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In Solidarity With The Iraqi People

By Ghali Hassan

27 May, 2004
Countercurrents.org

"[W] e must understand that the resistance movement
in Iraq is a resistance movement that all of us have to support, because
it's our war, too". Arundhati Roy (1).


When one looks at Goya's paintings (Disasters of War), one is struck by the brutality and inhumanity of the French army in Spain. Eventually, Napoleon's
back was broken in Spain by small but determined resistance of guerrilla fighters. Napoleon once said of Spain, "That unfortunate war destroyed me .
. . All . . . my disasters are bound up in that fatal knot"(2). Indeed,
Napoleon lost more French troops in Spain than in Russia. The comparison
with the American army in Iraq today, is not dissimilar in term of violence
and destruction inflicted by the U.S. army on one of the greatest
civilisation of human kinds.

The Spanish word guerrilla means, "little war", described the tactics used
to resist the French empire of Napoleon Bonaparte. However, guerrilla
warfare and tactics are centuries old. Guerrilla bands in Iraq began
emerging immediately after the U.S. forces entered Iraq, evidently because
of the power vacuum that developed when the Iraqi regime collapsed, and the
U.S. army failed to establish effective authority of their own. The Iraqi
resistance groups varied, some are former soldiers or workers but others
being religious persons with local influence. Although these groups are not
centrally linked, almost all of them shared an enthusiastic devotion to
Islam and an enthusiastic rejection of the brutal U.S-British occupying
forces.

The brutal and horrific behaviour of the occupying forces towards the Iraqi
people have contributed to increase support for the Iraqi resistance among
the Iraqi population. Furthermore, the use of torture, sexual abuse and the
apparent murder of detainees in prisons at the hands of occupying forces,
removed any doubt about the "real" intention of the occupation, and united
the people against the enemy, the "infidels". Sectarian differences did not
block the Iraqis from uniting behind a common cause.

Recent polls conducted in Iraq showed that the majority of Iraqis want the
occupation to end and U.S.-British forces to leave Iraq. This is very
significant in that the guerrilla fighters are able to melt easily within
the population, which make them very strong and unpredictable force to fight
by regular army of soldiers, tanks and helicopter gunships. With bases of
support among the population, the Iraqi resistance have been very successful
in Fallujah and other parts of Iraq.

The wide cultural gap between the Iraqi culture and the culture of the
occupying forces has contributed to the widespread resentment of the
occupation. Occupation authority in Iraq publicly declared that the U.S army
presence in Iraq is represented superior enlightened views and superior
enlightened rule. The occupying forces saw the Iraqis as "terrorists" and
backward people, who could only be controlled by force and who therefore
deserved to be. Meanwhile, the American public was told that Iraq as a whole
welcomed U.S. army as "liberators" and that only a few misguided bandits
opposed the occupation. The opposite is true. Support for the occupation in
Iraq is very minimal and only found among some Iraqi Kurds in the north, and
those "expatriates" returned to Iraq with the occupying forces. The fact
that a Vichy government have not been found in Iraq is a proof.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq is a form of globalisation by armed
conquest. This armed conquest is the relic of colonialism and we should not
allow it to succeed threatening the future of the planet. In addition to its
violent crimes against the Iraqi people, the U.S. is systematically and
illegally milking Iraq of its oil revenues, and selling Iraqi industries to
American corporations. Currently, the Bush Administration is skimming the
benefits of high oil prices, while keeping silence.

Washington and London are not in the business of spreading "democracy" and "freedom" in the Middle East. It would be a good idea, but that is not what
the U.S. and Britain are doing. The record speaks for itself. They spread
"dependence, subordination, and dictatorship", Noam Chomsky said recently.
The people of the Middle East have long experience in this dishonest and
flawed democracy promises by the West. The U.S. and British forces are
intended to stay in Iraq; otherwise their whole invasion and occupation
debacle is a crime against humanity because the reasons are a complete
fabrication.

More than one thousands dead Iraqis a month are added to the more than
12,000 innocent civilians killed by the invading and occupying forces. The
Iraqi people need our support. Their struggle is our struggle against unjust
system. The belligerent and violent U.S. behaviour has increased the threat
of terrorism and anti-Western feelings around the world. The message to
motivate people around the world cannot be clearer than this: End the illegal
occupation and give Iraqis their freedom. The lies to justify the invasion
and occupation of Iraq need to be exposed vigorously.

The global peace movement who courageously opposed the invasion of Iraq
should declare its solidarity with the Iraqi people in fighting a colonial
occupation army, and U.S. imperialism. Arundhati Roy have spoken of
non-violence resistance movement "allowed to atrophy into feel-good
political theatre, which at its most successful is a photo opportunity for
the media, and at it's least successful, simply ignored"(3). However, there
is hope. In the U.S. and Britain, popular support for the imperialist war in
Iraq is down, and the majority of people are against the war on Iraq.

Recently, the Spanish people have rejected to be part of brutal empire.
Because the Spanish people believe that another world is possible, and they
know how to help built it. We have the moral, legal and political
obligations to change the course of empire. Our solidarity with the Iraqi
people will give them a voice, and like the Spanish people, the Iraqi people
will prevail over empire.

[1] Arundhati Roy, Interviewed by Amy Goodman at www.DemocracyNow.org
, 5/19/2004.
[2] Napoleon Bonaparte, Memorial de Sainte-Helene, Vol. 1 (Paris: 1961
[1823]), 609-10.
[3] Arundhati Roy, How deep shall we dig? ZNet, 01 May 2004.
www.zmag.org


Ghali Hassan is in the Science and Mathematics Education Centre, Curtin
University, Perth, Western Australia. [email protected]