[Marxism] Letter to the Atlantic Monthly

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.juancole.com/2004_07_01_juancole_archive.html#108913458457643751

Guest Comment on Fallujah and Kaplan: Nir Rosen

Journalist Nir Rosen, who has spent most of the past year in Iraq and 
has fluent Arabic, recently reported on Fallujah for the New Yorker. He 
objects to many details and arguments in the reporting of of Robert 
Kaplan on Fallujah for The Atlantic Monthly. We print here by permission 
his recent letter to the editor at The Atlantic Monthly.

Letter to the Editor

Having spent a great deal of time in Falluja since the occupation of 
Iraq began, and most recently the entire month of May for my article on 
Falluja for the New Yorker Magazine, I was disappointed by some errors I 
noted in Robert Kaplan’s piece entitled “Five Days in Falluja,” as well 
as by Kaplan’s unambiguous identification with the Marines he wrote about.

Kaplan describes Falluja as “the classic terrain of radicalism,” 
distinguishing radicalism from conservatism. Kaplan views the 
authoritarian royal courts of Morroco, Jordan and the Gulf States as 
venerable for their traditions, traditions that in the case of Jordan 
and the Gulf are artificial and not more than a century old. Unlike 
these royal courts that represent in fact the “break in tradition” in 
“the House of Islam” of which Kaplan writes, Falluja is in fact the most 
traditional city in Iraq. Unlike Tikrit, for example, where the tribes 
are urbanized, based inside the city, the tribes of Falluja are 
concentrated in the rural areas surrounding the city, and thus have not 
modernized and abandoned tribal customs as much as other parts of the 
country. The tight tribal bonds of Falluja helped preserve the city’s 
stability following the fall of Saddam’s regime. The religious and 
tribal leaders appointed their own civil management council even before 
American troops entered the city. Tribes assumed control of the city’s 
institutions and protected government buildings. Religious leaders, 
whose authority was respected, exhorted the people to respect the law 
and maintain order. Thus there was a continuity of authority and 
tradition in Falluja lacking in other parts of Iraq.

Known in Iraq as “Medinat al Masajid,” or the City of Mosques, for the 
over 80 mosques that dominate the city’s cultural life, Falluja is in 
fact famous for its Islamic traditions, including various orders of Sufi 
Islam and the very conservative Salafi brand of Sunni Islam. One does 
not find the “break in tradition” of which Kaplan speaks, nor the 
reinvented abstract and ideological form of Islam he blames for 
radicalism. Instead one finds numerous centers for religious study that 
produce many of Iraq’s most important theologians. The vast majority of 
the armed fighters in Falluja were not motivated by radical Islamic 
beliefs, but were fighting to defend their families, homes, city and way 
of life from the brutal American onslaught and were motivated by 
nationalism and pride.

The fighters were not, as Kaplan has us believe by quoting Lieutenant 
Colonel Byrne, men who fought in Chechnya or Afghanistan. The vast 
majority of the fighters were local men who had prior military 
experience in the Iraqi military. A few dozen foreign fighters were also 
present, though most were too young to have fought anywhere else. Kaplan 
also fails to explain how Byrne’s orders to grow mustaches and 
subsequently to shave them had anything to do with cultural sensitivity. 
The Marines would have been more culturally sensitive had they not 
offended Falluja’s residents by humiliating their fierce pride through 
violent searches that terrified women and children and involved placing 
boots in the heads of men.

Nor were the fighters of Falluja known as Ali Babas, a common Iraqi term 
for thieves, and what he claims the one Iraq he met called them. They 
were known as Mujahedin or Muqatilin, which both mean “fighters,” though 
Mujahedin has a more religious connotation. Kaplan repeatedly refers to 
the several thousand men of Falluja who fought fiercely in self defense 
as Ali Babas. They were in fact, organized efficiently thanks to 
military officers in their ranks, and obeyed the commands of officers in 
alliance with religious and tribal leaders who often had their own 
virtual armies. Loud speakers on the mosque towers were used for 
communication, alerting the fighters to where the Marines were 
approaching and instructing them to move to various fronts.

Kaplan comments on the dominance of southern Christian fundamentalism 
among the Marines without judgment and reports that their chaplain 
compares their entry to Falluja with Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, 
describing their impending destruction of much of the city as “a 
spiritual battle and you Marines are the tools of mercy.” Kaplan admires 
the Marines’ “matter-of-fact willingness to die.” Though he mistakenly 
insists that the defenders of Falluja were cowards who used the cover of 
women and children to attack the Marines, both the attackers and 
defenders had much more in common than he would have us believe. 
Falluja’s defenders believed they were defending their religion and many 
bravely sacrificed their lives in defense of their neighborhoods against 
a terrible and mighty foe. They displayed the same solidarity and 
brotherhood Kaplan admires so much in his Marines. Kaplan’s 
glorification of military values is also disturbing. Perhaps some 
Marines should have questioned orders to invade a city of three hundred 
thousand, pulverizing neighborhoods and killing at least 800 people, 
most of them women and children. I smelled the death in the city’s air 
from corpses hastily buried in backyards and the five hundred bodies in 
the soccer fields, I saw the hospitals riddled with bullets and shells, 
I met the ambulance drivers who were wounded by snipers, I saw children 
missing limbs from Marine bullets and shells, but Kaplan either conceals 
or is unaware of the indiscriminate violence the Marines he identifies 
with so much unleashed upon the city, causing thousands of refugees and 
then preventing families from returning home unless the fighters 
surrendered. Kaplan’s comfort with the word imperialism is also 
worrisome, but most alarming is his repeated use of the word “us” to 
describe the Marines. Should he not strive for a certain amount of 
objectivity? Kaplan is maddened by the “enemy’s” successful intelligence 
and it seems also disappointed by the “bad news” that “politics in the 
form of ceasefires” was intruding to prevent he and his Marines from 
“taking down the city,” a city of three hundred thousand people, 
hundreds of whom he and his marines killed, along with hundreds of homes 
they destroyed. Did Kaplan assimilate the urge to fight to the end that 
no doubt the young Marines he was with felt? Though I recognize the 
difficulty involved in remaining impartial when living with the affable 
young men of the American military who risk their lives for the whims of 
politicians back in Washington, having been embedded myself, I believe 
it is no less, and perhaps more, important to identify with the 
receiving end of American Imperialism and military might and to question 
the assertions of both military and political leaders. '

Nir Rosen


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