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Erasing IraqThe illegal (as defined by the International Commission of Jurors1) war of aggression against Iraq (at least the conventional aspects of it) is coming to a close, and freedom and democracy are on their way. Of course, this is nothing new. The precedent for "liberating" Iraq was set by the British Empire in 1917, which announced to the hapless inhabitants of Basra that "our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators"2. In 2003, this second "liberation" wasn't easy, since a couple of dozens of coalition troops were killed (most of them by friendly fire), and the evil Iraqis dared to humiliate prisoners of war by showing them on National TV. This event caused outrage in the American media, who until then had been quite happy broadcasting images of Iraqi prisoners of war, and conveniently forgot about the prisoners from the Afghan war in Guantanamo bay. Some of these Guantanamo inmates have been held for over a year, in abominable conditions, without being charged or given access to legal representation, in blatant breach of the very same Geneva conventions3 which US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld conveniently remembered when asking Iraq to treat US POW's in a civilised way. In the process of the US/UK invasion, Iraq has been devastated, and its civilian population showered with bombs. Yet before the invasion was even over, the British and American governments announced that the swift victory justified their actions. As if the objections to the war were somehow centred on the prospects of victory, rather than concerns for the people of Iraq. The victory was never in doubt, but victory has never justified aggression. In the words of the Israeli journalist Uri Avnery: "What would have happened if Adolph Hitler had triumphed in World War Two? Would this have turned his war into a just one? Let's assume that Hitler would have indicted his enemies at the Nuremberg war crimes court: Churchill for the terrible air raid on Dresden, Truman for dropping the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Stalin for murdering millions in the Gulag camps. Would the historians have regarded this as a just war? A war that ends with the victory of the aggressor is worse than a war that ends with their defeat. It is more destructive, both morally and physically"4. Nothing can justify a war of aggression, as John Pilger aptly reminds us: "'To initiate a war of aggression', said the judges in the Nuremberg trial of the Nazi leadership, 'is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.' In stating this guiding principle of international law, the judges specifically rejected German arguments of the 'necessity' for pre-emptive attacks against other countries" 5. This international crime began, like in Kosovo, by bypassing the UN (the US will blame the French threat of veto, forgetting that the French last cast a lone veto in 1976, while the USA holds the record for largest number of vetoes at the Security Council6), and massive worldwide protests against the war ignored. Moreover, despite the cruelty of Saddam's regime, the Iraqis (most of them children under 157) were never asked if they wished to lay down their lives in order to be "saved". Maybe this explains the chronic shortage of joyous crowds cheering on the "liberators". Indeed, where are the "scenes of euphoria" we were led to expect? True, a few dozen people were filmed celebrating the end of the Saddam regime (any sane person welcomes the end of the dictator), but since then, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets in anger at the US presence, in anger against what they see as a colonial venture by the world's lone superpower. Interestingly, this now famous scene of "jubilation" was played almost continuously by western media, raising suspicions that there were precious few other scenes to film. The BBC did even better, by recycling the image and changing the caption. In the section on their website entitled "In pictures: Euphoria in Baghdad", they showed a picture of a seemingly happy crowd. The exact same picture appeared on the same website, in an article named "British launch gun amnesty in Basra" and later re-written as "British aim to secure Basra". In these articles, the picture was captioned "Basra residents celebrating on hearing about the fall of Baghdad"…
But is all of this important, when we know that American bombs brought "freedom and democracy"? This message was hammered into our heads by the western media, most of which covered this war with an astonishing lack of objectivity. In fact, Rupert Murdoch's media empire became the voice of pro-war America, unquestioningly relaying the official versions of events14. Such propaganda and misinformation misled large sections of the public into supporting the war, any war. For example, 42% of Americans now believe that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the 11th of September attacks15. Independent voices, such as Al-Jazeera, also became casualties of war, losing several journalists in "collateral damage" when an American missile hit their offices in Iraq (and this despite the fact that the Arabic TV channel had communicated their exact coordinates to US command in order to avoid such an "accident"16). The Palestine Hotel, where all foreign correspondents had been hosted, was also deliberately fired upon by an American tank, killing several journalists and wounding more. Worse, the US general in command lied about the incident, claiming it was in response to sniper fire from the building, despite compelling evidence to the contrary by most witnesses of the scene17, and TV footage by both the BBC and French television16 This incident has outraged international organisations of journalists, and may constitute a war crime18. An even likelier candidate for war crimes charges is the deliberate bombing of Iraqi TV, which is reminiscent of the deliberate bombing of Serbian TV in 199919. Slaughtering journalists (i.e. civilians) seems to have become an acceptable rule of war, despite being a massive breach of the Geneva Convention (but of course, the Geneva Convention should only apply to the treatment of American soldiers by their Iraqi captors). This barbarous act was condemned in no uncertain terms by the organisation Reporters Without Borders20. But the suffering off journalists is only one facet of the war in Iraq. The main victims are of course the civilians, not only ecause of the bombs, but also because of their consequences. The people of Iraq have no running water and no medicines, mostly because the "coalition" bombs. Are these starving survivors, or the thousands of Iraqi casualties to be grateful that their souls, limbs or supplies were liberated by the American bombs? Beyond the rhetoric of "precision