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Iraq
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PAGE CONTETS:
Iraq
Baghdad
US Options in Iraq: Look at History
World War I and the British Mandate
Reasons for the Iraq War
What Went Wrong
10 Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq
The "Victory" in Iraq
Iraq
By Denis Mueller
At the end of WWI, Britain was awarded
a mandate over Iraq by the League of Nations. The British did it to legitimize what had already occurred, which was the occupation
of Iraq. The British faced the resentment of the Iraqi's who wanted their own independence, which then resulted in a
national uprising by insurgents. The decision was then made to replace the occupation with a provisional government under
the jurisdiction of the British.
What faced the British was a hostile Iraq but to the British control over Iraq was
essential. It had oil, and lots of it, so the British imposed a monarchy, which was loosely aligned with them. The British,
including those who called for complete independence and a withdrawal of the Brits, were extremists. This included any who
were demanding independence. Does all of this sound familiar?
In 1930 a treaty was signed that gave the Iraqi's more
power but the real power in the country was kept by the Brits, through military bases, advisors, who assured the British of
control of the rich oil fields of Iraq. The monarchy proved to be a failure as opponents were arrested and executed while
corruption remained widespread. In fact chemical weapons were used against the Kurds and uprisings took place in 1930, 1941,
1948, 1952 and 1956. We could say that stability was a joke as Iraq had 38 different cabinets during the time period.
The
only constant in all of this were British troops who were periodically killed. Finally in 1958 there was a coup that ended
the uprisings. During this time Iraq championed the Palestinian cause. Fighting against the occupation was always a sticking
point as the Iraqi's saw the monarchy as vehicle to rob them of their wealth and dignity. The British failed to grasp this
and all of this finally led to emergence of the Baath Party.
Does all of this sound like some perverse replay of the
film "Groundhog Day?" It sure does to me with one of the few differences being we call the extremists terrorists and maybe
they are, certainly they disregard the lives of many, but maybe they also do not occupation. So another way to look at this
is to realize the Iraqis do not like to be occupied and will fight to the bitter end against any foreign power that tries
to control them. This seems to be a historical fact.
The similarities are indeed frightening as official labels have
changed but the effect remains the same. The British are still there, along with their Anglo cousins, who are us. The United
Nations has already issued a mandate that at some point will have a multinational force, which will be mostly us, there until
order is restored. If you find all of this a little absurd, you are not alone, and if only our President and Congress had
read a little history they would have been aware of the difficulties they now face.
Sources: The Guardian
Copyright 2004 by PENN LLC.
All rights reserved.
Baghdad
By Denis Mueller
It could be called the cradle of civilization. The Mongols destroyed
it; the Ottoman’s controlled it for four hundred years, the British shaped its boundary and tried to control the city
and the country’s oil. It was perhaps the cultural center of the world in the 8th and 9th century and now the attention
of the world is on it again.
The city of Baghdad was at the center of the world in the 8th century
and was called, among other things, the city of peace. When the Islamic Empire began to crumble it was soon overrun by Mongol
hordes. In 1258, Genghis Khan’s grandson Hulagu wrecked the walls of the city and a mountain was purportedly built of
the skulls of the scholars and city leaders. The city was fought over by the Mongols, Persians and Turks until the Ottoman
Empire conquered it in 1638. The Turks then ruled it until World War I.
During World War I, it was invaded by the British but the initial assault
ended up with disaster when General Charles Townsend's army marched from Basra to Baghdad only to be defeated by the Turkish
army at the battle of Ctesiphon. The British were forced to retreat and endured a 147-day siege until they finally surrendered.
In the march back nearly half the British force died from the brutality
of the Turks. But the British soon returned and captured Baghdad in 1917. It became the administrative center for the British
Empire in the Middle East. It was the British who then created the country of Iraq. King Feisel had been driven out of what
are now Syria and Saudi Arabia when the British made him the King of the newly formed country of Iraq.
The British filled Baghdad with businessmen, bureaucrats, teachers and
all of those who would be needed to administer the country. It was in many ways little more than a British colony until the
Iraqi military overthrew the British. This would lead eventually to the rule of Saddam Hussein.
