Top US Lawyer and UNICEF data reveals that US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have resulted in 11 million deaths

Numerous organisations have compiled stats for the number of civilian deaths since the invasion of Iraq and they’re regularly updated and, indeed, have the desired effect, namely to shock and bring home to those who supported a war premised on pack of lies the blatant fact that the occupation is not working, that it has not achieved any of its ostensible objectives, other than seizing Iraqi oil. As I write the number of Iraq dead since the invasion five years ago is 1,170,000!

What is rarely cited, or perhaps sought, is the number killed since the US invasion of Afghanistan. Countercurrents present harrowing facts that reveal a slaughter of Afghan civilians that is without doubt of genocidal proportions; figures way above those coming from Iraq. The Iraqi dead coupled with the numbers killed since Afghanistan was invaded has been estimated at 11 million!!

I copy below select passages from Dr Gideon Polya’s (a top US lawyer) research and which can be found on the Countercurrents website. (I have tried to correct broken links where I have found them on the original site).

As of February 2008, analysis of UNICEF data (statistics on Occupied Afghanistan) allows the following estimate of 3.3-6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that should not have happened) in Occupied Afghanistan:

1. annual under-5 infant deaths 370,000.

2. post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.3 million (90% avoidable).

3. post-invasion avoidable under-5 infant deaths 2.1 million.

4. post-invasion non-violent excess deaths 3.2 million (2.3 million /0.7 = 3.3 million; for impoverished, worst case Third world countries the under-5 infant deaths are about 0.7 of total non-violent excess deaths (see A Layperson’s Guide to counting Iraq deaths: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ ).

5. post-invasion violent deaths about 3.3 million (assuming roughly 1 violent death for every non-violent avoidable death i.e. roughly as in US-occupied Occupied Iraq where the ratio of violent deaths to non-violent excess deaths is 0.8-1.2 million to 0.7-0.8 million; see Continued Australian and US Coalition war crimes in Occupied Iraq).

6. upper estimate of non-violent plus violent post-invasion excess deaths 3.3 million + 3.3 million = 6.6 million excess deaths.

A major cause of the carnage is revealed by WHO – the “total annual per capita medical expenditure” permitted by the Occupiers in Occupied Afghanistan is a mere $19 – as compared to $2,560 (the UK), $3,123 (Australia) and $6,096 (the US). This is in gross contravention of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War which unequivocally demands that the Occupier must provide life-sustaining food and medical requisites to its Conquered Subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. Compounding this is the appalling reality of 4 million Afghan refugees.

What is happening in Afghanistan is an Afghan Holocaust. One sees that post-invasion under-5 infant deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (2.3 million) vastly exceeds the number of Jewish children murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 (1.5 million). The upper estimate of post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (6.6 million out of an average 2001-2008 Afghan population of about 25 million) exceeds the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 ( 5.6 million out of 8.2 million Jews in German-occupied Europe in the period 1941-1945) (see: Gilbert, M. (1969), Jewish History Atlas (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London) and Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust (Michael Joseph, London)).

Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: ) states “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Outstanding US Law academic Professor Ali Khan of the Washburn University School of Law, Topeka, Kansas has also described what is going on in Afghanistan as genocide i.e. an Afghan Genocide (see “NATO Genocide in Afghanistan”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/19831/42/ ).

The key legal verdict of Professor Khan is as follows: “The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (entered into force, 1951) is binding on all states including the 26 member states of NATO. The Genocide Convention is jus cogens, the law from which no derogation is allowed. It provides no exceptions for any nation or any organization of nations, such as the United Nations or NATO, to commit genocide. Nor does the Convention allow any exceptions to genocide "whether committed in time of peace or in time of war." Even traditional self-defense - let alone preemptive self-defense, a deceptive name for aggression – cannot be invoked to justify or excuse the crime of genocide.”

Professor Khan proceeds to analyse the campaign of extermination of the Indigenous Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan in relation to International law. He states that in relation to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention “In murdering the Taliban, NATO armed forces systematically practice on a continual basis the crime of genocide that consists of three constituent elements - act, intent to destroy, and religious group.” His detailed analysis can be succinctly summarized as follows:

1. “The Genocidal Act” is prohibited as defined in the Genocide Convention as “a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” – but is is clearly occurring on a huge scale as indicated by the above data.

2. “The Genocidal Intent” is expressed in the Genocide Convention as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”- but is clearly present in the statements of the NATO leaders. The “Intent” is also apparent from the sustained, resolute conduct of this horrendously bloody war for over 6 years.

3. “The Genocidal targeting of a Religious Group” is clearly prohibited by the Genocide Convention by “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” – but is clearly being carried out with the accompaniment of immense Islamophobic propaganda in the West.

As an agnostic humanist I certainly don’t care for the Taliban beliefs – but what agnostic humanists (such as myself) or people of other philosophic persuasions think about the religious beliefs and interpretations of the Taliban is beside the point from the perspective of the UN Genocide Convention.

And while I strongly object to human rights violations by the Taliban (especially in relation to women and application of their extreme interpretations of Sharia Law) one has to objectively give credit to the Taliban for (a) bringing Peace through victory in the middle 1990s and (b) for destroying 95% of the Afghan opium production in 2001 (as well of course banning the vastly more deadly use of alcohol and for prohibiting Afghan Government employees from the even more deadly practice of smoking tobacco in 1997). Smoking, alcohol and illicit drugs kill about 7 million people annually, the breakdown being 5 million (tobacco), 1.8 million (alcohol) and 0.2 million (from illicit drugs, about half opiate drug-related).

It can be estimated that 0.6 million people have died world-wide due to opiates in the last 6 years, about 0.5 million of these deaths being due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 5% of world market share (2001) to 93% (2007) (see UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, World Drug Report 2007: downloadable in pdf here)

The 0.5 million global US-NATO-linked opiate drug-related deaths plus 6.6 million post-invasion Afghan excess deaths bring an upper estimate of the carnage due to the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan to 7.1 million deaths. If we include excess deaths associated with UK-US actions against Iraq in the period 1990-2008 (about 4 million) then the gruesome carnage of the Bush I plus Bush II Asian Wars now totals about 11 million excess deaths (and this ignores the impact of the Bush Wars through oil price rises and other factors on Third World avoidable deaths).

Occupied Afghanistan is the New Auschwitz of the US and its complicit allies (including former Axis countries Germany and Japan who have. on US instigation. joined the US-NATO Afghan Genocide) .

