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Today's
Stories
April
28, 2004
Faisal
Kutty
The Dirty Work of Canadian Intelligence
April
27, 2004
James
Davis
The Colombia 3 Acquitted
Dave
Lindorff
Chalabi as Prosecutor
Bruce
Schneier
Terrorist Threats and Political
Gain
Cockburn
/ Sengupta
British Generals Resist Calls for
More Troops to Aid Americans in Iraq
Walt
Brasch
Presidential Letters: The Day I
Was Asked to Feed an Elephant
Saul
Landau
The Empire in Denial and the Denial
of Empire
April 26, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Crossing the Shia Line: US Troops
Prepare to Enter Najaf
Wayne
Madsen
Trading Places: Will the US Go the Way of the USSR?
Grover
Furr
Protest, Rebellion, Commitment
Elaine
Cassel
Lies About the Patriot Act
Mickey
Z.
Inspired by Pat Tillman?
Greg
Moses
Bremer's De-De-Ba'athjfication Gambit
Gila
Svirsky
Anarchy in Our Souls
Uri
Avnery
Vanunu and the Terrible Secret
April 24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
April 23, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
The Only Solution is Immediate Withdrawal
Dave
Lindorff
Imagination Deficit Disorder
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Contractors and Mercenaries: the Rising Corporate Military Monster
Norman
Solomon
Country Joe Band, 2004: "What Are We Fighting For?"
Cynthia
McKinney
All Things Are Not Equal: the Perils of Globalization
CounterPunch
Wire
A Bitch Called Wanda
Karyn
Strickler
Sierra Club, Inc.
Hammond
Guthrie
Yellow Caked in the Face
Paul
de Rooij
Graveyard of Justifications: Glossary
of the Iraqi Occupation
April 22, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
When Terror Came to Basra: "I
Saw a Minibus of Children on Fire"
Tanya
Reinhart
The Wall Behind Disengagement
Lance
Selfa
Why is Kucinich Still in the Race?
Josh
Frank
Street Fighting Man? Kucinich's Pulled Punches
Sen.
Robert Byrd
Bush Owes America Answers on Iraq
William
S. Lind
Why We Get It Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Undoing the Latches
Robert
Jensen
Why They Fast: Remembering the Victims of the World Bank
John
L. Hess
The New York Times from 30,000 Feet
April
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Yeats on Iraq
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia's Forgotten Prisoners
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's Taliban Drug Deal
William
A. Cook
George 1 to George 2
Jack
Random
Iraq and Vietnam
Jean-Guy
Allard
Alarcon Meets the Editors
Mike
Whitney
Charade in the Desert
Bill
Christison
Only Major Policies Changes Can
Help Washington Now
April 20, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Bush and Kerry Share a Problem
Stan
Cox
Wal-Mart's Magic Numbers
Bruce
Anderson
On Listening to Air America
Joseph
Kalvoda
Czech Mate for Condi
Greg
Moses
Yesterday's Intelligence
Stan
Goff
The Democrats and Iraq
Website
of the Day
Santorum Happens
April 19, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The "Central Hand" of the
Resistance
Mike
Whitney
Bob Woodward's Imperial Trifles
Douglas
Valentine
52 Pick-Up and the 100-to-1
Rule
John
Chuckman
The Sharon Annex: Evil Does Often
Triumph
Doug
Giebel
Welcome to the Club
Rahul
Mahajan
Hospital Closings and War Crimes
April
16 / 18, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Bush Legitimizes Terror
Saul
Landau
Subverting Brazil and Cuba
Dave
Lindorff
Paying for War: $2,150 per Family
and Counting
Brandy
Baker
Fallujah's Collateral Damage
Mickey
Z.
The Left Attacks from the Right
Bruce
Jackson
The Bush Press Conference: Gott Mit
Uns
Norman
Solomon
How the "NewsHour" Changed
History
Alexander
Cockburn
Bush, Kerry and Empire
April
15, 2004
Greg
Moses
Follow the Families, Not the Script
Virginia
Tilley
The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt:
Just Change the Channel
Ron
Jacobs
They Coulda Been Champions of the
World: Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic
Michael
Neumann
A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes
Reporting in the Toronto Globe and Mail
April
14, 2004
Tom
Reeves
Return to Haiti: an American Learning
Zone
Reza
Fiyouzat
Japan and Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
What Bush Really Said
Diane
Christian
The Real Passion
April 10 /
12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Greatest Radical Journalist of His Age
Patrick Cockburn
Ambush, Kidnap, Murder: Another Day in "Post War" Iraq
Ellen Cantarow
Health Under Siege on the West Bank
Tariq Ali
Iraqi
Resistance: a New Phase
Werther
Pseudoconservatism Revisited: When God is Pro War & Other
Delicacies
Robert Fisk
Bush's War Lords to Their Critics: "Just Shut Up"
Gary Leupp
Indian Wars, Vietnam and Orientalist Fantasy
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Cont.
