Once there were 46 countries; 34 of them providing troops to the Iraqi effort. Today, the United States is trying to keep the coalition of the willing together. Spain left last April, the Philippines left this month, and last week Ukraine announced that it was negotiating the withdrawal of its 1,600 soldiers from Iraq. And these are only the ones that made it in the news.
In March 2004, 33 countries provided more than 24,000 soldiers in addition to the 130,000 American soldiers. Great Britain, Poland, Ukraine, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands were the biggest contributors to the war effort. With Spain gone, and Ukraine on its way out of Iraq, the coalition lost close to 3,000 members.
Two weeks ago, the Australian government accused Spain and the Philippines of giving in to terrorists by withdrawing their troops from Iraq following threats. Spain asked for an apology from Australia, which is understandable since the European country did not leave Iraq because of the terrorist attacks in Madrid on March 11. It did not cave in to the terrorists.
Months before the elections, the Spanish Socialist party pledged that they would withdraw their troops if they were to win the majority of seats during the next parliamentary elections. Their reason? The populations high opposition to the war.
We all remember the press conference given by the United States, Great Britain, Spain and Portugal a few days before the invasion of Iraq. These four countries announced the creation of a coalition of the willing that would do what the United Nations did not want to do: fight a war.
At this time, the United States promoted this coalition as being an international one in which every major race, religion, ethnicity in the world [was] represented. In addition, it claimed that 1.17 billion people were behind that coalition. From the start, this assumption was a lie.
Ninety percent of Turks were, and still are, against the war. Close to 80 percent of the English opposed the war, was was the case in Spain, Poland and Australia.
In the run-up to war, millions of citizens all around the world went to the streets to oppose this unilateral war against Iraq. Unilateral? Can a war be unilateral when 40 countries supported it? Yes it can; when the governments supporting such actions are not following public opinion. Isnt a government supposed to represent its people?
Spaniards thought so, and they voted out their government, especially if added to lying about who was responsible for the March 11 attacks. Ukraine is waking up to that fact too. President Leonid Koutchma had promised that his troops would stay until the end but he might lose in October the presidential elections because of the unpopularity of his decision to provide troops to the Iraqi war.
Now the Philippines is being blamed for weakening the coalition. This Asian country did indeed cave into the terrorists, who took one truck driver hostage and asked for the Filipino government to withdraw its troops. However, what is not being reported is that the Philippines had planned to exit Iraq in August from the beginning.
Can we blame them for leaving a few weeks before the original date if it means saving one of their citizens from a horrible death? Yes, it has sent a message to the terrorists that by taking hostages they could influence the war. But what is to say about Norway who left in July, and about New Zealand and Thailand who will leave in September. In Italy, where the majority of the population was also against the war, the Parliament narrowly approved an extension of its deployment until the end of the year, but will it hold next year?
None of these countries caved in to terrorists, so why are they leaving? They do not need their troops in other countries, fighting other wars. Might it be because the Iraqi war is unpopular and seen by the majority of their population as illegal?
Of course, some other countries are joining the coalition of the willing. Recently, the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga pledged to send 45 of its Marines for the next six months. And Saudi Arabia has drawn up a plan to send Muslim troops to Iraq in order to fight terrorism. There is no indication of how many of such troops will be sent to Iraq. South Korea should also send more troops to Iraq. But will that be enough to save the coalition of the willing?
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