January 10, 2006
"A
U.S. air strike killed 14 members of one family in the oil refining
town of Baiji in northern Iraq, an Iraqi security force spokesman said
on Tuesday",
Reuters News, 03 January 2006.
Since
the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, there have been three elections and one
"transfer of sovereignty". However, the situation on the ground in Iraq
has further deteriorated. What have changed are the pretexts for
ongoing terror and occupation. The U.S. administration is using
elections as smokescreen to manipulate public opinion and legitimise
the subjugation of the Iraqi people to a colonial dictatorship.
As
the U.S. and its collaborators failed to control Iraq on the ground –
due to a determined Iraqi Resistance –, they turned to the air to rain
their daily terror on the Iraqi people. With the complete silence of
the "international community", U.S. warplanes are targeting population
centres opposed to the Occupation. The U.S. air war of the 1990s is
being re-enacted again in full force. This time the U.S. is not
enforcing genocidal sanctions and "no-fly zones" – that killed more
than 2 million Iraqis –, but to prop up a puppet government of
criminals and thugs, and in the process instill fear and terror among
the Iraqi population.
Even
the Washington Post – the mouthpiece of U.S. terror – acknowledging the
fact that U.S. aerial attacks on Iraqi towns and villages with high
civilian population are indiscriminate and deliberately killing
innocent Iraqis. In one of these attacks more than 80 civilians –
hospital records show 97 – were killed when U.S. warplanes bombed the
town of Husaybah in the first week of November 2005. The number of air
strikes carried out each month has risen to five folds, from roughly 25
in January to 120 in November. After U.S. warplanes struck homes in
Kamaliyat neighbourhood "witnesses observed residents removing the
bodies of what neighbours said was a family -- mother, father,
14-year-old girl, 11-year-old boy and 5-year-old boy -- from the rubble
of one house" reported the Post.
On
Tuesday midnight 27 December 2005, U.S. warplanes attacked a house in
Al-Dolouieya, 90 km north of Baghdad destroying the house and killing a
father along with two of his daughters, one aged 12. While the Post is
a deceptive U.S. propaganda mouthpiece, nevertheless it sheds a dim
light on the U.S.-driven terror in Iraq.
From
the beginning of this criminal war, Iraqi civilians have always been
the victims of U.S. terror. The "Shock and Awe" terror is just an
example of indiscriminate mass murder. In October 2004, the reputed and
peer-reviewed British medical journal the Lancet reported that the
majority of the estimated 100,000+ Iraqi deaths were civilians killed
by U.S. air bombardments of population centres and Iraq’s
infrastructure, including ministries and cultural heritage. The aim is
not only to kill as much Iraqis as possible but also to trigger the
collapse of the Iraqi society through the destruction of Iraq’s
cultural values and institutions.
After
three years of the same, George Bush still has the courage to tell
Western leaders and U.S. allies that the terror against the Iraqi
people must continue until "victory" is achieved. The U.S. is refusing
to withdraw its army from Iraq alleging that the Iraqis are not ready
yet to rule themselves. This contempt on the part of the U.S. is
evident of the West racist and anti-Arab colonial ideology of
deep-seated belief in cultural superiority to indigenous peoples. It
should be borne in mind that the dismantling of the Iraqi army and
police by the U.S. Administration was designed to encourage insecurity
and enforce sectarian divisions.
By
replacing the army and the police with expatriates and U.S.-trained
militia gangs, whose loyalty to the Iraqi state is weak and
questionable, the U.S has deliberately increased the violence and
fraternal killings. The U.S. financed and armed these militia gangs,
and allowed them to operate freely. These militia gangs are bent more
on advancing their ethnic and religious interests than on defending the
nation and preserving national unity. By doing so the U.S. ensured
obedience and dependence. In other words, the U.S. aim is to cement
sectarianism and ethnic division, and destroy Iraq’s unity and national
identity.
Meanwhile
the third fraudulent elections have been rejected before the final
results become public. Iraqis were en mass protesting the rigged
elections. 'No democracy without real elections’, 'rigged polls’, and
'down with the electoral commission’, read a number of banners carried
by thousands of protesters in Baghdad. In Mosul, anger flared around
the university campus after the body of Qusay Salaheddin, president of
the student union, who organised two demonstrations against the
fraudulent elections results, was identified. He had been kidnapped on
22 December 2005 with one of his friends. The two bodies were found two
days later, handcuffed and shot in the head. It is American-style
democracy at gunpoint. Out of touch with reality and playing its role
as the handmaiden of Western imperialism, the UN declared the elections
"transparent and credible".