In his 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech , UK playwright Harold Pinter urged the arraignment of Bush and Blair before the International Criminal Court for war crimes and stated “How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought.”

Eleven million? More than enough, I would have thought.

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).

The hidden cost of the allied invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan

Early in January, Class Warfare, in a piece entitled Towards the Guilt Free Soldier, reported on the problem the US army was having with traumatised soldiers and how it was seeking to introduce narcotics to counter the problem. This piece followed one I posted in November – Suicide Epidemic Among US Veterans.

This week we hear similar harrowing stories from the US and British press.

Several sites carry this story.

“The Pentagon reports more than 68,000 U.S. soldiers have been wounded, injured, or stricken ill in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals and clinics have treated over 260,000 patients from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

“On top of that, the VA has reported nearly 250,000 disability claims from veterans of the two wars. Studies show as many as half of the 1.6 million soldiers sent to fight in Iraq will return with post-traumatic stress disorder and a fifth are returning with traumatic brain injury, physical brain damage often caused by roadside bombs. “

Today’s Observer, reports on how the war is affecting British veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan

“At the time of writing, 261 British service personnel have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 4,000 have been injured and 52 have lost limbs, half of them in the past 18 months. Tellingly, in a society submerged in statistics the incidence of broken marriages, suicides, alcoholism, deep depression and homelessness among service veterans remains largely unquantified…..Often they leave home, some heading to London for a fresh start where they find themselves in limbo with nothing to their name. There are no flags, no bands, no glorious memories.”

Whilst we are now aware that more Falklands War vets committed suicide than were killed in that conflict, there are no records as yet for the number of Iraq-Afghanistan vets who have taken their own lives, unable to cope, because details for their army service are not recorded on their death certificates. Neither are statistics available for suicides amongst reservists, believed to be more prone to mental health problems. Right now, researchers at ManchesterUniversity are working their way through records going back five years in an attempt to ascertain the British army suicide rate. As the Observer notes: “Their findings, to be published this spring, are expected to be shocking.”

“Nearly a quarter of those deployed in conflict for longer than 13 months have 'severe' drink issues. Eighteen British service personnel a week are testing positive for drug use involving cannabis, ecstasy or cocaine. Typically, the deepest scars affecting those returning to civvy street are in the mind. Combat Stress, which helps veterans with mental-health problems, has seen a 27 per cent rise in referrals. Yet more than half of those with psychological problems do not receive a war pension and cannot qualify for funding to help with their treatment. The average time-lag for post-traumatic stress to surface is 13 years; only in 2020 will we know the true fallout of the current operations.”

But what of those who sent these soldiers to war, the likes of Blair and Bush and the people behind the scenes, the oil cartels, the contractors, the ones who really wanted a war, the ones who really benefit? Do they suffer mental breakdown. On the contrary they have never been so happy. Their lifestyles have improved. They continue to profit enormously from the war for oil and eagerly await the expansion of the War in Iran. There’s profits to be had and to hell with the cost in human life, mental breakdown or family split-up. For his part, Blair has secured lucrative advisory posts with trans-national corporations, such as the notoriously corrupt JP Morgan. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for they are wars, have made Blair rich beyond his wildest dreams – he served his masters well in Washington and now he is being rewarded big time.

And whilst it is easy to get angry about the way in which soldiers in Britain and the US are perceived as the expendable cannon fodder by their leaders, what of the Iraqis, the Afghan people? Putting aside the million-and-half dead in these countries since they were invaded, how many more are suffering trauma, mental breakdown and with no chance of help whatsoever? The true figure, if it could be estimated, would beggar belief and totally dwarf any statistics for US/British service personnel.

F*** the constitution - there's profits to be had

A few years back, when Bush signed the annual National Defence Authorisation Act, he not only increased the funding for the already bloated shadow government, but increased the powers of the executive branch and formally announced it was preparing for domestic insurrection, pre-emptively stripping state governors and legislatures of their powers. The federal government was openly stating that it is the only authority – screw the people, we do what we want, where we want, when we want.

Then on May 9th 2007 President Bush signed the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, unlawfully granting himself further powers. The presidency officially became a dictatorship Whereas In the past, continuity of government has been shared between the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government, now all power was invested in the president. For the smallest of reasons, according the document’s own text, any incident in the world, regardless of location that affects population, infrastructure, environment, economy or government function, can trigger, at the president’s will, total martial law.

This week, signing the National Defense Authorization Act 2008, Bush declared that he has power to circumvent four more laws, including a ban against using federal funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq. He declared that four sections of the bill unconstitutionally infringe on his powers, and so the executive branch is not bound to obey them.

Bush has inadvertently admitted that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was aimed primarily at seizing major influence over its oil by establishing military bases. One section Bush targeted created a statute that forbids spending taxpayer money "to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq" or "to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq."

We learn also this week that Washington is negotiating a long-term agreement with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, that includes the basing of US troops in Iraq after 2008, as well as security guarantees and other economic and political ties between the United States and Iraq.

Every time Bush or a senior administration official has been questioned about permanent US military bases in Iraq, they argue that it is not their intention to construct such facilities, that the object is the democratisation of Iraq priot to a US departure.

Bush did not explain the specific basis for his objection to the prohibition on establishing permanent military bases in Iraq, but last year, the White House told Congress that a comparable condition in another bill "impermissibly infringes upon the president's constitutional authority to negotiate treaties and conduct the nation's foreign affairs."

The incessant signing of statements to advance executive power has been a trademark of his presidency. Presidents have done this in the past, but Bush has contested more sections of bills than all of his predecessors combined – including the ban on torture.

Clearly, the White House is determined to establish that the commander in chief can defy laws limiting his options in national security matters. to determine how and when US force will be used abroad, and which is widely perceived as a snub to the American constitutional. Or, fuck the constitution, there’s profits to be had.

Antonia Juhasz of the group Oil Change International argues that the issues of oil and permanent military bases are related.

"We've got the Bush administration pushing aggressively for an (Iraqi) law that would give oil companies 20- to 25-year contracts for oil in Iraq and if they were to be at work for an extended length of time, they would need security…If the U.S. military is going to stay in Iraq for 20 or 35 years, they're going to need bases….The bottom line has to be in the willingness to give the money. The budget for the war this year has reached 170 billion dollars for just the next year."

