Imperial Propagandists
By Ghali Hassan
16 September, 2005
Countercurrents.orgSince the invasion and occupation of Iraq by U.S. forces, there is much talk about the opinions and views of Western “experts” on Iraq. With the exception of very few honourable voices, the majority of Western “experts” are imperial propagandists complicit in U.S. war crimes against the Iraqi people.
The most conspicuous of these instant new breed of “experts” is Juan Cole of the University of Michigan and the Blogger of Informed Comment. On 23 August 2005, Juan Cole, a professor of History, the discipline of converting lies into facts and facts into lies, told Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow.org; “U.S. special forces have to remain in Iraq to protect the US-installed political and religious figures, and the oil pipelines”. This kind of imperialist thinking is not only against the wishes of the Iraqi people, but also against the wishes of the majority of people around the world. Cole’s support for the Occupation is consistent with the “evil ideology” of the Bush administration, which is the long-term occupation of Iraq and the control of Iraq’s oil resources to enhance U.S. world domination and Israel’s Zionist ideology.
Earlier, on 27 January 2005, Juan Cole, who grew up on U.S. military bases on foreign lands, told C-Span Washington Journal, that; “Iraq is like South Africa during the Apartheid regime [a major U.S. ally], the U.S. had to invade and change the regime of Saddam and give power to the Shiites majority”. The comment is not only misleading, it is also a distortion of facts. In addition, Shiites as a majority in Iraq is much disputed figure in itself, as Shiites and Sunnis are intertwined. "Terms such as Shiite south, and Sunni centre and the like of today, reflect only the determination of outside powers to partition Iraq", wrote Muwaffaq Rifai, editor of Al-Manara daily in Baghdad.
Mr Cole also said that he studied Iraq in the U.S. from textbooks because he “couldn’t get a visa to do fieldwork in Iraq during Saddam regime”. This is utterly untrue. Iraq was much freer country then than today, and has been very frequent destination by Westerners, such as journalists, scientists and archaeologists. Mr Cole analysis of Iraq is just another U.S. textbook devoid of facts and credibility.
In a recent interview in August 2005, Gen. John Jumper, the US Air Force’s chief of staff said; “We will continue with a rotational presence of some type in [Iraq] more or less indefinitely," he said. "We have interests in that part of the world and an interest in staying in touch with the militaries over there”. Is there any difference between the opinion of Mr Cole, the “expert” on Iraq, and the opinion of the U.S. military? All imperial propagandists share the same delusion; the promotion of imperialism.
In the 1920s, the British occupying forces in Iraq installed a puppet regime – a carbon copy of today’s US-installed puppet regime – and crafted an army of collaborators to protect the Iraqi façade and control the native population. When the population revolted against the puppet regime, Winston Churchill authorised the use of poisonous mustard gas against Arab and Kurdish tribesmen in Iraq. The British Air Force used to crush all Iraqi Resistance fighting for independence. At the time, there were many delusional imperial propagandists who supported a crumbling British Empire on false pretexts. However, the Iraqi people proved to be much stronger and united than the propagandists had predicted.
Like the pretext of Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) to destroy Iraq, the pretexts of “democracy” and ‘freedom” have now evaporated from the thinking of Juan Cole and other imperial propagandists. Juan Cole, like other imperial propagandists, justifies the ongoing Occupation of Iraq by U.S. forces as a necessary measure to “prevent civil war”. Again, this is utterly misleading U.S. propaganda. Civil war, as it is promoted by Western media and Western “experts” is the ultimate aim of the U.S. Occupation in Iraq. It is the perfect pretext for the Occupation to continue. As Dr. Nabil Salim, an Iraqi professor of political science at Baghdad University told Al-Ahram Weekly; “There is a plan against Iraq and its aims could be achieved through civil war. Iraqis are well aware of this and daily make sacrifices to prevent that war from becoming a reality”, he said.