Hussein, at first, was welcomed by the Americans who saw him as a buffer
against Iran. In a quite brutal war with the Iranians, which saw the use of chemical weapons, a stalemate resulted. Hussein,
who in many ways had done the dirty work for the corrupt rulers of the Arab world, then invaded Kuwait. Kuwait had long been
seen as a province of Iraq but was established as a separate country by the British.
Iraq was defeated by UN forces and forced to surrender which brings us
up to date. We will see and hear much more about Baghdad in the next couple of years but it has never been a friendly place
for conquerors. We should be very careful. This war may last a long time.
Sources: Bill Glauber, Chicago Tribune
Copyright 2003 by Pulse Direct, Inc. All rights reserved. Feel free to
forward this, in its entirety, to others.
U.S. Options in Iraq:
Look at History
By Pat M. Holt
WASHINGTON - Perhaps the worst legacy of Saddam Hussein will
turn out to be an Iraqi civil war after the coalition forces leave thinking they have pacified the country. This new war will
come, if it does, from an explosion of bad feeling among various non-Arab groups who settled northern Iraq under the Ottoman
Empire and Arabs who were brought there by Hussein as part of an Arabization policy.
Before there was Saddam Hussein,
there was the Ottoman Empire and the League of Nations. At the height of its power, the Ottoman Empire extended from Algeria
and the gates of Vienna on the west to Iran on the east and Saudi Arabia on the south. The Ottomans (Turks, really)
occupied most of what is now Iraq in the 16th century.
They built a major naval base in Basra to protect and control
shipping in the Persian Gulf. Gradually Ottoman expansion into Europe was pushed back, and by the beginning of World War I
in 1914 the Empire had shrunk to the Middle East and a little of North Africa.
The Ottomans might have remained neutral
in that war, but instead they allied themselves with Germany. The decision was influenced by early German victories, basic
Turkish hostility to Russia (later a factor in Turkey's joining NATO), and the opportunism of Ottoman Minister of War Enver
Pasha. In October 1914, with the war only two months old, the Ottomans bombarded Russian Black Sea ports, and the Triple Entente
(France, Russia, and Britain) declared war.
Out of the war, there came the League of Nations and its system of mandates,
which were much like the United Nations trusteeships that followed World War II. The British got a mandate as far north as
Baghdad, and the French had a mandate in Syria as far east as Mosul. The provinces of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra were merged
into one political entity with diverse religious and ethnic populations and artificial boundaries which the British drew on
a map. This new country was called Iraq.
In 1921, British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill presided
over a conference in Cairo, which established a monarchy in Iraq. A constitution provided for a parliamentary government with
a bicameral legislature. The first parliament met in 1925. Britain terminated the mandate in 1932. In the period between 1925
and the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958, there were 10 general elections and 50 cabinets - a new cabinet approximately every
eight months.
This is not a good record of political stability, nor is there reason to think a new Iraqi democracy
will be much, if any, better. But for that matter, neither are the multitudinous governments of Italy or Bolivia, two very
different nations that seem to be getting along alright and not threatening their neighbors.
There may not be opportunity
in the short term to try a new Iraqi democracy. Hussein's efforts to suppress the Kurds are well known. What is not so well
known is that these were part of a broader policy of Arabization of northern Iraq. About a thousand years ago, there began
successive waves of immigration from Central Asia - Mongols, Turks, Turkmens, Kurds, and Circassians. Of these, Kurds, Turkmens,
and Turks are still significant. (Turkmens are from Turkmenistan, a former Soviet Republic, and are not to be confused with
people from Turkey.)
This mixture lived together without noticeable friction until Hussein decided that Iraq's security
(and his own?) required Arab majorities. To encourage this, he gave Arab families houses (plus settlement allowances of some
thousands of dollars). He obtained the houses either by buying them from non-Arab families or by evicting the families, with
compensation a fraction of market value. The non-Arabs were told that a railroad or other public works project was to be built
and the house was in the way. The projects never materialized and Arab families from elsewhere in Iraq moved into the houses.
