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April 15,
2003
The
Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War
What America
Says Does Not Go
by
UZMA ASLAM KHAN
Difficult as it is to make sense of the barbaric
attacks on Iraq to not try is to surrender to madness. We have
to clutch at every iota of sanity we have at our disposal, and
this is where history can help. To understand what's happening
in Iraq today, we have to understand American global interests,
as they have been for too many hidden decades. Bush Jr. is only
making naked to the world wheels that had been set in motion
long before he came onto the scene. Tyrants don't grow out of
nowhere. They are products of the system that nurtures them,
and allows them to grow. We in Pakistan know this well. General
Zia was our worst dictator but his predecessors gifted him many
invaluable tips.
Before focusing in particular on Iraq,
I want to very briefly trace the rise of American imperialism
in general. America's first major imperial conquest was in the
early 1900s, when American troops fought the Spanish to occupy
the Philippines. An interesting aside to point out here is that
in 1905, American writer Mark Twain wrote a story called 'The
War Prayer,' in which he condemned the war. The story was considered
'unsuitable for publication at a moment of high and patriotic
feeling.' It was not published till 1923, almost twenty years
after the war and thirteen years after Twain's death. So, contrary
to the myth that America is a free country in which every civilian
has the right to speak, censorship in the US has been alive and
well for at least a hundred years.
After this little-discussed invasion
of the Philippines, American might around the globe did not notably
accelerate till after WW11. Between 1945 and now, the US has
never stopped being at war with the world. For fifty-eight years,
there has never been a single year in which it has not bombed
and occupied another country, and in most years, it has attacked
two or more countries at the same time. It attacked Korea from
1950-1953, and during the same period, also re-attacked the Philippines
to stifle an indigenous leftist uprising. From 1945-49, it sent
half a million troops to China, again to choke off the communists.
In 1946-48, it sent troops to Italy; In 1947-49 to Greece; 1949-53
to Albania; together with the UK it attacked Iran in 1953; Guatemala
also in 1953; Indonesia in 1958; Cuba 1961-62; Thailand in 1962;
Laos 1962-75; Congo 1964; Peru 1965; Dominican Republic 1965-66;
Vietnam 1961-73; Cambodia (1969-70); Chile (1973); the proxy
war in Afghanistan (1979-88); Nicaragua (1981-90); El Salvador
(1980-92); Libya (1981, 1986, 1989); Panama (1989); Grenada (1983);
Persian Gulf (1984); Iraq (1991, and air strikes had been repeatedly
launched till the time of the latest full-scale invasion); Serbia
(1997); Afghanistan and Sudan (1998); Afghanistan (2001 to date);
Iraq again.
The list is exhausting but so is the
historical weight of power behind President George W. Bush. I
haven't even touched upon America's non-military CIA-backed interference
in the governance of sovereign countries all over the world,
as that would only stretch this discussion even further. But
the military and economic aid it gives to its 'allies,' especially
to Israel, will naturally weave itself into the lecture.
Now to focus particularly on US interventions
in Iraq. In 1963, a coup assisted by the CIA ousted Iraq's popular
leader, Abdel Karim Kassem. His crime: resisting the force of
Western oil monopolies. He had said, 'We are fighting for the
industrialization of our republic and an end to our dependence
on the sale of crude oil.' This was the goal of the Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), an organization that
Kassem had helped to form. The defiant statement gave the CIA
diarrhea overnight, and the plot to assassinate him was hatched
by morning. In the bloody attack that followed, thousands of
Kassem's followers were murdered along with Kassem himself. In
1968 the Baathist Party came to power. However, in 1972, the
Baathists grew as defiant as Kassem had been ten years earlier,
declaring that Arab oil was for the Arabs. They sought to nationalize
the US-, UK-, and French- controlled Iraq Petroleum Company,
made up of BP, Exxon, Mobil, Shell, and Partex. The US immediately
accused it of supporting terrorism, but this time, the punishment
it plotted was more covert. Taking lessons from the massive opposition
to the Vietnam War at home, US President Richard Nixon did not
authorize the use of direct military action. Instead, the plot
was to weaken Iraq by arming and training the Kurds. The US-planted
Shah of Iran was a key ally of this hidden agenda; he was the
tunnel through which Americans provided arms to the Kurds. Interestingly,
many of President Richard Nixon's advisors were the same as they
are today, thirty years later, with Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew
Brzezinski prominent among them.. Assistance to the Kurds had
as little then to do with human rights as it does today, as Kurdish
empowerment would obviously weaken America's ability to exploit
them. In fact, Kissinger is known to have told an aide: 'Covert
operations should not be confused with missionary work.' Incidentally,
this is the same Kissinger who once asked rhetorically, 'Why
should the Arabs have all the oil?' and who would, during the
Iran-Iraq War declare, 'I hope they kill each other' and 'Too
bad they both can't lose.' For his love of humanity, he was awarded
the Noble Peace Prize in 1973, along with a North Vietnamese
negotiator who is said to have refused the prize in Kissinger's
company. That's just an aside I thought might interest you. Going
back to the covert operations being deployed to undermine Iraq,
these might have continued unobstructed till a full-fledged civil
war between Kurdish nationalists and Iraqis broke out if it weren't
for the Iranian Revolution. The Shah, America's second-best collaborator
in the Middle East (after Israel), was history. Iran became a
bigger threat.
