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Monday, Oct 13, 2008
Progressives have lots of arguments against the war on Iraq -- some of them compelling. But why aren't they burning to free Saddam's oppressed masses?
Mar 19, 2003 | Amina Lawal is a Nigerian divorcee, illiterate and unemployed, and when she gave birth to a baby girl out of wedlock in 2001, neighbors in the Muslim village where she lives reported her to local authorities. She was arrested, charged with adultery and, after a trial in one of the new Islamic courts, sentenced to death. Her case has attracted international attention, and there is hope that the sentence will be blocked. But human rights monitors say her life remains at risk: If the sentence is carried out, she will be buried up to her waist in the ground and then stoned until she is dead.
Amina Lawal's case is undoubtedly complicated. Yet the more I consider it, the more I feel the urge for a simple, primitive response. I know there is intensifying conflict between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria; I know that in the interests of bringing calm to a volatile situation, the United Nations or the government of the United States, joined by allied countries and interest groups, should exercise every possible diplomatic channel to prevent her execution. But if that were to fail, the urge says, let's send in a small, skilled military squad to rescue her and her loved ones. Even at the risk of casualties, let's use military force to achieve humanitarian ends, and in saving the life of a 31-year-old Muslim peasant, let's send a message to the poor and dispossessed of the world, and to the religious zealots and tyrants who repress them. Let's just do it.
I can imagine many leftists would share the same urge, and yet, the more deeply I consider it, the more complicated the problem becomes. First of all, why Amina? Why not any of a million other victims of tyranny, including many in our own country who are threatened with cruel and unusual punishment? If you start with Amina, where does it stop? We can't solve all the problems of the world. And perhaps intervening to save Amina will only incite the furies of the Nigerian Muslims who rose so violently in the days before the Miss Universe pageant. We have to let the Nigerians solve their own problems. Violence, in the long term, will only beget more violence.
The problem is so difficult that I'm nearly paralyzed by the awareness of things that could go fatally wrong. Until, inevitably, this complex set of calculations leads back to the root equation: In the worst-case scenario, if we do not seek a military solution, then we must let Amina Lawal die. To some degree, then, I would be responsible for her death.
I find myself thinking a lot about Amina Lawal these days because the moral dilemma she poses so closely parallels the dilemma that has confronted the left as the United States and a few allies move toward an unpopular war to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Though there is indisputable evidence that Saddam Hussein has sought to become a nuclear power, though it seems clear that he is hiding chemical and biological weapons, and though he is guilty of human rights abuses on a harrowing scale, many on the left are deeply conflicted because it is so difficult -- in fact, it is impossible -- to know whether the human costs of taking him out would be greater than the costs of attempting to undermine him through more gradual means.
On balance, though, the left in America and Europe has come down strongly against the war. And in protest marches, antiwar advertising and local arts events, the evidence leaves one to wonder whether this highly visible bloc of the left has weighed these issues -- weighed life by life the repression of the 24 million Iraqis who live in a ruthless police state, not to mention the thousands or tens of thousands who have been imprisoned without trial, tortured, exiled or killed. Instead, it sometimes seems that the left is so averse to war, especially war waged by America, that it is prepared to turn a blind eye to even the most ghastly realities. Perhaps it is because the left no longer sees these realities that its antiwar arguments tend to justify continuation of the status quo.
That, too, is a form of paralysis. But it is emblematic of an evolution in leftist values that has occurred so gradually over a period of decades that the profound nature of the shift is often not noticed. Today, the political counterculture and the antiwar movement in the West often seem to be one and the same. Instead of fighting fascists or other genocidal tyrants as it might have during the Spanish Civil War or World War II or even during the Central American conflicts of the 1980s, the modern left fights war; because the United States is the world's most significant military agent, and because it has so often used military power to support anti-democratic governments, the left understandably fights the United States. Such opposition to war is reflexive, and too often outweighs its outrage on behalf of the oppressed. Its capacity for the kind of muscular empathy that leads to action has atrophied, leaving only the possibility of reaction, of opposition. The antiwar left does not mount massive protests against China, Pakistan or Egypt. Millions do not pour into the streets on behalf of the student-led democracy movement in Iran. And Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are not angrily compared to Hitler -- that treatment is more often reserved for George W. Bush.
