of Iraqis further against the occupation forces. It may even produce an Iraq-wide uprising, bringing the Sunnis and the Shiites together in a common cause. Revenging the mercenaries In a bizarre leap of logic, the US attacks in Fallujah have been presented in the press as a "payback" for the killing of the US security guards -- rather than the vastly disproportionate military response it was. The four US guards killed in Fallujah were highly paid corporate mercenaries, and they were taking their risks for lots of money. They were also unwise enough to travel the streets of Fallujah, where insurgents have been strong for months, in the "marked cars" of the corporate security forces -- new white SUVs with tinted windows -- one of the favourite targets for the insurgency forces. Professional mercenaries now number around 18,000 in Iraq, more than all the British forces combined, making them the second largest armed occupation force in Iraq. Private security forces also account for up to 40% of the cost of reconstruction in Iraq. That's expensive ... and a little ugly. Mercenary forces allow the US government to retain lower troop levels. Since Vietnam, the US public has been increasingly wary of misguided adventures that result in masses of body bags -- and so they should be. Corporate mercenaries are increasingly fighting on the streets of Iraq -- and they are paid up to US$1,000 a day for their services. Unfortunately, mercenaries have no rules of engagement, and do not answer to the military. In the real world, the guards decide on the instant whether to engage, regardless of the feelings of the corporates they guard. A license to kill for corporations with "no rules attached"? Journalists Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn, working for the UK Independent in Iraq, recently reported that "...at least 80 foreign mercenaries -- security guards recruited from the United States, Europe and South Africa and working for American companies -- have been killed in the past eight days in Iraq." They went on to report that "... many of the heavily armed Western security men are working for the US Department of Defence -- and most of them are former Special Forces soldiers -- they are not listed as serving military personnel. Their losses can therefore be hidden from public view. The US authorities in Iraq, however, are aware that more Western mercenaries lost their lives in the past week than occupation soldiers over the past 14 days." One can only assume this is the unofficial Bush administration policy. To cut down on the negative public relations impact of the deaths of enlisted US soldiers, the US is hiring mercenaries at much higher wages, who die in their stead. But this is good, because we don't have to release the figures! This sounds more like bad planning to me, and a very ugly and expensive initiative ... A reasonable response On April 20, respected historian and Iraq expert Juan Cole testified before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the situation in Iraq. He had this to say about the renewed violence in the country. "In order to defuse the violence, the US military needs to adopt a much more narrow and targeted approach to dealing with guerrillas, and stop 'using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut' (in the words of a British officer in Basra). US troops have repeatedly used disproportionate force to reply to guerrilla attacks, and in the process have created new guerrillas by harming innocent civilians. The tactics used at Fallujah have been seen by most Iraqis, and indeed, by many Coalition partners and Interim Governing Council members, as an outrage and a direct flaunting of the Geneva Conventions governing military occupations." "The Coalition Provisional Authority must cease attempting to 'take out' dissident leaders like Muqtada al-Sadr before the hand-over of sovereignty. It was precisely the attempt to cut Muhammad Aidid out of the political process in Somalia that caused the Mogadishu disaster. The US will simply have to accept that there are political forces on the ground in Iraq that it views as undesirable. It cannot dictate Iraqi politics to Iraqis without becoming a frankly colonial power. If it does become a mere colonist in Iraq, it will be mired in the country for decades and be forced to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of servicemen’s lives on the endeavor." Back to Donna, the Clown and the kidnappings Donna's story, and that of her British companion, journalist and Clown Jo Wilding, strikes quite a different chord to the military overkill in Fallujah. The kidnapping of this group, which included Wilder, Mulhearn, Billie (a British human rights aid worker), journalist David Martinez and their Iraqi female guide Ahrar, reveals a reasonable side to this particular band of Iraqi Mujahadeen fighters. The Mulhearn/Wilder group was captured when fighting between US forces and Iraqis broke out in Fallujah, and the ambulance they were driving was forced to back away from being caught in the crossfire. Unwittingly, they backed into a cross-street controlled by the Mujahadeen, who immediately commandeered the vehicle and its occupants. What followed was a frightening, but revealing story, of compassion, respect and eventual release. For me, it is a testament to the fact that Iraq is a diverse and complex country, with a range of people who vary as much in their outlooks as we do in the west. If we were not so busy privatising their economy, and were a little more interested in bringing them genuine democracy -- rather than erecting a puppet government that does what the US tells it -- we would gain far more local respect. The following excerpt is from Jo Wilder's excellent web article on her Mujahadeen interrogation. "It's my turn next for questioning. I feel OK. All I can tell him is the truth. He wants to know the same things: where I live, what I’m doing in Iraq, what I’m doing in Fallujah, so I tell him about the circus, about the ambulance trips, about the snipers shooting at us. Then he asks what the British people think about the war. I’m not sure what the right answer is. I don’t know what the national opinion is these days. I try to compute what’s least likely to make him think it’s worth keeping me." "If people oppose the occupation, he says, how is it that the government could carry on and do it. He’s genuinely interested but also sarcastic: surely the great liberators must be truly democratic, truly governing by the will of the people? Instead of the extended version of Jo’s rant about the UK constitution he starts asking about Billie. I know what her answers will be so it’s easy. I dodge the issue when he moves on to David and hope he won’t press me. I don’t know him very well, I say, because I don’t know if he wants to mention that he’s also a journalist. I tell the man I’ve just met him. I just know him as Martinez." Now here's an excerpt from an article on Donna's Mujahadeen interrogation in the Sydney Morning Herald. "After her capture, she was questioned by the Mujahadeen fighters, who she said were particularly interested in Australia's involvement in the war in Iraq. 