And meanwhile we learn from Akhbar Alkhaleej , a Bahraini daily

(translation here) :

“An Iraqi member of parliament said secret talks have been opened by parties representing American oil companies, that include an American offer to give deputies who vote in favor of the Oil and Gas Law money amounting to five million dollars.

”The Iraqi deputy, who preferred his name not be mentioned, said the amount of money that could be paid for passage of the Oil and Gas Law [thus] doesn't exceed $150 million, if the $5 million figure is specified for each deputy, and this will be an insignificant amount compared to the concessions these American companies will obtain. He was referring to the fact that the Oil Law needs 138 votes to pass, and this is what the American parties are trying to obtain by several different methods, including the buying of votes, and blandishments, and threats.

“The deputy said he thinks the Americans will adhieve their aim with some deputies who will promise to vote for the bill in exchange for the mentioned amount of money, but he said others will not be selling their votes for any price, or under any type of pressure.

”The Iraqi deputy said these talks, which are being kept in the highest degree of secrecy, are centered on the leaders of parliamentary blocs, and on persons with influence in Parliament, so as to obtain the biggest number of votes possible. He said the Americans already had the votes of the Kurdish lists assured, but what they are trying for is to get sufficient votes to pass the bill and enact it at the earliest possible time.

”Recall that there are still parliamentary blocs that are firmly against voting for the Oil and Gas Law, and that there are others that say this should be put to a popular referendum, since it is something that concerns the fate of Iraq's oil wealth, and the sustenance of the Iraqi people."

Looks like the anti-war movement had better invest in a sturdy banner. US capitalism's blood for oil programme looks sent to continue until the last barrel of black gold is extracted from beneath the sands of Iraq. And it looks, too, as if average Americans are in for a tough future, with Bush giving himself increasingly more powers that will enable him to crush dissent. Makes sense though - if you're gonna pull of something big, like annex Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran and bog down US forces in a lengthy war for oil - and personally I think this is coming - then you're gonna need someone with dictatorial powers to quell opposition at home for, as any ruler knows, sometimes your own people can be the biggest obstacle to your profits overseas

Michael Ruppert - the whole picture

This is a lengthy (lecture) film - some 2 hrs and 17 minutes - but well worth watching if you really want to know just what the hell is going on in the US. There is shit going on that even the more widely read politicos haven't even imagined. This lecture covers the Rockefeller family - CFC - Bush - 9/11 - Bin Laden - Oil - Carlyle Group - the CIA - investment banks - Patriot Act - Oil - internment camps - financial fraud - Iran Contra - cocaine - heroin - Wall Street - the drug trade - S & L crisis - the DEA - Iraq - Iran - Oil- Pakistan - nuclear weapons - looting social security - smallpox vaccine - Citibank - Oil and more.

It's all connected and Ruppert shows how.

After having his life threatened numerous times, Michael Ruppert left the United States and says he will no longer engage in investigative reporting. His last article before leaving the United States, fearing for his own life can be found here For further info on Michael Ruppert, click here.

Round about the 1hr 14 minute mark, Ruppert quotes from an important book by Zbigniew Brzezinski, entitled The Grand Chessboard and which can be downloaded from Sandiago Indymedia here.

The Grand Chessboard - American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives

Key Quotes From Zbigniew Brzezinksi's Seminal Book

"Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power."- (p. xiii)

"... But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.” (p. xiv)

"In that context, how America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." (p.31)

“Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." (p.35)

“The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea." (p.125)

"In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last." (p.209)

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." (p. 211)

More Quotes

"...The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as a key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world's paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power...” (p. xiii)

"... But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.” (p. xiv)

"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.” (pp 24-5)

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia... Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia - and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.” (p.30)

"America's withdrawal from the world or because of the sudden emergence of a successful rival - would produce massive international instability. It would prompt global anarchy." (p. 30)

"In that context, how America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." (p.31)

“It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." (p.35)

"Two basic steps are thus required: first, to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them;... second, to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above..." (p. 40)

"...To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." (p.40)

"Henceforth, the United States may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America's status as a global power." (p.55)

"Uzbekistan, nationally the most vital and the most populous of the central Asian states, represents the major obstacle to any renewed Russian control over the region. Its independence is critical to the survival of the other Central Asian states, and it is the least vulnerable to Russian pressures." (p. 121)

[Referring to an area he calls the "Eurasian Balkans" and a 1997 map in which he has circled the exact location of the current conflict - describing it as the central region of pending conflict for world dominance] "Moreover, they [the CentralAsianRepublics] are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold." (p.124)

"The world's energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea." (p.125)

"Uzbekistan is, in fact, the prime candidate for regional leadership in Central Asia." (p.130)

"Once pipelines to the area have been developed, Turkmenistan's truly vast natural gas reserves augur a prosperous future for the country's people.” (p.132)

"In fact, an Islamic revival - already abetted from the outside not only by Iran but also by Saudi Arabia - is likely to become the mobilizing impulse for the increasingly pervasive new nationalisms, determined to oppose any reintegration under Russian - and hence infidel - control." (p. 133).

"For Pakistan, the primary interest is to gain Geostrategic depth through political influence in Afghanistan - and to deny to Iran the exercise of such influence in Afghanistan and Tajikistan - and to benefit eventually from any pipeline construction linking Central Asia with the Arabian Sea." (p.139)

"Turkmenistan... has been actively exploring the construction of a new pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea..." (p.145)

"It follows that America's primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it." (p148)

"China's growing economic presence in the region and its political stake in the area's independence are also congruent with America's interests." (p.149)

"America is now the only global superpower, and Eurasia is the globe's central arena. Hence, what happens to the distribution of power on the Eurasian continent will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy and to America's historical legacy." (p.194)

"Without sustained and directed American involvement, before long the forces of global disorder could come to dominate the world scene. And the possibility of such a fragmentation is inherent in the geopolitical tensions not only of today's Eurasia but of the world more generally." (p.194)

"With warning signs on the horizon across Europe and Asia, any successful American policy must focus on Eurasia as a whole and be guided by a Geostrategic design." (p.197)

"That puts a premium on maneuver and manipulation in order to prevent the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America's primacy..." (p. 198)

"The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role." (p. 198)

"In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last." (p.209)

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." (p. 211)

Zbigniew Brzezinski's Background

According to his resume, Zbigniew Brzezinski lists the following achievements:

Harvard Ph.D. in 1953

Counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Professor of American Foreign Policy, JohnsHopkinsUniversity

National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter (1977-81)

Trustee and founder of the Trilateral Commission

International advisor of several major US/Global corporations

Associate of Henry Kissinger

Under Ronald Reagan - member of NSC-Defense Department Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy

Under Ronald Reagan - member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

Past member, Board of Directors, The Council on Foreign Relations

1988 - Co-chairman of the Bush National Security Advisory Task Force.

