Author's note: If you're coming to this post from a link somewhere else on the internet (and it's getting linked lots of places), welcome. My hope is that in some small way this can put a human face on the tragic destruction of life that is happening in Iraq in a way that will spur people to thoughtful and prayerful action. The end of this post has specific action steps that I have committed to take and an invitation for you to join me in them. I hope you will consider that invitation seriously. If Ali's story merely makes you shed a tear before going on with your life as before, then this has accomplished nothing. Nothing can stop Ali's death from being a waste, however we can honor him if we let this story change us in ways that will prevent more death.
I invite you also to consider What One Person (You!) Can Do to prevent another tragedy -- the 30,000 children under 5 who die each day not from shrapnel or guns ... but from the scourge of extreme poverty. Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation has embraced the Millennium Development Goals as a structure for living out Christ's call to seek and serve him in those 30,000 children who die each day (one every three seconds). I invite you to visit our website to explore answers to that question" "What Can One Person Do?"
The answer is -- a lot!
Christ's peace,
Mike+
-------------------------
Midday yesterday, this email popped into my inbox.
Mike,The words cut through my heart to read. Not because they should have been surprising ... although maybe because I had been living in denial of how predictable they were. But mostly because the friend who sent me this email was telling me my brother was dead, and he died in my other brother's arms -- my brother, Mohammed, who was experiencing pain I could not even imagine ... and not for the first time.
Mohammed's brother Ali died of his wounds today courtesy of shrapnel and flames caused by US missile strike.
He was 9.
Don't expect to hear anything from Mohammed until 40 day of the mourning period is over. XXX* says US soldiers shot at Mohammed as he approached a roadblock they had set up and that he was carrying Ali in his arms trying to get to hospital. He also says that Ali was very badly burned and died screaming.*Co-worker of Mohammed's, name removed for security reasons
The words cut through my heart to read because I knew.
My brother is dead ... and I helped kill him.
A little background for the perplexed...
I first "met" Mohammed a little more than a year ago. Looking for information about what was really happening on the ground in Irak, I found this website set up by an Irish former UN Peacekeeper who spends a great deal of time there. They set up people on the ground in Irak with laptops and digital cameras to document what is really happening there.
I read this post by Mohammed and was immediately struck by his eloquence and the power of his writing. I quoted it in a sermon I preached the next Sunday and then posted on my blog. Through the wonders of Google alerts, Mohammed found my sermon and commented on it, which started a conversations of posts and comments between us.
I learned that Mohammed was 16 years old, that he worked not just for Gorilla's Guides but also doing things like delivering food to people in refugee camps. I also learned that I couldn't know his real name or any other details that might identify him because their lives were in danger if they were identified as being Gorilla's Guides bloggers.
I learned that Mohammed hated America because America had invaded and occupied his country and killed his people. At the same time, he was willing and even eager to be in conversation with me because of his respect for whom he refers to as the Prophet Jesus (Praise Be Unto Him) and his teachings. That my Christian faith and priesthood and his submission to Islam were a common ground for conversation. So we made plans to begin an online conversation on a private, secure channel.
But before we could begin, I got this email:
Most of Mohammed's remaining family killed in Arbaeen massacres.The "little brother" was Ali.
Father killed on Tuesday. Mother died of wounds incurred same attack yesterday. Little brother wounded same attack but now released from hospital. One other sibling in refugee camp uniinjured.
Mohammed now head of family in "nuclear family" sense of expression.
Mohammed and brother on pilgimage
When our conversation began again it was hard going. We started from the relatively safe ground of what we each believed as Muslim and Christian, but the conversation quickly turned to Irak and the U.S. I said I hoped we could become friends. He had serious doubts about that but always assured me that we were brothers. "My brother in humanity," he calls me ... and I call him the same.