This
created abiding hatred on the part of the dispossessed non-Arabs. It was only in the north that American invaders were welcomed
as liberators. Many non-Arabs are deported to hope the Americans stay, an invitation that most Americans would probably not
like to accept.
The choices for American foreign policy will be: (1) Stay indefinitely as unwilling, and most likely
ineffective, peacekeepers. Or (2) Come home and watch a civil war that was made possible by the American intervention followed
by withdrawal.
* Pat M. Holt is former chief of staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He wrote the book
'Secret Intelligence and Public Policy: A Dilemma of Democracy.'
Copyright 2004 by PENN, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
World War I and the British Mandate
By
Denis Mueller
In the early 20th Century, the Ottoman
territories became the focus of an intense struggle between Germany and Great Britain. The Ottomans had granted concessions
to Germany to construct a railroad line from Konya, located in southwest Turkey, to Baghdad. The British saw this as
threat and when the WWI broke out they swiftly moved into Basra. After a counter attack, that stopped the British for awhile,
the British regained the offensive and rode into Baghdad on March of 1917.
The British proclaimed that they would return to Iraq some control but did not specify how much
that would be. In the meantime they signed an agreement with France that divided up the former territories between the two
powers. At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Iraq was formally made a mandate entrusted to the British. The country
was confronted with immediate problems. Iraq was in a state of anarchy with especially violent fighting in the western desert.
The British tried to rule as they had done in India but the country was soon in open rebellion. It was never really a country
but a configuration of three former provinces so this added to the difficulty.
The revolt of 1920 brought many of the
fighting groups together, if only to fight the British, as the war proved to be a drain on the British economy. To alleviate
the tension the British replaced their military government with a provisional government, much like we have today, in an effort
to stop the violence. At the Cairo Conference of 1921, it was announced King Faisal would become the king of Ira, as a reward
for his help against the Turks, as the ruler of Iraq. The goal of the British, and they were quite good at this, was to prop
up the monarchy but not allow it to get too strong. They wanted to play the sides off with each other leaving the final decisions
to the British. They also created the Iraqi army, which came to be a powerful institution itself.
The rebellion included assassinations and general unrest that threatened the coming elections.
The province of Mosul was under revolt and after a costly fight they were finally subdued for the time being. The treaty put
an awful financial weight on the new government by making them pay for British occupation. The Kurds, wanting their own country,
were in open revolt as well. The British sought to include the Kurds as part of Iraq because they felt the Mosul area contained
great deposits of oil.
The government was shifting array of interests, which was far more tribal than political. The
Nationalists continued to oppose the treaty but were largely ineffective. The initiation of statehood and the complex web
of tribal, religious and ethnic differences made Iraq extremely hard to govern. It was a difficult period and the death of
King Faisal meant the loss of someone who had fought for Arab independence. It also left the army with a huge amount of power.
This would continue throughout the years and add to the instability.
Sources: Library of Congress
Copyright
2005 by PENN LLC. All rights reserved.
Reasons for the Iraq War
By Denis Mueller
I do not blame the American people for this
war. I do not blame Congress for this war. I do blame the White House and the dangerous neo-cons who run things without regard
to law or truth. It was their agenda, which got us into this mess and they did it by lying to the American public. I'd
like to in the next two articles to explain, what was said, who said it and why they lied.
First, I'd like to start
with the President Bush and go over what was said to Congress and the American public. President Bush entered the White
House with little or no experience in international affairs and an inclination not to even read about the problems. Bush is
the least curious President in our history who, in many ways, is a blank document that was ready to be molded by the neo-cons,
who as I will illustrate are the gravest threat to our democracy since the Civil War.
In a speech on September 7, 2002, President
Bush reported that an International Atomic Energy Agency report indicated that Saddam was "six months away from developing
a nuclear weapon." The truth of the matter was that no such report ever existed. On October 3, 2002, Bush met with Congressional
leaders, after releasing a report saying that Saddam was two to five years away from having a nuclear device. To further advance
his argument he argued that Saddam's "regime has the scientists and facilities to build nuclear weapons" and is seeking the
materials to do so. In another briefing he stated that Saddam had the capabilities to use them via an unmanned
drone aircraft. The truth as we have seen is far different. Saddam never
had the capabilities of any such thing.
