SouthFront: Analysis & Intelligence’s contributor, David Hungerford provides a lefist look at the ongoing crisis in Iraq
The U.S. invasion of Iraq was a terrorist invasion. The occupation is a terrorist occupation. Occupied Iraq is a land of chaos and anarchy, a breeding ground of terrorism. It is the wellspring of terrorism in Syria, of the attack in Paris, of the destruction of the Russian Airbus, of terrorism around the world.
The Iraqi government before 2003 was the organic product of history and society. The invasion destroyed the state. It swept away the government institutions, the army, and the laws. Iraq has been stateless ever since.
“They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind,” it is said. And so it has been.
The big international thug and robber, U.S. imperialism, was fixed on plunder. It set up an occupation administrative authority to replace the shattered state. The authority is usually called the “government.” It is no such thing.
“Elections” along sectarian and ethnic lines destroyed the unified Iraqi citizenship. Provocations were engineered to set one religious sect against another. The occupation is a Frankenstein’s monster, born of no natural mother. It has never been able to govern. It will never be able to govern.
It makes no sense to refer to “Iraq” as if it were a sovereign state. In 1915 if someone had referred to “India” as a sovereign state, as one would of Italy or Japan, everyone would have laughed.
From the beginning the occupation found itself facing the Iraqi people’s national resistance. The people never asked for the occupation. They never wanted it. They had prepared. They had weapons. They had military experience. They fought back.
U.S. imperialism invaded on the pretext of “war on terror.” It soon found itself waging a war of terror. Ambushed and bombed at every turn, the brainwashed occupation troops knew only that someone was trying to kill them. They turned to terror tactics against the people.
Felicity Arbuthnot wrote of the Haditha massacre of November 19, 2005, that a soldier, “was ordered to photograph the bodies. He picked up a little girl, shot in the head. The contents of her small skull spilled out on to his trousers. ‘I need immediate help’, he said. . . The reaction of Major General Steve Johnson, Commander of US Forces in the Province was salutary: ‘It happened all the time … it was just the cost of doing business.’”
In all twenty-four persons were killed in Haditha. No United States serviceperson was convicted of any crime in connection with the massacre.
There are other penalties, like that which befell the “Macbeth soldier:”
Soon after he got back from his final tour of Afghanistan, he began rubbing his hands over and over and constantly rinsing them under the tap.
“Mom, it won’t wash off,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” she replied.
“The blood. It won’t come off.”
A little later he committed suicide. Thousands, of U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have committed suicide.
Always, imperialism means terrorism. Decades before Haditha the mother of a Vietnam veteran who had been involved in the My Lai massacre told Seymour Hirsh, “I gave them a good boy and they sent me back a murderer.”
The truly guilty are the policymakers. They can be punished only by the final overthrow of imperialism. Their time is not that far off. The Nazi leaders never thought they would face the Nuremburg Tribunal. But they did.
News reports say “Jihadi John,” the dead-eyed killer from the Daesh, is no longer among the living. Few mourn him. The grisly deeds attributed to him arouse a primitive hatred.
By the same token one can only imagine the anger of those of the same blood as the numberless victims of U.S. imperialist terror. Many Iraqis take the path of the national resistance. They fight to destroy the occupation and all of its works. They fight to regain their country’s independence and sovereignty. Theirs is a just war.
There are those in Europe who lack the opportunity for a just people’s war, or have no concept of it. The words of Lenin might well apply to them. He said it is difficult indeed for them “to find some outlet for their indignation and revolutionary energy other than terror.” (“What Is to Be Done”)
Many layers of intrigue exist among the imperialists, their medieval “oil sheikh” allies, and the Islamist extremists. It is difficult indeed to conclusively determine just who might organize and direct people like the Paris attackers. The officially-named are, as usual, all dead. But we know where to look.
As far as Iraq is concerned there is only one way out. The occupation must be destroyed by the Iraqi people’s armed resistance. A new state must be created in accordance with the people’s will.
The prospect might seem dim. But the Iraqi people have fought imperialism continually for a quarter of a century. They are still fighting. It is certain that one day they will win final victory. Theirs will be a great victory for all of the oppressed people of the world.
