Iraq’s
New Rulers; The people refuse to submit to U.S. installed rulers
After its bloodbath in Iraq,
the U.S. government’s attempt to impose open colonial rule is mired
in problems as the Iraqi people seethe in anger over their new American
overseers.
As The Burning Spear goes to press, the situation is emerging daily, the
result of a bitter feud being played out between the Department of Defense
and the State Department, all at the expense of enormous Iraqi suffering.
The U.S. government now admits
that more than a month after Coalition Forces seized the oil-rich country,
the "task of quickly re-establishing order and civil administration
in Iraq was far more daunting than U.S. officials had planned for,"
according to the St. Petersburg Times. With chaos, anarchy and Iraqi resistance
dominating the situation in Baghdad, U.S. appointees as colonial overseers
in Iraq are being installed and sent home with lightning speed.
Imperialist history repeats
itself
A hundred years ago England had so many countries around the world under
its iron hand of colonial terror that it boasted of a British Empire on
which the "sun never set." The people of Africa, India, Asia
and Pacific Islands were enslaved, impoverished and on their knees to
feed wealth, resources and power to the white world. As industry and transportation
emerged under this parasitic imperialist system, oil became an essential
ingredient for the growth of capitalism.
The world’s largest oil
reserves are in Iraq, the site of the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia.
To get hold of that oil England needed a "regime change." In
1914 during the First Imperialist War, the war to re-divide the world
among the white rulers, Britain formed an army of colonial subjects from
India to invade Iraq. England claimed it was going to "liberate"
Iraq from the Turks who had dominated the country for 400 years.
The British miscalculated their
strength though. The Turks kicked the English asses in Baghdad where most
of the English colonial army was killed or captured. In 1917 the English
returned with an army of "overwhelming force" and drove the
Turks out of Iraq. They installed British military and civilian overseers
called viceroys, colonial rulers who used terror to suppress the people
in order that oil and resources could be easily stolen and sent to the
imperialist masters.
The Arabs of Iraq refused to
submit to their new rulers, however, and in 1920 they organized a widespread
rebellion that was only put down when the British used poison gasses and
massive bombings against the Iraqis. A year later Iraqi unrest forced
England to install a neo-colonial Uncle Tom puppet, King Feisel, whose
family served the imperialists well until the Baath Party took over in
a coup in 1958.
Under the British, Kuwait was
separated from Iraq, much to the anger of the Iraqi people. The country
was partitioned into 3 areas, creating divisions between the Sunnis, Shias
and Kurds, and setting the stage for the current situation. This 3-way
partition is being used again by U.S. forces today.
Iraqi resistance greeted
with death and repression
In what seems like an American remake of a bad English movie, the United
States, the current leader of Western imperialism, is repeating history
in its lust for oil and strategic control of the middle east at the expense
of the oppression of the Arab people.
After the "Desert Storm"
invasion of Iraq in 1991, and the continued bombing and forced starvation
of the Iraqi people through economic sanctions which killed more than
half a million Iraqi children, the U.S. invaded again on March 20 of this
year. They did this despite militant opposition from millions of people
around the world and inside this country. U.S. "Operation Iraqi Freedom,"
with its "shock and awe" strategy easily overwhelmed a famished,
exhausted, disarmed and disorganized people in only 3 weeks, to the surprise
of no one.
Nevertheless, the imperialist
masters again face angry resistance from the Iraqi people who are making
it very clear that only the people of Iraq should control the country
and its resources. U.S. occupying troops are greeted with chants of "U.S.
go home," and even potshots at soldiers. American forces have shot
and killed more than a dozen demonstrators as they expressed the freedom
of speech that the U.S. claimed to be bringing to Iraqis.
On May 6, U.S. President George
Walker Bush announced his new civilian "special envoy" to Iraq,
Lewis Paul Bremer III. Bremer’s post follows weeks of the internal
imperialist battle between the military and the State Department over
who would best serve U.S. government and corporate interests.
The plans of Bechtel, vice
president Cheney’s Haliburton and all the leeches ready to suck the
blood of the Iraqi people through the multi-billion dollar "reconstruction"
process will be well protected by the U.S. powers. Claiming that a military
government would be "more efficient and effective," the Department
of Defense had previously installed retired General Jay Garner to supervise
the "clean up" of the U.S. destruction in Iraq. Garner was directly
responsible to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. However, according to
one newspaper report, "it did not make sense for that process to
be handled by General Garner because it would appear to many people that
the resulting government was a puppet of the American military."
Thus Garner was quickly replaced
by Bremer, whose post as head of the "Office of Humanitarian and
Reconstruction Assistance" is supposed to last only until the end
of May when the U.S. plans to install its neo-colonial government in Baghdad.
Most media pundits assume the new Iraqi regime will be set up or even
headed up by the vicious CIA-backed Zalmay Khalizad.