The next step taken was to convince the American public that Saddam had something to do with the 9/11 attack on the
World Trade Center. His rhetoric was so successful that by the time of the war 69% of Americans believed this to be true.
We now know it was not and everybody except the neo-cons, who believe lying is alright if it advances their agenda, now understand
that as evil as Saddam was, he had nothing to do with 9/11. This was a major reason for the public's support of the war. The
Bush administration and their supporters in the press claimed that Mohamed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 attacks, met with
Iraqi officials in the spring of 2001 in Prague.
Vaclav Havel looked at the Czech intelligence reports and concluded that
no meeting ever occurred.
The next step was for Sec. of State Colin Powell
to give dazzling but untrue statements about Iraq before the United Nations. Powell an old hand at lying, remember he tried
to cover-up the massacre at Mi Lia while he was in Vietnam, presented one misstatement after another to the UN. He produced
documents that dated back to the 1980's, he reported that there were rocket launchers, which were never found; he estimated
that Iraq possessed 25,000 liters of anthrax. None of this was true. He claimed that U.S experts believed that aluminum tubes
had been sought by Iraq for enriching uranium. The truth was that these experts, which Powell quoted, had already rejected
that thesis.
So as you can see from a careful analysis of the administration claims we find that none of this was
true. Bush has lied, and while some of you might claim that Clinton lied as well, it seems to me that lying about sex
and sending people off to die in war are hardly equal. The question that I want to pose is why they lied? To examine this,
we must look at the neo-cons and illustrate their view of history and the world.
Copyright 2006 by NextEra Media. All rights
reserved. Go ahead and forward this, in its entirety, to others.
What Went Wrong
By Denis Mueller
The United States debacle in Iraq is perhaps
the worst foreign policy disaster in American history. The judgments of history are beginning to arrive and history will judge
George Bush, the frat boy not the war hero who is his father, as the worst president in our history. How did this happen?
What went wrong? One piece of the puzzle can be found in the book Imperial Life in Emerald City.
In the first year of the war the occupation
was run by the Coalition Provisional Authority who, quite frankly, shares a huge amount of the blame. Never in our history
has such an important job been put in the hands of political hacks whose only qualification for the job is their political
loyalty and their loyalty to the ideology of the Bush administration. I'll give you some examples.
Frederick M. Burke
had the type of credentials that were dearly needed to oversee the Iraq health system. He was a doctor with master's degrees
from both Harvard University and Yale. He had two bronze stars for his service in the first Gulf War. He also had experience
in Iraq from that period. He had worked with the Kurds so he also knew something about the country. One would think that this
would make him a perfect candidate to do the job. Guess again. After a week on the job he was replaced by a political hack
whose only qualification was a recommendation from former Michigan Governor John Engler.
He was part of the Christian Coalition and that
was all the Bushies had to hear. After all he had worked to advise young women on abortion and he was against Roe vs. Wade.
What else do you need? So what did he do? He set out to privatize the system, which may not have been the best idea since
most of the hospitals had been looted in the aftermath of the war.
In fact privatization of services was the chief
concern of the occupying force led by the village idiot Paul Bremer. Day after day the neo-con's tested their theories of
government while conditions in Iraq grew worse and worse. In fact in interviewing for their jobs the applicants were asked
if they were against Roe vs. Wade. Once in Iraq they tested their theories while never leaving the green zone. They did however
go to the bars afterward. This would be
comical if it wasn't so tragic.
Nearly 3,000 Americans have died because of
their idiocy. This doesn't even count the several hundred thousand of Iraqis who have died as well or the tens of thousands
of Americans who will return to home without arms or legs. But they will get help from the VA won't they? Guess
again, because the GOP Congress seemed to cash only paychecks, and preformed little work, there so will not be funds for them
as well. Never again should these ideologues be put into power.
© 2006 IAC Search & Media. All rights
reserved.
Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About
Iraq
-By Christopher
Editor's note:
When Clinton was in the Whitehouse, he parsed language
as no other President did to deceive the public. Democrats overwhelmingly supported him and reelected him to a second term.
