USA, Whose Hostage?
By Ghali Hassan
05 April, 2005
Countercurrents.orgAs a result of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, the living situation for the Iraqi people have deteriorated to a level far worse than at any time before the war. The fabric of Iraqi society have been shredded, and the war shattered all hope that Iraq would advance on paths to "freedom' and "democracy". Why, and who is the beneficiary of this act of aggression?
After the 9/11 attacks, the world expressed support and condolences for the US and the people of the US. The French daily Le Monde headline was; "We are all Americans now". On September 12, 2001, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked what the attacks would mean for US-Israeli relations. His quick reply was: "It's very good," he said. "Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy [for Israel]"[1]. The 9/11 attacks on the US proved to be the 'great joys' for Israel, the only country on the planet to express a kind of "Schadenfreude".
Accusations were levelled on all Muslims, particularly Arab Muslims, as if Ariel Sharon and his gang represent everything Jewish. Enemies of Muslims in the West and in the US are not difficult to come by. There are all sorts of Islamophobic psychopaths ready to unleash their fire on Muslims. Israelis and Israeli sympathisers, including the majority of US policy makers and US mainstream media, saw 9/11 as an "opportunity" to be used for unending war.
With the 9/11 attacks, the so-called 'neoconservatives', a euphemism for new breed of crypto-fascists, who were the architects of the US war on Iraq, saw their dream come true. The group forms a cult of pro-Israel "sympathisers"; including Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defence secretary, Douglas Feith undersecretary for policy, and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney, chief of staff and national security adviser. On the White House National Security Council staff, there were former Iran-contra figure Elliott Abrams and Robert Joseph were dealing with the Middle East and arms proliferation, respectively. Mr Wolfowitz in particular was described as 'over
the-top-crazy when it comes to Israel' and 'Israel-centric', cited by former CIA analysts, Kathleen and Bill Christison.In their 1996 policy paper "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" presented to the then-Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser argued that Israel ('the Realm") had no choice go on the offensive attacks against Arab nations, including, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. Iraq, the only serious challenge to Israel, have to be destroyed first in order to secure a stranglehold over Syria, which is depicted as the main danger to the Jewish state.
Rumsfeld's Defence Policy Board (DPB) was dominated by neocons, notably its former chairman, Richard Perle, former CIA chief James Woolsey, former
arms-control negotiator Kenneth Adelman and military historian Eliot Cohen. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks they pushed for war in the Middle East starting with the war Iraq.Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired USAF Lt. Col., who was working at the Pentagon wrote; "What seemed out of place was the strong and open pro-Israel and anti-Arab orientation in an ostensibly apolitical policy-generation staff within the Pentagon". She adds, "By August [2002], I was morally and intellectually frustrated by my powerlessness against what increasingly appeared to be a philosophical hijacking of the Pentagon" [2]. The US powerhouse was taken hostages by a cult whose members proved to be less loyal to their own country than to a foreign power.
Patrick J. Buchanan, a conservative commentator and chairman of The American Cause, wrote; "On Sept. 20, forty neoconservatives sent an open letter of ultimatum to the White House instructing President Bush on how the war on terror must be conducted. To retain the signers' support, the president was told, he must target Hezbollah [the Lebanese Resistance movement] for destruction, retaliate against Syria and Iran if they refuse to sever ties to Hezbollah, and overthrow Saddam. Any failure to attack Iraq, the signers warned Bush, 'will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism'" [3]. We know now none of those had anything to do with 9/11.
Well connected to the centre of power and cleverly using the 'anti-Semitism' cliché to intimidate and bully any fair criticism of themselves or Israel, they had no problem to get their war on Iraq. The Pro-Israel cult in the Bush administration fabricated the first Iraq link to 9/11 in order to manipulate public opinion (American) and demonise not only the Iraqi people, but also the entire Arab nation. The second fabricated story fabricated by the cult was the story of Iraq's weapon of mass destruction (WMD).