Imperialist henchmen
Regardless of which branch of the U.S. government appointed them, all
those lined up to take over the reins in Iraq are seasoned imperialist
criminals. A retired diplomat and "counterterrorism expert,"
Bremer worked for [Henry] Kissinger Associates before becoming the new
American viceroy in Iraq. Bremer was "ambassador at large for counterterrorism"
under Ronald Reagan, is a close friend of Deputy of Defense Paul Wolfowitz,
"in large part because he has taken hawkish positions on fighting
terrorism, as well as on containing Iran and Syria," the New York
Times reported.
Bremer has long called for
a very hard line against "extremist Islam" and for aggressive
tactics, including assassination, in pursuing and preempting "suspected
terrorists," writes the Asia Times. He is the head of several corporate
boards and chaired the National Commission on Terrorism in 1999. In 2000
Bremer became chairman and chief executive of the Crisis Consulting Practice
of Marsh Inc. and has warned clients about the "danger posed to businesses
operating overseas from growing income gaps and social tensions,"
according to one report.
"Over the past 30 years,
80 percent of terrorist attacks against the United States have been aimed
at American businesses”, Bremer wrote after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
"The end of the Cold War has unleashed long-submerged ethnic and
religious tensions in Europe, Africa and Asia."
In January, 2003, Bremer wrote
in a Washington Times newspaper column entitled "Charting a Course
for War," that: "This fight cannot be won on the defensive,
so we must go on the offensive. To be blunt, we have to kill the terrorists
before they kill us." He called for the formation of a domestic counterterrorist
intelligence agency.
Garner under criticism
In mid-May the Pentagon’s team in Iraq headed by General Jay Garner
was abruptly pulled out, despite earlier assertions by Rumsfeld that Garner
would remain in Baghdad, reporting to Bremer. Barbara Bodine, who was
in charge of the Baghdad region was also given 3 days to pack up and get
out. The New York Times reported that Bremer had "long had misgivings
about Bodine’s appointment."
Former vice chief of staff
of the U.S. army, Garner’s appointment as overseer of Iraq generated
so much opposition that it has its own website, StopJayGarner.com.
Known to be arrogant, rude
and blatantly white nationalist, Garner is hated by the Iraqi people.
Public services and electricity were not restored to Baghdad under Garner
and he failed to involve them in planning the new government as he promised.
Garner was, according to the St. Petersburg Times, "under heavy criticism
for being almost invisible to ordinary Iraqis," never emerging from
behind U.S. barbed wire security fences. British journalist Robert Fisk
speculates that, "some of the worst tyrants and torturers of the
old regime are probably being employed by the Garner administration, with
no questions asked."
A staunch pro-Israeli, Garner
was until a few weeks before his appointment the president of SY Coleman,
a leading defense contractor working on missile systems used to bomb Baghdad
and by Israel against the Palestinian people. Garner’s appointment
was a flagrant colonialist insult to the Iraqi people: the same person
who designed the bombs that killed them is now their ruler.
Garner’s 34-year military
career included a stint as the commanding General of the Army’s Space
and Strategic Defense Command, part of the Star Wars program begun by
Ronald Reagan.
During his watch as president
of SY Technology Garner faced allegations that company had received $100
million in defense contracts without undergoing competitive bidding, due
to his Pentagon contacts.
In October 2000, Garner signed
his name to a Zionist statement that, "Israel had exercised remarkable
restraint in the face of lethal violence orchestrated by the leadership
of the Palestinian Authority."
Also playing crucial roles
in the colonization of Iraq are the brutal U.S. stooges Ahmad Chalabi
and Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. "special envoy" to both Afghanistan
and Iraq. Khalilzad is also the National Security Council’s "Special
Assistant for the Gulf, Southwest Asia and other Regional issues."
Both Khalilzad and Chalabi
are tied to the Unocal oil company. With his CIA connections, Khalilzad
engineered Hamid Karzai's installation as the new Afghani chief. In the
1980’s Khalilzad played an important role in setting up Islamic Fundamentalism
throughout the Middle East and in Afghanistan to fight the former Soviet
Union. Khalilzad was also involved in the atrocities in Bosnia and fostered
the connections with the drug and arms dealing Northern Alliance.
It is clear that the U.S..
imperialist plan is to recolonize not only Iraq, but all oppressed peoples
and nations on the earth so that the world’s remaining natural resources
can be easily controlled by white power and U.S. power can go unchallenged.
The actions of the U.S. government are those of a desperate and dying
imperialism, weakened by the struggles of oppressed peoples all over the
world and inside this country for national liberation and self-determination.
As African People’s Socialist
Party Chairman Omali Yeshitela has stated, the current situation is dangerous
but favorable to African and oppressed peoples. The U. S. imperialists
are not able to rule in the same old way and the majority of humanity
on the planet has a profound interest in the destruction of the parasitic
imperialist system. Built on a pedestal of the enslavement of African
people, the genocide of indigenous peoples and the theft of the land and
resources of the majority of the earth, imperialism will be brought down
by an organized force of African workers and our allies of oppressed and
colonized peoples throughout the world.
In our struggle for African
Independence in our lifetime, the African People’s Socialist Party
stands in solidarity with the people of Iraq. Uhuru!
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