The current propaganda campaign of distortion and disinformation perpetuated by Western journalists and media pundits that Iraqis “are being murdered solely because of their religious identity” is a falsehood. Iraq is not a sectarian society. The violence in Iraq is a US-generated criminal killing instigated by different groups of militia created, financed and armed by the US and its allies. The aim is to justify the ongoing Occupation, and draw attention away from the US violent crimes in Iraq.
While on a sneak-in visit to Baghdad’s “Green Zone” – accompanying Condoleezza Rice –, the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw announced to the media that; “The Americans have lost over 2,000 people [in Iraq]. We’ve lost over 100…. And billions — billions — of United States dollars, hundreds of millions of British Pound Sterling have come into this country. We do have, I think, a right to say that we’ve got to be able to deal with Mr. A or Mr. B or Mr. C. We can’t deal with Mr. Nobody”. Yet despite the war crimes the British and US governments committed against the Iraqi people, Mr Straw failed to acknowledge that US and British forces have needlessly murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children; that Iraq was illegally attacked and destroyed with napalms, chemical and phosphorous bombs and; that the occupying forces continue illegal mass arrests (without charge), torture, abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi civilians. The purpose of Straw and Rice visit to Baghdad is to prevent the rise of democracy in Iraq and to widen the gap between Iraqis.
In addition to the 200,000 US troops and mercenaries occupying the country, the US and British governments continue to meddle in the country’s affairs and fuel violence. The Bush Administration demanding that the incumbent Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari stands down and allows a pro-US candidate to nominate for the position. The circus is depicted in mainstream media as the formation of a “national unity” government. The United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) coalition, which includes al-Jaafari’s Da’wa party, won 132 seats in the 275-member parliament in the fraudulent elections held on the 15 December 2005. However, it is not subordinate enough and must be removed. But, even if a “national unity” puppet government (the collection of expatriates) is formed, it will control little outside the “Green Zone”, which is really controlled by US troops. The collection of expatriates inside the “Green Zone” is totally divorced from the situation on the ground in Iraq. They know there is no legitimate government under foreign occupation. They are exploiting sectarianism to serve their interests.
The US and Britain are imposing a weak and divided puppet government. The Bush Administration wants to replace al-Jaafari with Adel Abdel Mahdi, a neoliberalism convert with close ties to the US. Abdel Mehdi promised to sale Iraq’s oil industries to US corporations and has no problem living under permanent US Occupation. It should be noted that all those expatriates competing for position are part of the Occupation and depend on it for survival. Any government that continues to serve the Occupation has no credibility among Iraqis. As one US pundit accurately wrote: “Power in Iraq comes not from acquiescing to American might, but from resisting it”. The vast majority of the Iraqi population is against the US agenda and want an end to the US Occupation.
It isn’t by accident that Bush and Blair have often used the pretext of “civil war” to counter the Iraqi people’s demands for troops’ withdrawal. It is a fabricated pretext (like the WMDs) to justify the Occupation of Iraq. It is the old colonial cliché: The more the natives are divided, the easier to rule them and exploit them. Civil war was on the US card before the invasion and Occupation. It is part of the US-Israel Zionist agenda in Iraq.
Hosni Mubarak’s interfere on behalf of his imperialist masters is part of his 15-years long complicity in war crimes against the Iraqi people. The Egyptian tin pot dictator receives $2 billion a year from the US for his service to US-Israel imperialism. Mubarak appeared to be unaware that Iraq is under brutal Occupation, and that the vast majority of Iraqis are against the Occupation. Mubarak’s despicable comment that “civil war” in Iraq “was on the doorstep” and that a US troops withdrawal “would be a disaster” is a distortion designed to please his masters. How Iraqis who resisted Iran for 8 long years have suddenly become “loyal” to the Iranian regime than to their country, Mubarak doesn’t know.
There is no civil war in Iraq. The violence in Iraq is a US-orchestrated campaign to destroy Iraq’s nationalism and liquidate any opposition to the Occupation. The perpetrators of violence entered Iraq on the back of US tanks, and continue to have symbiotic (parasitic) relationships with the Occupation. They were no death squads and militias in Iraq before the invasion. They have infiltrated the new police and military. They are murdering anyone (men, women and children) and anything looks like anti-Occupation. “There is a civil war, but not between the religious groups, but between the party militias on one side and the people on the other”, said Saleh al- Mutlak, chairman of the Sunni National Dialogue Front. In other words, attacks on civilians are perpetuated by the ‘Occupation dogs’ in order to ignite civil war.
