April 11, 2004
WHO ARE THEY TO LECTURE? (via Paul Cella):
This Vietnam generation of Americans has not learnt the lessons of history (Niall Ferguson, 10/04/2004, Daily Telegraph)
There was amazement last year when I pointed out in the journal Foreign Affairs that in 1917 a British general had occupied Baghdad and proclaimed: "Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators." By the same token, scarcely any American outside university history departments is aware that within just a few months of the formal British takeover of Iraq, there was a full-scale anti-British revolt.What happened in Iraq last week so closely resembles the events of 1920 that only a historical ignoramus could be surprised. It began in May, just after the announcement that Iraq would henceforth be a League of Nations "mandate" under British trusteeship. (Nota bene, if you think a handover to the UN would solve everything.) Anti-British demonstrations began in Baghdad mosques, spread to the Shi'ite holy centre of Karbala, swept on through Rumaytha and Samawa - where British forces were besieged - and reached as far as Kirkuk.
Contrary to British expectations, Sunnis, Shi'ites and even Kurds acted together. Stories abounded of mutilated British bodies. By August the situation was so desperate that the British commander appealed to London for poison gas bombs or shells (though these turned out not to be available). By the time order had been restored in December - with a combination of aerial bombardment and punitive village-burning expeditions - British forces had sustained over 2,000 casualties and the financial cost of the operation was being denounced in Parliament. In the aftermath of the revolt, the British were forced to accelerate the transfer of power to a nominally independent Iraqi government, albeit one modelled on their own form of constitutional monarchy.
I am willing to bet that not one senior military commander in Iraq today knows the slightest thing about these events. The only consolation is that maybe some younger Americans are realising that the US has lessons to learn from something other than its own supposedly exceptional history.
If we announce that we're staying and governing Iraq as a mandate then all its people should rise against us too. Iraq isn't Vietnam, but we also aren't Imperial Britain. Indeed, if you read David Fromkin's great book, A Peace to End All Peace, you'll find that many of the current problems of the Middle East trace directly to the mistakes the Brits made after WWI. We're cleaning up their mess. We should have turned over power quicker in order to prove we weren't like them, but so long as we stick to the schedule we'll be okay. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 11, 2004 1:23 PM
I am willing to bet that not one senior military commander in Iraq today knows the slightest thing about these events.
I'll take that bet.
Posted by: Timothy at April 11, 2004 3:25 PMTim:
You took my quote.
I have known senior military commanders. He is very, very wrong.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at April 11, 2004 4:45 PMBet he knows about it:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/011204.html
Posted by: oj at April 11, 2004 6:06 PMExactly. Given the media's lust to 'educate' and embarrass the administration, stories about the British occupation were widely distributed last spring. But the senior commanders knew about them before then.
Posted by: jim hamlen at April 11, 2004 6:35 PMObviously he's writing to his readership (and probably his editors) who probably think that the US military is full of the dregs of our society. It is rather sad that even our closest ally knows us this poorly.
Posted by: brian at April 11, 2004 7:14 PMMy brother (a Major in the Air Force at the time) once wrote me a long letter explaining point by point the entire history of the Yugoslavia situation.
He wasn't a history major in college, but he explained with more insight and detail than anything I saw in the media at the time (just when things were beginning to fall apart).
This guy should apologize to our military for his ignorance and arrogance.
Posted by: NKR at April 11, 2004 11:50 PMThis nasty piece reflects a common and tired prejudice among the British and Europeans (often conservatives) that Americans are simplistic and unlettered. The British did not liberate Iraq from a murderous dictator, did not invest huge amounts in the reconstruction of the country, were not responding to attacks on London, did not announce they were leaving as soon as they arrived and were there for the declared purpose of securing oil and the route to India.
In order for his thesis to work, you have to assume Iraqis are paleolithic types who are too uncivilized to recognize any of this and will respond rotely in the same way to any foreign invader under any circumstance.
It is a cheap analysis because it is "proven" by just about anything that happens short of non-stop singing and dancing.
Posted by: Peter B at April 12, 2004 5:35 AMJust about anybody who gets a star in our military has an advanced degree, maybe several.
That may or may not translate to knowing much about the history of western Asia, but formally, at least, the average general is better educated than the average pundit, and, lately, the average GI is better educated than the average citizen.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at April 13, 2004 3:22 PM