Iraq and America: A reply to Eric Mack, By John Rhys-Burgess

Opinion, September 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Iraq and America: A reply to Eric Mack

By John Rhys-Burgess

Al-Jazeerah, 9/26/03

On August 22, 2003, Al-Jazeerah published the following letter, which was sent by Mr. Eric Mack:

A note to John Rhys-Burgess and those who look for any excuse to prosecute the U.S. If you truly want to help the Iraqis then help them rebuild and prosecute the ones who continue to terrorize the people. Any human rights abuses by coalition forces are the result of misunderstandings and paranoia on the part of soldiers who are afraid of getting killed when they're trying to help. Do you truly think Iraqi's would be better off with the Ba'athists or a Jihad (Islamic fundamentalist) regime? The U.S. is not the main problem here.. Peace, Eric Mack Ohio, USA

Here is my response:

It is not a question of looking for an excuse to prosecute the U.S..

It is a plain fact that the U.S. invaded Iraq without the specific authority of the UN. The invasion was therefore unlawful and the appalling diplomatic, military and political mess in which the U.S. now finds itself, is entirely of its own making.

And yes, Mr. Mack, it is manifestly clear that the Iraqis are infinitely worse off under the U.S. led CPA military regime than under Saddam. The U.S. and its allies have systematically turned Baghdad into another Kabul or Beirut. Not even the Russians would have been capable of such destructive incompetence as the CPA has been in Iraq.

And by what moral (let alone legal) authority has the U.S. intervened in Iraq? The U.S. has a long record of backing unsavoury military regimes throughout the world, including at one point, that of Saddam Hussein and at a time when the Saddam regime was just as brutal and horrible as over the decade leading up to its removal from power. Knowledge of Saddam's atrocious record is not a recent discovery. It was apparent even when Mr. Rumsfeld was trying to sell arms to Saddam in the eighties.

The same people who backed the torturers and Latin American death squads of Pinochet and others are now very much in charge again at the White House. The determination of the U.S. government to undermine the authority of the International Criminal Court for example, is entirely consistent with an administration presided over by a man whose grandfather bankrolled the Third Reich. And what does the U.S. propose to do about the continued acts of barbarism carried out against the Palestinian people by its Zionist proxies? Clearly, nothing.

Some 25,000 innocent civilians at least, so far, have been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, as a result of the Bush administration's arrogance and stupidity. Internationally, the U.S. is now more isolated than ever. It is doubtful that the United States has ever been so much hated and despised throughout the world as it is now.

President Bush is right when he says that the forces of global terror must not be appeased. U.S. aggression will undoubtedly fail because justice demands no less. Democracy can only be established by consensus, not by coercion, at the point of a gun.

The U.S. must and eventually, will withdraw from Iraq, because its intervention is unwelcome there, by the Iraqis, its neigbours, and everyone else in the international community. The Quislings and cowards like Tony Blair that appeased and supported the Bush administration in its unlawful invasion and ham-fisted occupation of Iraq, will soon to be removed from office and the U.S. will then be even more isolated than it is now.

In the meantime, American and British personnel will continue to lose their lives so that Bush, Rumsfeld, Perle et al can pursue their lunatic fantasy of a U.S. dominated New World Order.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).