The conversation was challenging and convicting. Mohammed continually said things that were and are difficult for me to hear as someone who loves my country and believes deeply in the ideals upon which it was founded and to which I believe our better angels still strongly aspire. At the same time, I was carrying on an email conversation with a former student of mine, Paul, who was an Army Ranger stationed in Irak. Paul is one of those people who represents to me the desire to follow our better angels, someone willing to live sacrificially for what he believes in.
The stories and perspectives I was getting from each of them sometimes converged but more often than not were poles apart.
I cannot even begin to go into what Mohammed has taught me not just about what is going on in Irak, but about Islam ... and about my own Christian faith. Holding his story in tension with Paul's was almost always difficult, but I became convinced that no matter how well intentioned and good-hearted soldiers like Paul were (and Mohammed and I went back and forth on that one!), our presence there must end and it must end totally.
I spend my life trying to follow Christ and working for God's mission of global reconciliation. I speak about and work for the Millennium Development Goals as a structure for living out that discipleship and achieving that mission. It's what Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation is all about. Christ's life is about healing and bringing abundant life to all humanity. The MDGs are about healing and removing poverty and disease and environmental destruction from humanity ... and doing it in a way that draws us together in a common effort.
Through Mohammed and even through Paul, I have come to believe that our presence in Irak works completely counter to these goals. We are not wanted there. Our presence there is an affront to the deep faith of many of the people. Our presence there has caused -- either by us directly or by the forces destabilization has set loose -- countless civilian deaths (Iraq Body Count gives a VERY conservative estimate) and untold more displaced persons.
Our presence there and our foreign policy of imperial domination continues to undermine our standing in the world and continually diminishes our power and authority to lead the world in working to achieve the MDGs.
I have come to realize these things. I have come to believe them strongly. I have even occasionally, as I did at the Diocese of Iowa's convention, spoken them out loud in public by sharing Mohammed's difficult words with others.
But I have not done enough. I have not done nearly enough. Edmund Burke was right when he said "all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good (people) to do nothing." And I have not done even the least I can do, not by any stretch of the imagination.
It was a realization that came with a conviction as I read the email in my inbox yesterday.
The email that brought to my mind an image of Mohammed, "my brother in humanity," carrying his dying little brother, just nine years old, having to deal with dodging bullets from American soldiers as he tried to get him to a hospital. How terrified everyone must have been -- Ali, Mohammed, even the soldiers at the roadblock. The confusion. The pain. The screams. The terror.
As I was reading it, I heard a voice from the other room, my own nine-year-old son, Schroedter, home from spring break and playing with his younger brother. The face on the boy being carried, screaming, through the gunfire and the confusion changed to his.
I thought of Mohammed, "my brother in humanity," once more having to bury a member of his family ... but because of his new role as head of his family this time it being much more like burying a son than a brother. I thought of his pain ... and of Ali -- my brother's brother is my brother. And the words came into my heart like a dagger.
My brother is dead ... and I helped kill him.
I did not launch the airstrike. I did not fire the shots at Mohammed as he carried his brother desperately toward the roadblock.
But I did not do nearly enough to stop it.
So What Can One Person Do?
It is a question I have been pondering through a largely sleepless night. And what I have to offer is still not enough. But it is a start.
And I invite you to join me.
PRAY - I will pray daily for wisdom and peace. Pray for the people of Irak. Pray for the dead, pray for those in refugee camps. Pray for those who have fled the destruction and long to return home. Pray for an end to the occupation.
LEARN - I will continue not to trust what the mainstream media is telling us about Irak. I will augment that with international sources like Reuters and BBC World ... but also with grassroots news organizations like Gorilla's Guides.
GIVE - Giving is tricky because Mohammed and others see even well-intentioned giving as "blood money" and as a way for us to try to assuage our guilt. But giving is still a way we can use our power. The best way to give to help the people of Irak is to give to the International Red Crescent.- they are the best, most reputable group on the ground actually helping the people of Irak. Go to this site and select "Iraq humanitarian response" when given a choice to direct your contribution - I have and will continue to do so.
