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Clearing House Sunday, September 26, 2004 Iraq: The
Massacres Continue as
"Democracy-Building". "With
all the vacillations of policy since the current
incumbents [Bush's gang] first took
office in 1981, one guiding principle remains
stable: the Iraqi people must not rule Iraq". --
Noam Chomsky, TomDispatch By Ghali
Hassan THE indiscriminate slaughter of
Iraqi citizens in Fallujah, Najaf, Baghdad, Tel
Afar, Kut and other Iraqi cities, the outrageous
treatment of Iraqi prisoners of war and civilian
detainees, and the destruction of the nation of
Iraq have not registered in the Moral consciousness
of the "civilised" Western world. The US and its "coalition" alleged that its
moral "messianic mission" is to promote and "build"
democracy and end dictatorships around the world.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The US
atrocities in Latin America and other parts of the
world produced corrupt and violent dictatorships.
America's invasion of Iraq is colonial occupation
and anti-democracy. The Iraqi people have only seen
the massacres of their fellow citizens and the
destruction of their nation. Mr. Kofi Annan, the secretary general of
the UN, said: "the war was illegal and contrary to
the provisions of the charter of the UN". This mean
that the Iraqi people and the resistance have
legitimate rights to defend their country against
aggression, and they are acting within the rules of
law. Iraqis prisoners of war, women and children
detainees taken by the US forces should be released
immediately. They are all Iraqi hostages. - In April 2004, the US massive attacks on
Fallujah killed more than 1300 Iraqis, mostly
innocent women and children, reported by AFP.
The US continues to attack Fallujah regularly,
killing many more innocent civilians. According
to Reuter's news agency, on September 2, 2004,
the US killed 17 people, including 3 children, a
woman and an elderly man. Reuters reported on
the night of September 7, 2004, US jets and
helicopters "pounded Fallujah all night and
killed 'up to 100 militants' according to US
military; though local hospital sources reported
'only' 6 dead and 23 wounded".
- On September 10, 2004, the New York
Times reported US attacks on northern
Fallujah killed at least 8 people, including
four children and two women. A local doctor told
the Associated Press, another '16 people,
including 8 children were wounded. In the rubble
of a demolished house, he noted 'workers found
only one survivor, a 10-month-old infant',
reported the Associated Press.
- The ABC and the BBC reported on September
25, 2004, "US forces bombed Fallujah killing at
least 8 civilians, wounding 15, and destroying
several buildings in the city". Fallujah is
targeted by US forces because the people of
Fallujah are resisting the US barbarity and
fighting back to defend their town.
The attacks came even as Iraqi Muslim Scholars
denounced the air strikes as "terrorist acts". In a
statement to Al-Jazeera, they pointed out
that the victims of the US air strikes were "women
and children, most of them less than 10-years old".
They urged the international community to earnestly
work for an end to the US acts of aggression in
Iraq. The siege and barbaric attacks on the holy city
of Najaf by US forces killed more than 1000 Iraqis,
most of them were innocent civilians, and a city of
half a million people destroyed. People were shot
and killed in Kufa, simply because they were
marching for peace. - On September 7, 2004 US forces attacked Sadr
City unprovoked "leaving at least 40 Iraqis and
1 American soldier dead and 202 people wounded",
The New York Times reported, despite a
unilateral ceasefire declared by Muqtada
Al-Sadr. "Most of the victims were ordinary
people".
- On September 12, 2004, US helicopters fired
on a crowd of unarmed innocent civilians in
Baghdad's Haifa Street killing more than 13
Iraqis, including children and an Arab
journalist, and injuring dozens others. The
massacres of Iraqi civilians by US forces
continue as if Iraqis are no longer human
beings.
The fact is that the US is pursuing a scorched
earth policy that destroys everything on the
ground, is clear proof that this policy has failed.
