August 23, 2007


The withdrawal of the Danish occupation land forces from Iraq has now officially ended. What does this mean to Danish anti-war people?

1. The belligerent Denmark’s occupation of Iraq has not ended. The official occupation force in Iraq – because there may easily be, and that is very likely, unofficial Special Forces, agents, etc. – constitutes 105 soldiers according to the Danish military. 55 of these soldiers are from the Air Force, manning four military helicopters in Basra. Four soldiers are permanently stationed in Kuwait, taking care of supplies, transport and similar tasks. Two soldiers are doing the same kind of tasks inside Iraq. Of the rest of the Danish soldiers, 19 are occupied with educating and training the Iraqi quisling army. Of these 19 soldiers, 13 are working in the so-called NATO Training Mission training Iraqi puppet officers and assisting the puppet security forces while the six other soldiers are in the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team which is responsible for developing, training and arming the Iraqi quisling army.

In addition to this, there are 22 soldiers protecting the staff of the Danish Foreign Ministry in Baghdad, and three soldiers are working in the UN occupation mission in the country (UNAMI). There exists no exact date on when the Danish occupation of Iraq will end, that is, when the last Danish soldier, official or other representative of Denmark has left Iraq.

2. The Danish withdrawal expresses a military defeat as the Danish occupation forces, together with the British occupation forces, have not been able to "secure", that is, to fully control southern Iraq. The so-called security, by which is only meant security for the occupiers and collaborators, has only become worse during the whole period. This is due to the influence of the growing Resistance and its popular support in the area. The dive of the war criminal Soeren Gade (Danish Minister of Defence, translator’s note) under rocket attacks from the Iraqi Resistance during the closing ceremony of the Danish occupying power in Camp Einherjer on July 31 shows more than anything else the defeat in Iraq.

3. The main reason for the Danish withdrawal is the armed Iraqi Resistance which has made the establishment of a stable and viable puppet regime impossible, forcing the occupying power, including the Danish occupation forces, into a more and more direct armed confrontation that has also resulted in Danish losses. Along with the failure of the US, this has led to increased opposition against the war in Denmark which has reached a level where the Iraq war has become a genuine loser issue and increasing burden for the Danish war government aiming at re-election in February 2009 at the latest.

4. The belligerent Danish elite has tried to cover – not at least in order to ensure support for coming imperialist war adventures – the retreat from Iraq and Denmark’s war crimes with smear campaigns about treason, the "great job" made by the Danish soldiers, the "establishment of democracy" under occupation, etc.

Declared opponents of the war as the chairman of the Socialist People’s Party, Villy Soevndal, who ended up supporting the criminal occupation and is now having a pleasant time with the number one war criminal in Denmark (Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, translator’s note) at political summer meetings, has shamefully revealed himself as the "red" lackey of the war criminals.

5. The political responsible for up to one million dead Iraqis, eight Danes and a completely destroyed Iraq are the war politicians – first and foremost Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and his criminal fascist-like government – who voted for the war and for more than four years supported the occupation. This holds for all parties in the Danish Parliament ranging from the Danish People’s Party (far-right Islamophobic party, translator’s note) to the Socialist People’s Party that supported the latest parliamentary decision on the occupation of Iraq on June 1.

6. The Danish occupation forces have done absolutely nothing positive in Iraq. Everything they have done has been within the framework of the orders made by the US-led occupying power. When Iraqis have screamed in the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib, the Danish soldiers, who have shot and killed an unknown number of Iraqis; who have terrorized those Iraqis, who did not welcome these Danish mercenaries for the US; and who have trampled around in the houses of the Iraqis during nightly raids, have participated in ensuring that supplies for the American torturers have reached Baghdad and the Green Zone of the occupying power from Kuwait.

The "reconstruction" that has been done by the Danes in Basra has been carried out with the sole purpose of getting the Iraqis living there to accept the occupation, especially the gigantic oil robbery of the occupying power. It is simply impossible to do an "excellent job" when you participate in a criminal occupation coalition; when you participate in a war on the basis of outright lies.

To glorify or praise the Danish occupation forces, who are exactly not "our soldiers" (the opponents of the war), but the uniformed henchmen and gangsters of the lying war criminals and war criminals themselves, for their efforts in Iraq is a huge and dangerous misunderstanding, a highly criminal position and the height of Danish chauvinism. The Danish soldiers in Iraq have rivers of blood on their hands. They are mass murderers because they are accomplices in everything that has happened in Iraq due to the war that they took part in starting back in March 2003. Honouring these Danes is like spitting on one million Iraqi victims.

The following demands must be raised:

A. Denmark, that is, all the representatives of Denmark currently being in Iraq, must leave the country completely, immediately and without any conditions. The Danish government must work to end the occupation immediately.

B. The Danish government must break off all relations, whether political, economic, military, cultural, etc., with the illegitimate US-backed puppet regime in Baghdad, and recognize the armed Iraqi Resistance as the sole legitimate representative of the Iraqi people.

C. The Danish government headed by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, which lied Denmark into the war against Iraq, violating the Danish Constitution and the UN Charter, must resign and be brought to account in an impeachment trial and in front of a international war crimes tribunal because it launched an unprovoked war of aggression against the UN member state Iraq. At the same time, a really thorough investigation of Denmark’s participation in the Iraq war, which has been kept secret by the criminal and pathologically lying Danish government, must be initiated.

D. Denmark must commit itself to pay compensation for the crimes against the Iraqi people which the criminal war based on lies has caused.

E. All Danish opponents of the war must openly declare, continue and expand their support for the armed resistance of the Iraqi people in all its width.

Postet af Carsten Kofoed, August 13, 2007