The “Surge” In Iraq’s Atrocity
By Ghali Hassan
11 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
“We're facing a new kind of war... in which extremists use murder of the innocent to spread their ideology of hatred and oppression and we must stop them.”
U.S. President George Bush, 07 September 2007.
While world’s attention is diverted by the U.S. flawed threat to attack Iran and replace the elected government in Tehran with a puppet one, U.S. troop “surge” in Iraq continues to murder, displace and imprisoned Iraqis en mass. The aim is to manipulate public opinion at home, and divert attention away for the Occupation and the destruction of Iraq.The U.S. is doing its best to manipulate public opinion at home by fabricating a glossy picture out of Iraq. It is now common for Western journalist reporting from Iraq to admit that they are reporting what they are told (by the U.S. military) to report and not honest “reporting” on their part. On 03 September 2007, Katie Couric, a CBS News anchor told Bob Schieffer on CBS’s Face the Nation that Gen. David Petraeus (U.S. commander in Iraq) believes there “really is a trend” of success on the security situation in Iraq and that the “surge” – a code for escalation in U.S. violence - “needs to continue”. She admitted that the “signs of life that seem to be normal” at a market she visited was based on “what the U.S. military wants me to see”, a one-day market staged by the U.S. military for propaganda purpose. However, there is nothing out of the ordinary about CBS reporting from Iraq. All other Western propaganda organs have been doing the same for years; distorting facts and the situation on the ground, and promoting Western imperialism.
The situation on the ground in Iraq is very different from what Western media and politicians (George Bush and John Howard) like us to believe. The Associated Press (AP) reports the death toll for Iraqi civilians is double across Iraq during the so-called U.S. troop “surge” what it was a year ago. “The number of death across Iraq the country rose by about 20 per cent since July”, added the New York Times. A total of 2318 civilian died in August 2007. More a million Iraqi civilians, mostly women, children and young men have been murdered since the illegal invasion and subsequent Occupation. At least 530 Iraqi scientists and academics were assassinated since 2003 by U.S. and Mossad death squads in an orchestrated campaign to ‘strip Iraq of its scientific backbone’. Teachers and doctors were also targeted. In addition, tens of thousands of young Iraqi men have disappeared, believed to be murdered by U.S.-controlled thugs and militias. More than 4000 women and girls have disappeared.
Furthermore, the number of prisoners, including women and children, in U.S.-run jails in Iraq has increased by fifty-percent under the “surge”. U.S. forces and their collaborators are now holding more than 24,000 Iraqis without charge or trial. With only 1.2 per cent is from countries other than Iraq, suggests that the Iraqi Resistance is a legitimate national Resistance, and demolishes Bush assertion that the U.S. is fighting ‘al-Qaeda’ in Iraq. However, this is the “official” number. With many Iraqi prisoners are held in secret locations by the puppet government and U.S. forces, the real (“unofficial”) number could be much higher. (See my: Online Journal, 08 March, 2006). According to Iraqi sources, in March 2007, there were 61,000 imprisoned by U.S. forces. The prisoners are denied basic human rights are subjected to torture and physical abuse by military interrogators (aka torturers).
The Iraqi Red Crescent reports the number of internally displaced Iraqis has also doubled. More than 1.1 million Iraqis are now internally-displaced, up from 499,000 earlier this year, forcing the Iraqi population into religious/ethnic enclaves and encourage divisions and the partition of Iraq.
According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) revealed that the number of Iraqis fleeing their home grew by a factor of 20 in the same period. The IOM revealed that the ‘new arrival of new U.S. troops is responsible for this human disaster’. At least 4.2 million Iraqis – mostly women and children – have been uprooted from their homes, a disaster comparable only to the 1948 Palestinian Nakba caused by the creation of the state of Israel. Some 8 million Iraqis are in urgent need for water, sanitation, food and shelter. [1]. More than 12,000 doctors have fled the country. Some 54 % of Iraqis live in “absolute poverty” or on less than one U.S. dollar a day and the unemployment rate is staggering at 70% and rising.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has just completed the construction of an entire self-sustained fortified city – bigger than the Vatican – in the centre of Baghdad. The U.S. “Embassy” was built on imported slave workers from Asia and against Iraqi sovereignty and the wishes of the Iraqi people. The real purpose of the “Embassy” is to intimidate Iraqis and to act as the centre for U.S. military bases and colonial administration. The next ‘benchmark’ is the passing of the so-called “Oil Law” that will destroy Iraq’s unity, facilitate Iraq’s division, and control Iraq’s oil resources. Yet, the U.S. is continues the destruction of Iraq and looting of Iraq’s wealth.
It is important to acknowledge that, until 2003 and despite the U.S.-Britain enforced genocidal sanctions; Iraq was a relatively peaceful country, with the best system of education, healthcare and primary state services in the region. Iraqi men and women lived in relative harmony and mutual respect. As a result of unprovoked act of aggression and a well-planned systematic destruction, the “New Iraq” is a shattered country under conditions of insecurity and mass deprivation.
