The Iraq War is over. Or is it? With a spate of attacks that have cost American lives almost daily, the newly-minted general in charge of the region, Abu Zayd, has been forced to admit the obvious: Iraqis are waging a guerrilla war against the British and American foreigners who came to bring ‘freedom and democracy.’ Meanwhile, the Bush-Blair axis is frayed at the seams with the White House’s recent admission that Bush should not have given the old “Niger gave Saddam uranium” ploy, as it was being easily demolished in Europe already. The great Iraq victory over the forces of tyranny is fast becoming a great big mess. Iraqis, like most folks, don’t like being told what to do by outsiders. They may not have loved their wily president, Hussein, but he’s beginning to look a little lovely besides the specter of British and Americans riding roughshod over their country, telling them what they can do, what they can’t do, telling them what they can say, and what they can’t say.
Several days ago, a young man on death row made an interesting remark when a bunch of men were discussing the latest events coming out of Iraq. He first stated, “Okay, now that it looks like they lied to the American people to justify going in there, shouldn’t they just give dude his country back?” Now, when several men laughed at his remark, he added, “Seriously, look, they used bogus reasons to go in there. They took over them people’s country, seriously. Now that ain’t right. Can’t they just give it back to those people?” Some of us laughed. Others simply pondered it, as if the thought never occurred to us before.
The Americans didn’t drop mass tonnage of bombs over Baghdad to bring democracy to the Iraqis. Britains didn’t strike Najaf to introduce the Iraqis to parliamentary democracy. The Bush and Blair war plans didn’t seek to liberate the Iraqi people. They can certainly find millions of people in the world who are not liberated. Britain can look no further than its perpetual colony of some 700 years, Ireland. The US can look to its Caribbean colony, the so-called Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. They went to war carrying the briefs of big business, in search not of liberty, but of the vast oil deposits that sit almost within arms reach in the desert regions. Before the war, millions of people yelled at the top of their lungs, “No blood for oil”. They were right then. They’re right, now.
The US Empire pushed the UN to the breaking point when it wouldn’t sign on to their adventure. It sought to isolate the French and the Germans, and America went postal for several weeks against everything French. Now that the Americans are welcomed with bursts of gunfire instead of bouquets of flowers, the Empire that wanted to go it alone is reaching out to Old Europe—remember them?—or at least old India, to give them a hand, to share the cost of administering their empire. Old Europe at the moment, seems cool to the idea.
Why the war? Because oil is bought and sold in dollars. What would have happened if the Hussein regime started using euros instead of dollars? The shock to the dollar would have been immense, and nations would have converted to euros to buy that necessary resource. The global dumping of the dollar would have sent the US economy into free-fall. That didn’t happen because the US and the UK manufactured reasons to launch deadly assaults on Iraq.
That’s the reason for the rush, the mad dash for war that couldn’t wait for weapons inspectors, the UN, anybody. Now we find manufactured evidence fed to the US from Britain. It was designed to push US citizens to fear. And guess what? It worked. The war was easily started, but it ain’t so easy to end. From death row, this is Mumia Abu Jamal.
These commentaries are produced by Noel Hanrahan for Prison Radio.