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Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Volume 3, Number 13 May 4 - 10, 2003 Quezon City, Philippines |
The
Evil Genius of Empire: Will Iraq Arise Again? By
James Petras Back
to Alternative Reader Index
Millions
of US citizens protested before the war and when it was launched but as the US
war machine proceeded to conquer Iraq, the movement declined, the number of
protestors decreased to the thousands, and was mostly composed of committed
activists. In
its place, hundreds of thousands of US flags began to sprout from car antennae
and housefronts. The polls indicated that close to three quarters of the
population supported Bush's handling of the war.
It
is clear that the rapid military conquest and US destruction of Iraq produced a
wave of irrational chauvinist support for Bush and the war.
The bitch goddess of success - even "successful" genocide - has
a multitude of worshippers in the United States.
This raises many painful and difficult questions about the nature of the
US anti-war movement and popular sentiments.
It is clear that those intellectuals who eulogized the pre-war opposition
as a "new moral force" on an upward ascent were wrong.
Many antiwar dissidents turned and supported the war once it started.
An even greater multitude came out waving their flags after Iraq was
defeated, Iraqi society destroyed and the Iraqi people humiliated.
The war did not heighten opposition, as some progressive intellectuals
hoped, military success decreased protest and increased chauvinist sentiments.
Moreover as Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al allowed looters and organized
gangs to pillage the entire society, there was virtually no popular outrage -
only a few professional archeologists and curators bemoaned the losses to
humanity. What
accounts for the demise of the US peace movement and even the embrace of war
among some sectors of the protestors, particularly as the military pulverized
and conquered Baghdad? The
most important single factor was the turn from fear of a lethal
"attack" by Iraq to the "security" of a US military conquest
and occupation of Baghdad.
In other words many US opponents of war were not motivated by moral
principle or solidarity - they acted against the war because they feared that US
society and soldiers might be adversely affected.
Once it was clear that there was no chance for any significant
retaliation within the US or Iraq ( Bush knew all along Iraq was effectively
disarmed before invading), that the US military was in total control, they
switched loyalties and joined in supporting the warlords.
The mass media presented military successes and conquest as the result of the strategic genius of US military and civilian leaders. The media presented every surrender and every humiliation of the Iraqis as reducing the "threat" to US soldiers and civilians. The absence of any Iraqi attack with weapons of mass destruction and the images of the US occupation of the principal oil wells and regime palaces were featured in the media, and were well received, even in a jocular manner, by most US citizens. In the psyche of many US citizens the absence of danger unleashed an orgy of chauvinism and an embrace of the geniuses of evil. Pro-war ideologues and their supporters became more aggressive in promoting new wars. The doubters and critics became defensive and some became demoralized by the sight of mass pillage, the killing of Iraqis protesting US occupation and the deranged chauvinist behavior of their neighbors and workmates, none of whom demonstrated the minimum concern for the conversion of Iraq into a smoldering wasteland. If there was the minimum concern among the mass of US citizens they would have noticed that the images of "masses" of Iraqis supposedly "welcoming" the US "liberators" was in the hundreds in a city of 5 million. That the pulling down of a Saddam statue was preceded by the raising of the US flag and that US soldiers were among the handful of Iraqis pulling down the statue. In Mosul, Baghdad, Najaf, Nasariyz and several other cities, thousands of courageous Iraqis braved US guns, tanks and helicopters, to demand their freedom from the US and their appointed exile stooges as well as Saddam Hussein. But US citizens continued to exalt with pride over the "conquering heroes" ( "our brave soldiers" ) - the assassins of peaceful protestors demanding freedom from their past tyrants and present military overlords. The bulk of the US public is not bothered that a US military general rules over 23 million Iraqis. Newspapers are positively elated to see General Franks celebrating the occupation as his new role as military ruler. Nearly eighty percent of US citizens believe the conquest, destruction and cultural rape of Iraq was a worthy war. They
revere the generals and administration for carrying out an 'honorable' war
despite the fact that every official justification for the war has been
demonstrated to be lies.
No weapons of mass destruction were found; no links to Al Queda were
found; no capture of Saddam Hussein took place; there was no attempt to protect
the civilian population; there was no protection of hospitals.
On the contrary, the US occupation forces allowed the hospitals to be
attacked and stripped of medicine and equipment - while thousands of maimed and
wounded children, women, elderly and soldiers howled in pain and the more
fortunate died in pools of blood on hospital floors from treatable wounds. Contrary
to optimistic progressives, the great majority of US citizens are totally
disinterested in the suffering of the Iraqis at the hand of the US backed
vandals and looters.
Only a few indignant curators have protested.
In most cities and towns, citizens are preparing celebrations to
"welcome home our brave men and women in arms", glad that the B-52
bombers, missiles and fragmentation bombs were able to end the war so quickly,
so decisively, so successfully...at the cost of only 121 dead US soldiers.
"Bring on Syria", "Bring on Iran".