Brzezinski is also a past attendee and presenter at several conferences of the Bilderberger group - a non-partisan affiliation of the wealthiest and most powerful families and corporations on the planet.

Iraq, Iran, Pakistan. What the hell is Bush up to?

This interview, made recently, goes some way, I think, to explain yesterday's assassination in Pakistan of Benazir Bhutto.

Demand the Impossible

Text of a leaflet I've done for the antiwar demo on 24th Feb

Today, 24th February, people have travelled the length and breadth of Britain to protest at the continuing bloodshed in the Middle East.

No doubt many will be veterans of the mass protest in London 4 years ago which attracted almost 2 million people - people fully aware at the time that the events of 9/11 had no link to Saddam Hussein and that he posed no military threat to the West. Likewise, the many who marched to Hyde Park that day were right in believing that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction—a fact that has now been proved—and that any war in Iraq would fully destabilise the country. And you would have been in a minority had you not realised the link between the intended war and the fact that beneath the sands of Iraq lay huge oil resources.

Undoubtedly, after over four years of campaigning you will be revolted by the incessant lies of the Blair government as it has tried to justify the occupation of Iraq and its further plunge into chaos. Week in, week out, the government has distorted the truth and sunk to all manner of low tactics to justify its position. And now, after all of your campaigning efforts, the meetings and demos you have attended, the petitions you have signed, the umpteen arguments with your friends and neighbours, you are here protesting again, having been proved right, marching today, demanding a withdrawal of US and British forces from Iraq, hoping to halt a looming attack upon Iran, and calling for no replacement for Trident.

Four years of solid protest and your cause is not one inch further forward! Indeed, the anti-war cause has taken a step back. For, paying no heed to the hell that has been let loose in Iraq, Labour and the Tories are all too ready to escalate the war and support a US-led attack on Iran, even if this means the use of nuclear strikes.

Whoa, hold on! Do you not think you might just be wasting your time here today? Granted, the Iraq War has resulted in the deaths of 660,000 and innocent Iraqis are still being killed every day. And yes, Blair has increased the British troop presence in Afghanistan and he even kept schtum during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. But do you not think you’re asking the wrong questions, making the wrong demands? Repeating the mistakes of the past? We’re not saying you are wrong for asking questions, only that you do not ask enough. Indeed, question everything! We’re not suggesting you are demanding too much today—in truth, you are not demanding enough!

Whilst this march demands the withdrawal of western forces from Iraq and pleads that Iran is not attacked, it supports the very system that creates war by not questioning the premise of war. War is a bedfellow of the system we know as capitalism, being waged over trade routes, areas of influence, foreign markets, natural resources and the profits that can be had via the same. By not taking issue with the nature of capitalism, and the root of war, this gathering is making the mistake of every previous anti-war demo and meeting and paving the way for more in the future. Wars will continue as long as capitalism exists. By demanding the British and American governments listen to us today we further give them legitimacy by acknowledging their right to make war and indeed end it.

Now we’re not being churlish here. It is heartening to see so many here today, united in common voice - it reveals the workers can be mobilised around issues they feel are important. But from our experience - and we’ve had 100 years’ experience of observing campaigns and demonstrations and protests around every kind of reform and demand imaginable (we’re the oldest existing socialist organisation in Britain, having been formed in 1904) - we can confidently say that this demonstration is just one of hundreds over the years that address the symptoms, not the cause of the problem, and will make no significant difference to the established order, either here or in Iraq, or to the way politicians think. Four years ago, two million marched all over Britain; there were demos and vigils every night in opposition to the war. Over one-hundred Labour MPs voted against Blair’s war, and to top it all the push for war received no UN sanction, but still the troops were sent. So much for one of the biggest protest movements in labour history!

Consider this. Across the globe there are literally hundreds of thousands of campaigns and protest groups and many more charities, some small, some enormous, all pursuing tens of thousands of issues, and their work involves many millions of sincere workers who care passionately about their individual causes and give their free time to support them unquestioningly. Many will have campaigned on some single issue for years on end with no visible result; others will have celebrated minor victories and then joined another campaign groups, spurred on by that initial success.

And, considering the above, two things stand out: firstly, that many of the problems around us are rooted in the way our society is organised for production, and are problems we have been capable of solving for quite some time, though never within the confines of a profit-driven market system; secondly, that if all of these well meaning people had have directed all their energy—all those tens of billions of human labour hours expended on their myriad single issues—to the task of overthrowing the system that creates a great deal of the problems around us, then none of us would be here today. Instead we would have established a world without borders, without waste or want or war, in which we would all have free access to the benefits of civilisation with problem-solving devoid of the artificial constraints of the profit system.

If you are now confused forgive us if we come across blunt, but which part of “to end war we must end capitalism” do you not understand? Its simple! Every aspect of our lives is subordinated to the requirements of profit - from the moment you brush your teeth in the morning with the toothpaste you saw advertised on TV until you crawl into your bed at night. Pick up a newspaper and try locating any problem reported there outside of our “can’t pay—can’t have” system. Crime, the health service, poverty, drug abuse, hunger, disease, homelessness, unemployment, war, insecurity - the list is endless. All attract their campaign groups, all struggling to address these problems, and all of these problems arising because of the inefficient and archaic way we organise our world for production.

You’ve got it! We’re unlike any other group here today out to reform capitalism, who beg governments to be just a little less horrid, who ask our masters to throw us a few more crumbs from the bread we bake. We are not into the politics of compromise and we certainly are not prepared to be satisfied with crumbs. We demand the whole bakery!

We are here today to urge you to stop belittling yourself and your class by making the same age-old demands of the master class. Demand what until now has been considered “the impossible”! Join us in campaigning for a system of society where there are no leaders, no classes, no states or governments, no borders, no force or coercion; a world where the earth’s natural and industrial resources are commonly owned and democratically controlled and where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the benefit of all; a world of free access to the necessaries of life. Wouldn’t such a campaign movement not only address the real root of every campaign and protest currently being waged?

