By Robert Azzi
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said the following in 2003 about America’s invasion of Iraq: “What [extremists/Muslims] needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house — from Basra to Baghdad — and basically saying, ‘Which part of this sentence don’t you understand? You don’t think we care about our open society … well, suck on this …”
This weekend, as most of the world rightly condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as tragic images of civilian victims stream without respite across TikTok bringing many to tears, as North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) marshals its resolve and resources to counter the Russian offensive to overthrow a sovereign government, let us be humble.
Humble not in our support for the victims of aggression and oppression, which should be without limit, but humble — and self-critical — in considering who should be condemned for the use of force that imperial nations deploy to impose their will upon the weak, the vulnerable, the oppressed.
Well, suck on this.
This weekend, as Americans surf between bearing witness to the tragedy unfolding in Eastern Europe and March Madness, let us humbly pause to mark the 19th anniversary of the American-led invasion of Iraq.
That war of choice, based upon intelligence both flawed and deliberately manipulated to drive the United States into an ill-fated military adventurism, so destabilized an already fragile region that we are paying for it both in blood and treasure.
Driven by cheerleaders in the press like Thomas Friedman, David Brooks and Judith Miller; neocon chickenhawks like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz; and politicians like President George W Bush, Vice President Cheney and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, the effects of that war persist to this day.
Persist from Russia, Chechnya and Ukraine, from Afghanistan through Iran through Saudi Arabia and Yemen, from Pakistan through India, Iraq, Syria, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories — all are connected.
Today, 19 years after President Bush declared “mission accomplished,” it’s estimated that over 9,000,000 Iraqis became either internally displaced or refugees.
Well, suck on this.
Today, just beyond “mission accomplished” there are about 6.8 million Syrian refugees and asylum-seekers, another 6.7 million displaced within Syria, all comprising over 25 percent of today’s total global refugee population.
Today, just beyond “mission accomplished” there are about 2.6 million Afghan refugees, another 3.5 million people displaced within Afghanistan.
Today, the problem for the above peoples – for the Chechens, Palestinians, Kurds, Yazidis, and others who live alongside them – is that they aren’t strong enough to counter the destabilization brought about by Western adventurism in the region nor white enough to be embraced by the western nations who are today embracing Ukrainian refugees without limit.
Friedman wrote in 2006 (it grieves me to note that that this quote – and its ignorance – even exists) that “the only reason Iraq has any chance for a decent outcome today is because America was on the ground with tens of thousands of troops to act as that well-armed midwife, reasonably trusted and certainly feared by all sides, to manage Iraq’s transition to more consensual politics.”
That midwife sadly oversaw too many stillbirths, not enough new life.
Today, that midwife’s creator offers: “The seven most dangerous words in journalism are: ‘The world will never be the same.’ In over four decades of reporting, I have rarely dared use that phrase. But I’m going there now in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”
It may be true that our world is not going to be the same again but it’s not just because, as Friedman writes Putin’s invasion “… is a raw, 18th-century-style land grab by a superpower.”
It’s because too many journalists too easily identify with American / Eurocentric western power and prejudices.
Because too easily people of privilege are willing to tell the weak, vulnerable, occupied, and oppressed: “Well, suck on this.”
In his latest offering, my favorite columnist, Hamid Dabashi asks, “Whom to believe on Ukraine: Biden, Putin, or Nikolai Gogol?” and concludes:
“ … Under Putin, Russia has been active in its own backyard in Chechnya with brutal precision and then in Syria supporting a violent thug on his bloody throne with expanded global ambitions. Neither the jingoism of Russian nationalism, nor the inanities of American pundits thinking this invasion is yet another turn for “the end of history” and civilization, nor indeed the ghastly European racism once again on full display privileging Ukrainian refugees over millions of others, is the real issue here.”
“Ceasing to follow the propaganda machinery of Russia and the US, the world would be much better off turning to Gogol, a Ukrainian master of Russian literature … thinking where the real borders lie between civilization and barbarities.”
Thinking, today, too many are willing to ignore the reality that human suffering, regardless of color, is human suffering, and that humanitarian aid shouldn’t be dependent on skin color or religion in determining which sojourner deserves shelter.
Thinking, today, as Gogol wrote in Dead Souls (the only Gogol I have read), “I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by anyone.”
Thinking, today, through laughter and tears, of where our borders lie.
Robert Azzi is a photographer and writer who lives in Exeter. His columns are archived at theotherazzi.wordpress.com and he can be reached at [email protected].
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