Jorge Mariscal
Perils of the Bootstrap
Phil Gasper
Defying Stereotypes About Death Row
Dave Zirin
Bringing the Black Freedom Struggle Into Sports: an Interview
with Lee Evans
Brandy Baker
The Revolution is Playing at a Theater Near You
Mickey Z.
Underground Music is Free Media: an Interview with Twiin
Ali Tonak
Get Ready for the Million Worker March
Harry Browne
Asking the Wrong Question About Richard Clarke & 9/11
Gideon Samet
The Sharonizing of America
Conn Hallinan
Remote Control Warriors
Website of
the Weekend
Taboo
Tunes
April 9, 2004
Robert Fisk
This
War's Simple Truth: Iraqis Do Not Want Us
John L. Hess
The
Non-Confessions of a Warrior Princess: Condi on the Stand
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Condoleezza's Condescensions
Christopher Brauchli
Holes in the Sky: Bush's Crazed Missile Defense Plan
Don Santina
Forget the Alamo!: Glorifying the Fight for Slavery in Texas
William S. Lind
The 4G Warfare Seminar, Cont.
Bill Christison
9/11
Commission is Bush's New Lapdog
Website of the Day
What We've Done to Fallujah
April 8,
2004
Wayne Madsen
Rice
(and the Record) Proves It: Bush Knew, But Failed to Act
Kurt Nimmo
Will
Bush Flatten Fallajuh?
Patrick Cockburn
Guided
Missile; Misguided War
Laura Flanders
Steamed
Rice
Larry Everest
What Condi Rice is Hiding
Adam Federman
Sacred Capitalism Hits Russia
M. Junaid Alam
The Iraqi Intifada Begins
Norman Solomon
The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence
Douglas Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
Website of the Day
Xispas: Chicano Art, Culture and Politics
April 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6,
2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William Blum
The
Anti-Empire Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al-Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
April 5, 2004
John Farrell
Lessons
from El Salvador and Iraq
Robert Fisk
Bloodbath
a Bad Omen for Bush
Gary Leupp
Shiites Say No: Another "Nightmare
Scenario"
April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B.
Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry
Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
Missing
April 2, 2004
Dave Lindorff
Barbaric
Relativism: the Press and Fallujah
Kurt Nimmo
Wherever
Bush Goes, Osama is Bound to Follow
Emma Miller
The
Role of the West in the Rwandan Genocide
Dr. Susan Block
Same
Sex Marriages: Just Say "No" to Prohibition
Norman Solomon
Media Strategy Memo for George & Dick
Sacha Guney
The Meaning of the Elections in Turkey
Christopher
Brauchli
The
Disturbing Case of Cpt. Yee
Website of the Day
Mercenaries, Inc.
April 1, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Dying in Vain in Iraq
Harry Browne
No Smoke, Plenty of Fire: Ireland's Pubs Go Smokefree
Chris Floyd
Towel Boy: Bush Hits Workers with Chemical Weapons
Nicole Colson
Inside America's Concentration Camp: Tortured at Guantanamo
Charles Arthur
Haiti's Army Cracks Down on Workers
Laura Flanders
Elaine
Chao: a First Daughter for the First Son
March 31, 2004
M. Junaid Alam
Israel:
Suicide Nation?
John L. Hess
Condi
Under Oath: But What About the NYTs Reporters?
Fernando Suarez
del Solar
A
Year Since My Son's Death in Iraq
Sofia Perez
Spain's
U-Turn on Iraq is Real Democracy in Action
David Vest
Stick 'Em Up: Put Cheney and Bush Under Oath
Tanya Reinhart
As in Tiannamen Square: Justice and the Yassin Assassination
Mike Whitney
Time to Dump the Pledge
Donald Kaul
Martha Stewart's Lesson: Never Talk to the FBI
Milt Bearden
Mired in the Tracks of Alexander the Great
Marjorie Cohn
The
Illegal Coup in Haiti: How the Kidnapping of Aristide Violated
US and International Law
Website of the Day
New Pentagon Papers Dropped at DC Starbucks
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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April
28, 2004
The Consequences
of Colonization in Iraq
We Are the Barbarians
By M. JUNAID ALAM
A significant thing: it is
not the head of a civilization that begins to rot first. It is
the heart.
