George W Bush, US president and commander-in-chief, visited Baghdad for five hours on 13 June. During that time, 36 Iraqis were killed. Meanwhile, 2,000 supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr took to the streets, chanting, \u201c\u201dIraq is for the Iraqis!\u201d<\/p>\n
On the same day, the Pentagon announced the death of the 2,500th US soldier since the invasion. The following day, the puppet Iraqi prime minister launched Operation Forward Together, aimed at re-taking control, not of some far-flung corner of the country, but… Baghdad, itself.<\/p>\n
As a PR stunt, this ranks as low as Bush\u2019s famous \u201cMission Accomplished\u201d speech on 1 May 2003.<\/p>\n
Despite the completion of the Iraqi cabinet with the appointment of Ministers of Defence and the Interior, despite the killing of al-Qa\u2019ida leader al-Zarqawi, and despite the Iraqi government\u2019s National Reconciliation Plan, which offered an amnesty to those fighters, who put down their arms… Iraq is becoming more violent, daily life more intolerable and the occupation more untenable.<\/p>\n
Repression fuels resistance<\/p>\n
Baghdad\u2019s central mortuary received 1,595 bodies in June, up from 1,375 in May and 1,155 in April. Most of these corpses had bullet-holes in the head, a sign of sectarian executions. Internet bloggers and Iraqi journalists in Baghdad report that the Iraqi police is in the hands of such death squads.<\/p>\n
No one expects the 75,000 extra Iraqi and US troops in the latest clampdown to make any difference \u2013 except by disrupting the power and water supplies even more and increasing the number of arbitrary arrests and house raids. One US soldier, recently interviewed by US journalist Nir Rosen, explains what such raids entail.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur entrance included accidentally stepping all over the family\u2019s freshly prepared lunch of salad and kebabs \u2013 Arabs typically eat on the floor. After kicking down every door, bursting open every cabinet and flipping over every mattress, unearthing every prayer rug and breaking every lock in the house in search for weapons and bombs, we proceeded to detain a 15-year-old kid and tossed him in our Humvee while his mom cried and pleaded with us that he was innocent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I were an Iraqi under US occupation,\u201d he continued, \u201cI\u2019d be an insurgent… For every insurgent or jihadist we caught, we created two times as many fighters.\u201d<\/p>\n
While this account explains why so many US veterans come back and dive into antiwar activity, others are more complicit in war crimes. The Pentagon is investigating claims that five American soldiers raped and killed a young Iraqi woman and three members of her family. It has charged three US troops of shooting dead three Iraqi prisoners and threatening to kill a fellow soldier if he reported the crime.<\/p>\n
And these are just the crimes that Donald Rumsfeld\u2019s officers feel are too repugnant to cover up. According to Dr Stephen Miles\u2019 recent book, Oath Betrayed, American doctors have been complicit in torture \u2013 month-long sleep deprivation, exposure to freezing water, forced feeding of pork to Muslims, use of threatening dogs, denial of pain relief drugs \u2013 and failing to conduct proper post-mortems at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.<\/p>\n
Their motto was: \u201cNo blood, no foul\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ramadi: another Fallujah<\/p>\n
Currently, US troops have started amassing outside Ramadi in western Iraq. Many of the tactics used in the build-up to the invasion of Fallujah in November 2004 are being deployed. Then the US military destroyed 70 per cent of the buildings, killing around 5,000 inhabitants.<\/p>\n
Ramadi\u2019s main hospital, like Fallujah\u2019s, has been starved of IV fluids, surgical sutures, antibiotics, anaesthetic drugs, and other equipment and supplies. There are shortages of water, electricity and gas. 250,000 civilians have already left the city and are living in tents under the burning midsummer sun. The remaining 150,000 are daily warned by US broadcasts that, should they leave their houses, they will be considered resistance fighters. Marine snipers shoot even at shadows in windows and doorframes.<\/p>\n
Nightly air raids are \u201csoftening up\u201d the remaining city dwellers and tanks are moving into the suburbs. Despite the global outrage which raised the slogan \u201cNo more Fallujahs!\u201d 18 months ago, another major tragedy looks inevitable.<\/p>\n
Imperialism<\/p>\n
What is happening in Iraq is, unfortunately, not unique. It is part of what George W Bush\u2019s father proclaimed, 15 years ago, as \u201cthe new world order\u201d. It is part of what revolutionary socialists named 100 years ago as imperialism.<\/p>\n
British troops in Afghanistan are playing the same role there. In June, the UK deployed 3,150 troops in the southern province of Helmand. Six were killed in the first three weeks, as many as died in the previous five years of occupation.<\/p>\n
Despite their numbers, they are already confined to barracks, pinned down by a resistance made up of farmers, tribal and Islamist guerrillas.<\/p>\n
Back in April, safely in his ministerial office, the then Defence Secretary John Reid confidently told a press conference that the UK troops could get through their three year stint \u201cwithout a shot being fired\u201d. In less secure surroundings, Major Huw Williams explained the rethinking that\u2019s been required:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought we would play the \u2018British not American\u2019 card. But it hasn\u2019t been so easy. There\u2019s a lot of history here…\u201d<\/p>\n