Pretext after pretext have collapsed. Iraq was found to be a defenceless nation, and had no link to the 9/11 attacks or terrorism. Even George Bush admitted after the war that the link never existed. We know now that the WMD story was a lie. Paul Wolfowitz, the most warmonger of the Bush administration, told the July, 2003 issue of Vanity Fair magazine that he promoted the false pretext for "bureaucratic reason" and to create a "consensus" to go to war. In other words, the pretexts for the war were
concocted to make a case for an act of aggression. Mr. Wolfowitz new job is the "humanitarian" CEO of the World Bank, which required an "honest" and "decent" man.Iraq had never pose a threat to the US. The nation was simply trying to survive 13-years genocidal sanctions. In the sunlight, the reasons for the war on Iraq become more obvious: (1) support for Israel's terror against the Palestinian people, (2) support for Israel's expansionism, and (3) enhance America's corporate interests and control over Middle East vital energy resources.
As a result of the war, the Iraq was destroyed as a state. Iraq's infrastructure and vital human services were destroyed and still in ruin. The Iraqi people are the most oppressed and most abused people on the planet today. Thousands of Iraqis have been imprisoned, abused and tortured by Occupation forces. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed and many more have been wounded.
A report in the credible British journal, The Lancet, on November 2004, shows that from March 2003 to October 2004, the US armed forces and its mercenaries have killed more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians; over half of them were women and children. The estimate is very conservative in that it excluded the high civilians death in Fallujah, and the complete destruction of a once vibrant city of 300,000 people. Other major Iraqi cities and towns are experiencing similar destruction and atrocities.
Israel appears to be the chief beneficiary of this war: Iraq was the only challenge to Israel's terror in the Middle East, and Iraq was a major supporter of the Palestinian right to self-determination and liberation from Israel's colonial Occupation. The Israeli Government used the war as a cover up for its increased crimes against the Palestinian people, and depicted any criticism of Israel's terror as "anti-Semitism". In the shadow of the Iraq war, Israel was able to build its Apartheid Wall, confiscate more Palestinian land and resources, and continues killing Palestinians with impunity never seen before. The war allows Israel to perfect its espionage networks in the US to spy on the US itself. In addition to massive military aid paid by US taxpayers to prop Israeli colonial army, Israel benefited from increase in its arms sale to the US war machine and to other places such as China. The Iraq war was a bonanza for the Sharon Government.
It should be noted that, for years, American taxpayer money has funded Palestine Occupation--the torture chambers, the military apparatus, the bulldozers used in house demolitions, the building of settlements and now the construction of the West Bank Apartheid Wall, declared illegal [4] by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
In Iraq, Israeli Mossad agents were implicated in the assassination of thousands of Iraqi scientists and prominent Iraqi citizens and politicians to deprive Iraq from its human and knowledge resources. Iraqis rightly believe that Israeli agents involved in the destruction and looting of Iraq's cultural heritage. Israel was able to enlist the Kurds in North Iraq as its major allies for its espionage and interference in Iran affairs.
The cost to the US is that many US soldiers have been killed and many more have been wounded. The war is also contributing to the speedy decline of US power - bulging trade and budget deficits due to higher oil prices and rocketed war spending -, and US "moral prestige" in the world. The US has never been so isolated from the rest of the civilised world. Like Israel, the majority of the world public considers the US a "threat to world peace". The Iraqi people did not welcome the occupation of their land and have rejected the US forms of "freedom" and "democracy". An entire nation was taken hostage by an armed foreign power on behalf of other foreign power. Contrary to pro-Israel Zionists and anti-Arabs pundits' assumptions, the Iraqi people Resistance proved to be an effective force, and may have thwarted US military attacks against Syrian and Iran.
Undeterred by their failed strategy in Iraq and their deception of the American people, the pro-Israel cult in the Bush administration and their allies in the Israeli Government are pushing the US for more wars (against Syria and Iran) that are not in US interest. It is clear now that, 'what is good for Israel is [not] good for America' and Americans.
There is little doubt that the current US Government and its ideologues will continue to inflict harms not only on defenceless people outside the US, but also on the US and on the Americans people for the next few decades. The challenge is not whether the US will decline as an imperial power but whether the American people can prevent their country from becoming a permanent hostage of a foreign power and slow its decline.
Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia
[1]. http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html
[2]. The American Conservative, Dec. 01 issue, 2003,
http://www.amconmag.com/12_1_03/feature.html
[3]. The American Conservative, March 24 issue, 2003
http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html
[4].
http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/ipresscom/ipress2004/ipresscom2004-2_summary_m wp_20040709.htm.