Suddenly, the same Iraq that the US had
been using the Kurds to weaken was now supplied with weapons
to attack Iran. US President Jimmy Carter, still considered a
dove at home (if anyone still has any doubts that the Nobel Peace
Prize has as little to do with peace as the UN has to do with
human rights, she has only to consider Carter's awarding of the
prize -- it is as ridiculous as Kissinger's thirty years earlier),
introduced a new intervention strategy called the Carter Doctrine,
which stated that 'any challenge to US access to the Middle East
oil (can be met with) military force.' American companies directly
and indirectly (that is, through America's other client states
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) sold billions of dollars worth of armament
to Iraq, some of it on credit, while purchasing increased amounts
of Iraqi oil at greatly reduced rates. At the same time, a task
force was created to implement Carter's strategy. However, Iran
and Iraq so successfully destroyed each other for eight years
that the task force was never needed. The subsequent US leader,
President Ronald Reagan and his Vice President George H. Bush
played their part as well. Reagan authorized the CIA to go to
Baghdad to 'advise the military' (read arm and train) of the
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. We now know that the CIA was
simultaneously 'advising the military' of Iran.
It has been said many times before but
it cannot be said enough: Saddam Hussein is America's man. They
were making him at about the same time as they were making Osama
Bin Laden in Afghanistan. The chemical weapons that Hussein is
accused of having were sold to him by the current Vice President
Dick Cheney, when he was CEO of the chemical company Halliburton.
They sold it to him and he used it on the Kurds the following
year. The same Kurds, mind you, that were supposedly being liberated
in the 70s, in the 90s during the first Gulf War, and now, in
2003 during the 'shock and awe' fireworks display of the second
Gulf War. The same Kurds that we've been told are dancing in
their streets at the same time that, a few hundred miles away,
Afghan women are supposedly stripping off their veils like newly-discovered
Kim Bassingers. If the esteemed president and vice president
of the United States are so concerned about weapons of mass destruction,
why on earth do they keep selling them to murderous rulers of
the impoverished and disenfranchised Third World? If the US so
concerned about weapons of mass destruction, why does it keep
selling them to the only nuclear power in the Middle East: Israel?
No UN nuclear arms inspectors have ever
been allowed to enter Israel. The arms inspectors who were in
Iraq in the 90s had long before declared that Iraq had no nuclear
weapons. It is Israel that has weaponry that can only be matched
by one other nation: the United States, which furnishes it with
over 3 billion dollars in aid every year. So the claim that this
state is a lamb surrounded by lions is absolutely facetious.
It has attacked more of its neighbors since its creation in 1948
(Egypt twice, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, also twice, and Iraq) than
any other country in the Middle East and, it should be
added, than it itself has been attacked. Israel is the only country
in the world to have never declared its borders, thus allowing
itself the absolute right to enter Palestinian Territories whenever
it wants, and then withdrawing by a few inches in order to extract
more political leverage from the crushed Palestinians. This strategy
has been repeated so ruthlessly, and in violation of so many
international laws, that it is virtually impossible to measure
exactly where the border lies on any given day. The latest uprising
in the territories has resulted in over a thousand Palestinian
deaths, many of them children. In return, Bush calls Sharon a
man desiring of peace. These two could well be the contenders
of this year's Noble Peace Prize.
