The Iraqis Rights
To Be Free
By Ghali Hassan
05 October, 2005
Countercurrents.org
With
the continuing US attacks on Iraqi population centres, the Bush administration
appeared more desperate than ever to force the new US-crafted constitution
on the Iraqi people. The attacks are concentrated on Iraqi communities,
who oppose the Occupation, to prevent them from voting on the constitution
in the upcoming referendum. The US aim is to divide Iraqis on sectarian
and ethnic lines and force them into neo-colonial dependency. It is
the Iraqi peoples legitimate rights to fight for their unity,
freedom and national independence.
Immediately after
the invasion of Iraq, the US and its junior partner, Britain, started
the division of Iraqis based on ethnic and sectarian lines. Then and
for the first time, civil war appeared in every Western
newspaper and media outlet. Iraq has been a non-sectarian mosaic society
since it inception. Iraqis see themselves to be Iraqis first, Muslim
or Christian second. I havent heard of any Iraqi talking
about civil war. I only hear Americans and Brits talking about civil
war, said British journalist, Robert Fisk. Premeditated attacks
on religious leaders and religious gatherings increased in order to
provide fuel and provoke sectarian strife and hatred among Iraqis. In
other words, the promotion of religious conflict is the creation of
US forces. Further more, the violence is deliberate and designed to
make people pay less attention to the wholesale of Iraqs resources
and public assets.
Iraqi sources argued
that, US forces and their collaborators the US-created militias,
secret US-British agents and Israels Mossad are behind
every major sectarian killing and kidnapping in the country. After every
large killing of civilians, the US and mainstream Western media are
deliberately blaming the Iraqi Resistance for the violence, as rightly
argued by credible Middle Eastern media. Furthermore, the aim is to
distort the image of the Resistance and weaken its popular support in
Iraq and abroad. It should be emphasised that a national resistance
movement has no reason to commit acts of violence against the local
civilian population for whom it is fighting and upon whom it depends.
Since March 2003,
US forces have killed more than 200,000 innocent Iraqi civilians. Based
on the conservative estimate 100, 000 Iraqis killed between March
2003 to October 2004 provided by the peer reviewed British medical
journal The Lancet, if one includes the atrocity of Fallujah, Ramadi,
Qaim, Tel Afar and the daily atrocities committed by US forces and their
collaborators against the Iraqi people, the number of Iraqis killed
since March 2003 would be in the 200,000 mark or even more. Iraqis dead
do not count. The US and the Britain do not bother to keep count of
the people they have slaughtered. In the Anglo-American ideology of
evil imperialism, Iraqis are considered unpeople and therefore
do not count.
Based on the November
2004 peer reviewed Lancet report, the majority were women and children.
Almost every Iraqi family have lost at least one member. Iraq was a
defenceless nation, and therefore, Iraqi blood is cheap to spill to
satisfy Western violence. In addition to the slaughter, hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis are imprisoned, abused and tortured in US-run prisons.
Today, there are more prisons in Iraq than at any time in Iraqs
history. The entire Iraqs vital civilian infrastructure has been
destroyed. Why?
How can people continue
to believe that the US and Britain are bringing democracy
and freedom to Iraq? It is a myth that is fed routinely
as a diet to Western citizens, Americans in particular, in order to
manipulate them into supporting acts of aggression against other nations.
What the US and Britain want in Iraq is a brutal, repressive, and corrupt
regime in control of the population and service of US interests. And
there are plenty of examples. Iraqis and the rest of the peoples of
the Middle East want freedom from Western terrorism and imperialism.
Iraqis rights
to resistance and self-defence are legitimate rights enshrined in UN
Charter, numerous UN resolutions and international law. International
law grants a people fighting an illegal occupation the right to use
'all necessary means at their disposal' to end their occupation and
the occupied are entitled to seek and receive support.
All resistance movements have used armed struggle to force the occupiers
to change course. Armed resistant have been used against the English
in the US, against the Nazis in France, Yugoslavia and Norway. Iraq
is not different. Violent resistance arises from violent military occupation.
The Iraqi people have the right to resist colonial aggression.
Resistance to illegal
act of aggression and foreign occupation is not terrorism; it is legitimate
act of self-defence. Terrorism is the act of unprovoked aggression.
People should be intimidated or afraid to support a legitimate act of
self-defence. The success of the Iraqi Resistance to liberate Iraq from
US Occupation and achieve national independence is also a success for
world resistance to imperialism.
The historic judgement
by the Italian judge Clementina Forleo, Judge for the Preliminary Hearing
in Milan on 24 January 2005 adds legitimacy to the Iraqi struggle against
US Occupation. Judge Forleo ruled that the accused (five North African
citizens) cannot be classified as terrorists, but resistance
fighters. She said: [T]hat resistance [to] US occupation forces
in Iraq by sending fighters does not amount to terror. The judgement
was supported by an overwhelming majority of the Italian Legal Community.
This historic judgement is supported recently by the German Federal
Administrative Court which ruled that the attack launched by the US
and its allies against the nation of Iraq was a clear war of aggression
as specified in Article 4, Paragraph 4 of the UN Charter
that violated international law.
The illegitimate
elections at the point of the Occupation gun produced illegitimate constitution.
Like the January elections, the US-crafted constitution is dividing
Iraq on sectarian and ethnic lines masked in the catch word of federalism.
It is the US card to legitimise the Occupation of Iraq and promote its
ideology of dominating the world. A Yes vote by US collaborators
the Kurds and the Jaafari-Chalabi groups would mean a
step further in the marginalisation of Iraqis who oppose the presence
of US forces, and the continuing of the violence. It is a repeat of
previously orchestrated events; the Fallujah atrocity, the fraudulent
elections, the handing over of fake sovereignty, etc. The
US objective is to break-up Iraq according to US-Israel Zionist design.
Finally, the indiscriminate
US attacks on Iraqi towns and cities have added fuel to Iraqis determination
to be free from the scourge of imperialism. There is no pretext for
US troops and mercenaries to remain in Iraq and continue the violence.
Iraq is not, was not and never could have been a threat to the US. The
only prospect for a peaceful resolution and an end to the current illegal
war of aggression is the immediate and full end to the Occupation.
Ghali Hassan
lives in Perth, Western Australia