-Aimé Césaire
Jaw agape and fangs unsheathed, American
colonialism has lashed out with severe brutality against the
newly-unified Iraqi resistance, counting on its military might
to crush the aspirations of Iraqis who seek to liberate their
country from foreign control.
Relying so heavily on the force
of arms against a people it claims to liberate, the US has inverted
Clausewitz's famous dictum that war is a continuation of politics
by other means; our policy now is politics as a continuation
of war by other means.
But it so happens that this
is a double-edged sword with both edges thrust firmly into
the heart of the occupation. For no matter how many Iraqi patriots
America kills, ten more will spring forward for each who has
fallen; and no matter how many are silenced by American bullets,
the viciousness and arrogance with which those bullets were fired
will speak loudly and convincingly to thousands of Iraqis who
will be inspired to resist.
To illustrate our point it
is necessary only to direct our gaze upon that great unfolding
tragedy of Fallujah, the epicenter and icon of Iraqi resistance.
US forces surrounded and attacked the city on the grounds of
pursuing Iraqis who killed and then mutilated the bodies of four
American mercenaries. The massive assault was carried out with
the usual concern for civilian life: namely, none.
'Precision' weapons such as
2,000 lb. bombs and the massive Specter gunship, armed with four
high-powered machine guns, were brought to bear against the town,
as were attack helicopters and 60-ton tanks. Our troops employed
such life-saving tactics as lobbing 18 tank shells into one house
to kill one person and firing helicopter missiles at a rebel
wielding a slingshot. (1) One Fallujah resident explained to
the press, "As soon as the Americans see a group of people
in the streets, they shoot at them, people venture out only if
their homes risk being bombarded or if they must carry the dead
or wounded to the city's clinics." A young Iraqi member
of the US-created Civil Defense Corps saw "heavy bombings"
with the town market hit, and "tanks ringing the town."
(2) US snipers in the city, perhaps the only precision weapons
deployed, have put their uniqueness to good use: shooting through
ambulance windshields and killing their drivers. (3)
What were the broad consequences
of this operation for the people of Fallujah? Thousands have
fled and over 600 have been killed; the main hospital director
said "most of the 600 dead in Fallujah were women, children,
and elderly." (4) Another volunteer doctor reported that
"The main hospital was taken over by the Americans. Doctors
and patients had to evacuate to local health clinics." This
resulted in even more suffering: "patients had to lie on
the ground because of a shortage of beds. We were doing operations
in the open. But we didn't have enough sterilizing equipment."
He added, "About half the injured are women, children, and
the elderly." (5) Those who needed to be operated upon received
no anesthetics, which were "lacking", according to
a Red Crescent official. (6) Such were the horrors under which
thousands suffered and hundreds died.
Let us be honest with ourselves:
this barbarous assault had nothing to do with capturing anyone.
One never sets out to capture a handful of people by mounting
a military assault on a town of 300,000,. Those rebels responsible
for the four US deaths most likely melted away into more remote
areas long ago. In fact, US officials have now dropped the demand
for a hand-over of the offending rebels altogether. (7) No, this
vicious attack upon an entire city bore the hallmarks not of
any manhunt, but rather that of an arrogant power lashing out
at what infuriates it most: humiliation.
For the open, unrestrained,
and public attack on those four "security contractors"
with guns in tow - probably on their way to kill Iraqis
marked a definitive crossing of that line in colonial relations
which separates occupier and occupied, dominator and dominated.
The destruction, dismemberment and hanging of the bodies of men
who usually have their heels placed on the neck of the native
represents a violent rejection of the rules of colonialism. Our
forces, which throughout our history are used to burying our
enemies alive in the sands or napalming and carpet-bombing them
into oblivion, could not tolerate the native's unforgivable crime
of raising his eyes to meet ours. Thus began an orgy of violence
to render the native not only blind, but deaf, dumb, and dead.
But listen closely: the jarring
sound of a thousand Starbucks café doors bursting open
fills the air; and a thousand "liberals", their tempers
hotter than the cappuccinos they wield, start shrieking: "You
endorse barbaric violence! You have no absolute moral values!"
