The long war begins

Sitting in a balmy Dublin garden, warmer than the South of France, wars and terrors and diseases seem so far away. In a way they are and yet, to be honest, they are not. Sure, we can’t hear the bombs and shelling in Iraq, but we can see it on the telly and we can hear the voices of the multitudes clamouring for water, for bread and for peace and quiet. Similarly, we can hear the twisting and turning and evasions in the Northern peace process. And yes, we can’t forget disease. We are learning to live with SARS.

Let’s start with Iraq. The big war has been won, but the little wars that follow on are a different matter.

There have been many casualties, mostly Iraqi. Some have been fighters, members of the Saddam fedayeen, a militia loyal to Saddam, or the dreaded Republican Guard. But many have been civilians, innocent men women and children who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And in some cases, the number and manner of the deaths were horrific.

Bombs have hit markets, hospitals and homes. The Americans even bombed a column of their Kurdish allies. Amongst those seriously injured was Wajih Barzani, brother of the Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.

Of course, they didn’t mean to bomb their friends. It was a case of mistaken targeting. They had been called in by ground forces and were attempting to bomb an Iraqi tank...but 18 people were killed and dozens injured. Body parts were all over the place, people burning, the lot.

The BBC’s John Simpson was right there. Shrapnel cut into his flak jacket and blood literally spattered the camera lens. He described it as a very serious own goal.

As I said, they’ve won the short war, but now the long war begins, the quest for some kind of peace and stability. And it hasn’t started very well. We’ve seen anarchy in Iraq – looting, barricades, shootings.

Everywhere was fair game. Not a single building was sacrosanct. Museums and banks and shops and homes and government buildings and Saddam’s palaces, all pillaged. The world’s first written words may have been lost forever. They were inscribed on clay tablets that were looted or destroyed in the looting of the Iraqi national museum. One hundred and seventy thousand items were taken from there, including some of the world’s earliest examples of mathematics.

The American troops stood off. It was not their business, they said. There has been outrage amongst Iraqis about this. While happy to be rid of Saddam and his odious family, they were and are hugely proud of Iraq’s history as the cradle of civilisation, site of humanity’s first cities. They are enraged by the way the Americans hung back as the thieves of Baghdad went about their business...

Meanwhile, Saddam’s love shack was revealed. What a gaff. A younger Hugh Hefner would love it. It has a mirrored bedroom, lamps shaped like women. There’s an airbrushed painting of a half-naked woman chained to a stone, with a green dragon behind her and from her finger comes a giant serpent wrapping itself around the warrior...

It’s really strange. Saddam is or was much closer to the American way than George Bush might think. He embraced the lifestyle of a ’70s American playboy. Is this the freedom the Yanks brought to Baghdad, the freedom to behave like...well, like an out-of-date playboy tycoon with ultra-dodgy tastes? Perhaps in another thousand years, another mob will rampage through another museum, this one featuring Saddam’s gold taps and airbrushed eroto-tat.

Meanwhile, we read of ethnic violence in the north-eastern region of Ituri in the Congo, and massacres claiming over 1000 lives. Also, Hutu fighters from Rwanda are refusing to leave Congo.

Remember all this, all the violence and slaughter and genocide? According to the US charity the International Rescue Committee, four and a half years of war in the Congo have cost up to 4.7 million lives.

Just look at that figure again! All butchered. And do we have the Americans and the British getting ready to go down there and sort it out? I mean, the various Rwanda factions have killed the equivalent of the entire population of this island.

No, they’re not going there. Cynically, I’d say that this is because there is no oil there and murderous as they are, they are not attacking America or Israel. And maybe it’s even because they are Africans.

But this undermines the claim that America has some dispassionate interest in promoting peace, justice and democracy in the world. I mean, they also conduct business with the rulers of Kazakhstan, Kirgizystan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, and these are not freedom-loving democracies.

Which means that the war on Iraq, and the current threats to Syria and Iran are part of a narrow localised geo-political campaign in the Middle East, aimed at securing oil and Israel. They’re not going to put the world to rights, only their concerns in the Middle East. (Though to give credit where it’s due, at least they’ve tried in Northern Ireland. Only trouble is that the local organisations have refused to play ball).

So, the dogs of war have been let slip. Behold a pale horse.

War famine, pestilence, ah yes, SARS – Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. Having become inured to HIV, this new killer virus should keep us all on our toes. What it would do in Iraq, with a population weakened by the immediate effects of war and the long-term effects of sanctions and Sadam’s robbery, is anybody’s guess.

The Hog