ADVOCATE - Every day from now until the end of the occupation, I commit to email or call my senators and representative and urge them, as a constituent, a person of faith and someone who loves and wants the best for this country, to remove our military presence from Irak. It is not just killing them, it is killing us and killing the world. It is debilitating not just the Iraki people but our best ability to make wonderful things like the MDGs happen. Making an email or call like this takes 2-3 minutes. 2-3 minutes a day is certainly the least I can do.
TALK - When you hear me speak, you will hear me speak about Irak. You will hear me invite people into a conversation about it. There will be fierce disagreement about what I have written here ... and that's OK. We must not be afraid of disagreement. We must realize that passionate people of good faith can disagree passionately and in good faith. We need to surround all our conversations in prayer so that together we can move beyond our own opinions and strive for God's greater wisdom. But I will no longer hold back out of fear of offending.
Finally, this day, I will say a prayer for Ali. My brother who is dead whom I helped kill. I hope you will join me in that as well.
+++
From the death notice posted yesterday on Gorillas Guides:
Ali Ibn Laith. Born December 14 1999 - Killed March 27 2008
Son of our much missed colleague Laith and his wife, last remaining brother to our greatly loved colleague Mohammed Ibn Laith and his sister.
O God! Pardon our living and our dead, the present and the absent, the young and the old, the males and the females.
andMay Ali's soul and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
The Rev. Mike Kinman is the Executive Director of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation
12 comments:
Mike - I wholeheartedly agree with you that this war is criminal. Lies, lies and more lies fomented an unspeakable groupthink as Congress gave Bush exactly what he wanted back in 2003 - authority to use force. And now, 4,000 American soldiers are dead and untold multiples more Iraqis, and America's honor is sorely diminished around the world. And the VP says, "So?"
However, I wonder if we can ethically just leave altogether. What would be the aftermath? How much more death and poverty and hunger and disease would we leave behind? Can we withdraw combat troops and just leave humanitarian troops (now there's an oxymoron). And if Iraq falls into further chaos at our departure, won't that just provide more ammunition against us?
Yes, the war must end, but how can we do that in good conscience? I feel as if we would abandon the Iraqis to further suffering.
I pray to God everyday for the answer to this, because I certainly have no answers. But I will continue to pray for peace and good for all of us.
Hi Mike—
I often wonder —where ARE all the protests? where are all the protestERS? Where ARE all us boomers who took to the streets in the late '60s and '70s, we, who were so outraged then, and now have the economic and political power to make our voices heard again? To stop this carnage, this affront to God and the world? Where ARE the Gen-Xers, Gen-Ys? Are we all just too busy watching American Idol on our plasma-screen TVs?
But I wonder with Elaine— can we now just depart? I suppose we departed VietNam (because we were driven out!) and now they are a tourist destination.
Thank you for writing and sharing your anguish about Mohammed and Ali.It is truly putting a face on tragedy. But, as an aside, I think you are too apologetic for speaking your mind so passionately.
Thank you.
Best,
Laura
Can we leave altogether is the BIG question I've been struggling with most of the year. Certainly, there is an argument from responsibility that says we should stay ... that we created this mess and we have a responsibility to help clean it up. That's a pretty compelling argument.
There's also the argument that different factions will kill each other if there isn't some authoritarian police force preventing it. (to this, many Irakis would argue that these groups were living together peacefully for centuries before colonial powers showed up!).
I guess where I come to on this is in many ways where I started with the first sermon I preached using Mohammed's words. It started with quoting from the movie "Gandhi". Here's the excerpt:
++
...it got to the point in the movie where Gandhi is sitting at a table in the government council room. With him are Patel, Nehru, Jinnah and Azad. On the British side are the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, several generals, and a senior civil servant, Kinnoch. And Gandhi says:
"We think it is time you recognized that you are masters in someone else's home. Despite the best intentions of the best of you, you must, in the nature of things, humiliate us to control us. General Dyer is but an extreme example of the principle. It is time you left."