What these sages fail to understand is that anti-colonial struggle
does not unfold like pull-out sofa-beds in their living rooms,
nor does it bloom like budding flowers in their gardens. As Frantz
Fanon, the most powerful writer on colonialism and a famous figure
of the Algerian liberation campaign against the French, wrote:
"The violence with which the supremacy of white values is
affirmed and the aggressiveness which has permeated the victory
of these valuesmean that, in revenge, the native laughs in mockery
when Western values are mentioned in front of him [...] the colonized
masses mock at these very values, insult them, and vomit them
up."
More notable is the peculiar
timing the liberal faction has chosen to invoke its noble "absolute
moral values." Where were they when hundreds of thousands
of Iraqis were dying of sanctions? Where were they when thousands
more were being killed during the first phase of the war? The
answer: precisely where they are now, on the sidelines or complicit
in imperialism, when Iraqis are being made homeless, amputated
upon without anesthetics, and gunned downed like wild beasts.
Only when violence is being committed by a force completely
out of their control do they raise a voice of indignant protest.
Such consistent cowardice certainly takes the "absoluteness"
of their values right out of them.
What our liberals fail to comprehend,
our generals grasp with ease. Brigadier General Kimmit, when
informed about Arab anger at seeing so many slain Iraqi innocents
on TV, responded: "Change the channelThe stations that are
showing Americans killing women and children are not legitimate
news sources." (8) Any outlet shedding light on the havoc
wrought by American armor, or focusing on the deaths of Iraqi
women and children, is "not legitimate." That the hospital
reports confirm these "not legitimate" channels is
of course irrelevant; what is relevant is our racism,
our dismissal of Arab life, the "legitimacy"
of which is derived from firing the bullet rather than being
pierced by it.
Kimmit himself knows this full
well. But knowing the dialectics of colonialism, the general
is also a part of it: the colonizer's side. His crass dismissal
of the native's life, both in rhetoric and action, are strands
of a thread trying to symbolically sow back together the bodies
of those four dismembered hired guns an attempt to sow
back together the status and position of colonial power.
It is an attempt that will
fail. Iraqis have already crossed the threshold of enduring resistance;
the bridge beyond that threshold was laid by the same arrogance
and brutality now being employed to sever it. A Baghdadi day-laborer
who was long experiencing what a reporter called "humiliation,
fear, anger, and depression," said, "in the last two
weeks, these feelings blow up inside me. The Americans are attacking
Shiite and Sunni at the same time. They have crossed a line.
I had to get a gun." A young 13 year-old boy in Baghdad
said, "We may be scared of [American] weapons. But we're
not scared of them." (9)
The people have discovered,
to borrow Fanon's words, "that the settler's skin is not
of any more value than a native's skin; and it must be said that
this discovery shakes the world in a very necessary mannerFor
if, in fact, my life is worth as much as the settler's, his glance
no longer shrivels me up or freezes mein fact, I don't give a
damn for him. Not only does his presence not trouble me, but
I am already preparing such efficient ambushes for him that soon
there will be no way out but that of flight."
This is true not of one or
two individuals but the entire city: the US press recently reported
that the siege of Fallujah has "produced a powerful backlash
in the capital. Urged on by leaflets, sermons, and freshly sprayed
graffiti calling for jihad, young men are leaving Baghdad to
join a fight that residents say has less to do with battlefield
success that with a cause infused with righteousness and sacrifice."
The American reporters also came upon a group of young men discussing
the need to resist among them "a dentist, a prayer
leader, a law student, [and] a lieutenant colonel in the Iraqi
police" As one teenager hopped into a truck with other volunteers,
he smiled and shouted to the reporters, "We will defeat
you, God willing." (10)
Fallujah resonates with Iraqis
beyond bravado and an increasing will to fight - it has had the
thoroughly revolutionary effect of uniting the previously discordant
Sunni and Shia groups in solidarity for a common cause. Last
week in Baghdad, "Solemn announcements boomed from mosquesbeseeching
Iraqis for donations of blood, money and medical supplies for
'your sons and brothers struggling in Fallujah'. And across the
capital, Shiite Muslims joined the Sunnis in rolling up their
sleeves and reaching into their pockets." One poor old woman
had arrived with the last food in her home, ready to donate "for
my brothers in Fallujah". Both Sunnis and Shias "filled
a tent erected behind the shrine, flexing and unflexing their
fists to push blood from their veins into plastic sacks that
would be carried to war wounded in Fallujah," a scene repeated
across 70 Sunni mosques across Baghdad. (11)
A day later almost 200,000
Iraqis, "many of them Shias, crowded into the precinct of
Baghdad's largest Sunni mosque to denounce the American occupation
and pledge solidarity with the people of Fallujah" and the
Shiite uprising. (12) The main preacher thundered, "The
Americans invaded the land of Iraq, but they did not penetrate
its people or their souls." He later declared, "The
Americans are carrying out vicious terrorist attacks on the people
of Falluja," and "hundreds of people wept" in
response. Shias and Sunnis organized large aid convoys and led
them toward Fallujah to relieve the plight of their fellow countrymen,
bypassing or overrunning US military blockades. (13)
This heroic display of sacrifice
and solidarity, achieved by a people beaten and battered time
and time again, rings as a thundering indictment of those racist
liberals and pundits who brandish the threat of "civil war"
in Iraq to maintain our stranglehold on that country.