I can hear it now in the beer halls of the American Legion and Veterans
of Foreign Wars, as well as in the well modulated but menacing voices of the
leaders of major Jewish organizations, echoing the voice of their real
President, Ariel Sharon. This
was not a "war" against a dictator, nor even a simply ugly massacre of
the Iraqi people, it is the deliberate destruction of a civilization carried out
by modern barbarians - modern barbarians combining high-tech weapons of mass
destruction, directed at destroying homes, factories, offices, water treatment
facilities, public utilities
with primitive vandals and paramilitary forces destroying the heritage of
5000 years of civilization and 30 years of a modern secular Arab state.
Vandals unleashed to incinerate the archives of a nation, its libraries
and research institutes, to strip the most famous archeological museum of
priceless antiquities and jewels of Islamic art, to destroy universities, school
records, hospitals, documents detailing the most important aspects of modern
Iraqi life as well as Iraqi national heritage.
This is the systematic destruction of everything which allows a people to
exist as a recognized nation. There
is no question that the pillage by the vandals was a deliberate policy of the US
government. Washington
was advised in advance of the war of the danger to the museums and precious
historical archives.
Yet Washington chose to meet in January with antiquities dealers to
"liberalize" the rules of sale and export of looted art.
Perlstein and other representatives of American art dealers demanded the
US abolish Iraq's "retentionist" policy on art and antiquities.
As the occupation took place and Iraqi citizens pleaded with US official
and soldiers to protect the museums, offices, archives and hospitals, they were
driven away. In
cases where citizens defended their homes and businesses from the vandals, they
were denounced to the Marines as supporters of Saddam Hussein and shot.
The world's greatest war criminal Rumsfeld in his usual cynical and
sinister jocular fashion absolved the vandals..."There is always looting
after a war."
He added, "There was nothing we could do...freedom means being free
to do bad things." The
US armed forces,-200,000- occupied the major cities, protected the oil wells,
took over the presidential palaces, patrolled the major streets in the city
centers - helicopters, machine guns, tanks everywhere - and yet the most
powerful army in the world could not stop hundreds of lightly armed criminals
and arsonists right in front of their eyes? One
has to be utterly stupid to believe that this was merely an oversight.
When there are riots and looting of supermarkets in the US, the National
Reserves are given orders to "shoot to kill'... and they do, mostly Blacks
and Hispanics, but not vandals, pillaging the heritage of humanity. Pillage
follows the logic of the US empire.
First the sanctions, impoverishing the country and undermining the health
of the new generation; then war to destroy the basic foundation of the economy
and infrastructure; followed by pillage by paramilitary groups to obliterate the
historical memory, the symbols and signs of a civilization; and finally the
partition of the country among a collection of sheiks, mullahs, disreputable
exile flunkeys, tribal tyrants and local gangsters - under the direction of a US
generalisimo and US marines and protected by servile police and local officials
willing to serve the foreign ruler.
The US use of vandals and thugs follows the example of the Israeli
invasion of Lebanon and the use of Maronite militias to pillage and murder
Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatila.
The destruction of hospitals, schools, ministries of health and
education, land ownership records and cultural centers resembles Jenin, Ramalla
and Nablus - only on a national scale.
The imperial barbarians use the local vandals to complete the "final
solution" - the reduction of a proud historical nation into a series of
fragmented primitive fiefdoms of servile and tyranical vassals. The
imperial barbarians drunk with power, elated by massive public support, egged on
by Ariel Sharon and his Zionist proxies in the Bush Administration immediately
prepare for new conquests in Syria and Iran, recycling the same formula used to
invade and destroy Iraq.
The drive for Imperial wars is no longer oil, it is Israeli regional
interests. A
former high level CIA analyst spelled it out very clearly on US National Public
Radio..."After Iraq, the US policymakers are looking forward to regime
change or modification in Syria and Iran which will ensure that Israel will be
the unchallenged superpower in the region". The
"evil genius" of US empire has infected the country - from a scratch
it has become gangrene.
The belief that the US can wage wars of conquest successfully without
losing soldiers - is now common currency among the mass of North Americans.
The high tech barbarians of Empire are unleashed.
To the dismayed critics who ask "why the destruction and
pillage?" , Rumsfeld answers "Why not?
We won - They lost."
Rumsfeld, Sharon, the Generals and the Israeli surrogates in Washington
have not definitively defeated the Iraqi people.
Surrogate vassals, bogus "prime ministers", imperial appointed
administrators are already suspect or openly rejected.
US occupation forces are frightened of every "stranger" in the
streets - for they are the first conquering army that never fought...(the bombs
did it all). Face
to face with tens of thousands of Iraqis who totally reject them, they panic,
they shoot and they kill, but the civilian pressure is building.
Their slogans - "Neither Saddam nor the US" may not be the
complete program for democracy and development...but it is a start.
The Iraqi people are rising from the ashes once again, it is the story of
5,000 years of civilization, conquest and national liberation. April
18, 2003 Bulatlat.com We want to know what you think of this article.
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