Now, the British are stunned almost to speechlessness – the audacity, the impossibility of it – and from Gandhi of all people. The senior civil servant, Kinnoch, is the first to recover.
"With respect, Mr. Gandhi, without British administration, this country would be reduced to chaos."
To which Gandhi responds, gently and patiently:
"Mr. Kinnoch, I beg you to accept that there is no people on earth who would not prefer their own bad government to the 'good' government of an alien power."
+++
To me, the ultimate question isn't "would things be better in Irak if we stayed or if we left?" but "why are we assuming it's up to us to decide what is best for Irak?" It is the height of arrogance (the kind of arrogance that got us into this in the first place) for us to assume that we know best for another people in their own country.
This is not a slam-dunk. There are excellent arguments from compassion to be made from both sides. But aside from the fact that our presence continually does more to incite violence than prevent it. Aside from the fact that once you have decided to stay "a little" it becomes an enormous slippery slope of "how much?" Besides all of that, there is the simple fact that we were not -- despite the claims of our government -- greeted as liberators. We are, in fact, in someone else's house without welcome. And when that happens, simple hospitality dictates that we should leave.
Christ's peace,
Mike+
A very moving posting.
About Elaine's comment and whether we have an obligation to stay to help clean things up: that assumes that if we stay we can clean things up. We have an enormous responsibility to the Iraqi people but I don't think that continued occupation is the answer.
Brother Mike,
We are not "Episcopalians for the MDGs," but "Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation." Your posting speaks directly to heart of the issue: recognizing our brothers and sisters. In your relationship with Mohammed, you point the way - and the hard work required - to see beyond what divides to what unites, our common humanity. And in maintaining your conversation with both Paul and Mohammed, you illustrate beautifully what Sr. Helen Prejean refers to as "both arms of the cross." Reconciliation cannot happen without someone standing in the gap with his arms stretched wide.
Thank you for sharing your pain. I join you in your prayers, and include you in mine. I ask that we also pray for the hearts and minds of the soldiers on either side, who have been indoctrinated to recognize their opponents only as "others," and not as brothers.
Peace,
Ann
Amen, Ann.
I pray for our soldiers -- and our diplomatic personnel (I have another former student who was ... and perhaps still is ... in Iraq as part of a non-military government presence) -- every day as well.
One of the things that became clear to me in my brief time in Southern Sudan was how many casualties there are of war and how many ways there are to be a casualty. Part of it is what I described as an "arming of the heart" that happens. It's about just what you are saying, being indoctrinated to recognize people only as "opponents" and "others" and not, as Nelson Mandela strove to do at Robben Island, engage his enemy as future friend.
That does something to us that is antithetical to God's will for global reconciliation. It creates barriers between us that make working together for healing (MDG #8) difficult if not close to impossible.
Part of EGR's mission is to "Herald a call to conversion at every level of our common life. (To) lift up the opportunity and need for confession, repentance and amendment of life. Let Christ change us so we can be part of God’s mission of global reconciliation – individually and corporately." (www.e4gr.org). Part of what Mohammed and others have been teaching me is a simple matter of theology and praxis -- before there can be reconciliation there has to be that process of confession, repentance and amendment of life. We embody that in our liturgy. We need to (and I am as big an offender as anyone) embody that in our lives.
What have we to confess in our nation's relationships in the world?
What does repentance -- repairing the damage as best as is possible -- look like?
How do we amend our lives ... individually and corporately ... so we embody living a new way, Christ's way?
These are difficult questions and there often are not clear-cut answers. But I am convinced the starting place is humility. True conversation that leads to conversion cannot happen without humility, because a basic practice of humility is considering that the other has something to say that might contain wisdom you don't have.
I pray for wisdom for myself, for our nation, for our soldiers, for our president, and for the world.
Christ's peace,
Mike+
Thank you for writing about Iraqis' plight. I agree that giving on an individual level is important; though obviously there's no monetary amount that compensates for a life lost, the degradation of quality of life for Iraqis is very acute and the immediate need is very real.
