Ninth April 2003

9 April 2003

As Mao so perceptively declared: 'power grows from the barrel of a
gun.' America now has that mantle of the world's most powerful nation,
won in the heat of battle. Despite the inherent backwardness and sheer
idiocy of its worldview, the racism and trigger-happy excesses of its
hick troops and a President of barely normal intelligence, America is
now the de facto definer of international law, international
boundaries, and even truth itself. Let's consider the appalling
catalogue of the last few weeks: A number of 'friendly fire' incidents
claiming British and Kurdish deaths (acts which the lapdog media have
failed to discuss in any depth); a punitive attack on the Palestine
Hotel in Baghdad which killed several European journalists; an
accidentally - on purpose strike against the Arab Al-Jazheera network,
which killed at least one reporter; individual troops planting the
Stars and Stripes or wearing helmets bearing the legend 'Kill them
All!' and of course, the 1,000-plus civilian casualties, which at every
turn the 'Allies', so called, have disgracefully refused to take
responsibility for.

One can only shout at the telly for so long. Solemn American diplomats
show news footage of the 1988 chemical attack on Halabja, one of the
last acts of the Iraqi war effort against Iran which had benefited so
greatly from American largesse (and weapons). When Iraq used mustard
gas against Iranian troops in 1981, Ronald Reagan vetoed all
condemnation. Donald Rumsfeld himself went to Baghdad to shake Saddam
by the hand. It is tempting to conclude that the US was so convinced of
Iraq's chemical capability because she had supplied so much of it
herself. We can go back further - the 1968 accession to power of the
Ba'ath Party, backed by the CIA; and further still - the first Ba'ath
regime of 1963; with the CIA aiding and abetting the torture and
execution of Iraqi Communist Party activists. From August 1990, it
seemed as if Saddam could no longer be relied upon to use his evil for
the purposes of western imperialism. Just as eleven years later Bush
Junior miraculously discovered the Taleban, untouched in Kabul for five
years, Saddam would be made to pay the price for violating American
interests, and the peaceful and innocent families of Baghdad were going
to be bombed into gratitude, and happily decompose in a 'free'
Iraq.

Let's consider the scale of the historical changes we are witnessing.
The UN is effectively dead as a force of any international influence.
It is permitted a role in post-war Iraq, it can demand nothing. The US
will define many of the less orthodox Iraqi combatants as 'illegal
insurgents' without reference to any concept of international law,
simply because it suits her purposes, and whilst the fate of the 1,000
Muslims held without charge as virtual hostages in uncivilised and
brutalising conditions at Guantanamo Bay is not even mentioned. The
whole world now views Britain as a pitiful thing, essentially selling
her national independence to an American power which views her at best
as an incidental satellite (or perhaps Robin to Bush's Batman; Tonto to
his Lone Ranger; the list goes on). At least we can take comfort in the
laughable sight of Blair scuttling to Washington to receive a medal of
honour for being a good little poodle.

It takes time for the full irony of the Cola-lition's often
breathtaking perceptions of Iraqis throughout this conflict to sink in.
Apparently Iraqis have no natural patriotism or bravery whatsoever and
anyone who raises so much as a finger against American invasion is a
'Saddam loyalist'. Iraq does not really have an Army, it has
'conscripts' who are 'forced to fight'. Those conscripts seemed to
disappear after about a week of conflict, to be replaced by 'Iraqi
fighters' or 'paramilitaries' - 'Fedayeen' and the Republican Guard -
staffed by the likes of Darth Vader and Cruella De Vil. Iraq is not
actually supposed to fight back - it isn't fair. Apparently 'Iraqi
anti-aircraft fallout' killed those civilians at the Baghdad market.
They shouldn't have fired back at the US bombers - they have only
themselves to blame. After smashing their way through a sovereign
country with tremendous numerical and technological superiority, the
Yanks and their running dogs (which is unfortunately us) seemed aghast
at Iraqis' willingness to oppose them - they have turned resistance to
illegal invasion into a war crime.

Cut short by the apparent 'liberation' of Baghdad on 9 April 2003. This
is a personal blow similar to that felt by Communists in the aftermath
of the Khrushchev speech in 1955. Now I know fully how it feels to be
on the losing side of a war. The plight of the poor and oppressed
throughout the world is now that little bit more difficult to champion,
and American imperialism is now free to wage war throughout the world.
The human cost of this war should be counted not by the civilian death
toll of this particular conflict, but terms of the thousands of
Iranian, Syrian and Libyan victims to come. May God curse Bush and the
Quisling Blair, along with the braying big business wide-boys and
mindless Sun-reading troglodytes who will now be dancing on those Arab
graves. And if I ever speak or write of politics again, may He strike
me dead. They have won, we have lost, and the international progressive
movement may take years, possibly decades to recover.