What War Is America Watching?

The sheer amount of bullshit coming from America on the invasion of Iraq is staggering. I'm in shock and awe, but not in the way they planned. I think this is the first time such a campaign has been launched where the internet has had such a decisive role to play. No longer are the citizens of any one country subjected only to officially sanctioned news.

In Europe or Asia, the news media are less monopolised, and less likely to be tools of the State. In Frankfurt, Germany, for example, readers have access to 16 different German language newspapers, many of which present different vantage points, which makes for a more lively and varied debate. For those reading European or Asian news sources, the information coming out of Iraq is not good for the allies. But you'd never guess that looking at US broadcasts and broadsheets. And I'm not just talking about the basics "We crashed. We weren't shot down."

For starters, we had the line that the people of Iraq were all waiting to be liberated from Saddam. Once the allies came in, they'd be met with welcome arms and all that. Complete and utter bollocks. Now we've seen this sort of thing before with Cuba and The Bay of Pigs invasion. This was sold to the American people, including Kennedy on the premise that the Cuban people would rush down to the beach to help the returning Cuban brigades kick Castro out.

When the invasion happened, the Cuban people rushed down to the beach and stomped the bejaysus out of the invaders. Better the devil you know, eh?

Now history repeats itself. The US declares it will liberate the Iraqis, only to have the Iraqis prove to the world that as bad as 12 years of sanctions may have made life in Iraq, they still prefer it to anything they can expect under American puppets.

Robert Fisk's article today carried some words which might explain to those interested US readers, just why the level of resistance is as high as it is. And why the allies aren't being welcomed by newly liberated open arms.

"In our lands, populism won over democracy for historical reasons. Saddam has provided societal safety. I am safe, providing I do not confront the regime. Saddam may be very severe against political dissidents but he is also very severe on criminals or anyone who is aggressive with us. That includes the Americans."

There are several other quotes from Iraqi citizens which again, paint a picture of the man of the ground and the way he is thinking.

"Can you imagine the effect on the Arabs if Iraq gets out of this war intact?" he asked. "It took just five days for all the Arabs to be defeated by Israel in the 1967 war. And already we Iraqis have been fighting the all-powerful Americans for five days and still we have held on to all of our cities and will not surrender. Just imagine what would happen if Iraq surrendered? What chance would the Syrian leadership have against the demands of Israel? What chance would the Palestinians have of negotiating a fair deal with the Israelis? The Americans don't care about giving the Palestinians a fair deal. So why should they want to give the Iraqis a fair deal?"

"Our soldiers know they will not get a fair deal from the Americans," he said. "It's important that they know this. We may not like our regime. But we fight for our country. The Russians did not like Stalin but they fought under him against the German invaders. We have a long history of fighting the colonial powers, especially you British. You claim you are coming to `liberate' us. But you don't understand. What is happening now is that we are starting a war of liberation against the Americans and the British."

That's a far cry from welcoming with open arms.

From a historical point of view, Iraq was never really a country. It was a collection of tribes. In that sort of region, democracy can't take hold because you'd have armed civil war in about 3 weeks. A dictator is easier, provided he owes no allegiance to any one tribe over another. (Otherwise, you get ethnic cleansing.)

But the fake news coming out the US continues to emerge at a startling rate, and the inevitable retractions (usually a few days later) never get the same coverage as the next big lie.

Let's look at some examples. Resistance continues in Umm Qasr, a small port city just inside Iraq which the US claimed to have taken days ago. A guy on Sky News (the Murdoch mouthpiece) pointed out that they've declared Umm Qasr has fallen 14 times so far. I don't think we'll see him again on that channel.

The Chemical Weapons plant turned out to be nothing of the sort.

A lot of independent sources have reported some heavy losses on the US part, which are not being declared back home. For example, in Nassiriyah up to 20 American armored personnel carriers and tanks were taken out by the Iraqis.

Tommy Franks says progress is being made, the war is going well, yet an intercepted call (transmitted on Russian radio) has him saying "We've just spent three days trying to capture one small town, so we can only guess what awaits us in Baghdad."

By far the biggest one so far has been the "uprising" at Basra. This was reported two days ago now, I think, and I saw Rumsfeld reporting that if it was true, he was all behind it. It reminded him of uprisings against the Commies in Eastern Europe in the 50's where they were all massacred, so he hoped they were careful and all that sort of thing.

The uprising, covered quite a bit by regular newspapers etc... was a complete fabrication. Nothing happened. To anyone who wanted to look up other sources on the Web, you could have found this out as early as yesterday morning, if not before. But it suited the propaganda whores to say "Look, the people are rising up against Saddam!"

Now, as reported in the Times, the troops have had to pull out of Basra after meeting heavy resistance. The Desert Rats had at one point surrounded the city and Tony Blair told the House of Commons today that Basra had been "made secure". But military officials later admitted that they had vastly underestimated the strength of Iraqi resistance and the loyalty of Basra's population to Saddam.

Will Tony get collared for lying to Parliament? Will he fuck.

Meanwhile in the north of Iraq, the nightmare scenario of Turkey invading Kurdistan is unfolding, and with it a legality that Washington cannot question. According to the Turks they are simply carrying out a pre-emptive strike on a hostile people. Now where have we heard before? The allies are now claiming that Turkey will not invade, but I'm adopting a wait and see attitude. After all, who can believe the Allies about anything?

(Ooh, Angel's starting.. I missed last week's, I'm not missing this...)


posted by Manchild at 2:46 AM