Tens of thousands of innocent Iraq civilians have been arrested, tortured, and murdered in cold blood. More than a thousand of Iraqi best academics, professionals and scientists have been assassinated, with thousands fleeing the country in fear for their lives. Iraq is under a campaign of terror implemented with the full knowledge of the occupying forces and their allies. It is not secret that most of these criminals and their minders are closely allied to the CIA, Israeli Mossad, the British MI5 and the Iranian regime. Only the occupying forces and their collaborators stand to benefit from the violence.
For centuries, Iraqis, regardless of their ethnic and religious affiliations, have lived together and intermarried with each other. Iraq has been a non-sectarian mosaic society since its inception. Indeed during the Turkish occupation (better known as the Ottoman Empire), and again during the British occupation, Iraqis have resisted all imperialist attempts to divide their country and to draw them into civil war. The new imperialist agenda to divide Iraq is not different. Just take a look at the way the Gulf States are formed, occupied and ruled today.
In the last three years Iraqis have been reduced to “Shiites” and “Sunnis”. Their Arab and Muslim identity has been deliberately removed. Talk of “Shiites” and “Sunnis” entered Iraq with the Occupation and immediately became the dominant propaganda vocabularies of the mainstream media – amplified by the likes of CNN and the BBC. Every criminal attack on the civilian population is labelled according to these two labels in a deliberate campaign of disinformation and distortion. It is part of a propaganda campaign to associate Iraqis with violence, to bail the Occupation of any crimes, and to discredit the Iraqi Resistance to the Occupation. Even the American linguist Noam Chomsky has joined the chorus of this propaganda campaign by calling the legitimate Iraqi Resistance “violent insurgency”.
The attack of Friday 08 April 2006 on the Buratha Mosque, the site has been visited by Muslims and Christians alike. Indeed Iraqis refer to it as “cross link” between Shiites, Sunnis and Christians. Iraqi sources suggested that criminal element in the puppet government and US forces have turned the site into a torture chamber for Iraqis opposing the Occupation. It is recently discovered that the site was containing the bodies of 45 Iraqis who were arrested, tortured, and killed by the pro-American Badr Brigades and the Interior Ministry Shock Troops (Maghawir) two months ago. An Iraqi source wrote recently that; “Buratha stopped functioning as mosque or a holy place serving worshippers, Buratha is an execution centre supported by the Iraqi government under the eyes and ears of the Americans”. Thus, the attack on the site was part of the Occupation’s perpetuated violence against the Iraqi people.
Furthermore, the attack of 22 February 2006 on the Askariyah shrine in Samarra – worshipped by all Iraqi Muslims –, was condemned by all Iraqis without exception. Many prominent Iraqis have pointed the finger at the US forces and their collaborators for inciting the violence and for interfering in Iraqi political and domestic affairs. Thousands of ordinary Iraqis took to the streets throughout Iraq to condemn the attack and denounce the US and Israel roles in fomenting civil strife.
It is true the attacks on mosques and worship houses have stoked tensions between Iraqi religious communities; however these attacks are part of an old imperialist tool known to every Iraqi. Iraqi sources argue that British and US forces, and their collaborators are behind every major sectarian killing and kidnapping in the country. After every act of killing of civilians, a specific Iraqi community is deliberately blamed for the violence. “[W]e have widespread evidence that the outside forces are attempting to instigate a civil war here and Iraqis are conscious of that and have made determined effort not to respond to it”, said Dr. Saad Jawad, a political scientist at Baghdad University. The US and Britain are using violence to foment civil strife among the Iraqi population, and force each Iraqi community to see the Occupation as their only saviour.
Examples of Occupation-generated violence were abundant. The arrest by Iraqi Police last September of two British undercover soldiers identified as “SAS elite special forces”. The British soldiers were disguised as Arabs planning to detonate explosives-packed car in the centre of Basra. It was a case of Western perpetuated terrorism in daylight. The horrific crimes committed by Western powers to divide and destroy Yugoslavia are just a reminder of what the US and its allies intended to do in Iraq.
Iraqis are murdered not because of their “religious identity”, but because of their opposition to the Occupation. The US has enough power to stop the violence. In fact, under UN Security Council Resolution, the US and Britain (as the occupying forces) are obliged to protect the population and provide security. If Iraq is a sectarian society, all the current so-called “sectarian” violence could easily have happened under the regime of Saddam Hussein; it happens in Iraq under US Occupation.
After three years of occupation and bloodshed, the US and Britain have only encouraged and instituted violence in Iraq. They have yet to prepare for a full withdrawal of their troops from Iraq and stop meddling in Iraqi affairs. The end of Occupation is the only way to end the violence.
Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia.