Many Iraqi cities are emulating the heroic example
of Fallujah resistance across Iraq. To take revenge, the US is preparing for new
offensive in December [2004] to occupy
towns and cities outside its Occupation. The US
commander in Iraq said recently: "the cancer of
Falluja is going to be cut out" soon. A policy
reminiscent to fascism and terrorism ideologies of
destroying and terrorising the whole community. Nancy Youssef of Knight Ridder
[Newspapers]
reported on September 25, 2004, "U.S. and
multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing
twice as many Iraqis - most of them civilians - as
attacks by [resistance]". She cited a
report by the Iraqi Health Ministry that "recorded
3,487 Iraqi deaths in 15 of the country's 18
provinces from April 5 - when the ministry began
compiling the data - until September 19. Of those,
328 were women and children. Another 13,720 Iraqis
were injured". Confirming earlier reports that show
"about two-third of Iraqi deaths caused by
Occupation forces, the remaining third died from
resistance attacks, and crimes that resulted from
the Occupation. The atrocities continue unnoticed
in the West. With many of the crimes of murders and
kidnappings against the Iraqi people are committed
by those who piggybacked to Iraq on the tanks of
the Occupation forces, security remained a major
concern for the Iraqi people. The new created
police and army in Iraq are to act as shield to
protect the US forces from the resistance, and
preludes to civil war. They are fighting against
their own people on behalf of foreign Occupation.
In fact, crime and violence in Iraq have been on
the increase since the Occupation. The London-based Medact, the British affiliate
of International Physicians for the Prevention of
Nuclear War (IPPNW) reveals that up to 55,000 Iraqi
civilians died in the bombing of 2003 alone. The
charity organisation concluded that the war's
continuing impact - particularly the failure of
occupation authorities to ensure security - has
resulted in a further deterioration of Iraq's
infrastructure and the Iraqi population's health
status. Western media are happy to propagate the
death of 1,000 US soldiers since the invasion,
while ignoring the massacres of Iraqi people. Iraq was not and never
could have been a threat to the US, even its
nearest neighbours were not concerned and. Iraq
was a defenceless country and all evidence shows
that Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism or
the 9/11 attacks. The US deputy defence secretary, Paul
Wolfowitz, told Vanity Fair Magazine in
early 2004: "For bureaucratic reasons we settled on
WMD [to invade Iraq] because it was the one
reason everyone could agree on". The reason Mr
Wolfowitz was saying was a convenient lie - a lie
that has been sold to the citizens of the world. Mr
Wolfowitz, who is also know as "Israel-centric" for
his loyalty to Israel and his anti-Muslim
behaviour, attacked the Turkish parliament for
respecting the majority of the Turkish citizens and
refusing to allow the US to invade Iraq from
Turkey. He urged the Turkish Army to "take matter
in their hands" and disregard democratic
principles. Mr Wolfowitz is peculiar in that he is
the so-called "visionary democrat" of the Bush
administration. The US is destroying any hope for real democracy
in Iraq by appointing thugs and criminals to high
positions. The US has consistently stalled on
one-person-one-vote elections in Iraq, "seeking
instead to put democracy on hold until it is safely
managed", writes Salim Lone in the
Guardian of London. The US is building
dependence and subordination in Iraq. The US is
building 14 permanent military bases in Iraq. To my
knowledge not a single Iraqi wants the US to stay
in Iraq. The mainstream media is silent on this
issue of US domination. The so-called "Western-style democracy-building"
in Iraq has been contracted to US corporations such
as the North Carolina Research Triangle
International (RTI) and the National Endowment for
Democracy (NED). The NED promotes a "top-down"
controlled democracy, in which few elites rule over
the masses. Its chairman is the neoconservative,
Vin Webber, who is signatory to the Project
of the New American Century (PNAC), which has
promoted the invasion and conquest of Iraq since
1997. It is promised a 100 percent increase in
Congressional funding in George W. Bush's
2004 State of the Union address. Complementing NED work is RTI; one of many of
private contractors hired by the US government for
Iraq's other "reconstruction." As Bechtel attempts
to rebuild bridges and power plants, other US
companies are attempting to fashion Iraq's legal,
economic, political and social institutions so that
they will be conducive to US interests. USAID and
RTI is recruiting and mobilizing Iraqi quislings
who it hopes will push for and defend preferred US
policies. The history of USAID, RTI and NED in
developing countries is of devastation,
exploitation and poverty. The Centre for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), a Washington think-tank, recently
concluded: "Iraqis have little confidence in US and
other international forces - Iraqis generally
dislike the continued presence of US-led forces in
their country; many consider the occupation to be
on-going despite the June 28 handover of
sovereignty".  Sovereignty
comes directly from the people; it is not something
that the US can dictates by the power of tanks and
helicopters gunship. The Iraqi Interim Government
is a puppet government with no legitimacy or
sovereignty. The so-called "prime minister" Iyad
Allawi (right) is a cheap
thug, and the Occupation Arabic spokesman. Who
is Allawi? Allawi and his gang are not talking on
behalf of the Iraqi people. They have no support
among the Iraqi people; they are foreigners.