Of course, this has not prevented
certain "practical men" from insisting on the feasibility
of "pacifying" Fallujah and Najaf, of reestablishing
control and crushing and isolating militants. For them, the superficial
is the whole. The lull in violence in Fallujah, brought about
by the partial cease-fire, combined with Sadr's signs of willingness
to negotiate in Najaf, signal to them that the troubles are nearing
an end.
But the dynamics of colonialism
are not those of a set-piece battle. The fact that the colonial
apparatus is negotiating with Sadr at all shows that they understand
he is a force who must be reckoned with. Sadr's maneuvering to
avoid a bloodbath in Najaf also shows that he is tactful, not
suicidal. In an insurgency, there is no army on the battlefield
to be destroyed; the army is the people, who can be mobilized
at a moment's call with any number of light weapons.
The New York Times recently
saw this process in motion: "The Khadamiya bazaar exploded
in a frezy. Shopkeepers reached beneath stacks of sandals for
Kalashnikov rifles. Boys wrapped their faces in black cloth.
Men raced through the streets, kicking over crates and setting
up barriers. Some handed out grenades. Within minutes this entire
Shiite neighborhood in central Baghdad mobilized for war."
(14) Given that mass support for the resistance has only spread,
the idea that it will simply fizzle out as if by magic is utterly
baseless.
The supposed lull in fighting
does not even reflect actual conditions on the ground. On April
12, guerrillas shot down an Apache helicopter 3 miles outside
Baghdad's airport and "cut off communications between military
posts on a key road leading west from the city," where numerous
ambush attacks have been launched. (15) These attacks also extend
to the south of Baghdad, where "A convoy of flatbed trucks
carrying M113 armored personnel vehicles was ambushed and burnt."
US supply lines to Fallujah, Ramadi, and further forces down
south have also been disrupted. (16)
Insurgents have also "sharply
increased the sophistication, coordination and aggressiveness
of their tactics" according to US Army officers, blowing
up and crippling bridges and highways to be used by American
convoys, reflecting what one colonel described as "a regional
or even national level of organization." This has been precipitated
by what another US major described as "a marriage of convenience
between Sadr's militia and Saddam loyalists." (17)
But we must look behind the
propaganda to truly grasp this remarkable development. The "Saddam
loyalists", who were expected to blow up bridges to halt
the American advance in March 2003, never materialized. They
have taken action only now -and in cooperation with the poorest
element of the Shia community. Why? We must admit that that these
so-called "Saddam loyalists" were never loyal to Saddam
that they are in fact genuine nationalists within what
was the Iraqi Army has been proven through both their past inaction
and present action.
This applies even to Fallujah,
where one US soldier said, "It's the fight that never came
last year. I guess these guys didn't really want to die for Saddam.
But all this anti-American feeling is now uniting them."
(18) Such "anti-American feeling" is quite understandable,
given that Iraqis are being murdered in assaults planned by American
commanders who hold Nazi attitudes towards Arabs as "untermeschen",
according to a senior British officer. (19)
The most desperate argument
now being aired by assorted 'experts', however, is that regardless
of the violence, all Iraq needs is to "move the political
process forward." But the utter failure of the occupation
authorities to exercise its political-diplomatic muscle in coping
with the resistance is a good indication that those muscles have
either atrophied or never existed. The Iraqi Governing Council
almost completely fell apart when the atrocities in Fallujah
took place; four members resigned and the others were forced
to denounce it in strong terms as "collective punishment"
to avoid appearing like complete puppets in front of the populace.
(20)
Even the Iraqi Civil Defense
Corps, trained and funded by the US, has failed the occupation.