The choice is yours – the struggle for world socialism and an end to our real problems or a lifetime attached to the ‘pick-your-cause’ brigade and the certainty you will be retracing your footsteps here today in years to come.

The Death of Saddam

As I write, news outlets are reporting that Saddam’s execution may occur within 48 hours - before the Eid al-Adha 4 day commemoration, coinciding with the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. According to Aljazeera.net English, a "senior US security official said the former Iraqi president could go to the gallows as early as Saturday".

Reports are also leaking out that some US authorities are pushing for his execution in the next 24 hours in order to deflect public attention away from another news story from Iraq - the 3000 US combat death, likely to occur this weekend. The Current US death toll is : 2,991 - 9 of these pending DoD confirmation. No doubt Washington is taking a leaf for Tony Blair’s tactics – Saturday a good day to bury bad news.

No doubt we will have to suffer another bout of nausea when Bush pontificates, in the next couple of days, about the hanging of Saddam and using words such as “victory” and “justice”. If Bush could cite any moral superiority he has over Saddam then his words might carry weight, but the simple truth is that this will be be one opportunistic and blood-drenched killer revelling in the misfortune of another and, far worse, for political expediency.

The very fact that the death penalty was passed on Saddam two days before the US mid-term elections, at a time when Bush’s popularity in opinion polls was recoding a serious fall, can hardly be ignored. Saddam had been in custody for two-and-a-half years before any charge was levelled against him and the Iraqi Higher Criminal Court miraculously came into existence the same week he was captured. When the time came Saddam was no longer a tool of US foreign policy but an instrument of Republican Party domestic policy.

The fist thing to observe is that Saddam’s trial was not an Iraqi legal procedure; it was a White House coordinated process from start to finish. It was funded by a $138 million grant from Congress and orchestrated by a large team of staff know as the Regime Crimes Unit and operating from the US Embassy in Baghdad.

It was Washington and London who selected the trial judges, who were then sent to London to be trained on how to handle the case and who were then taken to Italy to rehearse the trial.
Several judges stepped down, one having been rounded on by the Iraqi government because he was considered to lenient. Three defence lawyers were kidnapped and murdered and a similar fate befell one witness for Saddam.

Many have asked why Saddam could not have been tried in a similar manner to Slobodan Milosevic whose case was heard at The Hague. Quite simply Washington would have pooh-poohed such a suggestion, just as it has refused to recognise the International Criminal Court or judgements laid down by the International Court of Justice. Indeed the US has little regard for any international legislation or treaty, including the Geneva Convention. All are seen as meddlesome in the pursuit of its global corporate interests.

Historical amnesiacs would do well to remember that Saddam came to power via CIA assistance and was financed and chemically-armed by the west for many years in his war against Iran. Successive American and British governments turned a blind eye to his atrocities, including his mustard gassing of Iranians and the poison gas massacre of 5,000 Kurds at Halabja in 1988, only showing concern when he invaded Kuwait without the nod from Washington and worried the pro-American oil sheiks of Saudi Arabia in the process.

From 1991 up until the US-led invasion of 2003, an estimated 1 million Iraqis died as a result of UN Sanctions. When, Madeleine Albright, the US secretary of State was questioned on American TV about the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of economic sanctions, she commented that it was “a price worth paying.” Since the 2003 invasion, some 655,000 Iraqis have been killed. Throughout Saddam’s 24-year reign he never killed this many humans. Meanwhile, the US-led intervention in Iraq in 15 years has resulted in the deaths of almost 1.75 million. And this is in the name of justice!

Undoubtedly Saddam’s execution will bring a violent response from the Sunni led resistance, but not because Saddam was a leader who they cherished but because the insurgency has developed to that desperate stage whereby any perceived national icon will be used to further their cause

There is of course nothing the opposing Shiite warring factions in Iraq have to celebrate about the death of Saddam. Their lot has not been improved one iota since the US-led invasion and even if they live in a relatively stable Iraq they will exist as wage slaves, their lives subordinated to dictates of profit-merchants and the whims of religiously-aligned warlords, their future always over-shadowed by the dangerous game of geo-politics, their nation’s blood worth far less to the powerful than their country’s oil.

A study carried out by the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies only weeks ago found that 89.9% of respondents felt Iraq was far worse now than when Saddam ruled. Every shred of evidence to date suggests they are right. In the weeks ahead, I have every reason to believe that figure will rise.

Sexual Resources for the US Military Machine

Fact: instances of men raping women and sexual abuse are three times higher in the US military than in civilian life. When Suzanne Swift, a 20 year old MP serving in Iraq, was raped and sexually harassed, she suffered a mental breakdown and went AWOL, refusing to be reposted there. She is now in prison.

This is a YouTube video of her mother speaking at the Veteran’s for peace National Convention on 12th August.

Revolutionary Act covers this story because of its insight into the mentality of the male-dominated US war machine which sees its female personnel, as one speaker comments, as “a sexual resource for men”. Another speaker tells of how “military training dehumanises half the population.”

Five more chunks of the worth watching video footage of the Convention, with personal acounts of rape and sexual abuse, can be found at:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQSZZStxpk0&mode=related&search=

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=210VOcC72cg&mode=related&search=

3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxkXIVTfIz4&mode=related&search=

4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhAztD8XwjY&mode=related&search=

5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPP_PBD6BN0&mode=related&search=

OIL GIANTS HOME IN ON IRAQ'S UNTAPPED OIL RESOURCES

In a lengthy piece on AlterNet, Joshua Holland explains how, as Iraq falls apart, four big oil companies are homing in on the country’s natural resources.


If ever an article revealed the stench of corruption emanating from the Iraq saga, this is it. At a time when major world players are staking their claim to the world’s oil resources, most notably China - an emerging contender for the US no. 1 position - it is clear the oil drenched cabal that decides US foreign policy knew exactly what they were doing in dreaming up pretexts to invade Iraq.


Iraq's oil reserves have to be the biggest prize since the end of WWII. The US Department of Energy has stated: "Iraq contains 112 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the second largest in the world (behind Saudi Arabia), along with roughly 220 billion barrels of probable and possible resources. Iraq's true potential may be far greater than this, however, as the country is relatively unexplored due to years of war and sanctions."


Moreover, Iraq’s oil is cheap and easy to extract, thus it yields greater profits. James Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum, observes how oil companies "can produce a barrel of Iraqi oil for less than $1.50 and possibly as little as $1, including all exploration, oilfield development and production costs." Contrast that with other areas where oil is considered cheap to produce at $5 per barrel or the North Sea, where production costs are $12-16 per barrel.Iraq has more undeveloped oilfields than anywhere on the planet.

