As the global news outlets flick from crisis to crisis, and as consumers attention has drawn from crisis site to crisis site, the now unattended stories of yesterday continue to bubble and fester, uncovered and unseen. Since the beginning of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, that nation has been on the chopping block. Indeed, when Secretary of State John Kerry was a senator, he openly advocated the dismantling of Iraq into at least three separate sovereignties, Kurd, Sunni and Shia. Today, as the cameras have stopped rolling, that shattering vision of Kerry’s is becoming a grim, dystopic reality, but not the way American politicians and policy makers intended.
Driven by the twin toxics of ego and ignorance, the U.S. neocons in power sought to serve the interests of Israel and the military industrial complex, the destruction of Iraqi sovereignty and the use of Iraq as a live fire commercial, advertising US marshall might. Remember shock and awe? Now, years later, with America aching economically and limping militarily, the dreams of neocons have morphed into nightmares. Iraq is but a memory. It was once a nation, it is not so now. It is a charnel house of warring, ethnic and religious sects. It is a nation at war with itself. People once defined as Iraqis now call themselves Sunni, Shia and Kurd, and they eye each other with suspicion and fear. That was the poison gift of the Americans.
With rhetorics of democracy, free markets and free elections, Americans marched into Baghdad with flag unfurled and trumpets blaring. In less than a decade, we see the real winners, Exxon, British Petroleum and the like. Iraq won nothing but a continuing disaster. And what of the oafish politicians who brought it on? What of the authors of these war crimes? Nothing. From In prison nation. This is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
