"The Enemy is on the Run"

“THE ENEMY IS ON THE RUN”

2004 in Retrospect: In Iraq the ”Liberators” were Torturers. Resistance groups call to a global front against the American terror.

By Rudiger Gobel

[This article originally published in: junge Welt, 12/24/2004 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www,jungewelt.de/2004/12-24/005.php. The author is editor of the book “Iraq: War, Occupation and Resistance”.]



The situation in occupied Iraq in year one after the US invasion could hardly be more contradictory. The US after setting out to “liberate” the Tigris-Euphrates land finds itself politically and militarily in a no-win position. The media onslaught of torture pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison on one hand and the growing and increasingly successful resistance against the hated occupiers in the whole country on the other hand caused heavy damage to the image of the remaining superpower. Instead of withdrawing the occupying troops from Iraq in 2003 as planned, the armies in the Gulf had to be increased. Washington is now limited in its options for domesticating other countries with military force. The US army commissioned with waging two wars in two distant places of the world cannot even simultaneously control two neighboring cities in Iraq, Ramadi and Fallujah. Therefore allies in the war turn their backs on the Americans month after month.

100,000 DEAD IRAQIS

The war and occupation have cost at least 100,000 Iraqis. That was the estimate of a nationwide doctors’ study carried out in September 2004. The number of casualties is probably even double that figure. Iraqis are confronted today with mass unemployment, increasing child mortality, rising illiteracy, practically non-existent security, the siege, bombardment and destruction of whole cities like Fallujah and the Shiite pilgrimage city Nadschaf in the summer of 2004. A brutal punishing operation now threatens the northern Iraqi city Mosul after the resistance attack on a military base with heavy losses for the US army.

The Iraq picture in Germany is marked by terrorist strikes, abductions and decapitations that prevent a stabilization of the Tigris-Euphrates land. Whoever resists the occupying regime is automatically a terrorist. Musab Al-Sarkawi who was not known to anyone was the incarnation of evil. With a stroke of the pen, the whole resistance was discredited as fanatic, Islamic or Baathist in the middle class media and beyond. Some leftists fall to the propaganda. In the Orwellian newspeak, resistance becomes terrorism and war becomes liberation in George W. Bush’s view.

In a video disseminated in the middle of December, the Islamic Jihad army under the “United Mudshadin command” like a multitude of other resistance organizations confirmed the will to fight for Iraq’s future. “Fighting the occupying forces whose states are morally and economically responsible for what their governments have destroyed and stolen in our country is our duty and our right. We did not cross the oceans to occupy Great Britain or the US and were not responsible for September 11. These are some of the lies offered by these criminals to cover up their real plans for controlling the energy supplies of the world in view of a prospering China and a strong united Europe. It is ironic that Iraq has to bear the whole weight of this great and growing conflict representatively for the rest of this sleeping world.”

CALL FOR SUPPORT

The resistance group expressly thanked the worldwide peace groups including those in Great Britain and the US that took to the streets to demonstrate against this war and against globalization. At the same time the Iraqi resistance asked for more help. “We don’t need weapons or fighters since we have many of them. We ask you to form a worldwide front against war and sanctions, a front guided by wise and informed persons, a front that brings reform, order and new institutions replacing the present corrupt ones.” “We only wish we had more cameras to show the world their defeat. The enemy is in flight. They fear a resistance movement that they can’t see or predict. We now decide when, where and how we attack. As our ancestors kindled the first sparks of civilization, we will redefine the word conquest. Today we write a new chapter in the art of urban warfare. You must know that you help yourselves by supporting the Iraqi people because the same destruction could meet you tomorrow morning.” The more an international movement is called into being, the more the US will fall – and the occupying troops will have to leave the Tigris-Euphrates land - and the more the option for a better life will open up for simple Iraqis.


NO LEGITIMATION

Election Fraud in Iraq

By Werner Pirker

[This article originally published in: junge Welt, 12/29/2004 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.jungewelt.de/2004/12-29/002.php.]



The question is whether there will be general elections in Iraq planned for January 2005, not who will win in the general elections. These elections cannot be free under the conditions of an occupied country. If the elections are carried out, they will take place outside the Sunnite spectrum and will not have a national character. The Iraqi Islamic party, the strongest among Sunnite forces that on principle is occupation-friendly, also refuses participating in the elections.

Before the start of the invasion, the US sought to bring the subjugated country into a state of “indirect rule”. However the political authority that could take over the government mandate issued by Washington with social support does not exist. The core element of Iraqi laicism was crushed with the Baath-party. The Baathists now act in alliance with radical Islamism. The Sunnite minority among Arab Iraqis sees itself cheated of its former privileged position. The Shiite majority consists in large part of landless farmers and the urban poor and traditionally forms the most dissatisfied and socially active element in Iraqi society. No state can be made with the Kurds in an Arab majority country.

With the magic word “universal democratic elections”, the occupying power thinks the curse of its illegal residence in the Tigris-Euphrates land can be banished. A situation in violation of international law should be realized with a democratic legitimation. Whoever is able to influence elections outside the sphere of influence as in the Ukraine imagines itself strong enough to gain the “victory of democracy” in a conquered land. To stage this farce without completely passing by reality, the two most important Shiite currents around Al Sistani and Al Sadr must be included in the election process. If this succeeds, this will be a stage victory of the occupiers and a serious setback for the resistance.

“Universal democratic elections” will only be possible after the withdrawal of the occupiers. An election fraud before the elections can only be prevented with a revolution. This cannot be orange and will unfortunately not take a peaceful course.