Clinton paved the way for the war in Iraq by bombing Kosovo.
Now we have an administration that does not bother to
parse words to mislead. Lies are supposed to be exposed by the media. Instead, the media has, by and large, shifted to be
an apparatus of propaganda similar to Pravda.
Please read this article, written more than a year ago.and ask why this
was not on the nightly news. Ask why Mr. Scheer had it right, but the mainstream press was so wrong. But that is what Viewpoint
is for!
"Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq" -By Christopher Scheer.
Written on June 27, 2003
"The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible
poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons."-- George Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati.
Today, no
biological or nuclear weapons have been found, nor any documentation of their existence, nor any sign they were deployed in
the field.
[Editor's note: Last week the official "hunt" was canceled and a formal declaration that there were
no WMDs in Iraq was issued.]
The mainstream press, after an astonishing two years of cowardice, is belatedly drawing
attention to the unconscionable level of administrative deception. They seem surprised to find that when it comes to Iraq,
the Bush administration isn't prone to the occasional lie of expediency but, in fact, almost never told the
truth.
What follows are just the most outrageous and significant of the dozens of outright lies uttered by Bush and
his top officials over the past year in what amounts to a systematic campaign to scare the bejeezus out of everybody:
LIE #1: "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting
its nuclear weapons program ... Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for
gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." -- President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in Cincinnati.
FACT:
This story, leaked to and breathlessly reported by Judith Miller in the New York Times, has turned out to be complete baloney.
Department of Energy officials, who monitor nuclear plants, say the tubes could not be used for enriching uranium. One intelligence
analyst, who was part of the tubes investigation, angrily told The New Republic: "You had senior American officials like Condoleezza
Rice saying the only use of this aluminum really is uranium centrifuges. She said that on television. And that's just a lie."
LIE
#2: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from
Africa." -- President Bush, Jan.28, 2003, in the State of the Union address.
FACT: This whopper was based
on a document that the White House already knew to be a forgery thanks to the CIA. Sold to Italian intelligence by some hustler,
the document carried the signature of an official who had been out of office for 10 years and referenced a constitution that
was no longer in effect. The ex-ambassador who the CIA sent to check out the story is pissed: "They knew the Niger story was
a flat-out lie," he told the New Republic, anonymously. "They [the White House] were nonpersuasive about aluminum tubes and
added this to make their case more strongly."
LIE #3: "We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted
nuclear weapons." -- Vice President Cheney on March 16, 2003 on "Meet the Press."
FACT: There was and
is absolutely zero basis for this statement. CIA reports up through 2002 showed no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program.
LIE #4: "[The CIA possesses] solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going
back a decade." -- CIA Director George Tenet in a written statement released Oct. 7, 2002 and echoed in that evening's speech
by President Bush.
FACT: Intelligence agencies knew of tentative contacts between Saddam and al-Qaeda
in the early '90s, but found no proof of a continuing relationship. In other words, by tweaking language, Tenet and Bush spun
the intelligence 180 degrees to say exactly the opposite of what it suggested.
LIE #5: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda
members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases ... Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America
without leaving any fingerprints." -- President Bush, Oct. 7.
FACT: No evidence of this has ever been
leaked or produced. Colin Powell told the U.N. this alleged training took place in a camp in northern Iraq. To his great embarrassment,
the area he indicated was later revealed to be outside Iraq's control and patrolled by Allied war planes.
LIE
#6: "We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles
that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We are concerned that Iraq is exploring
ways of using these UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] for missions targeting the United States." -- President Bush, Oct. 7.
FACT: Said drones can't fly more than 300 miles, and Iraq is 6,000 miles from the U.S. coastline. Furthermore,
Iraq's drone-building program wasn't much more advanced than your average model plane enthusiast. And isn't a "manned aerial
vehicle" just a scary way to say "plane"?
LIE #7: "We have seen intelligence over many months that
they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one
case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established." -- President Bush, Feb. 8, 2003, in a national
radio address.
