[GushShalom] Avnery about Iraq - a year after

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - www.gush-shalom.org/

[Uri Avnery about Iraq - a year after. "Thank you for freeing us from our 
oppressor but go", Avnery has seen it before.]

			Bitter Rice (2)
			Or: The March of Folly

Uri Avnery
10.4.04

òáøéú áàúø / Hebrew on the website 
http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article298_heb.html

     The following passage may look familiar:
     "On the fourth day of the 1982 Israeli attack on Lebanon, I crossed 
the border at a lonely spot near Metulla and looked for the front, which 
had already reached the outskirts of Sidon. I was driving my private 
car, accompanied by a woman photographer. We passed a dozen 
Shiite villages and were received everywhere with great joy. We 
extracted ourselves only with difficulty from hundreds of villagers, each 
one insisting that we have coffee at their home. On the previous days, 
they had showered the Israeli soldiers with rice.
     "A few months later I joined an army convoy going in the opposite 
direction, from Sidon to Metulla. The soldiers were now wearing 
bulletproof vests and helmets, many were on the verge of panic. 
     "What had happened? The Shiites had received the Israeli soldiers 
as liberators. When they realized that they had come to stay as 
occupiers, they started to kill them.
     "When the Israeli troops entered Lebanon the Shiites were a down-
trodden, powerless community, held in contempt by all the others. 
After a year of fighting the occupiers, they became a political and 
military power. The Shiite Hizbullah is the only military force in the 
Arab world that has beaten the mighty Israeli army."
      End of passage. I wrote it in an article called "Bitter Rice", which 
appeared on March 22, 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, and 
which started with the words: "Beware of the Shiites. The troubles of 
the occupation will start after the fighting is over…"
     Barbara Tuchman died too soon. Otherwise she could add a 
chapter about this war to her book "The March of Folly".
     It should be remembered that Tuchman was very strict in the 
choice of her examples. It was not enough that a government acted 
foolishly. In order to gain a place in her book, two additional conditions 
had to be met: that the results of the folly could be foreseen, and that 
there was indeed someone who warned in advance of these results.
     (For example: the British king George III lost America because of a 
number of foolish acts. This could have been foreseen, and, indeed, the 
British politician and author Edmund Burke warned of them at the time.)
     What is happening now in Iraq was completely predictable. It is an 
exact repeat of all that happened to us in Lebanon. Otto von Bismarck 
once remarked: "A fool learns from his experience. A wise person 
learns from the experience of others." If so, how to define President 
George W. Bush, who is not even able to learn from his own 
experience?  
     If I have already quoted myself, I may as well do it again. On 
February 8, 2003, in an article entitled "The Smell of War", I wrote: 
"This is not a war about terrorism. This is not a war about weapons of 
mass destruction. This is not a war about democracy in Iraq. This is a 
war about something else…There is a strong smell of oil in the air."
     At the time, this sounded like defamation. Today it is already clear 
beyond doubt that the American invasion had nothing to do with either 
the "war on terrorism", nor with weapons of mass destruction, nor with 
the crimes of Saddam Hussein or with democracy. This has been 
proven and documented beyond all doubt, most recently by the 
testimony of Richard Clarke, who has been Bush's man in charge of 
the "war against terrorism". From the moment Bush entered the White 
House, he and his handlers pursued one aim in the Middle East: to 
occupy Iraq.
     The Bushes are oilmen. Among the big-money people who helped 
to put the two Bushes, Sr. and Jr., into the White House, oilmen 
played a leading role. They have decided that the American Empire 
needs to get its hands on the vast oil reserves of Iraq and to establish 
a permanent military base in the middle of the oil region, between the 
oil of the Caspian Sea and the oil of the Persian/Arabian Gulf.
     The neo-con fanatics, most of whom are right-wing Zionists, added 
to this another objective: to eliminate the Iraqi threat to Israel, before 
freeing Israel of the Syrian and Iranian threats. But this was a 
secondary aim. It would not have succeeded in dominating American 
policy without the decisive impact of Dick Cheney and the other Bush 
handlers, who wanted to establish direct American military control over 
most of the earth's oil.
     This aim has been achieved. Iraq was conquered. 135 thousand US 
soldiers uphold the occupation regime, with the addition of a few troops 
of the satellite countries, such as Poland, the Ukraine, the UK, El-
Salvador and Italy. A small (and not very intelligent) official named "L. 
Paul Bremer 3rd", no less, has become Governor of the new colony, 
and he intends to "hand over sovereignty" to an Iraqi government he 
himself has appointed.
     That is to say, sovereignty over garbage collection and hospitals, 
but definitely not over the really important functions, which will be firmly 
in the hands of American "advisors". For this purpose, the biggest US 
Embassy in the world is being built in Baghdad: over 3000 officials, 
who will control every aspect of government in the country.
     That reminds one of the Vichy regime of Marshal Petain in France. 
The Iraqis themselves will be reminded of the British colonial power 
structure in their country, which operated through an Arab "king".
     As far as the Americans are concerned, this could last forever. Not 
for a year, not for two years, but for decades, like the Israeli occupation 
of the Palestinian areas. But, unlike the Israelis, they call this "nation 
building" and "establishing the first democracy in the Arab world". 
George Orwell would have enjoyed it.
     A minor factor was overlooked: the Iraqi people. But one really 
cannot think about everything, can one?
     When the armed resistance started, the Americans comforted 
themselves with talk about "remnants of the Saddam regime", or 
"terrorists", perhaps foreign agents of Osama Bin-Laden. More than 
any other colonial regime, the Americans find it difficult to accept the 
most simple fact in the world: that an occupied people will arise 
against its occupier. And really, what have the Iraqis to complain 
about, after the idealistic Americans, out of the kindness of their 
hearts, liberated them from the evil Saddam?
     Now the Americans are considering whether to bring in more 
troops. The politicians ask the generals: how many more soldiers do 
you need in order to control Iraq? And the generals ponder in all 
earnest: 10 thousand more? 20 thousand more? If there had been one 
serious person among them, he would have answered: "Even 500 
thousand will not be enough. When a whole people rises, foreign 
soldiers are helpless."
     The Americans were ready for the Sunnis to be dissatisfied. They 
had been ruling the Iraqi state since it was founded by the British after 
the first World War, and were going to lose their supremacy. But the 
Shiites? After all, in the "democracy" that the Americans were about to 
establish, the Shiites could expect a major share in power. But the 
Shiites do not want to receive "power" in a country that stays 
occupied. 
     Even before the war, we warned (don't worry, I am not going to 
quote myself a third time!) that it was well-nigh impossible to maintain 
a state of three mutually hostile peoples: the Sunnis, the Shiites and 
the Kurds. That is still true today. But perhaps a miracle is happening 
now: Shiites and Sunnis are fighting together against the occupation. 
Who knows, the common struggle may just, and for the first time, 
forge a real Iraqi nation and prevent a bloody civil war along the road. 
Let us hope so.
     Now the Americans are caught in a trap of their own making. Even 
if they wanted to leave Iraq (which they certainly do not!), they would 
be unable to do so. As the Hebrew saying goes, they can neither 
swallow it nor spit it out.  
     There is really nothing they can do. They will sink ever deeper into 
the quagmire, kill and be killed, destroy and be destroyed, with ever 
growing brutality, in a kind of a new desert Vietnam. In the hourly news 
on Al Jazeera, it is already difficult to distinguish between our soldiers 
in Ramallah and the American soldiers in Falluja. What is happening to 
us will happen to them, only on a larger scale.
      How will this similarity influence Bush and his people? They might 
say: One quagmire is enough. Let's get out of one of them. Let us 
compel Sharon to make, at long last, an agreement with the 
Palestinians, instead of babbling about "unilateral disengagement", 
which will probably never happen anyhow.
     But Bush and the Bushites could also say: If we are so much alike, 
let us embrace Sharon even more closely. Such a reaction would find 
its well-earned place in "March of Folly 2".
     That might be even a good thing, allowing these two gentlemen the 
pleasure of leaving the stage together. 