The motive for the ongoing Occupation of Iraq according to George Bush is to “provide security” and “help Iraqis build their country”. But, according to countless reports from Iraq, U.S. troops and their collaborators (Iraqis and foreign mercenaries) have aided and abetted violence against Iraqi civilians and participated in the systematic destruction of Iraqis society. Dividing the population according to religious/ethnic lines and then arming each faction to fight against the other. A UN human rights commission reported in September 2006 that special commandos units recruited from the Iranian Badr Organisations (Brigades) and trained by U.S. Special Forces under the supervision of Col. James Steele – John Negroponte’s right-hand man in El Salvador during the 1980s rein of terror – were responsible for a campaign of terror, torture and killings throughout Iraq. (See my: Global Research, 17 March 2007).
Echoing Bush, the Australian Prime Minister John Howard said: “We will withdraw our troops when the Iraqis can look after themselves”. It is the same old mantra of colonial racism. Howard forgot that centuries before he joined in the destruction and murderous Occupation of Iraq, Iraqis have looked after themselves very efficiently. The presence of foreign forces, including the 500 Australians is against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people who want an end to the Occupation and its associated violence.
Bush latest shift to finance and arm a group of criminals and opportunists is just a case in point. Where do you think these missing arms are gone? The President must be desperate, bypassing the puppet government to shake hands with one – a highway bandit – of the ‘shadiest figures’ in the al-Anbar community. The aim is always to fuel civil strife as a pretext for the ongoing Occupation.
The assumption that a U.S.-installed puppet government (of expatriate traitors, Western-oriented conmen, criminal militias and Iranian extremists – brought to Iraq on the back of U.S. tanks –) is able to manage a foreign military Occupation of a nation with unique history is a Western scam and ignores Iraqi patriotism and Iraqis’ anti-imperialist Consciousness. The puppet government is an extension of the Occupation; a façade used by the U.S. government to deflect attention away form the Occupation and the planned destruction of Iraq and the Iraqi state. From the first day it was installed by the Occupation, the puppet government has no power, devoid of credibility (among the Iraqi people) and riddle with corruption. Power and decisions making are in the hands of the Occupation. The puppet government proved to be so useful that it is blamed for everything that is deliberately inflicted on Iraq and the Iraqi people.
It is naïve to believe the U.S. is interested in building Iraq and helping Iraqis regain their freedom. Bulding Iraq was never the aim of the U.S. government. In fact since 1990, the primary aim of U.S. interference Iraq affairs was the complete destruction of Iraq as united country and the removal of Iraqi sovereignty and independence. Every Iraqi is fully aware of the U.S.-imperialist agenda.
In early 2004, an Iraqi friend wrote: “We're facing a new kind of terrorism... in which powerful extremist nations use mass murder of the innocent civilians to conquer and loot our nation, and spread their ideology of hatred and oppression and we have no option, but to resist them by all means available to us”. His feelings shared by the overwhelming majority of Iraqis who consistently rejected the Occupation of their country.
In a paper entitled “Notes on genocide in Iraq”, Ian Douglas of An-Najah National University in Nablus, Palestine, observes that: “The US is out of options in its ‘New Iraq’. Although it continues manoeuvring politically, reinforcing its destruction of the life of Iraqi society, it has only two choices: 1) Accept its defeat and a humiliating exit; or 2) Exterminate the population. The ‘surge strategy’, the walling-in of Baghdad districts, the project to impose on 50 localities the same constraints imposed on Fallujah, the four million exiled, the non-recognition of the Resistance amid its continual attacks and military-style anti-occupation operations in Baghdad, reveals that the occupation, whatever choice it makes, has lost. It was genocide for a purpose, now it is genocide without purpose”. Douglas adds, “Baghdad can never be subjugated”. [2].
Baghdad, where the troops “surge” concentrated is now dotted not with Saddam posters, but by checkpoints and separation walls. The Capital of a country has become the capital of a large gulag, ghettoised according to religious/ethnic lines. Since the American forced their way here, an atmosphere of fear and terror engulfed the Capital and the entire country. The city is not only ruled by pro-Occupation militias and criminal gangs, its population centres often indiscriminately bombed from the air resulting in large number of civilian deaths.
The “surge” has worsened conditions on the ground and increased the suffering of the Iraqi people. It is just another massacre of innocent Iraqi civilians; a failed attempt to subjugate Iraqis to U.S.-imperialist agenda. No amount of deceitful Western propaganda will manipulate the Iraqi people. According to a recent poll conducted by ABC News/BBC/NHK, the number of Iraqis now calling for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq has increased over when the troop “surge” began. [3].
That is why after nearly five years of murderous Occupation, President George Bush is running out of pretexts in Iraq. The only option left is for President Bush to heed the advice of millions of people around the world, including Iraqis and announce the immediate end to the murderous Occupation of Iraq.
Ghali Hassan is an independent writer living in Australia.
Endnotes
[1] Oxfam. (2007, July). ‘Rising to the humanitarian challenge in Iraq’. PDF
[2] Douglas, I. (2007, September). ‘Notes on genocide in Iraq’. BrusselsTribunal.org. PDF
[3] Langer, G. (2007, September). ‘Iraqis’ own surge assessment: Few see security gains’. ABC News. PDF
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