Monthly Archive for April, 2003

How long before we forget Iraq?

Published
by
Christiaan
on 9 April, 2003
in Imperialism, Iran, Iraq, US foreign policy and War
. 0 Comments

Saddam’s regime is on the brink, a joyous occasion to be sure, after years of tyranny, supported by the U.S., UK and other Western governments while committing his worst crimes, and then 12 years of sanctions, making his regime stronger and ordinary Iraqi people weaker. Sadly it means nothing to the thousands killed by U.S. and UK bombing campaigns, the hundreds of thousands killed by sanctions and, if we take a cursory look at history we know, despite what you’ll be told by corporate media, that it doesn’t mean much for the future of those left alive either.

Since the Second World War the United States Government has bombed 21 countries. None of these bombing campaigns led to the establishment of humane democracies in the countries involved. What most of them did lead to was the crushing of any semblance of a challenge to North American dominance and capitalism, and democracy in most cases.

  • China (1945-46 & 1950-53)
  • Korea (1950-53)
  • Guatemala (1954, 1960, 1967-69)
  • Indonesia (1958)
  • Cuba (1959-61)
  • Congo (1964)
  • Peru (1965)
  • Laos (1964-73)
  • Vietnam (1961-73)
  • Cambodia (1969-70)
  • Lebanon (1983-84)
  • Grenada (1983)
  • Libya (1986)
  • El Salvador (right through the 1980s)
  • Nicaragua (right through the 1980s)
  • Panama (1989)
  • Bosnia (1995)
  • Iraq (1991-2003)
  • Sudan (1998)
  • Former Yugoslavia (1999)
  • Afghanistan (2001-02)

How many more are they planning to bomb? Bush’s advisers say Iraq is just a ‘battle in the wider war.’ They have named North Korea, Iran, and even Syria, Cuba and Libya as possible future targets. They call it a war without end.

The images you see on your TV will subside. The people celebrating on your screens, mostly of the Shiite majority will be forgotten just as those in Afghanistan and many other countries have been forgotten, while the U.S. Government moves onto the next target. The U.S. Government won’t for a minute entertain the idea of Shiite (Islamic) self-determination in Iraq. Prepare now for the installation of a U.S. puppet regime in place to ensure democracy does not ensue, to ensure “uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil.” Prepare now for U.S. military occupation. Prepare now for U.S. Evangelical Christian missionaries (“relief workers”). Prepare now for asset stripping of oil reserves by U.S. corporations and lucrative reconstruction contracts awarded to U.S. corporations, all of which have close ties to the U.S. Government. Prepare now for Iraqi resistance to U.S. occupation.

Photo of an American soldier draping the Star Spangled Blindfold over a statue of Saddam Hussein after the invasion in 2003The Star-Spangled Blindfold draped over the head of a Saddam Hussein statue by a young U.S. marine pretty much sums up the hidden imperial nature of North American motives. Prepare now for the next target. What will the pretext be? Another terrorist attack?

The lesson learnt by those on the U.S. Government hit list? Arm yourself and arm yourself to the hilt with nuclear weapons because—judging by the different ways in which North Korea and Iraq have been dealt with—that’s, ironically, the only way you might avoid a U.S. lead invasion in the short term.

External links:

  • U.S. Military Occupation and Iraqi Resistance

14 ‘enduring bases’ set in Iraq | 23 March, 2004
Wikipedia: Iraqi resistance
Wikipedia: Islamic Front of Iraqi Resistance

  • U.S. Religious Occupation and Zealotory

Iraqi patriarch slams US evangelicals | 21 May, 2005

  • Iraqi Death Toll

Study Claims Iraq’s ‘Excess’ Death Toll Has Reached 655 000 | 11 October, 2006
Co-Author of Medical Study Estimating 650,000 Iraqi Deaths Defends Research in the Face of White House Dismissal | 12 October, 2006

  • U.S. Economic Occupation & Thievery

Economic Occupation: The World Bank and IMF in Iraq | 17 March, 2006
Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers | A Robert Greenwald film
Oily Truth Emerges in Iraq | 23 February, 2007

Under the proposed law, Iraq’s immense oil reserves would not simply be opened to foreign oil exploration, as many had expected. Amazingly, executives from those companies would actually be given seats on a new Federal Oil and Gas Council that would control all of Iraq’s reserves.

Oil Grab in Iraq | 22 February, 2007

While debate rages in the United States about the military in Iraq, an equally important decision is being made inside of Iraq—the future of Iraq’s oil. A new Iraqi law proposes to open the country’s currently nationalized oil system to foreign corporate control. But emblematic of the flawed promotion of “democracy” by the Bush administration, this new law is news to most Iraqi politicians.

What Congress Really Approved: Benchmark No. 1: Privatizing Iraq’s Oil for US Companies | 26 May, 2007

Now they have Congress blackmailing the Iraqi Parliament and the Iraqi people: no privatization of Iraqi oil, no reconstruction funds.