Listen
To The Voices Of Iraqi’s
By Kevin Zeese
18 January, 2007
Countercurrents.org
One
set of voices rarely heard in the United States are the voices of Iraqi’s,
what do they think about the U.S. military presence in their country?
What do they think should be done about the U.S. staying in Iraq? How
do they see this conflict being resolved? What do they think about dividing
Iraq into three countries?
Dal LaMagna*, a businessman
and political advocate, recognizes the importance of listening to Iraqi
voices. He feels that most Americans do not believe what they hear from
the Bush administration regarding what is actually happening in Iraq
and they suspect Western media’s reporting on the crisis. So last
August he joined the Global Exchange/CodePink Peace Delegation which
met with a slate of Iraqis in Amman, Jordan. Then, the day after the
November election he returned to Amman with Congressman Jim McDermott
to hear voices from throughout the Middle East including Iraqis. Both
times Members of Iraq’s Parliament were interviewed. He video-taped
these meetings and so he could share the interviews with the rest of
us through power point presentations. His mission was to put Members
of Congress and Americans in the room with these people.
I interviewed Dal recently
and he took me and Linda Schade, the executive director of VotersForPeace.US,
through a power point presentation of August trip to Jordan. You can
view the interview at http://democracyrising.us/content/view/731/151/.
Regarding the greatest misconceptions
people have about Iraq he sees the biggest misconception is that Iraq
is viewed as an uncivilized country where the people are uneducated,
and live in poverty. In reality these are sophisticated people many
of whom speak Arabic and English, who attend some of the best schools
in the Middle East and throughout the West. They had a strong infrastructure
and excellent health care.
Another important misconception
is that they hate each other when in fact they have lived together for
thousands of years. They have intermarried, live in integrated communities
and work together. Iraqis told him they had never been asked whether
they were Sunni or Shia before the U.S. occupation but now they are
constantly asked. More than one person made the observation –
My wife is a Sunni and I am a Shiite (or the reverse). Jabir Habir Jabir
a Member of the Iraq Parliament who represented 70 other Shia members
said: “My wife is a Sunni. I do not need the American soldiers
to protect me from my wife.”
Regarding oil, one of the
reasons he heard that makes sense as to why we are there was explained
by Jerry Kiser, someone he and Rep. McDermott met on the flight out
to Amman. Jerry is a contractor protecting Kurdish oil wells. Kiser
said –“… the issue is the destiny of the oil profits:
are the oil revenues going to fund terrorism or democracy?” It
is not access to Iraq’s oil that is the issue, the oil gets sold
on the international oil markets and can be purchased by anyone willing
to pay, it is what happens to the profits from the oil. Does it finance
terrorism or building a democratic society favorable to the West?
Also if you completely read
the Baker Hamilton Report you saw the push to award to Western Oil companies
the production supply agreements, the job of taking the oil out of the
ground and processing it. Will it be U.S./western countries or someone
else who profit from this job?
During both trips LaMagna
heard Iraqis want one Iraq State. They are opposed to partitioning Iraq
into three parts: Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish. One screen in the power
point shows a map produced by the U.S. government titled “The
New Middle East Project,” which shows Iraq divided into three
countries, including some land taken from Turkey and Iran. This division
is seen by some Iraqi’s as a Zionist plan to weaken break up the
Middle East. Part of an effort to get Sunni’s fighting Shia throughout
the Arab world so they cannot be united against Israel.
LaMagna was still working
on his PowerPoint from his visit with Congressman McDermott. But he
did report to us that he heard mostly the same things as he heard on
the first trip plus points about the Middle East in general. He heard
people say that it is important to differentiate Zionists from Israelis.
The Israeli-Palestinian question is seen by people in the Middle East
to be at the core of the problem in the region. And, the U.S. is criticized
by Arabs for having a double standard when it comes to Israel and Palestine
behavior, for instance. One complaint heard over and over is that the
U.S. has never allowed a UN resolution to condemn an Israeli action
– even the recent use of cluster bombs in Southern Lebanon –
bombs which, by the way, they purchased from the U.S.
A main complaint he and Congressman
McDermott heard in the November meetings was that Iraqis don’t
want al Qaeda and particularly Iranians in their country. If the Americans
were not in Iraq the foreign invaders would be exposed and removed from
the country. Currently, Iran is a big part of the problem as they are
getting involved in Iraq, hiring former Iraqi military and others to
work in the resistance. Under the U.S. occupation, Iraqi’s see
their country as having been handed over to Iran on a silver platter.
Out of the interviews in
August came a ten point, “Iraq Reconciliation Plan” that
would be a framework for ending the current conflict. The ten points
include:
1. End the occupation of
Iraq.
2. Create a timetable for
the withdrawal of American troops that is synchronized with the implementation
of the Iraq reconciliation plan.
3. Disband the militias created
after the occupation.
4. Revise Bremer's Orders
and allow the Iraqis to rebuild their army.
5. Rewrite the Iraqi Constitution.
6. Keep Iraq as one state
and do not partition into multiple states.
7. Begin the promised reconstruction
of Iraq. Employ Iraqis and not foreign workers or contractors.
8. Acknowledge Iraqis' right
to resist the U.S. occupation, negotiate with the resistance, and give
amnesty to Iraqis resisting the occupation.
9. Investigate all the crimes
that were committed by the new Iraqi Government and by the occupation
forces in Iraq
10. Make a fair distribution
of oil income and natural resources.
On the Progressive Government
website you can see more details about this ten point plan including
video’s where Iraqi’s discuss each point. See:
http://www.progressivegovernment.org
/page.php?name=reconciliation.
These issues are also discussed in the video interview I conducted with
LaMagna.
LaMagna sees the failure
in Iraq as part of an old paradigm collapsing – a paradigm of
violence, and taking of other people’s resources by force. He
believes we are at a “The Great Turning” quoting the title
of David Korten’s new book The Great Turning, From Empire to Earth
Community. The world is changing and we as individuals are empowered
by having access to the truth and most importantly each other. LaMagna
says “the people of the world are more and more interconnected
through TV, Internet, blogging, cell phones – when information
is able to flow that way then the people win, not the rulers, they lose.”
As a result he concludes: “I’m very optimistic. I think
the world community will figure out how to resolve this mess and I’m
doing what I can to facilitate it.”
Note: *Dal LaMagna is a founder of the Progressive Government Institute
as well as the founder and CEO of TWEEZERMAN Corporation which he founded
in 1980 and sold in 2004. Dal has also been active in the Social Venture
Network, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, The Positive Future
Network, and the publisher of Yes Magazine. He serves on the Dean’s
Council for the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Dal ran for
U.S. Congress in the 3rd Congressional District, New York as the Democratic
and Independent candidate in 1996. In 2000 he ran for U.S. Congress
again as the Democratic, Working Families, and Green Party Candidate.
In the most recent election he served as a Chair of Senator Maria Cantwell’s
re-election campaign. Dal received his MBA from Harvard in 1971. In
2002 Dal graduated from the MPA-Mid-Career program at the Kennedy School
of Government at Harvard. He is an Executor Producer of three Iraq War
Movies: “The War Tapes”, “The Ground Truth”
and “Iraq for Sale”.
Kevin Zeese is director of
Democracy Rising (www.DemocracyRising.US) and a co-founder of VotersForPeace
(www.VotersForPeace.US).
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