Who’s Fighting and What For?
You may recall this now legendary question asked by Mick Jagger in the movie Gimme Shelter, a documentary of the Rolling Stones in concert at Altamont Speedway on December 6, 1969. The event turned violent when The Hell’s Angels decided they were in charge, and under their guidance and protection 850 people were injured and an 18-year-old boy beaten and stabbed to death in the front row, while the Stones played.
That question – ”Who’s fighting and what for?” – was brought to mind when George Bush, in his State of the Union address, said of Iraq: “Yet it would not be like us to leave our promises unkept, our friends abandoned, and our own security at risk.”
Friends? In Iraq? Who exactly are our friends in Iraq? Certainly not the terrorists or “thugs” we’ve let in and now made our prime reason for being there. How about the Shiites? Are they our friends? I don’t know. Even the Shiite-led government is becoming more hostile to our interventions, and defiant of our wishes. Not what you would consider friendly. Maybe to Iran they’re friends, but…
What about the Sunnis? Do they consider us their friends? Given that we disbanded their army, refused to involve them in the reconstruction, effectively shut them out of the governmental process, all stoking the anger that fueled their growing insurgency, I don’t think so.
In truth, according to a September study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, 71% of Iraquis say they would like the Iraqi government to ask for US-led forces to be withdrawn. Even though their country is being ripped apart by uncontrollable brutality. With friends like these…
The point is, The US really has no friends in Iraq, to abandon or otherwise. Which brings us to that larger question: Who’s fighting and what for? Iraq is reminiscent of those classic Western barroom brawl scenes, where, after the initial punch, everyone starts fighting everyone else indiscriminately, breaking chairs and bottles over one another’s heads. Only, in this case it’s not funny, an orgy of violence in which the US military is tragically caught in the middle, not quite sure how to break it up. If only they could.
More questions nag. Every day I hear or read about people being blown up in Iraq, including Americans, by car bombs, IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and suicide bombers. But the reporting rarely goes beyond that. Does anyone ever investigate these crimes? Are suspects brought in for questioning? Are the perpetrators ever brought to justice? Or is it all just written off as “war will be war”?
There’s a lot not to understand about Iraq. What disturbs most is that people can be made to live in harmony, albeit fearfully, in the grip of a dictatorship, but can’t exist without destroying themselves in a so-called democracy.
It doesn’t seem things are going to get much better soon, until we can answer that perplexing question Mick Jagger so desperately posed at Altamont, just a few months after Woodstock but a world removed from it: “Who’s fighting and what for?”
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