We need to withdraw because it is the right thing to do. : Melbourne Indymedia

When I saw an article with some poll result below:

The poll highlights the impact the sectarian violence has had. Some 26% of Iraqis - 15% of Sunnis and 34% of Shi’ites - have suffered the murder of a family member. Kidnapping has also played a terrifying role: 14% have had a relative, friend or colleague abducted, rising to 33% in Baghdad.

Yet 49% of those questioned preferred life under Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, to living under Saddam. Only 26% said things had been better in Saddam’s era, while 16% said the two leaders were as bad as each other and the rest did not know or refused to answer.

Above quote from
The Sunday Times
March 18, 2007
Resilient Iraqis ask what civil war?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1530526.ece

I simply couldn't believe it cause it's very different from what I've heard from Dr. Salam last year and my Iraqi friend who finally escaped out of Baghdad to Egypt.

Media tells lie without hesitation!
Just like politicians!! -- is what I see, and now I've found another poll result conducted by BBC, ABC(US) etc.

Ebbing Hope in a Landscape of Loss
Marks a National Survey of Iraq
http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/1033aIraqpoll.pdf

IRAQ SURVEY SLIDE SHOW
http://abcnews.go.com/International/popup?id=2954062&content=&page=1

Iraq poll 2007: In graphics
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6451841.stm

Pessimism 'growing in Iraq'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6460000/newsid_6465200/6465299.stm?bw=nb&mp=rm

Pessimism 'growing among Iraqis'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6464277.stm

That's what Donna Mulhearn is talking about here I assume, but it still seems a bit manipulated to me when it says:

Only 18% said they had confidence in US and coalition troops, and 51% said they thought attacks on coalition forces were justified.

However, only 35% said foreign troops should leave Iraq now. A further 63% said they should go only after security has improved.
(End quote from BBC article)

Cause all I heard so far said Iraqis "want the US and their allies out NOW." They probably did the poll in relatively safe area only...

Anyhow, congratulations to Donna for having this article printed on The Canberra Times!

As Donna writes, "The questions about lies and deception were justified. The doubts about the motives of the war were legitimate," yes, the lies started since 9/11, 2001 if not earlier.

And we the citizens all around the globe have got to demand further for immediate and complete withdrawal.

Below, from Donna.

Chihaya
_________________________________________

[The Pilgrim] Iraq four years on - its time to speak the truth

Friends,

A public opinion poll of Iraqis released this week shows that a majority say they are worse off now than under Saddam. How could it have come to this? A refusal by our Governments to admit and tell the truth is at the heart of it.

Below is a reflection I wrote to mark the fourth anniversary of the war. It was printed in The Canberra Times today with a graphic cartoon showing John Howard’s white shirt and arms covered in blood.

http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=your%20say&subclass=general&story_id=567571&category=Opinion

I was pleased with the headline:

Truth tops Iraq list of casualties. Only when foreign troops leave Iraq can the country begin to heal.

‘In an age of universal deceit, speaking the truth becomes a revolutionary act,” warns George Orwell. Finding ourselves in such an age, Australia needs a leader with the courage to tell the truth about Iraq.

The truth is that the invasion of Iraq has not made that country a better place. It has not made the world a safer place. It has not made Australia more secure, just the opposite, on all counts.

It is a military and humanitarian disaster, possibly our greatest foreign policy blunder. Pretending otherwise is embarrassing and degrading for all of us.

Australians cringe as Prime Minister John Howard repeats every Bush ‘war’ line on cue, isolating us on the political stage to the same level as those pacific island states that are too afraid to develop an independent foreign policy.

Four years of meaningless spin is enough. It is painful for our tired ears and salt in the wound of the children whose soft flesh is minced every day by American cluster bombs lying in the fields all over Iraq.

The million or so Australians who marched against the war in 2003, spoke the truth only to be collectively dismissed and left feeling despondent and angry.

But those who feared the suffering this war would create were right to hold such fears. The questions about lies and deception were justified. The doubts about the motives of the war were legitimate. The concerns about the repercussions were real.

Four years later none of these issues have gone away. The Government lied, thousands of kids are dead. More will die tomorrow. Halliburton has made a fortune. Millions of dollars of aid money has disappeared. Iraqis queue for two days to fill their car with petrol. That’s the truth that I witnessed first hand in Baghdad.

This leaves us carrying a profound frustration and a deep trauma. It creates more questions than ever, the most frightening one – could this happen again?

Iraqis never doubted the outcome. During the bombing of Baghdad the most common question to me was: “do they really think this will achieve anything good?”

