We knew Baghdad as the city of caliph Haroon-al-Rasheed, a hero of children’s tales, until the US-led army landed on Iraq
with heavy boots and sharp bayonets. Now it is known as ‘faux pas’ of the men comprising world’s intellectual powerhouse, the men who have assumed a role of world-police. The unprovoked aggression, now proved baseless too, after failing to trace out WMDs, has changed the whole value system and international ethics binding the nations.
Let us start from the ground first. The present scenario was nowhere in dreams when Iraqis toppled the statue of a dictator. On that day they had hopes, even relief on their faces. But the hope-tide took less time to ebb; non-stop raining of blood started, washing out every lane the people walked on.
Now, the tally of corpses no longer matters—may it be half a million or even a million. What matters is the impact of a steady tide of unstoppable killings. The feeling of security among Iraqis is at the lowest. They fear even to declare their real name, as inter-sect rivalry, the eye for an eye mania, is at the highest.
And for the aggressor, too, it’s not a sweet pill. After paying the huge bill of nearly a trillion dollars, the US–led forces have little to be pleased. Paradoxically Iraq is becoming the biggest graveyard for their soldiers. They know that the men and women fighting there haven’t come from any orphan house; spouses and children wait for them at home. Bombs and bayonets can’t buy the peace: that would be the lesson they would carry while going home.
Today no remedy is visible on horizon. Ironically an immediate pull out wouldn’t solve the tangle either. Instead the chaos would multiply in absence of the personals having modern equipments and skills.
One interim solution lies, possibly, in withdrawing the troops in the region of Kurdistan where US-led army still enjoys popularity. These forces so stationed could act as shield against possible upsurge of extremists. Meanwhile it would be wise to let the two sects, Shiite and Sunni, to sit together and decide their own fate. They aren’t aliens: they live together since centuries. Given the opportunity, they would be finding reasons to live, and the reasons to live together.
Apart from this the war in Iraq has other significance, too. Perhaps, after World War II, no other war has challenged the existing perspectives, morals, and political ideals in the way Iraq war did. It is viewed as a part of the ongoing battle for controlling the world’s crucial assets, here the oil resources. It’s seen as an act of economic
colonization, replacing the old form of conquering weaker states by military aggressions.
Today the group of countries, who formerly practiced slavery and made free nations their colonies, is again in action, perhaps. These countries are in control of the best weapons, the strongest money, and the most powerful media of today’s world. Their opponents own nothing except helplessness.
For a minute, consider the Iraq issue in the context of colonization. History notes that had there been no human rights violations on mass scale, the colonization wouldn’t have survived for a day. Dominance of Indian subcontinent and apartheid in South Africa are the samples of such mass scale abuses. The same concept of oppressing the weaker is revisiting the earth under the system of economic colonization. Rampant violation of human rights wouldn’t remain stray incidences now; it would be the destiny of those who
happen to be the citizens of weaker nations, who happen to be poor, who happen to be children of lesser God.