Honor the Dead, Demand the Truth

Honor the Dead, Demand the Truth

AfterDowningStreet.org

List of Iraqi civilian martyrs killed in Fallujah by chemical weapons used by the Americans in their assault on the city in April 2004



Fallujah Victims



And A Reply To Post:



The truth? Would you settle for a German fariy tale?

Submitted by Arvy on Sat, 2005-12-03 20:51.


It tells of the giant's daughter, who found a peasant plowing his field and brought him home in her handkerchief to show to her father. But the father said gravely: "The peasant is no toy!" and told her to put him gently back where she had found him.



The United States reminds me of the giant's daughter. Unfortunately, she has paid no heed to any wise advice that nations are not toys.



When Geroge W Bush became president, he brought with him a bunch of neo-conservatives who believed, in their incredible arrogance, that it is possible to overturn nations, change their regimes at will, and take control of their resources.



For starters, they intended to put Iraq, Iran and Syria in their handkerchief. Iraq and Iran because of their oil, Syria because of its strategic location. Quite incidentally, these three countries were also considered a strategic threat by Israel, and the neo-cons, most of them themselves Jews, were glad to do the "Jewish State" a favor.



The question was which of the three to conquer first, and the choice fell, as we know, on Iraq. Since the neo-cons were sure that their army would be received there with flowers (how else?) and the war would be over in a jiffy, the next question was who would come next, the eastern or the western neighbor.



Today, in retrospect, one can wonder which was the greater: the ignorance of the neo-cons or their arrogance. They had no idea about Iraq, and it seems that this did not bother them. After all, they knew that one stroke would suffice to finish the job and allow them to move on.



If they had consulted their British allies, they might have learned something about the country they were about to attack, for example that Iraq had never been a real state. It was composed of three distinct regions which had been joined together by the British Empire to suit its interests. It always needed a dictatorship to keep the package intact: first the British rulers themselves, later on assorted local dictators. Saddam Hussein was only the latest in the series.



When the US army destroyed the power that held it together, the whole thing fell apart. Today, two parallel wars are tearing the poor country into shreds: the Sunni rebellion against the American occupation, and a three-fold civil war. In Washington, politicians blabber about the new Iraqi army that will, at any moment now, take over responsibility for security and allow the withdrawal of most American forces. In practice, there is no real Iraqi army at all, only separate militias of Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis, each of them ultimately loyal only to their particular leaders.



The Americans would like to withdraw most of their forces from Iraq and leave behind only a small garrison, to secure their hold on the oil resources. This is a rapidly fading dream. The end will probably be like Vietnam. American public opinion will come to detest the hopeless war and the army will withdraw with its tail between its legs, and leave behind a general state of anarchy.



You can read the rest of the tale as told by Uri Avnery HERE.

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“Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of the law, for my own safety’s sake!” -- Sir Thomas More