FACT: Despite a massive nationwide search by U.S. and British forces, there are no signs,
traces or examples of chemical weapons being deployed in the field, or anywhere else during the war. LIE #8: "Our conservative
estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill
16,000 battlefield rockets." -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5 2003, in remarks to the UN Security Council.
FACT:
Putting aside the glaring fact that not one drop of this massive stockpile has been found, as previously reported on AlterNet
the United States' own intelligence reports show that these stocks -- if they existed -- were well past their use-by date
and therefore useless as weapon fodder.
LIE #9: "We know where [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east,
west, south, and north somewhat." -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003, in statements to the press.
FACT:
Needless to say, no such weapons were found, not to the east, west, south or north, somewhat or otherwise.
LIE #10: "Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq which the UN prohibited." -- President Bush
in remarks in Poland, published internationally June 1, 2003.
FACT: This was reference to the discovery
of two modified truck trailers that the CIA claimed were potential mobile biological weapons lab. But British and American
experts -- including the State Department's intelligence wing in a report released this week -- have since declared this to
be untrue. According to the British, and much to Prime Minister Tony Blair's embarrassment, the trailers are actually exactly
what Iraq said they were; facilities to fill weather balloons, sold to them by the British themselves.
So, months
after the war, we are once again where we started -- with plenty of rhetoric and absolutely no proof of this "grave danger".
The Bush administration is now scrambling to place the blame for its lies on faulty intelligence, when in fact the intelligence
was fine; it was their abuse of it that was "faulty."
Rather than apologize for leading us to a preemptive war based
on impossibly faulty or shamelessly distorted "intelligence" or offering his resignation, our sly madman in the White House
is starting to sound more like O.J. Simpson, the man who cheerfully played golf while promising to pursue "the real killers."
Bush is now vowing to search for "the true extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, no matter how long it takes."
On
the terrible day of the 9/11 attacks, five hours after a hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon, retired Gen. Wesley Clark
received a strange call from someone (he didn't name names) representing the White House position: "I was on CNN, and I got
a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to
Saddam Hussein,'" Clark told Meet the Press anchor Tim Russert. "I said, 'But -- I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?'
And I never got any evidence.'"
And neither did we.
Copyright 2005 by PENN, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
"Rebellion often starts in the culture, which we are seeing today - the
poets in efiance, the actors and writers speaking out, the musicians and rap groups taking a stand - a rebellion that is first
ignored by the major media, and then becomes hard
to ignore..."
The "Victory" in Iraq
By Howard Zinn
The "victory" over an already devastated and disarmed Iraq led Bush, Rumsfeld and their teammates into
a locker-room frenzy of exultation and self-congratulation. I half-expected to see Bush joyfully pouring beer on Rumsfeld's
head and Ashcroft snapping a towel at Ari Fleischer's derriere.
But it turns out that they thought the Iraq game was
over, when it was only the fifth inning. The war did not bring order to Iraq, but chaos, not crowds of cheering Iraqis, but
widespread hostility. "No to Saddam! No to Bush!" were the signs, as Iraqis contemplated their ruined historic treasures,
their destroyed homes, and the graves of their dead - thousands and thousands of civilians and soldiers, with many more men,
women, children wounded. And it goes on as I write this in mid-June - an ugly occupation. I see a headline "U.S. Troops Kill
70 in Iraqi Crackdown".
With each passing day, the Bush administration's lies are being exposed.
There were the lies about war being necessary to destroy Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction". But an American army of 200,000,
moving aggressively throughout the country, cannot find them. The only weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been the bombs
and missiles raining down by the thousands, the cluster bombs spewing out their deadly pellets, the arsenal of the greatest
military power on earth visiting destruction on a country ruled by a murderous tyrant, but militarily helpless.
There
were the lies about wanting "self-determination" for the Iraqis, as the new officialdom, headed by wealthy exiles, is flown
into positions of power, just as once Ngo Dinh Diem was flown into Saigon by the United States, proclaiming its intention
that Vietnam should govern itself. Through all this there is a sinking feeling that most of Americans remain ignorant of these
things, and so still support George Bush by a decisive majority.
