March 19, 2006
FSP Statement on the Third Anniversary of the Occupation of Iraq
Bring All U.S. Troops Home Now!
The U.S. invasion of Iraq was trumpeted as bringing democracy and security.
Instead, it increasingly delivers terror and death, want and sectarian strife – all this
in a country that had maintained a strong tradition of secularism and significant
national unity among its vast mosaic of peoples. Now that sense of solidarity is
being deliberately shattered by U.S. war strategies that put U.S. soldiers in the
middle of an unfolding civil war.
David Wurmser, one of the war's architects and an advisor to Vice-President
Cheney, wrote in 1997 that Iraq after Saddam would be “ripped apart by the
politics of warlords, tribes, clans, sects and key families.” He urged the U.S. to
“expedite” such a cataclysmic collapse.
Currently, Yanar Mohammed, the President of the Organization of Women's
Freedom in Iraq, confirms that Wurmser's policy is being carried out. She writes
“The U.S. occupation has planted the seeds of ethno-sectarian division, preparing
Iraq for civil war, and has blessed religious supremacy over and against human
and women's rights.”
Who benefits from civil war in Iraq?
Why would the U.S. deliberately foment ethnic antagonisms and civil war? The
answer is that a balkanized Iraq, divided into small competing fiefdoms, would
contain Arab and Islamist anti-imperialist revolt. Such divisions also guarantee
U.S. corporations control over the most oil-rich regions of the country.
Many Arab writers and leaders believe the recent bombing of the Shiite Golden
Mosque in Samarra was instigated by occupation forces in order to break up the
burgeoning resistance movement. Even Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi
blamed the U.S. for the bombing of the mosque.
Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr also accused occupation forces and Baathists. He
called on his Al-Mahdi Army “to protect both Shia and Sunni shrines.” And in
Samarra and other cities, groups of Sunnis demonstrated in support of Shias.
While it is true the bombing has sparked sectarian retaliation, it has also raised
many questions about the U.S. role in encouraging turmoil across Iraq.
U.S. takes “divide and conquer” to a new level
In January 2005, the Pentagon publicly discussed what it called “the El Salvador
option”: sending Special Forces teams to train Iraqis in assassination and
kidnapping.
At the time, John Negroponte was the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. It was not his first
government assignment. During the Vietnam War he worked on the CIA's
Phoenix program which assassinated 40,000 Vietnamese “subversives.” Between
1980-85, Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to Honduras. There he approved the
use of CIA-trained death squads to torture, kidnap, and murder thousands of
Salvadorans who had fled the civil war in their own country.
John Pace, former Human Rights Chief for the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq,
recently confirmed the existence of Iraqi death squads that he called “uncannily
similar” to those in El Salvador and elsewhere.
Who are these death squads killing? All who speak out against the occupation.
Educators and scientists have been special targets for extermination. Over 80
Baghdad University professors have been murdered since the war started and
hundreds more have been slain across Iraq. Women's organizations have
reported similar killings and mass detentions. In addition, police units, known as
Punishment Committees, target those who do not abide by Islamic law or the
authority of militia leaders. Even the UN has documented hundreds of Sunni
deaths at the hands of U.S.-trained government assassins.
These facts speak for themselves: the U.S. is fomenting civil war.
For a secular, democratic Iraq
In an attempt to discredit those who oppose the occupation, the Bush administration perpetrates the idea that the resistance is composed of foreign al-Qaeda
sympathizers. Yet the U.S. military admits the vast majority of anti-American
fighters are Iraqi and that opposition to the occupation is rising among the people
of this tortured land.
Though the specter of civil war is present, there are forces within the Iraqi
resistance who are organizing across ethnic and religious lines to continue the
fight to expel the U.S. The fastest way to end this war is to support the indigenous
resistance movement of trade unionists, women's organizations, intellectuals,
students and elders who want a secular and democratic Iraq. People who want
peace must demand that the troops be brought home now! Each day of U.S.
occupation increases the threat of full-blown civil war and causes more Iraqi
civilians and U.S. soldiers to die for oil.
For an immediate, unconditional withdrawal
of U.S. forces and all foreign occupiers!
Cancel Iraq's national debt and provide reparations
for Iraqi controlled reconstruction!
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Freedom Socialist Party
Australian Section
PO Box 2066
Brunswick, VIC 3055
Australia
U.S. Section
4710 University Way NE, #100
Seattle, WA 98105
USA