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With much fanfare the
US regime in Iraq announced the lifting of curfew in Baghdad for the first time
since the "end of the war". This announcement coincided with the
beginning of the holy month of Ramadan in view of the "improving security
environment in the country".
Hardly had the
announcement occurred that a series of 10 rockets slammed into Baghdad’s top
hotel, Al Rashid, which houses the senior-most US visiting officials and
businessmen. On that night, little know to the world, one of the US’s chief
architects of the Iraq war and Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, was
present. Though he survived, 15 others were killed, including a US colonel. Many
more were injured. Al Rashid is located in one of the most top security zones of
Baghdad!!!
This was just one in
a series of attacks that shook the country at that time — end October. Just a
day before the Al Rashid attack a US Army Black Hawk helicopter was shot down at
Tikrit. 15 hours after the attack on the hotel, two massive explosions occurred
in the very heart of Baghdad’s top security zone. A day after the attack on Al
Rashid, in a series of well-synchronised blasts over the capital city, 40 were
killed and hundreds wounded. Car bombs stationed at four police stations went
off killing about 30 puppet men of the police force. Another attack at the Red
Cross Headquarters killed 12. These attacks, that took place over the space of
barely 30 minutes, targeted Iraqi collaborators of the occupation forces. Of the
40 killed, three were US soldiers.
On the very next day
four more were killed in a car bomb explosion near a police station in Fallujah
town. Also near the relatively peaceful town of Mosul, in the north, in two
ambushes on US patrols, four US soldiers were seriously injured.
Yet again on Oct 29th
a US Main Battle Tank was blown up and two US soldiers killed, and one US and 7
Ukranian soldiers were seriously injured in a blast 70 kms north of the capital.
This was the first time that the US has lost an MBT to resistance forces in
Iraq.
Yet again on Nov.30,
resistance fighters blasted a freight train west of Baghdad and exploded a bomb
near a convoy, injuring a US soldier. This was the first time that the Iraqis
were able to hit the US supply line, setting four containers aflame.
By end October the US
acknowledged a surge in guerrilla violence in Iraq, witnessing an unprecedented
233 attacks on its troops in the last 7 days of the month.
But it did not end
with this. On first of November the US in a major clash 14 Iraqis and two US
soldiers were killed. The killing of the 14 led to a mass upsurge which was
crushed using tanks and fighter planes. The encounter then went on for 7 hours.
And on the next day the US faced the worst losses of the entire war — 16 US
soldiers were killed and 21 seriously injured when a helicopter was shot down.
And as we go to the press attacks have been steeped up even further. On Nov.
6th a Polish Army Major was killed in the Shia area near Karbala, and on Nov.
7th a second US helicopter was shot down near Tirkrit killing 6 US solder and
injuring many more.
While the major
resistance is coming from the Sunni areas there is also little support to the US
from the majority Shia community. Moqtada al Sadr, son of the killed Grand
Ayatollah, wielding considerable power in Iraq, said, "Saddam is a small
serpent and the Americans are the big one; the little serpent has left and the
great one has come in". A recent opinion poll showed that 67% of Iraqis
consider the US presence as that of occupation and only 15% considers them as
liberators. The corresponding figures soon after the war, in May, were 46% and
43%.
Though the official
figures of those US soldiers killed after the war is 110 (total being about 350)
the actual figure is far higher. If we calculate even two per day being killed
after the war officially ended the figure come to 3-times the official figure,
with hundreds more wounded. These increasing numbers of body-bags are
creating a nightmare for the US rulers.
Bogged down in a
Vietnam-like quagmire the US administration is finding itself more and more
isolated, both at home and abroad. Today even their fig-leaf for aggression no
longer exists as the main cause for the war — existence of the weapons of mass
destruction — does not exist.
While devastating
attacks shook the US forces in Iraq, at the very same time massive
demonstrations in Washington, Los Angeles and numerous other cities of America
demanded that US troops come home. In the Washington demonstration over one lakh
participated from 140 cities around the country. Also the rage of the families
of military personnel killed in combat, has now taken on an organized form. On
August 13 an ad hoc group, called the Military Families Speak Out (MFSO)
joined the Vietnam-era Veterans for Peace to launch a campaign called "Bring
Them Home Now". Of course, the bulk of the troops come from families of the
poor, a large proportion being Latino and Black, who seek military service as a
last resort; and are also dispensable to the US administration. But public
opinion in the US is horrified when their own men come back dead. Besides, being
an election period, the Democrats have also begun opposing the method of
conducting the war, backed by the vast business lobbies in the US that were not
given the lucrative contracts monopolized by a handful of Bush cronies, like
Halliburton and Bechtel. Just these two companies have cornered half the total
$8 billion in contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course the Democrats are not
opposed to the war as such, only some points associated with it — in early
November the Congress passed a huge $87 billion war package requested by Bush.
Internationally too
the US is totally isolated. Though they have passed a new UN resolution they
have not been able to get the forces they desperately require. Turkey, which
finally agreed, had to back-track when opposition came from Iraq. Europe and
Russia are watching the US quagmire, waiting for their chance to regain some of
the lucrative Iraqi projects. Even Britain is silent, with Blair having faced
massive opposition from even his own party, particularly in face of the Kelly
scandal. On the streets of the Arab world, anger is reaching breaking point, not
only against US occupation of Iraq, but also at increasing Israeli arrogance and
attacks on Palestinians — backed fully by the US. In fact, throughout the world,
though many governments capitulate to US arm-twisting, the people are coming out
more and more against US brazenness and Zionist viciousness.
In India too, while
the BJP rulers are trying to find an excuse to assist the US by sending troops
to Iraq, anti-US and anti-imperialist sentiments are growing amongst the people.
With globalisation having wrecked havoc on peoples’ lives, and examples like
pesticides in Coke and Pepsi, worms in Cadbuary, etc, people are realizing that
these foreign TNCs are nothing but robbers looting the Indian peoples’ wealth,
by maximising profits at any cost. While the Governments at both the Centre and
the States have gone out of their way to back these TNCs to cover up their
criminal actions, the politicians stand exposed as nothing but agents of these
imperialists and their companies.
With the growing
crisis in the world economy, politics is fraught with wars, aggressions, state
terror (called fascism), racism/Zionism/communalism and all types of reactionary
violence on the people of the world. In such an environment to talk of
non-violence is merely to act to abet these forces of violence. Such monsters
cannot be tamed, they have to be destroyed. They will not be appeased with the
hope they will listen to reason; they have to be countered at every step. They
cannot be given a "human face" as they are inhuman. No Gandhian formula can work
with them.
The only answer is a
counter-force that that can push them back effectively. Iraq has proved as much.
Let us learn from the Great Iraqi Resistance, as to what it requires to win the
battle against neo-liberalism and its economic, political and military fall-out.
Meanwhile, in
Afghanistan too, two senior CIA operators from the US were ambushed and killed
while they were snooping around the Eastern part of the country.
November 8, 2003
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