Greg Bates, the founding publisher at Common Courage Press and the author of Ralph's Revolt: The Case For Joining Nader's Rebellion;

David Lindorff, the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new book of CounterPunch columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is to be published this fall by Common Courage Press. Information about both books and other work by Mr. Lindorff can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net;

Clifford D. May, the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and acting director of the Committee on the Present Danger;

and

Jed Babbin, the former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of President George H. W. Bush. A contributing editor of The American Spectator Magazine and a contributor to National Review Online, he is the author of the new book Inside the Asylum: Why the United Nations and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think.

FP: Greg Bates, David Lindorff, Cliff May and Jed Babbin, welcome to Frontpage Symposium, it is a pleasure to have you here.

The Bush administration has liberated some 50 million Muslims from the grips of two fundamentalist, fascist regimes. The U.S. is succeeding in protecting Afghanistan from the return of its tyrants, yet the Iraqi terrorists are making the transition toward democracy in Iraq a much more difficult task. America, however, must stay the course, for if it withdraws, the terrorists will perpetrate a bloodbath against all those who were on our side. The return of despotism, moreover, will be assured. The consequences for Iraq, and for the rest of the Middle East, will be tragic.

Mr. Lindorff, let me begin with you. Are we on the same page here?

Lindorff: Ah yes, the bloodbath threat. I remember hearing that canard for years during the Vietnam War. We killed three million people over there over the course of that conflict, most of them civilians. That was the bloodbath. After the war ended, the killing essentially stopped, almost overnight.  

In Iraq, according to a report by our own puppet regime’s Ministry of Health, the U.S.--excuse me—the Coalition Forces, is killing civilians at twice the rate that it is killing alleged enemy combatants.  

Our military refers to civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan as “collateral damage” but I’d have to say if you are killing two civilians for every enemy fighter, it’s the enemy fighters who are the collateral damage.  

The premise here is that we have “liberated” 50 million people, but the statement conflates fundamentalist and fascist. Saddam was a fascist but hardly a fundamentalist; in fact he and his ilk were despised by the fundamentalist bin Laden.  As for Afghanistan, the Taliban are fundamentalist, but their replacements, in much of the country, are feudal warlords who make fascists look like pussycats in some cases. This is liberation?  An Israeli think tank has just said that the Iraq invasion has made terror worse. I suspect many Iraqis and Afghanis would say their lives are pure hell now, too. As long as the U.S. stays in Iraq, the brutality and bloodshed will continue. I say get out now and let the Iraqis put their lives back together—their way.

Bates: First we might ask: fight for what? We've accomplished the stated goals: get rid of Saddam Hussein, find and eliminate weapons of mass destruction (in this case prove they weren't there), and investigate the connection between the Iraqi government and Al Qaeda (there wasn't one). Most Iraqis, according to the only poll I've seen that was done this spring, want Americans to leave. Given that the war was "illegal" in the first place (according to Secretary General Kofi Anan), we have no right to be there. Many say "we have a responsibility" to do something other than just leave. Reparations might be a good idea. But as occupiers and torturers (no longer liberators if ever we were), our ability to provide security or do anything constructive when the population is against you, is nil. Any building of our credibility internationally has to start with withdrawal.

Staying in Iraq invites not so much terrorism but resistance to occupation. We seem to have trouble understanding the difference, but reports from those attacking U.S. forces and our allies make clear what their objective is: get troops out of the country. As long as we react to that demand within the framework of calling it "terrorism" and thereby refusing to understand their demands, we will keep fighting--and digging ourselves in deeper until the costs outweigh the perceived benefits.

Babbin: Messrs. Lindorff and Bates are have placed themselves so many light-years away from reality it's hard to know where to begin any rebuttal.  Lindorf says laughably that we're combining fascists and fundamentalists to say that we've liberated 50 million people.  Fascists such as Saddam and Assad and others have combined with fundamentalists in many terrorist ventures.  He should read the 9-11 report to see how ridiculous his arguments are.  Bates seems to be saying that there's no mission left, and both are belittling the idea that there would be a mass murder of those who accepted freedom if we left Iraq.  There would be, just as the North Vietnamese killed thousands who had been fighting with our troops before we retreated.  Shall we retreat from Iraq? 

Only if we want the nation to fall under the control of Iran, the central terrorist nation. 