The "Holy Grail" of the oil fields lies beneath the sand of the immense western desert. There is perhaps enough oil there to propel the country to the global oil reserves number one position. As Holland comments: “the country's enormous reserves could break the back of OPEC, a wet dream in Western capitals for three decades.”

The oil fraternity are unanimous on one thing - namely. who will walk off with the profits from the plunder of Iraq's oil: US firms Exxon-Mobile and Chevron, the British BP-Amoco and Royal Dutch-Shell -- that dominate the world oil market.


What I find utterly sickening, reading Holland's report, is that at a time when half a million Iraqi childen were dying (nay, murdered) as a direct result of the US-UN imposed sanctions on Iraq, by one means or another, the US received 37% of Iraqi oil. Perhaps this is exactly what Madeleine Albright (the then US Sec. of State) was thinking of when, questioned about the deaths of so many infant Iraqis, replied it was "a price worth paying."
Read on here...

Lies, lies and more lies

Remember the bullshit spouted by Blair and Bush in the run up to the invasion of Iraq? The spoof dossiers and documents, the photos and false testimony from exiles? Remember Colin Powell’s speech to the UN, in which he outlined the case for military action against Saddam? Yeah, that’s right, the lies about WMDs, Iraq’s mobile labs, the Niger connection, the aluminium tubes, Iraqs link to Al Qaeda.

U.N. inspectors have now complained to Washington and a Congressional committee about a report on Iran's nuclear programme. The inspectors have labelled parts of the report "outrageous and dishonest”.

When there are profits to be had - in this case from oil – truth is not only the first casualty in war, truth is in fact stamped into the ground long before the first salvo is fired and trodden further into the dirt when the last shell casing hits the ground.

As the US makes the case for sanctions against Iran, as a prelude to widening Middle East war, expect the bullshit machine to go into overdrive.

OFFICIAL! George Bush: Iraq had sod all to do with 9/11

President Bush in the midst of explaining how the attacks of 9/11 inspired his “freedom agenda” and the attacks on Iraq until a reporter, Ken Herman of Cox News, interrupted to ask what Iraq had to do with 9/11. “Nothing,” Bush defiantly answered. Watch the video.

Full transcript:

BUSH: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.
QUESTION: What did Iraq have to do with it?
BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?
QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.
BUSH: Nothing. Except it’s part of — and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — Iraq — the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

Polls show the manufacturing consent machine is reaping rewards

Support for the bombing of Iran looks to be gaining momentum.

United Press International report on the findings of a USA Today-CNN-Gallup Poll carried out over 11th-12th February.

Eight out of 10 respondents believe Iran would provide a nuclear weapon to terrorists to attack the United States or Israel. Sixty% believe Iran itself would deploy nuclear weapons against the United States.

The poll said 55% showed a lack of confidence in the administration's ability to handle the situation in Iran.

Elsewhere:

A recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll (27th January) found that 57% of Americans favour military intervention if Iran pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms.

ABC News/Washington Post Poll of January 24th -25th found that 42% would support the US bombing Iran to stop it developing nuclear technology

World Public Opinion. Org reports that a major BBC World Service poll (of 39,435 people) looking at how people in 33 countries view various countries found not a single country where a majority has a positive view of Iran’s role in the world (with the exception of Iranians themselves). In regards to Iran:

“In 24 of the 33 countries polled, majorities (in 14 countries) or pluralities (in 10) say that Iran is having a negative influence in the world. In five other countries a plurality says that Iran is having a positive influence, but in three of these the proportion who says this is less than a third.

On average across the 33 countries just 18 percent say Iran is having a positive influence while 47 percent say Iran is having a negative influence.

“Countries in Europe and North America have the largest majorities expressing a negative view of Iran. The most negative are Germany (84%), the US (81%), and Italy (77%); followed by Finland (74%), Great Britain (72%), Canada (73%), France (68%), Spain (66%) and Poland (60%).

“Latin America is mostly negative. Majorities in Brazil (75%) and Argentina (53%) have a negative view of Iran’s influence, but Mexicans are divided (22% positive, 21% negative) with one in three not taking a position. “

And stats on Iraq:

Two days after 9/11, 78% of Americans thought it was likely that Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks; 82% believed that Iraq had some involvement in the attacks.

Half of the US people believed that at least one Iraqi citizen was a 9/11 hijacker despite the fact that the White House had never made such a claim.

A month after the 9-11 Commission issued their report claiming not to have found strong ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, 82% of those polled still claimed that it was likely that Saddam had provided assistance to Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network; 69% believed that it was likely that Saddam was personally involved in 9/11.

When asked a month after the 9/11 attacks if the United States might also consider using military force against targets in other countries, 81% supported using military force against Saddam Hussein and Iraq; 71% agreed that the United States should mount a broader war against terrorist groups and the nations that support them

When asked in January of 2002, 77% said they favoured the U.S. taking military action against Iraq while 71% favoured taking action against Iran.

Between September 2002 and March 2003, the percentage of people who favoured the United States taking military action against Iraq to try to remove Saddam Hussein from power fluctuated from 64-80%. The percentage of those who believed the potential loss of American life and the other costs of attacking Iraq was worth the cost fluctuated from 49%-66%.

In March 2003, 56-61% of those polled believed that Iraq was a threat to the United States that required immediate military action; 53% believed that the war was justified even if the U.S. did not find conclusive evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.The day after the war began, 78% of those who said they supported the war said they supported both the troops and the Bush administration's policy on Iraq

The Coming Elections in Iraq

Since the end of the Second World War, when the US forced the Italian government to discharge its communist cabinet members as a prerequisite for aid, to its support for the coup attempt in Venezuela in 2003, the US has been regularly subverting elections around the globe for the benefit of its own corporate elite.


Ever fearful that foreign governments should respond to the real needs of their people, for instance introducing labour and environmental legislation, instead of the wishes of US investors, Washington has opposed the principle of democracy on every continent on the planet, even helping to overthrow democratically elected governments whenever it felt its interests threatened (i.e. Iran in 1953, Guatemala 1954, The Congo 1960, Ecuador 1961, Bolivia 1964. Greece 1967, Fiji 1987).