It is more than obvious that the United
States and its Liberation Army care nothing about the disarmament
of destructive weapons, about human rights, or about any international
law. If they did, they would not have renounced the non-nuclear
proliferation treaty, or voted against the protocol allowing
implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention, or rejected
the treaty banning land mines, so that tens of thousands of innocent
civilians around the world, mostly children, do not have to live
their lives without legs, arms, and eyes. New mines have again
been laid by the US in Afghanistan a country that had already
been riddled with more mines per square inch than any other country
in the world. America has vetoed the passing of virtually every
international attempt to reduce instances of war, and to protect
the environment. As I have said already, for the last fifty-eight
years it itself has never stopped being at war with the world.
Its economy thrives on war.
Is then, the perpetuation of the military-industrial
complex the main reason for waging the current war? Remember
that Iraq has 112 billion barrels of reserves. Ajmal Kamal recently
quoted an article in Hydrogen Economy, in which Jeremy
Rifkin calculates the number of years that world oil reserves
would last at current rates of consumption and extraction, and
came up with these figures: In the US and Norway, 10 years. In
Canada even less, only 8. But in Iran 53 years; Saudi Arabia
55; the United Arab Emirates 75; Kuwait 116. In Iraq, it is 526
years. So the prospect of grabbing hold of the most untapped
oil reserves in the world, and stirring up animosity in the region
so rival groups become even more enthusiastic arms customers,
must be part of the appeal of this war. It could be -- your guess
is as good as mine. The second theory -- that the war is a way
to show the world who's boss is also believable. Certainly
the message 'If you don't comply, we'll bomb you,' has been heard
loudly enough in Pakistan, with many people fearing that Pakistan,
which has the world's most unpopular known nuclear weapons,
after perhaps, North Korea, is next in line. Personally I don't
believe an attack on us is imminent. The last twelve years of
high-tech warfare have shown that the US Government enjoys killing
those who are virtually already dead Afghanistan was all
but a graveyard before October 2001 when the bombing there began,
and Iraq has been living under the weight of economic sanctions
that have killed 600, 000 Iraqi children alone, and those children
that survive are so malnourished that future generations will
be crippled for many years to come. However, even if an attack
on us, or on another country, is not likely to happen soon, the
pressure to do whatever Big Brother dictates is very strong.
This absolute power is obviously just as thrilling for the US
Government as an infinitesimal number of green bills, nukes,
and cars.
The third theory is one that's been circulating
in the press much less but I'll mention it briefly and
this is that there is a plan to move the three million Palestinians
who are trapped in occupied West Bank and Gaza to the lonesome
desert of Iraq, thus allowing the Jewish homeland to be free,
once and for all, of Arabs. This is thin. Since the Israeli army
has never been held accountable to any world court, it could
easily destroy the Palestinians on their own soil, as it has
been doing quite successfully since 1948. But since this would
amount to genocide of even greater proportions than the one Israel
is currently carrying out, perhaps the idea of simply smuggling
out the populace is favorable. It might be a theory to keep visible
in our rear-view mirrors. No one would have thought that a people
who, in 1948, controlled only 6% of the land would today control
80%. A further 20% might not be that unlikely.
What will be the aftermath of the war?
If we are to look at the result of Gulf War 1, and that of the
war in Afghanistan, the picture is unbearably grim: human rights
groups like RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan)
have long been saying that during its first rule from 1992-96,
the Northern Alliance committed as horrendous crimes against
humanity, particularly against women, as the Taliban. It has
been at it again. Contrary to what the US media reports, the
Afghans are even more impoverished, frightened, and helpless
as they were before October 2001, when Americans proceeded to
kill more people than died on September 11 and called it freedom.
America has abandoned the so-called free, just as it did after
it trained Afghans, Pakistanis and Arabs on Afghan soil to fight
the Soviets. The tens of thousands of refugees hunched in tents
along our common border, or in Pakistan, have not gone home.