But I think it's also important to put pressure on our governments not just to withdraw, but to also adequately address the massive humanitarian crisis going on in Iraq which they helped to bring about, this includes aid and assistance, but also with the millions of refugees in a very precarious situation. I think on the left, we tend to associate the anti-war movement with ending our current presence in Iraq, but not addressing the consequences of the war that has already happened, and I think that's a shame.
WAKE UP AND BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF AND WITH EVERYONE ELSE. Of course, War is hell. Of course thousands are being killed and hurt. Of course a lot are suffering but and there are thousands of stories like Ali all over the world, not just in Irak.
We will probably ever in our lifetime know ALL the real reasons for our going into Irak but everyone knows and the Democrats admit that if we were to leave now we would leave a mess much bigger and worst than if we stay and finish the job of SECURING Irak.
I am sure that there were many secret reasons which cannot be blurted out by the administration for their decisions to go to war because they probably involve long term political considerations involving other middle east countries.
The Democratic leaders know this and they know that they will never be able to do what they propose but at the moment it appeals to the doves and those whose friends and families have to fight or work in Irak and at the moment are only interested in immediate gratification.
The Critics are not acting fairly and morally in their criticism and are giving comfort to the enemy with their criticism. In many countries, they would be jailed for their Negative comments made while their country is at war. This is called TREASON. I would imagine that Terrorist Leaders, are urging their followers to hold tight because the Americans are fed up the war and will soon quit.
You say the people of Irak don't want us there. That can be debated both ways and so one cannot simply accept your simplistic explanation. The problems in Irak are not the Americans but those individuals and countries who seek to control Irak or become rich and powerful at the expense and extreme suffering of the people. A major problem is that they are doing this in the name of Religion and many radical Muslim Clerics seeking Power and Control in the name of Allah are responsible for the suffering of the Iraki people but they don't care as long as they gain the political power and control.
We have spent Billions to better Irak and we have built hundreds of schools, churches, hospitals, bridges, roads, infrastructure etc which did not exist before the war. We will leave Irak in a much better shape that it was before we went in. PUT THE BLAME WHERE IT REALLY BELONGS
I am not a blogger. A friend sent me this link and I could not help but respond to your position on Irak.
However, I applaud your premise that we need to do more to help the tens of thousands of children who die of hunger each day around the world but getting out of Irak will not bring that help.
Real
We will probably ever in our lifetime know ALL the real reasons for our going into Irak but everyone knows and the Democrats admit that if we were to leave now we would leave a mess much bigger and worst than if we stay and finish the job of SECURING Irak.
Rev. Kinman's argument is that the Americans cannot "secure" Iraq because they will always be fighting against Iraqis who want them to leave.
The Critics are not acting fairly and morally in their criticism and are giving comfort to the enemy with their criticism.
American soldiers give "comfort to the enemy" every time they kill or abuse innocent civilians. Every atrocity is another reason to hate the Americans and fight the Americans.
The problems in Irak are not the Americans but those individuals and countries who seek to control Irak or become rich and powerful at the expense and extreme suffering of the people.
The US government is indeed one of the forces "who seek to control Irak or become rich and powerful at the expense and extreme suffering of the people".
We have spent Billions to better Irak and we have built hundreds of schools, churches, hospitals, bridges, roads, infrastructure etc which did not exist before the war. We will leave Irak in a much better shape that it was before we went in.
Iraq's infrastructure and public services, and the health system in particular, had developed to a very high standard by the 1980s, but they have deteriorated severely because of the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War, the sanctions during the 1990s and the ongoing occupation.
The US government has wasted billions of dollars on reconstruction projects in Iraq with very little to show for it. The schools and hospitals are no better than they were before the war, and water and electricity supplies are actually worse. The US has certainly not "built hundreds of schools, churches, hospitals, bridges, roads, infrastructure etc which did not exist before the war". It has barely begun to rebuild everything that was destroyed, run down or neglected. (Ask yourself if it is really possible to build hundreds of schools from scratch in a situation amounting to civil war.)
