During a recent press conference George Bush claimed that “the world is more peaceful and freer under my leadership.” Which world?
He also characterized the resistance within Iraq as being orchestrated by ‘terrorists’, despite public opinion polls in Iraq showing widespread opposition to the U.S. occupation. Which terrorists?
Television footage from Fallujah showed crowds of Iraqi youth dancing in the streets in celebration over the recent downing of the helicopter, and press reports quoted Iraqi workers and farmers near the crash site supporting the actions of the armed resistance.
One Fallujah resident said on camera, “This was a new lesson from the resistance, a lesson to the greedy aggressors. They’ll never be safe until they get out of our country.”
It seems that American imperialism is unashamedly prepared to forfeit the lives of thousands of American soldiers –” and keen to slaughter thousands of Iraqis –” in its attempt to secure control of Iraq’s vast oil resources, and to establish a strategic position from which to dominate the Middle East.
As one US soldier in the 101 Airborne Division near Mosul wrote in the Los Angeles Times during September 2003: “This looks like a modern day crusade not to free an oppressed people or to rid the world of a demonic dictator relentless in his pursuit of conquest and domination, but a crusade to control another nation’s natural resource. At least to me, oil seems to be the reason for our presence.”
‘Invented threats’
By re-branding the invasion of Iraq as an essential part of his ‘crusade against terrorism’, Bush Jnr and his handlers were clearly counting on their core supporters in America to have short memories. It seems they were correct: recent polls confirm that two thirds of Americans still believe the twaddle promoted by the White House and neo-conservatives that ‘Iraq was behind the September 11 attacks.’
But what actually has happened during the past nine months is something Americans have yet to grasp, and others have yet to say out loudly: people outside the US have stopped believing the American story.
Many now doubt that terrorism is an ‘evil force’ which the United States army is going to defeat. They believe instead that terrorism is a misleading term. The proper and correct portrayal of the people engaged in opposing invaders, occupiers and brutal dictators is guerilla warfare which is sanctioned under international law as legitimate armed struggle.
They know that Chechens, Moros, Taliban, Colombian insurgents, Palestinian bombers and Iraqi resisters of the U.S. occupation do not really make up a global phenomenon that the world must mobilize to defeat.
‘Historical blunder’
Bush and his handlers are not protecting Americans by pursuing the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, but instead shielding their own political skins. Their most recent foreign misadventures are a historic, geopolitical, military and economic blunder.
Bush’s demand that third world UN troops serve under orders of American officers is a further insult to the United Nations and will reinforce the belief of those who attacked its Baghdad HQ that the organization is merely a puppet of Washington.
‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ does not represent freedom for Iraqis or the American people, but an opportunity for war profiteers to enrich themselves. It cannot guarantee Iraqi or American security, and is driving the US deeper into uncertainty.
Iraqis and Americans are dying and are being wounded daily whilst George Bush and his friends hold barbeques at his ranch and discuss the division of the spoils.
‘Nightmare looming’
Looking at the polls coming out of the US right now, it is evident that George Bush’s administration is in serious trouble. The powerbrokers have their eyes on the 2004 presidential election, worried that “Dubya” (unless he can cheat the voters again), will go the way of his father who was dumped from the presidency after the first Gulf War in 1991.
The occupation of Iraq has revealed some serious miscalculations on the part of the US imperialists and their allies. Violating international law and lying about Iraq’s weapons capability has even tested the patience of formerly loyal Republican Party supporters.
Also, many of the more than 1300 families now campaigning for their sons and daughters to come home previously backed the war on Iraq.
Finally, to add insult to Bush’s injuries, Noah Feldman, a leading adviser to the American administrator Paul Bremer, told The Daily Telegraph on Sunday that “the United States is failing in its mission to create a secular, overtly pro-Western Iraq. Instead, the new, democratic Iraq appears bound to be an Islamic state – with an official role for Islam, and Islamic law enshrined in its constitution.”