Make no mistake: I consider Bush and his closest advisors dangerous. In policy and in manner, their anti-democratic tendencies are clear. In the overlapping wars on terrorism and Iraq, their hubris, their dishonesty and their incompetence have alienated potential allies at home and around the globe. Bush's claims that Iraq is an immediate threat to the security of the United States, and that Saddam is allied with al-Qaida, have been unpersuasive. Even if the White House hawks had the highest and most idealistic motives, they have created such deep mistrust that nobody believes them. Where Saddam's depredation should be the issue, in the eyes of the world, they themselves are the issue. In this way, Bush has discredited the very cause he claims to support.
And yet, I wonder: Is it possible that some of the most vocal and visible elements of the left are vulnerable to a similar charge? Whether George Bush or his father or Al Gore or Bill Clinton is president -- in one basic sense, that is immaterial. Conditions in Iraq are what they are. With war now upon us, the deeper issue is about the relationship of American and European leftists to the people of Iraq, about our obligations to aid them in enormously difficult circumstances, and about the best means for doing so.
In the months leading up to war, the old paradigms of alliance and opposition have shifted strangely, or fallen apart. Though it is rarely visible in news accounts, the left is deeply divided. A huge and outspoken block of antiwar leftists finds itself allied with old soldiers of the Gulf War era, like retired Gen. Brent Scowcroft. Others once identified with the radical left, like the writer Christopher Hitchens, find themselves allied with George W. Bush, one of the most conservative presidents in the post WWII era. But the pro-war leftists, perhaps because they lack the numbers and a dramatic venue, are almost completely overshadowed by the antiwar leftists who can turn out millions for demonstrations around the globe.
In most every argument against the war, whether it is posed between friends over drinks or by the presence of 100,000 people at a wintry demonstration, there comes a crucial moment: "I'm not defending Saddam," the argument goes. "I know Saddam is a ruthless tyrant. I know he has committed terrible human rights abuses. But ..." What follows "but" is often a withering critique of Bush or the United States, Tony Blair, Jose Maria Aznar, or Silvio Berlusconi. Hidden in this argument is a curious dynamic: The words "ruthless dictator" and "human rights abuses" have been uttered so many times that they are like a dead key on a piano. They have lost their emotion and their power to convey anything close to the reality of ruthless dictatorship and human rights abuses.
Amnesty International has documented and cataloged Saddam's abuses for 20 years. Reading this dossier brings to life the methodical daily acts of repression in Iraq; the means by which Saddam's regime secures its hold over 24 million people is not at all abstract.
Consider this passage from a press statement last October:
"Amnesty International has over the years documented gross human rights violations committed on a massive scale in Iraq affecting all sectors of society. These violations, which have been committed by Iraqi military, intelligence and security personnel, have included 'disappearances' of thousands of people, the extensive use of the death penalty, extra-judicial executions, arbitrary arrests, long-term detention without charge or trial, grossly unfair and secret trials, systematic torture of suspected political opponents, judicial punishments constituting torture or cruel, inhuman punishments, prisoners of conscience, and forcible expulsions."
Here is a passage from an August 2001 report:
"Torture victims in Iraq have been blindfolded, stripped of their clothes and suspended from their wrists for long hours. Electric shocks have been used on various parts of their bodies, including the genitals, ears, the tongue and fingers. Victims have described to Amnesty International how they have been beaten with canes, whips, hosepipe or metal rods and how they have been suspended for hours from either a rotating fan in the ceiling or from a horizontal pole often in contorted positions as electric shocks were applied repeatedly on their bodies. Some victims had been forced to watch others, including their own relatives or family members, being tortured in front of them.
"The scale and severity of torture in Iraq can only result from the acceptance of its use at the highest level."
Even such descriptions as these seem too clinical, somehow, too bureaucratic. But in the Amnesty International files are many more personal stories, and some have haunted me since I first read them.
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