Neither has its methods been peaceable. Indeed its agents, in the CIA, have carried out assassination of prominent individuals with as much indifference as its embassies have supported right-wing death squads and bloody coup attempts throughout Central and South America. Across the world, the US has backed dictators of every hue, turning a blind eye to their horrendous affronts to the democratic process.


We are now to believe that the US, presently occupying “sovereign Iraq” (for President Bush has declared Iraq is now “sovereign”), a country with sizeable oil reserves, and which has lost 100,000 of its people since the US-UK invasion, will see free and democratic elections to take place on January 30th. Moreover, President Bush has since informed the people of Iraq—the same Iraq in which the CIA helped Saddam Hussein pull of a military coup: “We will help you build a peaceful and representative government that protects the rights of all citizens. And then our military forces will leave."


John Negroponte, the US Ambassador in Iraq, was adamant that the US would not allow a delay in the Jan. 30 vote, a necessary step toward establishing the first “broadly accepted” government in Iraq since the demise of Saddam Hussein and would honour Bush’s promise.


Speaking to reporters at the Embassy in Iraq he assured them that the elections would go ahead and that the security situation would be improved by then and went so far as to say that conditions in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces were already safe enough for elections to be held.


He said:” I think once they realize that the elections will go forward as planned, then they [Sunni opponents of the election] are going to have to deal with that reality. Do they want to really opt out of an electoral process that is going to pick a National Assembly that drafts the constitution and shapes the political future of their country?” (Washington Post, 1st December).


Perhaps Negroponte is unaware that the resistance looks set to spiral, his comments coming just after it was reported that US deaths in Iraq matched the post invasion record set in April – 135 troops dead.


In Washington and London, the claim is that the ongoing attacks by insurgents is an all out attempt to disrupt the coming elections, when in truth the overriding fact is that many Iraqis still see the US as an army of occupation whose presence they have a right to oppose. An opinion poll carried out in September by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority confirmed that opposition to the US presence was widespread. It revealed that just 2 per cent of Iraqi Arabs—minus the Kurdish population—agreed wholeheartedly with the occupation. If anything this shows that in spite of the age-old hostilities between Sunnis and Shiites, one thing that could unite them is their hostility to an occupying army of 138,000 – a figure set to increase in time for the election.


Securing the peace in Iraq in time for the elections has so far meant installing a pliable puppet regime, and implementing Order 39, which The Economist described as “a capitalist dream” and which opened up the Iraqi economy to complete foreign takeover. It has meant the deliberate bombing of homes, hospitals and religious buildings by squadrons of bombers and helicopter gun-ships, turning cities into rubble (Fallujah was napalmed), cutting off water, electricity and medical supplies and spreading hunger and disease.


A comprehensive new study by the British-based charity organisation Medact, that looks at the impact of war on health, reveals that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years has increased from 4% prior to the invasion to 7.7% since the invasion and that about 400,000 Iraqi children are suffering from 'wasting' and 'emaciation' ­ conditions of chronic diarrhoea and protein deficiency.


A recently published UNICEF report reveals that, "Before 1990 and the imposition of sanctions, Iraq had one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East". Now "at least 200 children are dying every day. They are dying from malnutrition, a lack of clean water and a lack of medical equipment and drugs to cure easily treatable diseases".


Despite such facts as these, Washington would have it that people in Iraq—who, on the face of it—faired better under Saddam, are being irrational in not supporting US organised elections. And little wonder that various groups of rebels have promised to upset the elections with waves of attacks around the country, including Baghdad, where many insurgents are claimed to have fled as Fallujah fell.


As we go to press, Iraq's delicate political arrangement looks to be on the brink of collapse, with Sunnis, Shias and Kurds at odds over whether elections can take place on January 30th as planned. Iraq's 60 per cent Shia majority, who clearly suffered worst under the reign of Saddam Hussein, are keen for the elections to go ahead on time, knowing they are likely to consolidate the increased power they have enjoyed since the Sunni president's overthrow.


However, as rebels have continued their assaults on other towns since the fall of Fallujah, a campaign led by Sunni politicians has gathered momentum, with Shia leaders claiming that a postponement of the election date would only play into the hands of the insurgents.


The head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, has said he would discard calls to delay the elections to choose a national assembly. He has been backed by 42 mainly Shia and Turkmen parties who have issued a statement to say moves to delay the elections were illegal.


Contemplating the stalling of elections, Al-Hakim said: 'This would mean the terrorists have been able to achieve one of their main objectives; that there be no elections and that a suitable political process does not start…We will insist on the necessity of holding elections and that a delay will not be in the interests of the Iraqi people.' (Observer, 28/11/04)


Conversely, Adnan Pachachi, a former Sunni minister, is heading a group of 17 political parties asking that January 30's vote be delayed by six months because of the violence, fearing the insurgency in Sunni towns will discourage people from voting, thus disenfranchising them. Significantly, the two major Kurdish parties have also signed up to the delay


Pachachi claimed it was “unthinkable that a large and important section of Iraqi society be left out of the political process…Security has to improve to enable people to vote without fear.” (Observer, ibid).


Iyad Allawi, the interim leader appointed by Washington to run Iraq, has said that in centres of resistance like Fallujah elections could be “delayed” until stability existed there, without the vote being invalidated, or in other words Washington-style Democracy would will be available in the first instance only to those who did not resist the occupation by US forces.


Alawi, it seems, has no real control over the situation and though it is said he has the power to cancel the election if he wished, there still exists the US hand-picked seven-member commission set up to run the elections, and which has the power to bar any candidate or party from standing and which will be deciding who is and who is not eligible to stand as a candidate.


Under the rules, the Iraqi electorate will vote for a 275-member Transitional National Assembly. Political parties will submit a list of candidates and every third name has to be a woman's. Those Parties with alleged connections to militias are disqualified from taking part, along with former leading members of the Baath Party.


