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Al Jazeera (English)
    Baghdad Burning Blog (by Riverbend, an Iraqi civilian girl)
            Dahr Jamail's Blog from Baghdad
                Imad Khadduri's blog "Free Iraq" (scroll down for English version)

Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

This is Only the Beginning
(Uri Avnery, Media Monitors Network)
A depressing thought: the Iraq war proves that in the year 2003 AD, the world has not essentially changed since 2003 BC. A military power can attack a weak nation, conquer its territory and plunder its resources. There is no world law, no world moral order. Might is right. . . . This is a classical colonial war. Iraq is becoming an American colony, to remain so for a long time. . . . The pretexts come from the old colonialist phrase-book. A country is conquered in order to "liberate" the natives from their cruel tyrants. Their resources are stolen, in order to raise their standard of living, give an (elementary) education to their children, keep a colonial administration that will teach them democracy.
. . . This is also a divine mission. The missionaries always come with the army, and sometimes even precede it. The cross and the canon, religion and oppression, the church and the plunder of resources go very well together. . . . The only super-power in the world has attacked a little country of 26 million people, starved for years by sanctions. A mighty and well-fed army, equipped with the most sophisticated arms the world has ever seen, confronted an army that has been largely disarmed before the fighting even started. . . . Decent hunters do not shoot at sitting ducks. But that is exactly what happened in Iraq. . . . in order to support the claim that the aim of the war was to "liberate" the Iraqi people, it was essential to show the Iraqi population welcoming the liberators with joy. Television delivered the goods. . . . Nothing easier: simply fill the frame with a hundred jumping and shouting people, in order to create the impression the a whole country is jumping and shouting. Nobody will ask: Who the hell are they? Where did they come from? Who called them together? Did they get anything in return? Aren't they, by chance, the same people who jumped and shouted a few days ago "with our soul and blood we will redeem you, Saddam?" And where are the other 5 million inhabitants of Baghdad? What do they think and feel? . . . One thing is certain: the Americans did not conquer Iraq in order to leave. They intend to remain there for a long time, even if they succeed in setting up a puppet government. They came to control the oil sources and the Arab region, and for these purposes they will stay on. . . . But even if they should wish to leave, they would not be able to do so. Without an American dictatorship taking the place of Saddam's, Iraq would fall apart. The old ethnic, religious, regional and tribal divisions would only deepen if an American-appointed puppet government were to establish "democracy". . . . The mob-rule that found its expression in the orgy of violence and looting under the auspices of the US army, including the looting of hospitals, is a bad omen indeed. (It is the height of chutzpah, when the US commanders, who have destroyed the civilian infra-structure, say that law and orders must be restored by the Iraqis themselves. Thus, millions are abandoned to anarchy.) . . . There is no nationalist Arab force able to offer a solution to the millions of young people from Casablanca to Kuwait city. No new Nasser enflames their imagination. But there is a religious Muslim force that provides comfort, answers, identity and self-respect. It also provides a weapon for removing the invaders and compelling the West to listen to Arab aspirations: terrorism. . . . Saddam never used terrorism. Nothing outside Iraq interested him, except if there was a to enlarge its territory . He was completely occupied with survival. The American pretense of having attacked Iraq in order to rout terrorism was a blatant and deliberate lie. And now, Ahmad thinks, after the last of the Arab armies has shown its impotence in the face of American might, there remains only the alternative of guerilla war and terror attacks.

posted by LoZo 11:32 AM