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Commentary :: Peace
One Year Later : The Occupation of Iraq	Current rating: 1
by Scott Mylxine Email: mylxine (nospam) hotmail.com	03 May 2004
A year has passed since the US government launched it�s unjust war against the Iraqi people. In that year the people of this country have learned many things. But first and foremost we have learned that, if you didn�t already know it, government�s lie.
A year has passed since the US government launched it�s unjust war against the Iraqi people. In that year the people of this country have learned many things. But first and foremost we have learned that, if you didn�t already know it, government�s lie. Since the war began (and even before it started), story after story of deception and deceit have filled the newspapers in this country and abroad. Stories about officials "sexing" up reports on weapons of mass destruction, lies Bush made in his 2003 State of the Union speech, governments spying on peace negotiators, and of secretive back door corporate deals for supporters of the war. We have learned a lot in a year. We have learned that after we were told that there were these horrific weapons of mass destruction all over Iraq, threatening our very existence, there actually were none. We�ve learned that many dubious characters exaggerated a threat, playing on the fears of people everywhere, sugarcoating and falsifying reports to get the American people to back another mass-slaughter in the Middle East. We have learned that, although we were lead to believe that the events of September 11 were somehow orchestrated by every single person in Iraq to justify a war of collective guilt, that actually there was no real terrorist threat coming from Iraq. Colin Powell, who went to the world the year before saying that he had credible proof of al-Qaeda�s presence in Iraq, now says that there is actually no "smoking gun". In fact, we have learned that Bush had planned for this war all along, even before 9/11 (if we can believe his own cabinet members). We have learned that the Iraqi people weren�t as happy to see us as we had been told they would be. The flowers we were promised as "liberators" have been replaced with bullets for the occupiers. The Iraqi people, once shown on CNN happy to greet the army they were told would free them, have now taken to the streets to protest that same foriegn army they see as invaders and occupiers of their country. Saddam is gone, but as one Iraqi put it, the invaders have taken the cotton that was once in the Iraqi�s mouths and placed it in the American�s ears. Like in this country, the Iraqis now have the right to protest. And also like this country, the government will not listen at all. The Iraqi�s who were proclaimed free by the US Government and were finally liberated from tyranny are now in the streets getting shot by their "liberators" at demonstrations. Yet still this does not stop them from protesting. After countless shootings and attacks, they still come in the thousands to show their opposition. Their signs say "No To Saddam and No To Bush." Plus the familiar refrain-"Yankee go home!" And what of Iraq itself? American bombs have destroyed so much of Iraq�s infrastructure that large sections of the county are STILL without electricity. Unemployment under the occupation is larger now then it was under Saddam. The Coalition Provisional Authority has banned unions from being organized. Major demonstrations for basic necessities have shaken almost every city in Iraq. The hospitals in Baghdad, which were already in poor shape due to years of sanctions, now have raw sewage running on the floors. According to a recent New York Times article, the infant mortality has doubled, eighty percent of Iraqi patients leave their hospitals with infections they didn�t have when they checked-in, and patients are dying in the ER due to a lack of the most basic supplies. And what about the lives lost? Since the war began, over four thousand American men and women have been maimed and wounded for life. And the casualties keep coming with no end in sight. Men and women, coming home from Bush�s war, now have no arms to hug their loved ones and no legs to walk with their children. Intensive Care Units in military hospitals are filling up rapidly with the torn-apart bodies of American soldiers. And over 700 hundred of these men and women have come home in caskets. Caskets that Bush is so afraid of that he has forbidden them from being shown in the news so the sight of dead Americans won�t hurt his chances in the next election. Still more incredible is that possibly as many as ten thousand Iraqis may have been killed in this war to date, and you�ll barely find a single story about it anywhere in this country. If they are not American lives, then they mean nothing. Ten thousand people dead. Ten thousand stolen lives. These numbers don�t even include all of the conscripts that were dragged from their families and homes to pit one unelected dictator�s army against another unelected dictator�s army. Thousands and thousands of dead human beings and barely a mention of this tragedy anywhere. As if the million and a half people that died during ten years of brutal sanctions weren�t enough. As if the thousands and thousands of people who died during the Gulf War in 1991 weren�t enough. As if the Iraqi people hadn�t suffered enough through over two decades of war, Bush wanted more. More power, more oil, more prestige, more hatred, more fanaticism, and more blood. And for what? Democracy? On February 15, 2003, millions of people around the planet took to the streets to try and stop this war from happening. But did their governments listen? London had a million people in the streets and Tony Blair still sent troops. Two million people marched though the streets of Rome to try and stop the war and Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi still sent troops. Madrid had 600,000 people take to the streets, yet their government still sent troops! And here, in the belly of the beast, at least one million people took to the streets all over this country to say "NO!" to Bush�s war of aggression. Did he listen? No. Did he listen to the 11 million people around the world that demonstrated against the war? No. Did he listen to the polls that were taken in the US before the war that said that fully 2/3 of those polled opposed a unilateral military action against Iraq? No. Did they even ask us if we wanted to go to war? In this supposed "democracy" was there even a public debate about the rationale for