The
purpose of the elections has always been to provide enough propaganda
to manipulate public opinions, Americans in particular, and legitimise
the Occupation. The elections are imposed from outside at gunpoint. The
elections were illegal, undemocratic, and based on sectarianism rather
than politics. The goal is to produce a puppet government bent on
carrying out Washington’s orders. Elections will not change the
situation on the ground; the end of the Occupation and the return of
Iraqi sovereignty will. Iraqis voted in the elections because they
genuinely believe that the election provide a peaceful way to end the
Occupation. It was a trap.
It
is shameful to read the opinions of Western "progressive" élites,
particularly those on "the Left", praising these imperialist elections
as "democratic" elections, "forced by the Iraqi people on U.S.
leaders". To the contrary, the elections were forced on the Iraqis by
more than 200,000 U.S. forces and mercenaries to provide propaganda for
domestic consumption. Unaware that only a full U.S. withdrawal from
Iraq will bring the possibility of democracy and freedom, the
progressive élites parrot Bush’s "war on terror" and "spread of
democracy" distortions.
The
reason the U.S. has failed to control Iraq and implements its
imperialist strategy – advancing Israel's Zionist interests and
controlling Iraq’s oil resources – is due to the determination and
courage of the Iraqi Resistance against the Occupation and its
variants. Historical evidence shows that democracy is not a U.S. trade
mark. The U.S. is using democracy as smokescreen to conceal its failed
imperialist agenda. The vast majority of the peoples of the Middle East
view the U.S. and Britain, in particular, as enemies of democracy and
freedom. Resistance is the only answer to unjust and violent
imperialism, and Iraqis have no need for this murderous form of
democracy.
To
counter the anti-occupation Iraqi Resistance, the U.S. and its
collaborators, including the mainstream media, are deliberately
misleading the public by describing the Resistance as "insurgency" and
"foreign terrorists". The Iraqi Resistance is not an "insurgency".
Insurgency is an organized rebellion aimed at overthrowing a legitimate
and constituted government by force, such as the Contras, a U.S. proxy
terrorist gang used against the legitimate government of Nicaragua in
the late 1980s. There is nothing legitimate about the U.S. Occupation
and its puppet government in Iraq. The unwelcome "foreigners" in Iraq
are U.S. forces and their collaborators. This distortion of the fact is
part of U.S. psychological warfare not only against the Iraqi people
but also against the rest of the world.
According
to the recent report by foreign policy expert, Anthony Cordesman of the
Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the percentage
of foreign fighters among Iraqi Resistance groups is "well below 10 per
cent, and may well be closer to 4 per cent to 6 per cent".
However, Iraqis are of the opinion that they are resisting the
Occupation on their own with no support from the surrounding stooges
and tin-pot dictators.
The
U.S. message is clear: there is no national resistance to the
Occupation, but groups of "foreign fighters" and "terrorists". The aim
is to distort the image of the Iraqi Resistance and justify a U.S.
"counterinsurgency" against it. The opposite is true. There is a
genuine heterogeneous national Iraqi Resistance movement supported not
only by the majority of the Iraqi population but also by the majority
of the Muslim population. The aim of the Resistance is the liberation
of Iraq from foreign occupation. The Iraqi Resistance has publicly
condemned all violence against civilians, including the well-publicised
grotesque beheading designed to blacken the name of Islam and the
Resistance. It is important to make clear distinction between
legitimate resistance that targets the occupying forces and their
collaborators, from those who indiscriminately target civilians.
UN
Resolution 2649 adopted by the General Assembly on 30 November 1970,
"affirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples under colonial and
alien domination recognised as being entitled to the right of
self-determination to restore to themselves that right by any means at
their disposal". In May 2003, the UN declared the invasion of Iraq
"illegal" and in contravention of the UN Charter. In other words, the
Iraqi people have an inalienable right to resist foreign occupation.
As
for the UN complicity in the crimes against the Iraq people by
legitimising the U.S.-British Occupation of Iraq, the UN Security
Council has no power to alter the norms governing international law.
"Any Security Council attempt to condone, authorize, or approve
violations of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the 1907 Hague
Regulations, the humanitarian provisions of Additional Protocol I of
1977 to the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, and the customary
international laws of war by the United States and the United Kingdom
in Iraq would be ultra vires, a legal nullity,
and void ab initio", writes Francis A. Boyle, professor of law and an
expert on international law at the University of Illinois.
In
addition, the majority of the Iraqi people reject the Occupation. A
recent poll conducted by the British Ministry of Defence in August 2005
reveals that over 82 per cent of Iraqis are "strongly opposed" to the
presence of the occupying forces in Iraq. If one excludes the Kurdish
region of Iraq – where the U.S. has some support – from the poll, the
anti-Occupation sentiment is even higher. Less than 1 per cent of
Iraqis think the Occupation forces are responsible for any improvement
in security. This small group includes; expatriates, who entered Iraq
on the backs of U.S. tanks and a minority of urban elites who have
unrealistic and flawed image of U.S. "democracy".