My great fear is that if we leave the world will witness another killing fields or boat people exodus (or whatever one would call that in the desert) because of the destabilization we have caused. How can we - not the government but us - how can we come up with an exit strategy that gives priority to protecting life while we work to rebuild a country we have destroyed?
Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, my friends.
My husband served in Iraq during the initial invasion. Prior to his second deployment he filed a CO application in opposition to war, for many reasons.
We continue to communicate with friends in Iraq - many of whom report to us now of the difficulty with the renewed cycle of violence they are experiencing.
When my husband served in Iraq, the Iraqi people he met welcomed him - they invited the soldiers in his unit into their homes, served meals and offered a break from their duties. Iraqis brought drinks, ice and snacks to the soldiers in their camp (this was before the days of KBR dining facilities - the soldiers slept on the ground wherever they could find space, Kevin's "bunk" was a sleeping bag on top of a wooden delivery pallet propped in a corner of a bombed out customs building they were using as headquarters.) We talk with Shia, Sunni and Kurds. Things are very difficult in Iraq now - and some of the people blame us and want us to leave, others believe it would destroy what is left of Iraq if we were to go. Unfortunately - when an action is taken based on misrepresentations, the result is where we are now - no way out without some very difficult circumstances following.... hindsight may always be 20/20 -- but what we're seeing in Iraq now is defining that hindsight. We never should have invaded Iraq, and we owe a great deal in restitution for what all of us have allowed to happen -
Protests are not going to stop what we have done, nor are they going to bring the change needed -- it's far too late -- the protests should have been major events prior to the invasions. Our actions have caused too much damage for protests to make a difference now.
We live outside Ft. Stewart - soldiers are returning now from their 3rd and 4th deployments. Their work is not done - they're exhausted, but they know -- it's far from over. While they are on the frontlines - we must be creating our own frontlines here at home, taking a real stand with our actions, not the illusion of action -- getting our hands and feet dirty doing the work we all should have been doing from the time we were able to accept responsibility for being adults. Soldiers saw their civic responsibility to be military service -- that didn't leave the rest of us without a responsibility -- it meant our work was to see that programs were set in place here at home that would educate people about what it means to be human.. what it means to participate in life... what it means to do the work needed to earn what we have been given by being given life - and it means acting on that responsibility by living with standards and principles in our own lives - by controlling ourselves, disciplining ourselves - and remembering that as many rights as we have and demand for ourselves, we must also be willing to give to others, or we will have earned nothing we believe we deserve.
It's not too late to make a difference, but it is too late to believe Iraq will ever be the same- or that we can now remove our military and escape unscathed from what has happened.
Monica Benderman
www.BendermanDefense.org
Elaine Thomas -
Mike already addressed your concerns very well, but maybe I can add something to shift your perspective about the effects of our armed presence in Iraq, and thus the likely consequences of our departure.
If you think of yourself, fundamentally, as a good person, it's important to understand, to begin with, that those Americans in Washington who are responsible for our operations in Iraq are not like you - their motives are not pure. In other words, what "we" are doing in Iraq is what "they" are doing in Iraq in our names and "they" are not doing things the way "we" would do them - presumably with utmost concern for innocent life, whether Iraqi or American.
You probably do realize that, but may not understand - because our media has opted not to honestly report our actions in Iraq - that the often-unconsciously-assumed premise that we are in Iraq to save Iraqis from themselves is false. Many Members of Congress repeatedly puff up their self-image by repeating this falsehood to us and to themselves, a falsehood which also underlies almost every American media report about Iraq, but it is a lie. We have ulterior motives for being in Iraq that have nothing to do with democracy, or the well-being of Iraqis. [And the "Al Qaeda in Iraq" fight that our invasion brought to Iraq would be laughably absurd and easily quelled, if it wasn't allowed to provide cover for the reasons we are actually in, and planning to stay in, Iraq.]
