GW’s “Axis of Evil”-An Investigation of the Facts -Ron Jacobs Iraq 2002-The Final Storm?
"I will reserve whatever options I have. I'll keep them close to my vest. Saddam Hussein needs to understand that I'm serious about defending our country," GW.
What Mr. Bush doesn't seem to understand are these two things. 1)Defending oil reserves and oil profits is not the same thing as defending one's country and 2)Saddam Hussein is most likely just as serious about defending his country. Not that that matters to Cowboy George. Virtually all factions within the war party in Washington, DC are calling for an all-out war on Iraq beginning sometime this year. Once again, the pretext that will be used involves the charade of weapons inspections by the United Nations. If one recalls the last time weapons inspectors were allowed into Iraq, they were thrown out because a good number of the inspectors were actually working for the CIA and collecting information that was then relayed to British and US forces who bomb that country almost weekly. This time around, it is expected that the requirements of the 1nspections will be so restrictive that there is no way the Iraqi government would be able to agree to them. As an unnamed US intelligence source was quoted in the British newspaper The Guardian on February 14, 2002, "The White house 'will not take yes for an answer.'" What this means is that the war establishment is intent on provoking a crisis that will provide the US military with the fig leaf it needs to go to war.
One can be pretty certain that Saddam Hussein's departure from the world stage will be greeted with some relief among virtually every quarter, if and when it finally happens. Yet, if he is removed via US military force, that chorus is likely to be muffled, as well it should be. No nation has the right to attack another nation, no matter what their excuse. This is a basic understanding that guides the world of international relations and is one of the fundamental mechanisms that allows the various nations to maintain their tenuous balances of power. When this understanding is ignored or flouted by a government, the balance between war and peace disappears and war rules the planet. The last time in history that a world power so blatantly disregarded this rule of international relations was when Adolph Hitler was building his Reich. Interestingly enough, his reasons were eerily similar to those given by GW and his band—self-defense being foremost among them.
Despite Mr. Hussein’s unpopularity in the circles GW travels in, both here and abroad, Saddam is tremendously popular among many people in the streets of Palestine, Jordan, and other Middle Eastern and Islamic nations. This is not because he treats his people fairly, nor is it because he has a program that addresses the daily reality of theses disenfranchised masses. No, the reason Mr. Hussein is popular is because he stands up to the US behemoth, no matter what the cost. In a world where Washington can do whatever it wants (and does), those who are opposed to Washington’s plans for global domination will take their inspiration wherever they can find it. Right now, the only sources appear to be Mr. Hussein, Mr. bin Laden, and a few other men who owe their prestige to brute force and/or terror. The lack of other more humane and democratic leaders can be traced to the vacuum created by the Israeli/US policies around Palestine and their support of reactionary and autocratic regimes in the Middle East and around the world. At one time, there were a number of revolutionary organizations and leaders in the developing world who were not religiously connected or despotic. Now, after years of covert and overt operations designed to destroy these elements, all that remains are the religious radicals and Saddam Hussein. Interestingly enough, Mr. Bush’s war on his “axis of evil” may bring these two elements together in their struggle against the US empire.
That being said, it is vitally important to remember that it is not Saddam Hussein who will bear the brunt of any US campaign to end his rule. No, the primary victims will be the people of Iraq. Already devastated by the first Gulf War in 1990-91 and the sanctions against their country, the Iraqi people will once more bear the brunt of the killing campaign being planned by the US national security apparatus. The last time around thousands of Iraqi draftees and civilians were killed during the US campaign. Several thousand died without even being able to defend themselves in as US forces bombed air raid shelters, buried troops alive on the front lines after surrendering, and killed them with US gunships as they retreated on what became known as the “highway of death.” The US was found guilty of war crimes by an international tribunal. Of course, as we all know, victors never commit war crimes, only losers.
Here in the western world, we need to take to the streets in opposition to the threats of war NOW, not after the attacks begin. We must demand that the killer sanctions against the Iraqi people end. Western troops should be withdrawn immediately from all countries in the region. In addition, it is time to demand that the UN resolutions demanding Israel return to its pre-1967 borders be enforced. In short, it is time for the world to take a serious look at the situation in the region and begin a process that addresses the concerns of all the players in the region, not just the governments that the US props up with cash and arms.
A Matter of
Perspective-The US and Iran
I’m not sure where GW Bush was in 1979, but he must remember something about the popular uprising of the Iranian people that overthrew the US’s biggest puppet in the region—the Shah. Although the revolution had been brewing for years, in 1978 and early 1979 there were huge demonstrations against his rule by all sectors of Iranian society. These demonstrations took place in Iran’s cities, her oilfields, her mosques and other places of worship, and finally within her military. Hundreds were killed by the Shah’s military and secret police, the SAVAK. The movement involved social democrats, communists of all kinds, students, peasants, urban intellectuals and middle classes, and Islamists of every stripe—fundamentalists to radicals. It was a truly popular movement that resulted in the Shah leaving the country in disgrace on January 16, 1979.