"Yesterday's speech was
particularly embarrassing. [Allawi]
stood there grovelling in front of the congress-
thanking them for the war, the occupation and
the thousands of Iraqi lives lost... and he did
it all on behalf of the Iraqi people. It was
infuriating and for maybe the hundredth time
this year, I felt rage", writes the Girl Blog
from Iraq on September 24, 2004. According to Thomas Carothers, director
of Democracy Project at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace "is the central dilemma that
the most powerful, popular movement are the ones
that we are deeply uncomfortable". The US is doing
everything to derail the January 2005 promised
"elections". Allawi's gang has an incentive to
delay the poll so as to perpetuate their power. It should be borne in mind that it is impossible
to have honest election when the country is
occupied and violence is escalating. "We are
against holding the elections while Iraq is still
under (US) occupation," a senior member of the
Association of Sunni Muslims, Ahmed
Al-Samarae, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "If
the elections are held under these circumstances,
they won't be fair and just". He added, "the
invaders will impose the figures they want in the
so-called elected government in order to obtain a
legal status for them to stay in Iraq". The aim of
the US Occupation is to fragment the country with
each community having some power. Occupation will
continue and Iraqis will continue to fight each
other instead of fighting foreign invaders. Any elected Iraqi government will be obliged to
ask the US to leave Iraq once it took power. Noises
are already being made that insecurity will prevent
democratic elections being free. Every Iraqi sees
the elections as the best key to ending the
occupation and getting the US to leave, reported
the Guardian of London. Donald Rumsfeld, the
proto-fascist defence secretary, suggesting, "to
hold only limited elections". In other words,
Baghdad and several other provinces are not safe to
hold elections. This is the democracy the US is
trying to build in Iraq. What the US is trying to build in Iraq is a
democruptcy by way of "appointocracy", not
democracy. Democracy is accountable to ordinary
people and not suborns power. "The inescapable
irony is that the United States, long involved in
"democracy-building" adventures around the world,
desperately needs to revitalise the democratic
process at home", writes Noam Chomsky. There is no pretext for the US Army and their
mercenaries to be in Iraq. The recent face-saving
deal achieved by Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani in
Najaf demonstrates Iraqis can do things peacefully.
The 200,000 US soldiers and mercenaries are not
needed or wanted. The longer the US stays in Iraq,
the worse life for Iraqis becomes. If the US is concerned about human rights and
democracy, the US is well advised to liberate Iraq
and free its resources. The US should withdraw its
troops from Iraq, takes its quislings and criminals
with, and pay reparation for the destruction
inflicted upon the Iraqi people. Iraqis are able to
work together to rebuild their nation and civil
society. So we can all live in peace with
dignity. Ghali Hassan lives in Perth Western Australia:
He can be reached by
e-mail. 
George Bush's Killer Quisling in Baghdad
Iyad
Allawi, US-appointed Prime Minister of Iraq,
personally shot six Resistance suspects at a
Baghdad police station a few days ago-
Scott Taylor:
Hostage in Iraq: Five days in Hell
-
The
terror, the terror: Iraq is becoming daily more
chaotic and murderous, says Richard Beeston
 -
Casual
massacre of civilians by US forces: all in a
day's work
-
George Bush's Killer Quisling in Baghdad
Iyad
Allawi, US-appointed Prime Minister of Iraq,
personally shot six Resistance suspects at a
Baghdad police station a few days ago
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