Battered Spouse Syndrome: Iraq
Even Democrats who have criticized the Bush administration’s conduct of the occupation say the people and government of Iraq are not doing enough to rebuild their society. The White House is putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group have debated how much to blame Iraqis for not performing civic duties.
[A] Nov. 15 meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee turned into a festival of bipartisan Iraqi-bashing.
“We should put the responsibility for Iraq’s future squarely where it belongs — on the Iraqis,” began Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the committee’s next chairman. “We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves.”
There’s an incredibly ugly joke about spousal abuse that reads, “What do all battered women have in common?”
Answer: They just don’t fucking listen!
Isn’t that what we’re reading here about Iraq? “Iraq would be in much better shape today if only the Iraqis would just do as we say.” It’s not much different. “She just makes me so angry!”
Because it’s not like the Iraqis ASKED us to invade their country. And it’s not as if the Iraqis ever posed us a threat either, or had ever attacked the United States. In fact, one of the reasons for attacking Iraq was to show the Arabs that we could: who was the guy who said that every few years the US has to beat the shit out of some godforsaken nation to show who’s boss of this world?
We invaded Iraq because we could, because they couldn’t fight back the same way Iran or North Korea could. And now that we’ve beaten the living shit out of the country, toppled the central government and replaced it with nothing, put millions of well-armed and military-trained men out of work by disbanding the army (thus robbing the government of its role as the sole party that could legitimately use force of arms), and laid waste to public services, we want Iraq to put the pieces back together.
At my job, we serve women like this every day. They actually have options that Iraq doesn’t: counseling and therapy, relocation funds, victim advocates, and a justice system which can imprison their abusers, or at the very least provide the cover of a restraining order. And as much as their batterers would like to believe it, it’s NOT the victims’ fault that they have a black eye or a broken wrist. It’s the abuser’s fault, and it ALWAYS is. The moment you move from verbal disagreement, no matter how heated, to punching someone, you have crossed the line.
And yet I’m looking at Democrats and Republicans piling on poor, beat-to-shit Iraq, getting in their kicks and blows. “It’s your fault! You only have yourself to blame! You’re like all the rest: you just don’t fucking listen!
You can almost hear Lindsey Graham braying and guffawing, “Hey, what’s the first thing Iraq’s gonna do when it gets home from the hospital?
The dishes if it knows what’s good for it, haw haw haw”
Is that what our foreign policy with regard to Iraq is going to boil down to? The same kind of bullshit excuses and rationalizations employed by men who beat their wives? Can things get any more pathetic?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