According to several Iraqi sources there is substantive evidence that the U.S. forces and their Iraqi collaborators are behind every major sectarian killing and kidnapping in the country. The promotion of Shiites-Sunnis conflict is the creation of U.S. forces. The U.S. and Western media are deliberately blaming the Iraqi Resistance for the violence in order to distort the image of the Resistance and weaken its popular support in Iraq and abroad. The majority of Iraqis blame the presence of U.S. forces for the continuing violence and mayhem in their country.
Iraqis are historically against internal violence, sectarianism and federalism. All Iraqis see themselves as on people. In addition to the US-instigated sectarian violence, the U.S-crafted Iraqi Constitution is the other tool to destroy Iraq’s identity, foment sectarian violence and encourage civil war among the Iraqi people. The U.S. aim is to fragment Iraq into smaller and weaker regions dependent on U.S. protection.
After two years of violent Occupation, many Iraqis admit openly that life before the Occupation was much better and safer. The U.S. war against the Iraqi people has provided Western propagandists and “experts” with an easy way to fame and scholarship. The longer the Occupation of Iraq lasts, the more promotion and money Juan Cole and the likes of him will accumulate. It is now clear that the majority of U.S. intellectuals and pundits are straight propaganda agents using the phantoms of U.S. “democracy” and “freedom” as pretexts for murderous imperialism.
While the world attention is directed on Hurricane Katrina, U.S. forces continue to massacre Iraqi civilian en mass. In the city of Tal Afar, close to the city of Mosul, thousands of U.S. marines and U.S. are destroying the city of 250,000-300,000 people in the same fascist assault that destroyed the vibrant city of Fallujah. Tal Afar has been besieged by U.S. forces for weeks. And in contravention of the Geneva Convention and international law, water and electricity have been cut off, and Occupation forces are preventing any food and medical assistance to enter the city, increasing an even worse human disaster and enlarging the U.S. atrocity against the Iraqi people.
The attack on the city is described by complicit Western media as a “joint U.S. and Iraqi” operation, however, the Iraqi daily, Azzaman reported: “Iraqi soldiers are too few to spot among the thousands of U.S. marines” and Kurdish Peshmerga militias who are used to incite civil strife among Iraqi communities. “[U.S.] troops now see all men able of carrying arms as suspects and many of those attempting to flee have been arrested”, reported Azzaman. The fate of young male 400 detainees is not known.
U.S. air bombardments and artillery shelling of the city and the use of toxic weapons have killed more than 211 Iraqi civilians and destroyed more than 140 residential dwellings, according to Iraqi Red Crescent news report. Like Fallujah, the majority of Tal Afar’s population are now displaced refugees in their own country.
The terror attacks on Tal Afar and other Iraqi cities is part of the U.S. strategy to destroy Iraq and to violently suppress the Iraqi people Resistance to U.S. Occupation. However, the Iraqi people are not likely to be intimidated by U.S. violence. Like the U.S. assault on Fallujah and other Iraqi cities, the assault on Tal Afar will enforce the Iraqi people determination to liberate their country from U.S. Occupation and terrorism.
The normalisation of U.S. terror attacks in Iraq by imperial propagandists and Western media is a crime against humanity. The Occupation has destroyed every aspects of life in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children have been murdered by U.S. forces and their collaborators. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, including women and children, are imprisoned and tortured in U.S-run prisons in Iraq.
In addition, U.S. is introducing a culture of corruption into Iraq and is looting Iraq’s wealth at the expense of the Iraqi people. Therefore, the Iraqi people have legitimate right – under international law – to defend their country and resist the U.S. Occupation by all means available to them. The only solution to this large atrocity is the immediate and full withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
The roles of imperial propagandists to save a crumbling U.S. empire are proved to be limited in the face of worldwide resistance to military violence. People around the world should urge for popular action in support of the Iraqi people defending their cities against terrorist attacks and fighting to liberate their country from foreign Occupation. A victory for the Iraqi people is a victory for the rest of the civilised world.
Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia.