'We were interrogated and our belongings were searched, but we were treated very well, especially when they heard about the work we were doing,' Ms Mulhearn said. But she claimed 'inflammatory' comments by Mr Howard, which were given wide airplay on Iraqi and Arab television in the preceding days, had placed her in danger." "'I realised quickly that my prime minister, John Howard, had placed me in great danger by making inflammatory comments about the war just a few days ago,' she said. 'I was questioned about Australia's involvement in the war, about the current role of Australian soldiers and the views of Australians at home. They asked why Australia wants to hurt Iraqi people. I felt a great deal of shame about how blindly my government follows the lead of the US in terms of foreign policy." "She said she was unharmed, and her captors had promised her they would not hurt her. 'When they saw that we were frightened and that we really (were) doing our best to explain ourselves and what we were doing in Fallujah, they said to us 'Look, don't worry too much. We are Muslims and we can't hurt you. We are not violent and we won't hurt you and we won't touch you'.' Ms Mulhearn said she felt very lucky and grateful, saying the leader of her captors had a 'kind face'." I would suggest you read these articles, especially the one from Jo Wilder, who writes well and accurately reports the situation right from the war zone, US warts and all. Her articles are an outstanding example of truly brave journalism, and an important insight into how the west is perceived in Iraq. God knows we need to get closer to these people, and stop alienating them with brutal military tactics. Sure, a minority of these people are genuine terrorists, but many, many more are just people fighting for their families and friends. We owe them much more, after invading their country, privatising their economy and committing them to years of US military and commercial oversight, than continuing to kill more Iraqi innocents than terrorists. If we don't act humanely, Iraq could easily turn into the US's Gaza strip. Decades of bloodshed, oppression and death -- and what for -- secure oil? Listen to Juan Cole Juan Cole's testimony to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations was outstanding. While the big news guys concentrated on the 9-11 commission, Cole accurately outlined the mistakes that have been made in Iraq, the current situation, and outlined many ways to help fix the problem. Naturally enough, he got little mainstream press coverage. Here's a few excerpts. "The US must now move with all due deliberation to holding free and fair, one-person, one-vote elections in Iraq. Only such a process holds any hope of deflecting faction-fighting into more a more peaceful reworking of political conflict into parliamentary processes. The elections should be held even if the security situation remains poor. Indian and other elections in the global south are often attended by public disturbances and even loss of life, but they nevertheless produce legitimate governments." "... militias should be curbed at the local level and where possible integrated into the Iraqi military. Emphasis should not be placed on attacking the top leaders of the militias, but on dealing with the phenomenon. The pace of the formation of the new military, and the amount of money spent on it, must increase rapidly. This approach would reduce unemployment, reduce the recruitment pool for militias, and provide forces that could help with at least local security." "The giving of reconstruction bids has been structured so that all small bids of $50,000 or less automatically go to Iraqi firms. This ceiling should be raised, to ensure that more Iraqis are involved in reconstruction and more local jobs created. Shipping the money back to the US by employing mainly American firms will not greatly benefit Iraq or address the deep unemployment problems there." "Attempting to exclude the Sadrists (from the political process) will only ensure that they remain violent. They should be encouraged to do what the Shiite Amal Party did in Lebanon, trading in its militias for a prominent role in the Lebanese parliament. The Sunni Arabs of Anbar province must likewise be convinced that they can form alliances in parliament that protect them and achieve their goals." "It was a mistake to configure the new Iraqi parliament so that it had only one chamber. In Shiite-majority Iraq, this way of proceeding ensures that Shiites will dominate the legislature. A way should be found to create an upper house, and to so gerrymander the provinces that it over-represents the Sunni minority. This two-house parliament could then serve as a check on any tyranny of the Shiite majority. Such a check is preferable to giving the Kurds a veto over the new constitution to be written in 2005, since giving a minority a veto seems unfair, whereas insisting that the constitution pass the upper house of parliament with a two-thirds majority is unexceptionable." Will the information get to George Bush? It is unlikely that George Bush will ever read about Juan Cole's excellent suggestions for improving the situation in Iraq. He never reads. He relies entirely upon verbal briefs from "people he trusts". Unlike Clinton, who was an avid reader, this incurious president will probably act on the advice of the people surrounding him, and they have a poor track record on Iraq. Cooler heads need to prevail over those in the military and the Pentagon. The Iraqis should get genuine elections, genuine employment and a higher share in the reconstruction funding, so they can grow their local businesses. Then most of the troops can come home. But more than anything, the coalition has to stop killing innocent people. Sending tanks and attack helicopters into Iraqi cities is foolish, inhumane and counter-productive. Iraq should not be a repeat of the failures in Vietnam. We have already learned these lessons, and continue to re-learn them as we watch the on-going failures between the Israelis and the Palestinians. There must be a better way. More reading I highly recommend reading the Juan Cole Senate transcript "US mistakes in Iraq". It is about three quarters of the way down Juan's almost endless web page. It's a long scroll, but a great read :)
|
See you all in the next issue! Ian McPherson |