George
Bush refusal to set time for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is
not only contrary to the wishes of the Iraqi people to be free, but
also in contradiction of the "tentative agreement" reached on 21
November 2005 at the Arab League-sponsored Cairo conference, by Iraqi
leaders, including the current puppet government. It follows that the
Iraqi Resistance against the Occupation and associated violence is a
legitimate resistance fighting for Iraqis right for self-determination
and Iraq’s independence.
While
the aim of the Iraqi Resistance is the liberation of Iraq from foreign
occupation, the U.S. aim has been to distort the image of the
Resistance and associate it with terrorism. The issue of terrorism
arose once the occupying powers (U.S. and Britain) failed to justify
the invasion of Iraq, and the surprise and immediate rejection of the
Occupation by the Iraqi people. Thus, the U.S. and its collaborators
embarked on distorting the image of the Iraqi Resistance by gross
manipulation of the media and therefore of the public. Allegations of
attacks on civilians, kidnappings of foreigners and the old imperialist
cliché of labelling the resistance as bands of "terrorists" and
"insurgents" were just few of the distorted images. The creation of
Al-Zarqawi phantom is a good case in point. As Iraqis say; "If
Al-Zarqawi is not dead, he is happily living on an American base".
According
to the CSIS report, operations carried out during the period from
September 2003 to October 2004 by the Resistance and aimed at U.S. and
other occupying forces constitute 75 per cent of all attacks, compared
to 4.1 per cent aimed at Iraqi civilians. However, the report does not
provide evidence that attacks on civilians was carried out by the
genuine Iraqi Resistance groups. The Iraqi Resistance has nothing to
gain from crimes against civilians; it is the aim of the U.S. forces to
terrorise the population and turn them against the Resistance.
The
bombing of crowded markets and mosques during time of prayers, and the
capture by Iraqi Police of two British SAS officers planting bombs in
civilian areas in Basra last October is evident of how far the U.S. and
its collaborators will get to distort the image of the Iraqi Resistance
and justify ongoing Occupation.
Italian
journalist Giuliana Sgrena of the daily Il Manifesto, who was taken
hostage and was freed on 04 March 2005, recalled that her captors had
warned her to be cautious of the Americans after her release. Although,
she had dismissed the caution as "superfluous and ideological", she
recalled the words when the U.S. marines shoot at her car killing Mr.
Nicola Calipari, an Italian intelligent agent. "They declared that they
were committed to the fullest to freeing me but I had to be careful,
'the Americans don’t want you to go back’", wrote Sgrena. There is no
reason not to believe her story, as Sgrena was not part of the circus
of imbedded journalism and have reported crimes of rape and abuses of
Iraqis by U.S. forces.
The
German-Iraqi archaeologist, Susanne Osthoff, who was held hostage by a
group of anti-Occupation fighters described her captors as; "poor
people [and I] cannot blame them for kidnapping me, as they cannot
enter the [fortified and heavily guarded] Green Zone [in Baghdad] to
kidnap Americans. I was treated well … they were not criminals [and
their action] was political", she said in an interview after her
release. Yet, any comparison with the Occupation’s crimes of torture
and murder of Iraqi prisoners and detainees is unwarranted.
As
the terror becoming unbearable, the Council of Nineveh Province has
called on the "international community" to put an end to the daily
"crimes committed by the American occupation forces assisted by members
of the Interior Special Forces and National Guard". The communiqué
specifically accuses the occupation forces, the Iranian-trained Badr
militia and the Kurdish militia of committing crimes of "rape of Iraqi
women", ethnic cleansing of Arab Iraqis in Kirkuk, Mosul and Tel Afar.
"The Iraqi Government is partner to all of these crimes in the absence
of the media and in particular the killing and kidnapping of
journalists by mercenaries of the occupation … to enable the slaughter
of Iraqi people without witnesses", added the communiqué. Of course,
the silence of the "international community" is deafening.
It
is noteworthy that Iraqis, who are the hostages and the victims of the
Occupation, show great solidarity with foreign hostages held in Iraq
and often demonstrated and demanded their release. With no reciprocity,
the silence of Westerners and the lack of solidarity with the Iraqi
people demonstrate the ignorance and moral passivity of the West. The
failure of Westerners to hold their leaders accountable for a war of
aggression and war crimes committed in their name against the Iraqi
people is evident of flawed and distorted democracy at home.
While
the U.S. terror against the Iraqi people continues, it is incumbent on
the people of the world, including the American people, who have
concern for peace and the rules of law to show their solidarity with
the Iraqi people. It is time to stand up against fascism by demanding
the full and immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia