Have you noticed?

     The rational for our occupation of Iraq has changed. Again. The policy remains the same, but the ostensible explanations for it keep changing.

     Originally, the invasion and occupation didn’t need a justification. All the Bush administration had to say was “9-11.” We were attacked. We have a right to protect ourselves. Of course, today even George Bush admits that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 or with attacking us, but that did not stop him from using that justification back at the beginning of the war.

     Next, the invasion and occupation were justified on the grounds that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It was a “slam dunk” that Iraq had such weapons - until it turned out that it didn’t have any WMDs after all.

     Then we were told oh noooo. We didn’t invade because of weapons of mass destruction. We did it for the oil ... er, for the Iraqi people. Yeah, that’s the ticket. We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars because we want to help the Iraqi people. Are those Iraqis some great people, or what?

     That explanation worked for awhile. But then the levels of violence got so extreme, and the death toll rose so high, that no one could believe that the occupation was benefiting the Iraqis. All the “reconstruction” money got spent on security for mercenaries and contractors and permanent military bases, so the rational had to change again.

     Briefly before the last election, President Bush toyed with the oil explanation, when he said that the price of oil would go really high if we pulled out of Iraq. We need to keep this bloody war going so you can have cheap $3.00 per gallon gas to put in your SUV. But then Bush remembered that the invasion had nothing to do with oil, and he needed another excuse.

     So for the last few months, the most recent explanation has been that it doesn’t matter why we got into Iraq. That’s the past. We need to think about the future. But we can’t just pull out, because if we do, Iraq will descend into chaos, and the terrorists will win.

     This most recent explanation makes the prediction that Iraq will be worse off if the United States pulls its troops out of the country. I do not have any special talent for predicting the future, but I do believe that the Iraqi people should be able to make their own judgments about what is in their own best interests.

     Independent polls have consistently shown that very large majorities of Iraqis believe that the U.S. should pull out of Iraq within a short period of time. Most Iraqis are not afraid of a descent into chaos. They are already living in chaos, and believe that they will be better off if the United States leaves, and the sooner the better.

     So we have a choice. We can either believe the pathological imperialist who says that he knows best, or we can believe the people who actually live in Iraq and who will bear the burden of what ever decision is made.

     Since the recent elections, some of the Democrats have been testing the waters for a new idea. They have been trying to get people accustomed to the idea that we should pull out and not feel the need to repair the damage we have done. According to this proposal, it’s the Iraqi’s own damn fault if people in Iraq have been hurt, because they have not moved fast enough to take over responsibility for their own security. They need to “step up to the plate.”

     Excuse me while I go barf. It’s balderdash. The world’s only remaining superpower has been unable to create security in Iraq after years of occupation, but the Iraqis deserve to suffer and die unless they can do it themselves in short order? After shock and awe? After we disbanded their existing military and police forces? After years of heavy-handed occupation which created massive resentment and promoted sectarian strife? It is a classic example of blaming the victim. It is also standard fare for imperialists.

     We are responsible for creating the mess in Iraq. We supported Saddam Hussein for years. We invaded the first time. We imposed crippling sanctions on Iraq for years. We invaded the second time. We have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. We are responsible, not the Iraqi people.

     But we cannot fix the mess we made if we continue to occupy Iraq. We do need to get our troops out. But we also need to be responsible for a massive program of reconstruction of Iraq. We need to pay the Iraqis to do their own reconstruction. They should get the jobs, not Bechtel and Haliburton. They should get the decision making power about how to prioritize the work. We should pay the bills for the work, and reparations on top of that.

     When you make a mess, you need to fix it. If you can’t fix it up yourself, you need to pay someone else to do it. Anything else is just more pathological imperialism.

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