But consider how volatile is public opinion, how
it can change (and has done so many times) with dramatic suddenness. Note: the large majority support for George Bush the
elder, and then the quick collapse of that support as the glow of victory in the Gulf War faded, and the reality of economic
trouble set in.
Think of how in 1965 two-thirds of Americans supported the war in Vietnam, and a few years later two-thirds
opposed the war. What happened in those two years? A gradual realization of having been lied to, an osmosis of the truth,
of information seeping more and more through the cracks of the propaganda system. That is beginning to happen now.
A
bit of historical perspective reminds us that governments which seem to be in total control, of guns, of money, of the minds
of the population, find that all their power is futile against the power of an aroused citizenry. The leaders awake one morning
to see a million angry people in the streets of the capital city, and they begin packing their bags and calling for a helicopter.
This is not a fantasy but history. It's the history of the Philippines, of Indonesia, of Russia, East Germany, Poland, Hungary,
Rumania, and other places where change looked hopeless and then it happened.
There is a long history of imperial powers,
gloating over victories, becoming over-extended and overconfident, as their citizens begin to get uneasy because their day-to-day
fundamental needs are being sacrificed for military glory while their young are sent to die in wars. The uneasiness grows
and grows, and the citizenry gather in resistance in larger and larger numbers, and become too much to control, and one day
the top-heavy empire falls over.
We don't expect Bush to scurry off in a helicopter. But he can lose the next election,
just as he lost the last one, and this time perhaps not all the king's judges or all the king's men will be able to put Humpty-Dumpty
together again.
And there are already people around the country calling for his impeachment. Of course, we do not
expect a craven Congress to impeach him. They were willing to impeach Nixon for breaking into a building. They will not impeach
Bush for breaking into a country. They were willing to impeach Clinton because of his sexual shenanigans, but they will not
impeach Bush for his pandering to the super-rich. Still, it is good to bring up impeachment, because the Constitution allows
it for "high crimes and misdemeanors" and it is an opportunity to discuss the high crimes of this government.
The change
in public opinion starts with a low-level discontent, at first vague, with no connection being made between the discontent
and the policies of the government. And then the dots begin to be connected, and indignation rises, and people begin to speak
out, to organize, to act.
Today, all over the country, there is a growing awareness of the shortage
of teachers, of nurses, of medical care, of affordable housing, of cuts in human services in every state of the union. A teacher
writes a letter to the Boston Globe: "I may be one of 600 Boston teachers who will be laid off as a result of budget shortfalls."
And connects it to the billions spent for bombs "sending innocent Iraqi children to hospitals in Baghdad."
Rebellion
often starts in the culture, which we are seeing today - the poets in defiance, the actors and writers speaking out, the musicians
and rap groups taking a stand - a rebellion that is first ignored by the major media, and then becomes hard to ignore. We
see Michael Moore winning an Academy Award and speaking his mind to a huge national and international audience. We see the
radical collective Def Jam Poetry Jam winning a Tony Award as millions watch.
The arrogance, the posturing of this
administration is becoming more and more hollow as its lies become exposed, its "victory" in Iraq a sham, its tax program
an obvious theft by the rich.
In the rest of the planet (and remember we in the United States are only 4% of the world
population) this nation is seen not as a liberator but as a marauder. After the unprecedented worldwide demonstrations of
over ten million people against the invasion of Iraq, a New York Times reporter wrote: "There are now two superpowers, the
United States and world public opinion."
In Aeschylus' play, "The Persians", now playing in New York, we
see the fall of the seemingly invincible Persian empire. The chorus recognizes a new reality: "All those years we spent jubilant,
seeing the trifling, cowering world from the height of our shining saddles, brawling our might across the earth as we forged
an empire, I never questioned." It seemed so clear - our fate was to rule. That's what I thought at the time. But perhaps
we were merely Deafened for years by the din of our own empire-building, the shouts of battle, the clanging of swords, the
cries of victory.
Those of us who become momentarily disheartened by "the cries of victory" should remind ourselves
of that long history in which seemingly insurmountable power fell of its own unbearable weight, but also because of the resistance
of those who finally refused to bear that weight, and would not give up.
Copyright 2003 by Pulse Direct, Inc. All
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