Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

America under siege?

The barbarity associated with the killing of American 
coalition "contractors" in Fallujah speaks volumes about the 
hatred that is engendered by the US policy of aggression, 
conquest and economic looting.

It also speaks volumes about the evil effect of religious 
fanaticism, which renders people who are not of that religion as 
less than human, and therefore undeserving of humane treatment.

The US, itself currently run by Christian fundamentalists in the 
White House, is unashamedly fostering and arming Islamic 
extremists for its own sinister purposes.

While resistance to imperialist aggression is inevitable and 
natural, atrocities are not necessarily either inevitable or 
natural.

Such acts certainly can be the logical outcome of sustained 
violence, aggression and oppression (such as the Palestinian 
people have suffered for decades at the hands of the Israelis).

It is an undeniable fact that most atrocities over the years have 
been the work of the right wing. Progressive people do not resort 
to inhumanity.

Atrocities can also be deliberately encouraged and even organised 
by imperialism's own intelligence services. In this instance 
their aim is to provide evidence that Iraq is not yet a country 
capable of truly governing itself and that "Coalition forces" 
will have to remain there for some time in order to "prevent 
further bloodshed".

It is of course perfectly possible for religious fanaticism, 
hatred of the oppressors of one's people, and covert intelligence 
operations to all coalesce into seemingly spontaneous and 
unconnected acts.

Complicating, or at least confusing, the picture in Iraq is the 
fact that the four American "civilians" killed in Fallujah were 
in fact mercenaries, ex-US military personnel now employed by 
"security" firms like Blackwater Security Consulting. These 
private security personnel actually make up the third largest 
army in Iraq.

As a private army, they are even less constrained than the 
soldiers of a national army. Will stories of human rights abuses 
embarrass their employer, or merely win the company more 
corporate customers?

Are all these US "ex-military" personnel really no longer in the 
military? There have been instances in the past of military 
personnel being temporarily released from the US or British armed 
forces so that they might join a mercenary force as "civilians".

When their task with the mercenaries was over they could resume 
their military careers where they had left off. This lurk allows 
a government to intervene in another country without officially 
appearing to do so or meeting constitutional requirements such as 
gaining the agreement of parliament.

For imperialism, what private companies do is, after all, their 
own affair. Mind you, private corporations attempting to get 
their share of the bonanza that is Occupied Iraq probably feel 
the need for some heavy security.

Last week, just after the Fallujah killings, Robert Fisk reported 
in the British Independent: "In the past few weeks, 
attacks on foreigners have happened almost daily.

"Two Finns have been killed, along with a British and Canadian 
contractor, two American aid workers — one a woman — and two US 
missionaries, including another woman. The Americans have not 
suffered their current scale of casualties for more than two 
months."

In fact, on the same day as the Fallujah killings, a roadside 
bomb blew up five US marines within 20 miles of Fallujah. And in 
the city of Baquba, 15 Iraqis were wounded by a car bomb that had 
been intended for an Iraqi police convoy.

The ultra-left, of course, credit all these attacks to "the Iraqi 
resistance". But that is simplistic, for a significant part of 
the genuine Iraqi resistance do not support armed struggle under 
the present circumstances.

Nor do they support the withdrawal of all foreign forces at this 
time, for that would deliver the country to either Saddam's lot 
again or to the religious fundamentalists, or to a civil war.

For the US occupation authorities, of course, the spate of 
attacks provides a splendid opportunity to divert world attention 
away from the non-armed opposition to US occupation. Instead they 
are blaming them on a smorgasbord of groups or forces: 
"insurgents", "terrorists", Saddam Hussein's former troops, 
foreign fighters recruited by al-Qaida, and more.

For the US media, the matter is straightforward. Rupert Murdoch's 
Fox News, a service so right wing it makes CNN look positively 
benign, ran their report of the Fallujah killings under the 
banner: "America Under Siege".

Now think about that: attacks on US occupation troops on the 
other side of the world are examples of "America under siege"? If 
you believe that then the Vietnam War must also have been a case 
of "America under siege".

The proponents of the "American Empire" of course, do see the 
Vietnam war in exactly those terms. And that is exactly how they 
view Iraq, too.

For these people, or, more properly, for these corporations, our 
planet must be made safe for US citizens to go about their 
business (and business is the operative word here) unhindered by 
the actions of local "hotheads".

The British, at the height of their Empire, had the plan "to make 
the whole world England". The US has a more modern variant: "make 
the whole world US property".