--
Ongoing struggle

    #Against the Wall (contact addresses)
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 those who don't have the Paypal option ]
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#Against the Wall
ðåëçåú éåîéåîéú áëôøéí îàéîéí ò"é äçåîä ìúàí òí 
àééáé 064-604172 isichel at netvision.net.il
àøé÷ 050-607034  info at rhr.israel.net

Day to day presence at villages threatened by route of wall.
Contact:  Ivy Sichel 064-604172 isichel at netvision.net.il who set's up a 
list for people who can come at short notice, or: Arik Asherman 050-
607034  info at rhr.israel.net 


#Refusniks

Constantly-updated list of all presently jailed refusniks:

English - http://www.yesh-gvul.org/english/prison/
Hebrew / òáøéú - http://www.yesh-gvul.org/prison/


For the latest news about the five:   

http://www.refuz.org.il/News.html

	NB:
	Letters of support to 
	Noam Bahat / Haggai Mattar / Matan Kaminer
	AGAF BET
	Ma’asiyaho Prison
	P.O.B 13
	Ramla
	Israel

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	P.O.B 4011 
	KFAR M’RAR
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#Vanunu to be released April 21

Instead of sending flowers 
Wordlwide campaign WELCOME VANUNU by donating a few dollars 
(N.B.: online but ALSO otherwise) as a welcome gesture:
<http://www.vanunu.org/>

List of international vigils on day of Vanunu release (April 21): 
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http://www.vanunu.freeserve.co.uk/ 

Online petition for the unconditional release of Vanunu 
http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/freemordechaivanunu/

For details about Free Vanunu vigils and activities in Israel, 
Call: 02-6254530 or 051-368236
or email: legalese at netvision.net.il


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