Now the Iraqis simply have a new dictator. They call the occupiers the ‘White Saddams’. They still cannot speak their political views for fear of retribution. Girls used to go to school, now they don’t. Women had the best freedoms in the region, now they don’t. Families had electricity, fuel and clean water, now they don’t.

Iraqis long for the days when they could walk the streets and live with some kind of dignity. Under Saddam they knew how to stay alive. Now walking out the front door is like taking a lottery in survival. That we have created a situation that is worse than Saddam’s Iraq, a brutal dictatorship, is surely the greatest indictment on all of us.
That we have proved that others could be as brutal and bloodthirsty as him – the Abu Ghraib torture and the bungled execution of Saddam as examples - only confirmed to the Iraqis that nothing much has changed for them, that everything is worse.

Despite John Howard declaring they are much better off, Iraqis are speaking with their feet and fleeing the new Iraq, with more than a million currently pouring into Jordan and Syria. Imagine how his words would sound to these bewildered, traumatised refugees.

John Howard warns that an Australian troop withdrawal would be a ‘cut and run’ exercise. The Iraqi’s look at it another way: “send home the people with guns and send us help – medicines, therapists, tools,” begs Dr Ali Rasheed, a child psychologist who heads the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Program for children.

The Prime Minister predicts any withdrawal of troops will make things worse. It is hard to imagine anything worse than unrelenting daily bloody chaos, but on what basis is this prediction made? The military strategists have got everything else wrong on this campaign to date. I believe they are wrong on this one too - an end to the foreign occupation of Iraq would likely reduce the incidences of violence overnight and more over time. The root cause of almost every act of political violence in Iraq today is the presence of foreign occupying armies, remove that provocation and it will naturally decrease.

For example, a dozen roadside bombs will be targeted at the US convoys driving around Baghdad today. If those tanks are gone, the kids who would have been killed by flying shrapnel will be saved as well as the soldiers. The Iraqis targeted as ‘collaborators’ will no longer be considered so when the Iraqi army and police force is actually run by Iraqis - another hundred or so lives saved in a week. Yes, there will still be some political violence as power-hungry men vie for leadership, but don’t confuse that with the so-called sectarian violence, which did not exist before the invasion. That only developed after the U.S chose a side, armed it and encouraged it to avenge and fight others. It’s more about politics and power and less about theology.

Without the US driving the wedge and backing one side, the ‘sectarian’ conflict will have the chance to settle with political deals and agreements, as it has many times over the last 1400 years. They just need the foreigners to end the ignorant and deadly interference.

“We will make mistakes, but let us make our own mistakes. What can be worse than what we have now?” says Dr Ali.

Internal conflict in Iraq does not change the truth about Australia’s involvement. The invasion was illegal, the occupation is immoral and it has profoundly damaged Australia. We need to withdraw because it is the right thing to do.

John Howard will make dramatic motherhood statements this week about encouraging terrorists, while ignoring the elephant in the room. The Iraq war has increased terrorism. It has bred it and fuelled it. The continued foreign occupation of Iraq will guarantee this continues.

The truth about responding to terrorism is that your safety is ensured when your enemy becomes your friend. A sound foreign policy that builds better relationships with your neighbours will be your protection. Your humanity is your security. That’s the truth.

Your pilgrim
Donna

PS: Rise Up and Speak the Truth, the Pine Gap 4 fundraising CD has almost hit the top of the charts! Critics say it offers the best anti-war music since the 60s, perhaps ever! We have almost sold out of the first run. To order yours please send me an e-mail with your address, $20 or $15 concession $2 postage. To pay you can either 1. Make a cheque to 'Sean O'Reilly' and post to 69 Kurumba St Kippa-Ring Qld, 4021 saying its for CDs or 2. Make a deposit into our bank account Commonwealth Bank a/c name: Sean O'Reilly a/c number: 06 4166102 66104

PPS: Upcoming talks: Canberra March 30th, at the Quaker Friends Meeting House, corner of Condamine and Bent Streets, Turner, at 7.15pm.
Brisbane, Sunday April 15, St Mary’s South Brisbane, 6pm
Brisbane, Monday April 16, details TBA

PPPS: Writing retreat: Some of you know that for the past year I have been working on a book about my experience in Iraq. I now have an agent and a deadline and need a place I can write undisturbed for a week or so. So if anyone is going away or has a getaway, or has/knows of a space, place, hermitage, cave etc that might be available, please let me know.

PPPPS: "I really regret bringing down the statue. The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day. Saddam was like Stalin. But the occupation is proving to be worse" Kadhim Al-Jabouri, an Iraqi who lead the destruction of Saddam’s statue in 2003.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ThePilgrim/
http://pinegap6.org/