I'm perfectly bored with arguments such as these.  Those who make them are quick to criticise -- in the harshest and most objectionable terms -- everything we've done since 9-11.  What better would they have done?  They would have done nothing.  The Taliban would still be in place if they had their way. UBL would still be training his terrorists there, and Saddam would be building his alliances with terrorists, strengthening and arming them.  Lindorf and Bates are caricatures of the left.  Pitiful, just pitiful.

May: I’m afraid there’s not going to be much common ground in this debate.

As preface, I should note that for almost three years I’ve been working with Iraqi freedom fighters and pro-democracy activists. They are people for whom I have much respect and admiration.

I recall before the U.S. liberation of Iraq escorting a group of Iraqi women – religious and secular, Muslim and Christian, Arab and Kurd – to the White House.

On the way over, they noticed a poster affixed to a wall. It read: “No War on Iraq.” The women became visibly upset. “Don’t these people realize,” one of them said to me, “that it is Saddam Hussein who is waging the war on Iraq and has been for years? Only with American help can we end this war.”

The stories these women told about genocide, about torture, about mass executions, about institutionalized rape were harrowing.

As I write this, yet two more mass graves have been discovered in Iraq. One of them was just for women and children.

My friend Dave (we were in college together) says: “The premise here is that we have ‘liberated’ 50 million people, but the statement conflates fundamentalist and fascist.”

So is the point that those oppressed by fundamentalists are not a concern, or is it that those tortured, raped and killed by the fascists should not be worryied about?

I guess it’s the later because Dave talks about  the “feudal warlords who make fascists look like pussycats.” Those mass graves to which I just referred – that, in your view, is the work of house-broken felines?

Greg Bates says: “Most Iraqis, according to the only poll I've seen that was done this spring, want Americans to leave.”

Greg, if I may call you that, it’s more ... how shall I say? … nuanced than that. If you talk to Iraqis or read their press or their blogs, you’ll find that most do want us to leave – as soon as possible, which means as soon as they are ready to defend themselves from Saddam’s fascist loyalists (reorganized as the “Party of Return”) and the foreign jihadis (now in the process of being thrown out of Fallujah.)

No one likes having foreign troops on their soil, least of all Iraqis who are a very proud people. But most understand what you seem not to: Americans have not come for the oil or to make Iraq the 51st state.

They have come to help and when we are done we will leave – the sooner the better for all.

But we did not liberate Iraq from Saddam to give it back this cronies or to Abu Musab Zarqawi and other al Qaeda-linked decapitators or to the Iranian mullahs.

Greg also says that, “Given that the war was ‘illegal’ in the first place (according to Secretary General Kofi Annan), we have no right to be there.”

Mr. Annan is entitled to his opinion but it’s not worth more than yours or mind. He is not the Chief Justice of a World Supreme Court. He is not the president of the world.

He is the secretary general of an organization now under investigation in the largest financial swindle in world history – the $11 billion Food for Oil scandal.

I’m getting long here so let me end with this. In Ba’athist Syria this week, a young man was arrested for accessing the Internet.

In Iraq, by contrast, there is now freedom, including the freedom to blog. Here are a few relevant lines from Alaa, one of the bloggers on the The Mesopotamian:

“Were we better off during Saddam’s time? - A question to which many outsiders are very keen to know our answer. Well, in many respects the streets are much more insecure, yet the security that existed in Saddam’s days was like someone quietly waiting for certain death; like a cancer stricken individual carrying the disease in his guts with no hope or attempt at cure.

“Yes, the pain and torture may be much more terrible when the surgeon has operated and the disease is tackled; but at least there is hope of recovery and healing, and the prospect of life saving. And this is not allegory, nor a parable; this is coming from someone whose house has been standing in the midst of bombs and explosions for so long now, protected by none but the mercy and grace of the Lord; from someone who has suffered robbery, kidnapping and constant daily danger.

”And here we are, trying to organize elections, trying to control the security situation, trying to restart the reconstruction, able to talk, able to think, able to watch satellite T.V., use the internet, the mobile etc. – in short everything that we have been forbidden to do before. And without the slightest hesitation, we hail with Love and Gratitude our giant U.S. friend and his allies, standing with us shoulder to shoulder, braving the elements, braving death, calumny and hatred, shedding blood; to help us heal, to help us reach the shores of safety. …

America, stay the course - God, Decency, Honor, Hope and everything that is virtuous and right is on your side, beside the majority of the Iraqi people. America do not waiver, for you have never waged a more noble and just campaign in your entire history. America, we are winning, God’s willing, and Victory is coming sooner than many might think.

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