Violent Crackdowns Spark Concerns About Iraq

Detentions, Beatings the Default Response for US-Backed Regime

The official story of the 2003 US invasion ousting long-time dictator Saddam Hussein and replacing him with a US-style democracy with a US-approved constitution, known as the “liberation of Iraq,” is taking a serious hit as public protests in the streets of Iraq are met, as they have been in the more straightforward dictatorships in the region, with violent crackdowns.

Protesters turn up dead, journalists are arrested and beaten by security forces. Neighborhoods are closed off and the regime disappears protest leadership on a regular basis. In other words, the reaction of the Maliki government is straight out of Saddam Hussein’s playbook.

And while the Obama Administration has been careful not to publicize it, reports say that they are increasingly annoyed by the embarrassingly violent behavior of their installed regime in Iraq, which is embarrassing the US and doing enormous damage to these claims of the nation being free.

It is also sparking complaints from journalists and human rights groups that individual freedoms, particularly freedom of speech, are taking major steps backwards, and while the Maliki government insists the situation is well in hand, the death toll of the crackdowns is making these claims extremely difficult.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.