A whole battalion refused to serve in Fallujah, announcing "We
did not sign up to fight Iraqis." One Iraqi soldier, whose
comrades were jailed for not partaking in the fighting, declared,
"How could an Iraqi fight an Iraqi like this? This meant
that nothing had changed from the Saddam Hussein days. We refused
en masse."(21) Others simply dropped out or defected to
the resistance.
The response of American officials
has been laughably pathetic. One general blithely announced,
"The lines are blurring for a lot of Iraqis right now, and
we're having a lot of problems with security functions right
now." (22) The truth of the matter is that the lines are
not "blurring" but sharpening, as more and more Iraqis
come to see the undesirability of colonialism and the violence
with which it announces its presence.
No credible occupation-backed
domestic government or military force exists. It is therefore
not possible to speak of any legitimate political process in
the colonial context. Come the June 30th "handover",
there will be nothing to hand over to anyone and no one to hand
over anything to. No amount of violence or sophistry will suffice
to inflate this farce enough to prevent its puncturing by that
demand which many Iraqis are now willing to lay down their lives
for: freedom.
Implicit in any recognition
of this demand for freedom is an obligation upon the citizens
of that nation which is denying freedom's fulfillment: absolute,
unwavering, and resolute struggle against the platform of war
by the people of the United States. This is, in essence, a demand
to re-civilize ourselves. We must shatter the illusions crafted
by our own elite that so often send us cowering into the corners
of hatred and paranoia against this or that invented or exaggerated
demon.
It is high time for us to
cease imagining that we are merely "defending" ourselves
against ubiquitous - and convenient - "barbarians at our
gates." Let us instead open our eyes, and look upon those
charred, mangled gates of Chile, Nicaragua, Indonesia, Vietnam,
Palestine and now Iraq with an honest gaze. Let us angle away
from the homes and bodies of the racial Other those torches we
have been wielding so violently for decades, and instead aim
them towards our own very real demons of racism and oppression
to set them aflame; in their burning fires we may yet
illuminate our own humanity and rediscover our innate connection
with peoples abroad.
Notes:
1. "In Falluja, Ceasefire
Doesn't Reduce Tension, or Danger." New York Times.
April 13,
2004.
2. "Fallujah: a ghost
town where scared residents bury their dead in their yards."
Agence
France Press. April 11, 2004.
3. Eye-witness account from
Raul Mahajan , who has been blogging from Iraq at www.empirenotes.org.
Leveled with the usual charge of not being white enough to be
telling the truth, he has posted pictures of an ambulance with
a bullet hole in the windshield at driver's chest level (April
14, 2004).
4. "Around 770 Die in
Recent Iraq Fighting." Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press.
April 12, 2004.
5. "Americans 'drop demand
for handover of killers in Falluja atrocity'." Jonathan
Steele, The Guardian, April 14, 2004.
6. see note 2.
7. see note 5.
8. "U.S. Looks for New
Solution in Cease-Fire." Nicholas Riccardi and Tony Perry,
Los Angeles Times, April 12, 2004.
9. "Anti-U.S. Outrage
Unites a Growing Iraqi Resistance." Jefrrey Gettleman, New
York Times, April 11, 2004.
10. "Fallujah Gains Mythic
Air." Karl Vick and Anthony Shadid, Washington Post,
April 13, 2004.
11. "Rallying Around an
Insurgent City." Karl Vick, Washington Post, April
9, 2004.
12. "Sunni and Shia unite
against common enemy." Jonathan Steele and Rory McCarthy,
The Guardian, April 10, 2004.
13. "Sunni and Shia guerrillas
unite against US." David Blair, Daily Telegraph,
April 12, 2004.
14. "At Word of U.S. Foray,
A Baghdad Militia Erupts." Jeffrey Gettleman, New York
Times, April 7, 2004.
15. see note 12 and note 8.
16. "Allies keep shaky
truces alive as Sadr pulls back." Patrick Cockburn, The
Independent, April 13, 2004.
17. "Insurgents Display
New Sophistication." Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post,
April 14, 2004.
18. see note 1.
19. "British commanders
condemn US military tactics." Sean Rayment, Telegraph,
April 12, 2004.
20. "Fallujah Bloodbath
threatens US-Appointed Iraqi Government with Collapse" Juan
Cole blog of April 10, 2004, citing AP report. www.juancole.com
21. "US holding 200 Iraqi
'mutineers'." Reuters, April 18, 2004.
22. "Iraqi Battalion Refuses
to 'Fight Iraqis'." Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post,
April 11, 2004.
M. Junaid Alam, 21, Boston, co-editor & webmaster
of Left Hook, feedback:
alam@lefthook.org
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