And indeed there is. In the 1830s, Britain briefly occupied Afghanistan as part of its drive to raid the Indian sub-continent of its natural resources. Likewise after the First World War, the British army occupied Iraq, this time coveting its oilfields. Iraqis and Afghanis view today\u2019s occupation forces in precisely the same light. These too are wars of plunder.<\/p>\n
\u2022 British firms have made at least $1.1 billion profit out of the occupation of Iraq alone<\/p>\n
\u2022 US Vice President Dick Cheney\u2019s Halliburton alone has been awarded contracts in Iraq worth $20 billion<\/p>\n
\u2022 $8.8 billion of Iraqi and $1 billion of Afghani aid money has not been audited properly and has gone \u201cmissing\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 A quarter of all \u201creconstruction\u201d aid has been spent servicing the occupation.<\/p>\n
But, by far the biggest profits are still to come. And they\u2019re from oil. Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP are already profiting from oil production. Soon they will benefit from unique Production Sharing Agreements, which will stretch 25-40 years into the future, and guarantee these firms\u2019 generous cuts against the actions of elected governments. In other words, attempts to nationalise the oil industry or raise taxes on the multinationals will be illegal.<\/p>\n
So much for democracy! With one stroke of the pen, the US\/UK installed Iraqi government has signed away the wealth of the whole people.<\/p>\n
This is what the war in Iraq is about. And it is why the international working class must support the resistance. A victory against the occupation will be a victory against the imperialist powers, which hope to use this massive wealth and control over oil supplies to extend their empires into every corner of the globe.<\/p>\n
Every defeat for the occupiers will demoralise their troops and encourage divisions among their leaders. The Italian, Japanese, Slovak and Romanian troops are all being withdrawn as the occupation has run into a wall of popular resistance. Now we must make the others follow.<\/p>\n
Workers and everyone, who opposes this imperialist war, should not be confused by predictions that withdrawal now will lead to civil war. The occupation has already placed Iraq on the verge of civil war by deliberately turning Sunni against Shia, Kurd against Arab. The imperialists have used the oldest trick in the book, divide and rule. Their withdrawal is a precondition for Iraqis determining their own future.<\/p>\n
We must mobilise for a massive turnout in Manchester on 23 September for the Stop the War Coalition\u2019s Time To Go demonstration. Our message to the Labour Party conference that the demo is designed to confront should be as clear as possible:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Troops Out Now!<\/p>\n
\u2022 Victory to the resistance!<\/p>\n
Defeated troops cannot be immediately redeployed in Iran, Syria, Venezuela. A routed imperialism cannot retain military bases in Iraq to protect the oilfields, as it is currently planning. A victorious resistance will give hope to all those around the world \u2013 including the working class, oppressed and poor in Britain and the US \u2013 to fight back against the global capitalism, the system that cannot live without wars.<\/p>\n
Iraqi oil workers leader to speak in London<\/p>\n
Hassan Juma\u2019a, president of the 23,000 strong General Union of Oil Employees, based in Basra, is coming to London in July. Everyone should try and listen to him speak.<\/p>\n
The GUOE organises Arab and Kurd, Shia and Sunni alike. It calls for the unconditional and immediate withdrawal of all troops. It organised a strike to cut off oil supplies to the US troops during the siege of Najaf in August 2004.<\/p>\n
GUOE also fights for workers control of society and industry. It organised a successful conference against privatisation last year, and is behind a follow-up conference on 25 July in Basra. The union has successfully fought for decent wages in the industry, to kick out the US contractors and create more jobs to soak up Iraqi unemployment, and for gains for the whole community, like decent housing.<\/p>\n
It is hardly surprising, with this record, that, on 20 June, the Iraqi government froze the GUOE domestic and foreign bank accounts. This follows other anti-union measures: disbanding the lawyers\u2019 union, freezing the writers\u2019 union accounts and decreeing that all trade union activity illegal.<\/p>\n
All trade unionists must rush letters of support to the GUOE and its sister unions and make vociferous protests to the foreign office.<\/p>\n
Hassan Juma\u2019a will speak at the Iraq occupation Focus meeting<\/p>\n
7:30pm Thursday 13 July, Indian YMCA, 41 Fitzroy Square, London WC1<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
George W Bush, US president and commander-in-chief, visited Baghdad for five hours on 13 June. During that time, 36 Iraqis were killed. Meanwhile, 2,000 supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr took to the streets, chanting, \u201c\u201dIraq is for the Iraqis!\u201d On the same day, the Pentagon announced the death of the 2,500th US soldier since the invasion. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7724,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[104],"class_list":["post-5401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7724"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}