Configuring Iraq's Occupation

By Ghali Hassan
Dec 15, 2006, 05:37

Faced with fierce legitimate Resistance to its violent and brutal military Occupation of Iraq, the U.S. is searching for a way to configure the Occupation. The “new” strategy is to manipulate and pacify the American public to “achieve” U.S.-Zionist ideology in the Middle East

Let us roll up our sleeves and admit the obvious truth. The vast majority of the Iraqi people have rejected the Occupation, and are united in their call for the immediate and full withdrawal of U.S. forces and collaborators from Iraq. Also most Iraqis see U.S. troops and their collaborators as the generator of violence, and a significant majority of Iraqis is in favour of armed attacks against U.S. forces.

As a result of nearly four years of brutal Occupation, violence has increased dramatically and the living conditions for ordinary Iraqis have deteriorated. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been needlessly killed and many more have been injured. Millions of Iraqis are now displaced refugees within Iraq and outside Iraq. U.S. forces continue to use collective punishment, including ongoing military siege of Iraqi towns depriving the civilian population of water, food, electricity and medical supplies. All this is in violation of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law.

According to a survey of 2,000 people by the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies, more than 90 per cent of Iraqis ‘believe the country is worse off now than before the war in 2003’. The survey found that 95 per cent of respondents believe the security situation has deteriorated since the arrival of U.S. forces.

In order to refocus an increasingly anti-Occupation Resistance by ordinary Iraqis, the U.S. and its collaborators are inciting and promoting civil strife by ongoing attacks on Iraqi civilians. This morally indefensible deliberate violence is a pretext to justify the ongoing Occupation. Hence, the tactic of ‘precipitate withdrawal’ would cause a ‘blood bath’, as if the current Occupation is not an orchestrated murderous bloodbath conducted with the blessing of U.S forces. It is a criminal campaign to rule Iraq and divert attention from a violent Occupation.

In addition to daily car bombings committed by U.S. collaborators on civilians in the centre of Baghdad, U.S. forces conducted regular indiscriminate bombings of civilian centres throughout Iraq. A case in point is the town of Ishaqi, 80 Km north of Baghdad. On 08 December 2006, U.S. forces attacked the besieged town, killing 32 civilians including eight women and six children. As usual, no one has yet been held accountable for the crimes. For the rest of the world, the illegal invasion of Iraq and the ongoing war crimes committed against the Iraqi people confirmed that the U.S. is everything it is claiming to be against.

To cover up the daily suffering and massacres of innocent Iraqi civilians, the U.S. is embarking on a campaign of pacifying the public. In the recent report (The Way forward) prepared by the Iraq Study Group (ISG), a group of American ruling elites chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, the Iraqi people had neither been consulted nor treated as anything except as a moral pretext. It is a coup prepared specifically for U.S. domestic consumption.

The report, which is supposed to be the blue print for the “new” U.S. strategy in Iraq, is deliberately focused on Syria and Iran. Not because the two governments have any significant influence in Iraq but for the sole purpose of distorting the role of the Iraqi Resistance – in thwarting U.S. messianic agenda – and denying Iraqis victory over Western armies. While the report suggests that the U.S. is somehow fighting a foreign enemy (Syria and Iran), not indigenous Iraqis, the report does acknowledge the presence of the Iraqi Resistance to the Occupation. Moreover, there is no hard evidence that the Iraqi Resistance is supported by foreign powers; it is a legitimate indigenous Resistance supported by the majority of the Iraqi population.

In presenting the ISG report, James Baker said: “This report does not in any way call for a graceful exit. In fact, we specifically say we agree with the president’s articulated goal” and added: “The report also makes clear: We’re going to have a really robust American troops’ presence in Iraq and the region for a very long time”. While the report received wide-coverage in the mainstream media, however, it is misleadingly portrayed as a “step forward” for Iraq. The report justifies the Occupation and shields the U.S. from the responsibility of an illegal war of aggression and horrific war crimes committed against Iraqi civilians.

It is important to remember that, as U.S. Secretary of State under Bush I Administration, Baker was the architect of the 1991 mass murder of Iraqi civilians (known as the “Gulf War”) and the genocidal sanctions that destroyed Iraq and the fabric of the Iraqi society. In his new role, Baker bullied and demanded the puppet government act in favour of U.S. interests or else. Troops’ withdrawal is simply a veil threat to scare the hell out of the puppet government, hence the criticism of the report and rejection of troops’ withdrawal by the leaders of the puppet government. Talabani, al-Maliki and al-Hakim were begging Bush to stay to protect them from the masses. They were wrong; the report’s goal is “staying the course” not withdrawal.

Finally, the main aim of the report is the control of Iraq’s oil resources by U.S. Oil Corporations through a colonial dictatorship. Indeed, the report is very specific about the privatisation of Iraq’s oil, and warns the puppet government to sign the so-called new “oil law” giving U.S. Corporation unhindered access to Iraq’s oil reserves. The report demands the puppet government sign the production sharing agreements (PSAs) – enforced by the U.S. – with foreign oil companies to develop Iraq's oil fields. It recommends that the U.S. “should assists Iraqi leaders to reorganise the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise”. (See my OJ analysis).

The ISG report is a propaganda tool designed to configure the Occupation, manipulate and pacify the American public. Therefore, regardless of who control the U.S. Congress and the White House, the Democrats and the Republicans have almost an identical approach to violence and foreign policy. The U.S. is not interested in peace, and never has.

The U.S. presence in Iraq is the main cause for the violence and suffering of the Iraqi people. Its removal is Iraqis legitimate struggle for self-determination and deserves the support of every civilised community.

Ghali Hassan is an independent writer living in Australia.
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_23559.shtml