bombing", the number of civilian casualties in the field horrified the Red Cross21. Once again, as in Afghanistan and Kosovo, civilian casualties were seen as an acceptable side effect of a war of aggression, a war initiated because of hastily crafted lies. One of the biggest lies was the supposed Iraqi arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. This last accusation was supposed to be the casus belli, and yet UN arms inspectors found no evidence of such an arsenal, most of which had been destroyed after the first Gulf War. In fact, it was soon proven that a key British government dossier (used by Bush to justify the war) and claiming that Iraq had sought to purchase elements for nuclear weapons from Niger, were fakes22. These forgeries were obviously manufactured to swing the votes at the Security Council before the war, but even once the dossier was exposed as a fraud, the "coalition" persisted in their accusations. The coalition are now desperate to find the chimeral chemical weapons, but refuse to let in the only independent experts who could confirm any find, that Hans Blix and his team. Hans Blix, normally a patient an unassuming man, has firmly criticised the USA for making demands on Iraq that were almost impossible to comply with, thus inevitably leading to war23. This reminds us of Annex B of the Rambouillet Treaty, designed by NATO in order to leave Serbia with no option but war24. Undisturbed by the embarrassing shortage post-hoc justifications for the war (no WMD, no cheering Iraqis), the coalition brilliantly changed the casus belli to the "liberation of Iraq", despite having no mandate for the UN, and despite massive and unprecedented worldwide opposition, including in the US and the UK population. All of a sudden, Blair and Bush cared deeply about the Iraqi people (but not about the equally oppressed Saudis), whom they wished to save by liberating them from a dictator who had been one of the US' closest allies in the 1980s, when he was busy gassing Kurds and massacring Iranians25. Thus, the attempt to use a humanitarian argument to grab the moral high ground is doomed to failure. In the words of the New Statesman, "There are ample ways of doing good in the world: opening up trade with Africa, welcoming migrants from poor countries to Britain, stopping arms sales, relaxing patent laws so that the developing world has access to cheaper life-saving drugs, to name just a few. Mr Blair professes concern on such issues (and has not been inactive) but treads cautiously because he will not risk British business or jobs or Labour's chances of re-election. Yet he will risk the lives of Iraqi children. This does not seem a very impressive humanitarian commitment to most people on the left."7
However, there are signs that this latest Imperial venture will backfire. First of all, and despite deep divisions on the old continent on the issue of the war in Iraq, the latest con flict has accelerated the process of EU emancipation from its ally. Indeed, a small core of nations led by Germany and France have recently planned a joint defence initiative independent of NATO32. It may be weakened by the absence of the UK but after all, the Euro succeeded despite British abstinence. On another front, the Shiite majority of Iraq, severely repressed under Saddam, is likely to want its share of power in Iraq, and is already angered at American moves to keep it away from power33,34 by less than democratic means. America is also antagonising the local population by marginalizing any form of political opposition: they recently arrested a man who proclaimed himself mayor of Baghdad35, shot at crowds of demonstrators8,36, and they have sought to impose Pentagon-sponsored exiles such as Ahmet Chalabi, most of whom have not set foot in Iraq for decades, and have absolutely no popular support. In addition, they are crudely attempting to manipulate Iraqi public opinion via a new coalition television channel. With such displays of arrogance, the USA could soon find itself with an Iran-style revolution in Iraq, or an intifada movement that would make the Palestinian one look insignificant. Moreover, terrorist attacks on American targets have become even more likely than before, in this atmosphere of tension. One of the first examples of this was the massive series of suicide-bombings against of US targets in Saudi Arabia this week. This is reminiscent of the last time the USA tried "nation-building" in the Middle East (i.e. Lebanon), where they were forced out by a huge terrorist campaign37. If the USA try to overstay their welcome (and there are signs they have already done so), Iraq could become a very dangerous place for them, or even a fertile breeding ground for Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations. Thus, the "war on terror" has so far increased the likelihood of terrorist attacks, terrorised millions of innocent civilians, and cost the lives of thousands of others. In Afghanistan, "liberation" from the Taleban quickly turned to nightmare. One year on, most of the country has been returned to violent, feuding warlords, except maybe in Kabul38, while the condition of women has hardly improved. The "war on terror" has legitimised dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia's monarchy or Musharraf's Pakistan, it has made a mockery of the United Nations, the EU and international justice, it has ruined Iraq, and threatens to destroy Syria. Maybe Nelson Mandela was right when he cited the USA as the single largest threat to global stability. Indeed, as pointed out by the New Statesman39 recently, the roughly £50bn spent on this war could have been spent on building schools, providing clean water and sanitation, combating famine and preventing disease in the poor countries. Instead, Bush and his sidekick Blair chose to destroy the land where Western Civilisation was born, and to bomb their towns and their culture to cinders. But of course, the expenses incurred in Iraq can be recovered…by privatising the country and its oil supplies. Indeed, privatisation is the best way to wrench control of Iraqi oil and to place it firmly in the hands of multinationals. All the reconstruction contracts so far have been awarded to US companies, and the UN has been masterfully excluded from any role in governance, where it might have attempted to let Iraqis dispose of their own resources. In the words of Naomi Klein "Soon, America may have bombed its way into a whole new free-trade zone"40. It is certainly easier to bomb a country in order to impose capitalism than to ask them to voluntarily open their market to unfair competition. References1. Ramonet,
I. 2003. Illégale Aggression. Le Monde Diplomatique. April
2003. http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr |
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