They know it isn't safe to do so. There are absolutely no signs
of the infrastructure the US vowed to create. Except for the
occasional 'Osama is alive' or 'No, he isn't alive' the country
appears to have completely fallen off America's political map,
even as it remains a military target. As a result, how many enraged
mini-Osama's are being bred across the border, or right here
in Pakistan, even as we speak?
After Gulf War 1, it is estimated that
around 250, 000 Iraqis died as a result of 110, 000 aerial sorties
that dropped 88,000 tons of explosives. Contrary to what the
government said, these were not target bombings and no effort
was made to not kill civilians. In The Fire This Time, Ramsey
Clark estimates that around 93% of the bombs fell in civilian
areas. The country was without power for the duration of the
bombing, and as many roads were also destroyed, people were limited
in their ability to flee. Water contamination remained a problem
even when the current war began. We were are not being shown
footage of human destruction on TV, but we have been told that
the current war is, and will continue to be, on an even larger
scale. It is virtually impossible to imagine a situation even
worse than the one the Iraqi people had been living in before
March 19th.
So, to come to my last point, if we consider the rise of American
imperialism in general, and, in particular, in the Middle East,
and if we weigh all the possible reasons for the current crisis,
what choices do we ordinary people have left to counterbalance
the looming force?
Our only choice really is to resist imperialism,
in will and in action. Just yesterday, the Iraqi Vice President
issued a statement dismissing the Arab League's criticism of
American force, asking, 'Why do you condemn aggression on the
one hand, and on the other hand, continue to sell oil to the
aggressor? Why do you open your airspace and seaports and military
bases to the invaders?' It's an important question. The complicity
of the Arab states over the years is shameful and sickening,
and this needs to be said every time we condemn the war. The
notion that there is such a thing as the Muslim Ummah or Brotherhood
has gone from being a bad joke to a nightmare that we somehow
have to wake up from. The massive demonstrations world-wide show
that people in the West are waking up. Even Americans, who have
long been either supremely indifferent to what their government
does outside its own borders, or supremely confident that whatever
their government does to 'others' is right, are at last angry.
I personally know of Americans who have never questioned US foreign
policy who are beginning to do so now.
This is also the first time since the
end of the Cold War that many other governments, including Security
Council members France and Russia, are challenging US hegemony
-- another hopeful sign in an otherwise overwhelmingly dark horizon.
France's strong words of opposition to the US, along with those
of major religious authorities like the Pope should encourage
smaller, weaker countries to stand their ground and resist US
hegemony. We must peacefully fight for an immediate stop to the
attacks on Iraq, followed by an immediate end to the economic
sanctions, followed by the trying of the US and UK Governments,
in a world court, for repeatedly violating human rights.
It is important not to interpret this
war as a war on Islam. To do so is to play straight into the
hands of Bush. The more Muslim militants there are, the more
he can say to his people, 'Look, I told you they're out there.
I told you we're not safe. I told you we have to disarm them,
and liberate them.' No doubt Blair and Aznar will happily join
in the chorus. The culprits are the US and UK Governments, not
ordinary Americans, not ordinary British. Not Christians, Hindus,
or Jews. The US was at war with Latin America for decades, and
its people are Christian. It was not a war against Christianity.
Nor was it a war against Buddhism when Hiroshima and Nagasaki
were bombed. Militancy is one of two outcomes of interpreting
this as a religious 'crusade.' Another is just the opposite:
passivity. It is to grow more fatalistic, and more smug in the
knowledge that the afterlife will be better than this one. We
have to make this one worth living for.
At the start of Gulf War 1, George H.
Bush was known to have said, 'Whatever we say goes.' It is up
to us to tell his son, 'You're wrong. What America says does
not go.'
Uzma Aslam Khan
is is the author of TRESPASSING to be published as the lead title
from Flamingo in June this year. It will also be published by
Penguin India, Alfaguara Spain, Neri Pozza Italy, Editions Philippe
Picquier France; Van Gennep Holland, Ordfront Sweden, Ambar Portugal,
Psichogios Greece. Penguin India published her first novel THE
STORY OF NOBLE ROT in 2001. She grew up in Karachi, and was educated
there and, at university level, in the USA. She has taught English
literature and language in the US, Morocco and Pakistan. Currently
she lives in Lahore. She can be reached at: Khan@counterpunch.org
Yesterday's
Features
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
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