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Aden and Iraq: Pulling out is never easy
Posted by Mark 25 August 2007
I remember Aden very well. It is now the Yemen of course. My father was in the army out there and as a child I lived a care-free happy family life of schooling and playing. We would go shopping, swimming, picnicking, go to clubs and the cinema and there would never be a sense of any danger as we mingled with the local Arabs. We lived in a flat on the Malah Straight in Aden town, and there was no need for any security.
Then Nasser took over in Egypt and the Russians adopted him as a client. Civil unrest swept across the Arab world and reached Aden where the situation rapidly became extremely dangerous. All families were relocated out of the Arab neighbourhoods where we had been living, into a newly-built complex of flats and houses well out of the town area at Khormaksa, on an RAF base. As the situation deteriorated further, they had to build a high-security fence around the complex and patrol it with armed guards. Eventually families were pulled out of Aden altogether and all-out fighting ensued.
The British government approach at first was to try and support the local government. Eventually, it became clear we were going to have to leave Aden altogether and even though we had actually started pulling-out, the fighting went on. The local government police and army were generally on our side during the withdrawal and Britain had hoped it had done enough to enable the government to survive. It hadn't and it didn't.
The different factions fighting us as we were pulling out did so because the one that was seen to have done us the most harm would be the one that would dominate post-British Aden. Any that had stopped fighting us because it was obvious we were going would lose credibility. Once we were gone there were vicious reprisals against all those who had been in the Aden army and police forces that had remained loyal to the local government.
And so it will be in Iraq.
There is no realistic prospect that peace will ever come to Iraq while American forces are present. There are too many external influences to allow that to happen. As with Aden and the warring factions competing to dominate that country after they had expelled us, so does Iraq have several warring factions competing to drive America out. None of them will allow them (and us) to leave peacefully, they each want to be seen as the ones who drove us out.
This is going to be so much worse than Vietnam for the Americans and it is ironic to see them criticising us for the way we are pulling out of Basra. As far as I can see we have adopted the only sane policy available. Disengage.
Once we are all out, the Brits and the Americans, Iraq will become a far worse bloodbath than we think it is now as the cruelest retribution is levied on any connected in any way with the current Iraqi administration or security forces. We can't stop that happening, and all the while we deny it will happen and sit there on the ground, the fighting will go on and more British and American lives will be sacrificed. For what?
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