Iraq Elections
And The Liberal Elites:
A Response To Noam Chomsky
By Ghali Hassan
10 March, 2005
Countercurrents.org
In
a recent opinion piece, Naom Chomsky writes, "In Iraq, the January
elections were successful and praiseworthy. However, the main success
is being reported only marginally: The United States was compelled to
allow them to take place. That is a real triumph, not of the bomb-throwers,
but of
non-violent resistance by the people, secular as well as Islamist, for
whom Grand Ayatollah Al Sistani is a symbol" (Khaleej
Times Online, 4 March 2005). Mr. Chomsky is either completely
out of touch with reality in Iraq, or simply ignorant of the legitimate
rights of the Iraqi people to self-determination.
Firstly, the elections
were a farce. The majority of the 14 million eligible Iraqis to vote
have boycotted the elections. Since the invasion and Occupation of Iraq,
Iraqis have protested and requested immediate free and fair elections,
however, the Bush administration 'stifled, delayed, manipulated and
otherwise thwarted the democratic aspiration of the Iraqi people'. The
US administration turned down the idea of elections, claiming that technical
problems would permit elections in two years at the earliest. Prominent
Iraqi politicians and patriots, and UN officials who are familiar with
the conditions there immediately refuted this argument. (See note [1]
for detail). According to Joachim Guilliard of German Campaign against
the Embargo on Iraq, "Another important element of the US strategy
was that the elections took place under the 'Transitional Administrative
Law (TAL)'" drawn up by pro-Israel US jurists, such as the 32-year
old pro-Israel Noah Feldman of New York University.
The TAL is destined
to serve as a blueprint for a permanent constitution. When asked about
the influence of the US administration on the selection of a government
candidates, Kofi Annan's special envoy, Lakthar Brahimi, that examined
the possibilities of elections in Iraq pointed out that Paul
Bremer, US Proconsul in Baghdad, was the ruler in Iraq. "Bremer
is the dictator of Iraq", he said. Earlier Bremer insisted that
elections should be done "in a way that takes care of our concerns",
not the Iraqi people concerns [2]. "If Lebanon cannot have free
elections while under [Syrian] occupation, how, asks the rest of the
world, does Iraq have free elections when it is under US military occupation?",
writes Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
in the Reagan administration.
Furthermore, to
allow the US to continue the Occupation and violence, Al-Sistani backed
down from his position to early elections and handover plan, and accepted
US proposition for late elections (to coincide with Bush inauguration
and his tour of Europe) on US terms and agenda. Al-Sistani is
now part of the Iraqi Interim Government (IIG). Al-Sistani list, the
Iraqi United Alliance (IUA), includes Ahmed Chelabi and his gang of
criminals. Further, there is evidence that Al-Sistani supported the
US attack on and the destruction of the vibrant city of Fallujah. His
illness and travel to London (accompanied by Ahmed Chelabi) were timed
to coincide with the slaughter of thousands of Iraqis. Al-Sistani is
a religious recluse, surrounded by pro-US Occupation expatriates or
quislings, and he has no idea what is going on outside his quarter.
The Iraqi people have no affinity with these expatriates. They only
see them on TV from the fortified privilege of the "green zone".
The few million
Iraqis who voted had little choice. People have been paid bribes and
trucked by US forces to voting stations to be greeted by waiting mainstream
media. In addition to Al-Sistani religious decree to Iraqis that the
"elections are a religious duty", voting was linked with receipt
of food rations, several voters told Dahr Jamail of The NewStandard
after the Sunday poll (www.dahrjamailiraq.com). On the day of voting,
people had two choices, lose your card (Saddam's old food-distribution
cards) and starve, or go out and vote in these fraudulent elections.
'It was hard to describe the vote as legitimate, when whole portions
of the country can't vote and doesn't vote', Democrat Senator John Kerry
warned. It is important remembering that Mr. Chomsky encouraged Americans
to vote for John Kerry in the last US elections, which Mr. Chomsky himself
described as "undemocratic" and not "praiseworthy".
Secondly, to describe
the Iraqi people resisting this violent and illegal Occupation of their
nation as simply "bomb-throwers" is to ignore the gross atrocities
committed against the Iraqi people by US forces. This is like saying
that, the Iraqi Resistance is responsible for all the violence and destruction
in Iraq, and ignoring the violence of the Occupation and the many criminal
elements working with the Occupation against the principle aim of the
Iraqi people. The violence is brought by the Occupation, not by the
people fighting to end it. Everywhere, violent resistance arises from
a violent foreign military occupation. No word about the trigger-happy
US soldiers and mercenaries, who not only enjoy immunity from criminal
prosecution for their crimes against the Iraqi people, but also the
support of the mainstream media, and the protection of the "new
Iraqi army". Those who obliged to kill to defend their country
and people are called "terrorists"; those who kill en masss,
using napalm, chemical and nuclear weapons, to enforce their tyranny
of domination are the noble (wo)men of Western "civilisation".
According to UN
Charter and numerous UN resolutions, international law guarantees people's
right to resist an illegal occupation by "all necessary means at
their disposal" to end the occupation of their nation. Resistant
groups "are entitled to seek and receive support".
Thirdly, Mr. Chomsky
writes; "Hastening a US-UK withdrawal depends not only on Iraqis
but also on the willingness of the American and British electorates
to compel their governments to accept Iraqi sovereignty". I am
not sure if Chomsky really believes in this statement or it is just
the norms of liberal elites to have some right in the struggle of oppressed
people against Western tyrannies. We have seen the "feel good"
demonstration against the war and its outcome. The American electorates
have just handed Bush and his gang of warmongers a "mandate"
for unending war. Soon we will witness the generosity of British electorates
to Mr. Blair and his gang of warmongers.
Chomsky is the darling
of the left and right. He is an icon for many people, and sometime provides
useful information on US foreign policy. Mr. Chomsky has every right
to his views, but he does not have the right to distort what the Iraqi
people struggling for. The Iraqi people have legitimate right to
resist the Occupation. The US and its allies will not leave Iraq; they
have to be forced to leave. Armed resistance to the occupation of Iraq
will continue until the foreign occupiers withdraw their armies.
Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia. He can be contacted
on:
[email protected]
[1] Joachim Guilliard,
(in German). "Im Treibsand Iraks: Von 'Auftrag
erfüllt' zur unerfüllbaren Mission"? (In the quicksand
of Iraq: From
'mission accomplished' to mission impossible), IMI-Study 2004/03, August
2004, <http://imi-online.de/download/IMI-Studie-2004-03JGTreibsand.pdf>.
Also available in English, ZNet
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?
SectionID=15&ItemID=6343
October 02, 2004.
[2] Herbert Docena, "In Iraq, the show must go on", Focus
on the Global
South, 26.4.2004,
http://www.focusweb.org/main/html/Article289.html