One of the prime incentives for our continued presence in Iraq is their $20 TRILLION in oil reserves - think of the profit that represents. Why would any nation expend the time and the national treasure in lives and debt on a "good will" mission in a foreign country not a threat to itself, while prolonging the agony of the suffering residents of that country in the face of withering public disapproval from its own people, but for an incentive like that vast oil wealth? Especially when the purported objects (the Iraqi people) of our allegedly 'merciful' actions and presence in Iraq have long told us - repeatedly by way of polls and by violent resistance from the majority not 'bought in' to our schemes - that our presence is not wanted in their nation? [Note, too, that those oil profits are not intended for the American taxpayer who is financing this scheme - they are intended for publicly-traded non-Iraqi oil corporations and thus their shareholders. Shouldn't "reparations" at least include leaving Iraq's oil for the benefit of Iraqis, as al-Sadr insists upon, and as the Basra Oil Workers' Union and the Iraqi parliament have been advocating throughout our occupation, to the displeasure of the Bush administration and its proxies in the Green Zone?]
An accompanying myth that helps maintain the fiction of our 'benevolent' presence in Iraq - in a nation where our forces are mostly hunkered down behind blast walls in compounds and giant airbases to safeguard us from the population - is that the sects in Iraq were segregated before our arrival and will be at each other's throats when we leave. That premise too, is highly inaccurate - Iraqis were intermingled Sunni and Shiite to a very high degree before our invasion. Differences in class and association were drawn from other distinctions. The longer we stay, however, the more the divisions grow as desperation sets in among the people, and with the enormous future wealth from Iraq's oil fields bringing a unique dimension to the power struggles. Meanwhile, even now the streets are not protected by American forces in the vast majority of the country - Iraqi militias do that job, in the absence of civil order in a nation that is basically in anarchy. We are not in Iraq to "safeguard" Iraqi civilians. Not by a long shot. Despite the fact that "the world's only superpower" has its military force perched in the heart of that nation, looming over everything, maintaining complete domination over Iraqi airspace.
Once you have a better grasp of the reality on the ground in Iraq - where our forces are located, how they (and Blackwater) interact with the average Iraqi, and what the true nature of the conflict in Iraq today is, and perhaps a little about the highly-capable and very intelligent people of Iraq, I think you will come to understand Mike's conviction about the vital necessity of removing our forces from Iraq. [Which is a key reason, of course, that the media declines to honestly report about Iraq.]
Finally, even if all of your (good-faith-premised) assumptions about our reason(s) for being in Iraq were accurate, I can't see how removing tanks, helicopter and jet-fired missiles, unending American-supplied ammunition, and all the other weapons of our industrialized Army (not to mention all our foreign contractors) from the lethal mix in Iraq can't help but improve the situation. That would at least level the playing field between the differing factions of Iraqis to the hand-held weapons they all possess, which in turn would probably wonderfully 'concentrate their minds' toward a negotiated truce with remarkable speed. After all, in addition to their no-doubt desperate hope for long-delayed peace and order, and ideally democracy, in Iraq, there's more than enough Iraqi oil wealth to go around, to bring prosperity to Kurd, Sunni, and Shiite alike, if American corporations don't get to it first.
Here's an informative article detailing the effects of our "surge" on the lives of average Iraqis in Baghdad:
http://tomdispatch.com/post/174909/michael_schwartz_how_to_disintegrate_a_city
This article explains the basic conflict at hand in Iraq today - between occupation-collaborating Iraqi separatists and occupation-hostile Iraqi nationalists:
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/80580/?page=entire
And this new article just about says it all concerning the situation we have created in Iraq today - and how we cynically intend to use it to maintain a "permanent presence." I recommend this outstanding article by Chris Floyd to one and all; every Member of Congress ought to be required to reread it daily:
http://atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/3632/81/
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