sending thousands of people to their deaths? No. There was none. The only thing Bush and his government asked of the people in the United States was to turn a blind eye while they ordered the deaths of an already tired, exhausted, and starved people. Just as Bush did in Afghanistan. Just as Bush did to over 150 prisoner when he was the governor of Texas. And just as he has tried to do slowly to the entire planet with his flagrant disregard for the environment and his nuclear policy since he took office. While taking despicable stands against women�s rights, gay rights, minority rights, and the rights of the poor, the government has asked us to do their dirty work and topple the politicians they put in power. While taking away our basic rights as human beings, we have been asked to look the other way as the government takes away the lives of other human beings half way around the world. But this is nothing new. War has always been two cowards using the poor to fight their battles. Over the centuries, this has not changed. Saddam�s tight grip to power and Bush�s bowing to the interests that put him in power have only brought misery to "their" people. And who suffers because of their madness? Children, women, men, families, elderly, and the poor-that�s who suffers. We are the ones asked to suffer and die for madmen�s greed. This war is unethical and unjust. It shouldn�t have started in the first place and needs to end now. Is anything changing, though? As bleak as all of this may look, the tide seems to be turning. As Bush�s rationale for war appears to be coming apart at the seams, people here and around the world are beginning wake up. The people who orchestrated this war are being shown to this country and to the world as the liars they are. Even the troops in Iraq are giving up on the war. Desertions are on the increase. Families are speaking out, especially ones that have lost sons and daughters in the war. Reenlistment is as low as the morale of the troops. Soldiers have even gone so far as to say to the press that they have their own most wanted lists and the first people on them aren't Saddam and his henchmen, but Bush and his. The post-war demonstrations that began in Iraq are now, finally, coming back to this country. The government can ignore a few protests, but they can�t ignore them forever. Still, we must do more if this war is going to stop. And we can�t rely on the electoral process to solve this problem, either. It�s much more systemic. The war Bush is waging now is the continuation of the one Clinton waged through sanctions during the �90�s, which is a continuation of the first Bush�s Gulf War, Reagan�s Persian Gulf War, Carter�s build up of the Mujahedeen, etc. Electing a liberal will not end the war and will not bring an end to the occupation. The Democrats won�t do it. The Republicans won�t do it. We must do it, and we must do it now. We must organize in our communities and stay organized. We must use every tactic available to us to stop Bush and the government from waging this war and all of their other wars. We must fight our fears of repression and demonstrate in solidarity with our fellow human beings in Iraq if we want this madness to end. And more importantly, to stop them from doing it again. One year later and this is where we are. We know Bush lied. We know the government lied. We know they have lied and they have killed and will continue to do so if we don't stop them. One year later and the questions continue. But with all the questions being asked about this stupid war, the questions we need to start asking ourselves are these: "How many more people have to die before we say "ENOUGH!" and most importantly, "Where do we do from here?"
This work is in the public domain.

Comments

Re: One Year Later : The Occupation of Iraq
by William B. Cushman cushman (nospam) cox.net (unverified)	Current rating: 0 06 Jun 2004
Excellent article! In partial answer to your last question: we must study and learn and try to understand the forces that have created such a horrible mess out of the ashes of our once (presumably) honorable country, and then attack these forces directly. In that vein, and picking on only one aspect of a much larger set of problems, I think it is instructive to study the following definition. Fascism n. A philosophy or system of government that advocates or exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism New College Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Copyright 1969, Houghton Mifflen When corporations control the election of our public officials through their money, democracy becomes a farce and we are all reduced to serfdom. Both of the major political parties have been suborned by the simple fact that great sums of money are necessary to pay the corporate-owned media and get elected, and the only real source of that money is those same or similar corporations. If that game is not played, any honorable individual will still have a voice . . . but it will not be heard or will be subjected to incessant scorn (remember Dean and “the Scream?”). Those corporations that pay for representation expect, and get, a very full return on their investment. You and I pay this return, and this relationship is why we are now, by definition, a Fascist nation. But “where do we go from here?” This particular cycle could be broken by enacting legislation against bribery (which this clearly is), but almost all current politicians would not hold their offices it they were not also part of this problem so we can’t expect too much help there. Alternately, citizen ballot initiatives (24 states allow this process) can be pursued, if we can assure an honest election to pass them - - - which currently looks very doubtful. There are many such things that could be done, but they are all dependent upon the good efforts of many concerned citizens, and in this we seem to be sorely lacking. Too many citizens are “waiting” for others to shoulder the load and solve our collective problems. THIS fact saddens me more than all others and may, in fact, be our primary problem. An acquaintance argues that this citizen passivity is because these quiet citizens have been terrorized into subservience in some way, but I think it is much simpler than that: a “diffusion of responsibility” phenomenon coupled with very busy, stressful lifestyles that don’t allow much “leisure” for acting politically. This, plus the fact that the public is constantly being subjected to the soothing drone of the corporate media. But YOU are speaking out, and I, for one, appreciate this fact immensely!