Only recently has the US taken into consideration the fact that the elections will coincide with the haj (one of the five tenets of Islam), when millions of pilgrims are en route to Mecca via Iraq. Many of these pilgrims will be fundamentalists, aware that numerous mosques across Iraq have been bombed by US forces and with fresh memorises of Fallujah, Najaf and Samarra and other instances of US hard-handedness and with 120 parties allegedly contesting the election, many “foreign” fighters are expected to be smuggled in amidst the mayhem. Shopkeepers who have been asked to take on the job of distributing election registration papers have been threatened with death should they comply

The US hopes to have 150,000 troops in place in time for the election, evidence if ever it was needed that the crisis in Iraq is escalating. It was not so long ago that Bush was boasting how US troops had been greeted as liberators and projected that the country could be policed with 50,000 troops by the end of 2003. Now military analysts are cautioning that the Iraq army and police force will not be in a position to police the country for another ten years. So much, then for Bush’s claim that once a legitimate Iraqi government is up and running the troops will be on their way home

And as for the post-election situation, make no mistake, any government elected in Iraq will be permitted to function only so long as it kowtows to the dictates of Washington and any member of a forthcoming Iraqi parliament will be allowed to breathe only so long as he does not point to US corporate designs on the country, or mention words like “trade unions” or “accountability”. Whatever, government is elected to ‘rule’ Iraq on January 30th it will only be allowed to do so with the endorsement of the White House.


Here in Britain, Bush’s sidekick, Tony Blair, is likewise looking forward to a post-election regime in Iraq that has no real say on foreign investment. Moreover, Blair is desperate for elections to take place in Iraq for the simple reason that he needs something resembling a foreign policy success to present to voters in the run up to the election. Indeed any good news at all at the moment would be welcomed by New Labour.


The essential goal of the Bush regime in the Middle East remains the same as that of preceding administrations going back to WWII, and that is to reinforce control of the region’s oil reserves and the profits that arise from them. Furthermore, Washington is well aware that control of Middle East oil gives the US enormous leverage over its economic rivals, Europe, Japan and China, all of whom are more dependent on Middle Eastern oil than the US, the latter expected to have the same oil demands as the US within 25 years.

That Iraq has huge oils supplies is the sole reason the US cannot allow a government—freely elected by its people and one advocating a US departure—to exist.

The worst day in the UN's history"

"My answer is bring them on."— George W. Bush, referring to attacks by Iraqi militants. Washington, D.C., July 3, 2003

“The worst day in UN history” was how many news reports described the recent attack on the UN offices in Baghdad which left twenty-three civilians dead. Whilst many in the west have been shocked and appalled at this attack, wondering how such a ‘non-partisan’ humanitarian organisation such as the UN could be the target of Iraqi extremists, it must be remembered that for many Middle Eastern militants the UN is seen as simply another branch of US imperialist foreign policy.

To many Iraqis, the thousands of US and British soldiers in Iraq constitute an army of occupation, and with the UN endeavouring to help stabilise Iraqi society and promote "democracy" they are in actual fact perceived as an accessory to the occupation, creating the stable conditions that will facilitate a smother expropriation of Iraqi oil assets. In short, the UN is viewed as just another US ally and thus a legitimate target.

Back in the early 1990s, it was the UN which put in place the US-sponsored sanctions regime (most notably resulting from resolutions 661 and 687) which wrought havoc on Iraqi society – a society recovering from a 10 year war with Iran and a murderous war with the US and Great Britain. Such sanctions left 500,000 Iraqi children dead from disease and malnutrition and crippled Iraq’s infrastructure. More recently, it was the UN Security Council which approved the US-installed puppet government and in effect approved the occupation by opening a UN mission office to help make it successful. In the interim, the Bush administration has refused any significant contribution by other world powers (with the exception of its British hangers-on) in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Little known is the fact that the UN building in Baghdad also housed the World Bank. Back in May, the World Bank sent a senior bank diplomat along with Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN Special Representative in Iraq (killed in the blast )"to assess reconstruction and development needs on the ground," according to the WB's website. Back in April the World Bank and the IMF issued a joint press statement on how they "stand ready to play their normal role in Iraq's re-development at the appropriate time." And based on their past track record, what is the "normal role" played by the World Bank and IMF? Answer: Structural Adjustments Programmes which result in slower economic growth, austerity measures, poverty and unemployment. So again, the United Nations is viewed in the same light as is the IMF and World Bank, and to many grudge-bearing Iraqis is a suitable target.

Neither is the fact that the US invaded Iraq whilst the world protested, killing 8,000 civilians in the process, ostensibly because Saddam refused to reveal his non-existent chemical weapons, lost on Iraqi people. Iraq clearly posed no threat to the US and neither did it invade the United States or Britain or any other country destined to send forces there to police the country. Iraq no more rolled the red carpet out for US forces than it welcomed with open arms the World Bank, the IMF, Halliburton, Parsons Group, Stevedoring Services of America, and a myriad other companies set to make vast profits from the country’s oil and the rebuilding and reconstruction of Iraq.

Moreover, there was always the risk that once Saddam was removed from power extremist groups would come to the fore and make Iraq far more unstable than under Ba’athist rule. This much had been acknowledged by President Bush senior (the one with more functioning brain cells) during the first Gulf War and lay behind Washington’s decision not to support US-inspired revolts of the Iraqi Kurds and the Marsh Arabs. It made sound US sense to have Saddam crush these revolts mercilessly rather than have him removed and the country fragment. The very forces the US feared would be unleashed following the toppling of Saddam are now on the rampage – they might have loathed Saddam, but hate the US more.

As Bush’s badly designed occupation struggles on, it continues to inflict more misery upon an Iraq fed up with decades of repression, war and uncertainty. Their long-crippled infrastructure, and the arbitrary and unruly search and arrest-without-charge procedures by US soldiers, provoke bitterness and anger among Iraqis. All of this considered, are attacks, such as that on the UN base in Baghdad surprising? We could well be forgiven for asking why such attacks are not in fact more ferocious.

We might ask where was the UN mission in Rwanda when 1 million were being hacked to death during the Tutsi-Hutu conflict? Where the US attempts to try to install democracy in Rwanda? Indeed, it would be difficult to conceive of a situation the UN has been involved in that has not had some strategic interest to the US. Would the UN have a mission in Iraq if the country’s sole export was dates?

This is not to condone the attack. It was terrible loss of life – those killed being warm-hearted, well intentioned workers, joining the UN because of a desire to help others. The sad fact is that they were killed trying to sort out a mess of US making. Moreover their deaths are shrouded in a veil of lies. They might have believed they were in Baghdad to help bring stability to a long-suffering people, but the real reason is that the US needs a stable Iraq to help with the theft of its oil. Furthermore, the US would have us believe they were killed by outsiders – they need our support for their “War on Terror”! But what is apparent now is that the US and Britain are seen as the real “outsiders” and are now neck deep in a guerrilla war, a war of struggle and self-determination, and the kind waged against outside aggressors and colonial masters for centuries.