After his departure, there was a power struggle for control of the new revolutionary government. At first, the secular radicals had the upper hand and it looked like Iran might become the first socialist state in that region of the world. Unfortunately, this was not to be the case. Within days of the Shah’s exile, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had re-entered the country from his exile in France, where he had been living and secretly organizing opposition to the Shah’s regime since he had been forced out of the country after the CIA-sponsored coup that replaced the populist nationalist leader Muhammad Mossadegh with the Shah in 1953. Mossadegh had called for nationalization of the country’s oil and a re-negotiation of all the contracts between Iran and the big oil companies. Of course, such a call has never been popular with the oil companies and the governments that serve them, especially that of the United States. This is the primary reason for the CIA-sponsored overthrow.
Khomeini had been part of the resistance to the Shah in the 1950s, also. His strict interpretation of the Koran and his position as one of the highest Imams in Shi’a Islam gave him a large and devoted following. After all, to the faithful he was closer to Allah than anyone else and to resist his will was tantamount to resisting Allah’s will. After Mossadegh’s deposition and arrest, the Shah moved back onto the Peacock Throne and begin to rid the country of any opposition to his rule. He was helped tremendously by the US government and its various agencies. Khomeini was exiled in 1963 and eventually ended up in France where he lived on funds partially provided by the French intelligence services and the CIA, who preferred his religious-based radicalism to that of the communists and socialists in Iran. These two groups had strong support among the workers in the oil extraction and refinement industry, as well as among the students.
The Shah undertook some minimal land reforms and secularized Iranian culture. This latter action was a double-edged sword for the Shah. While it created a huge base of technicians and intellectuals that were needed for the expanding economy in Iran, it also provided these young people with the tools for a critical analysis of Iran’s role in the US empire—a role many students and intellectuals found subservient and counter to the best interests of the Iranian people. At the same time, the secularization of Iranian society was met with religious-based fear in the provinces, where the Koran proscribed daily existence and religious leaders feared losing their followers to the temptations of secular capitalist culture. This contradiction was the breeding ground for the revolution which eventually brought down the Shah and his regime.
In 1974, when I began working with Iranian students intent on bringing down the Shah and replacing his government with a popular regime, there were already divisions within the Iranian Student Association (ISA). This group was a coalition of Iranian students in the United States who were devoted to revolution. Although the secular faction had the upper hand when I first began working with the Washington, DC branch as a liaison between them and a radical student organization I belonged to at the University of Maryland, it wasn’t long before the Islamists were the larger group, both in the DC area and nationally. Nonetheless, the various factions continued to work together, intent on ridding their country of the Shah, his opulent lifestyle at the expense of the Iranian peasantry and working class, and his dreaded secret police. I met some of the most dedicated people I have ever met before or since while working with these men and women. Many of them had families back in Iran who lived under a constant threat of torture and death because of their children’s activities against the Shah and his puppetmaster in Washington. Despite these threats, their families supported their activities and did whatever they could to insure that these young men and women could finish their education in the United States and come back to Iran to serve the revolution. Meanwhile, in the United States, SAVAK agents operated openly, attacking demonstrations of Iranian students and their supporters, kidnapping Iranian activists, and testifying at INS deportation hearings, where Iranian activists were sent back to almost certain torture and death in Iran’s gulags.
I write this for one reason: to illustrate the commitment of the Iranian people to never let the United States control its destiny again. After Khomeini took over the reins of power in revolutionary Iran, he and his clerical government, in a show of religious intolerance and a grab for power, drove the secular elements out of the government and, in some cases, out of the country or to their death. Indeed, I am almost certain that some of the individuals I worked with in the 1970s were killed at the hands of the Khomeini police apparatus. It was these acts and the US-funded operations against the Iranian government (support of opposition groups, monetary support for Iraq’s bloody war against Iran in the 1980s, to name two) that eventually dashed the revolutionary hopes of many of the Iranian people and led to Iran’s current situation.
However, if GW and his friends think they can defeat Iran, they are wrong. Although there are sharp divisions amongst the Iranian people both in the government and in the streets and villages, any military attack by the United States and/or Israel will cause those divisions to disappear. The Iranian people would unite to repel any such adventure. In addition, such an act would only serve to destroy the more moderate and secular elements in Iran, since war seems to bring the most reactionary elements to the fore in every country where there is a war. One need only look at America’s current political climate for an example of this phenomenon. Despite the basically imperial nature of American foreign policy under Bill Clinton, there were genuine attempts by his administration to engage states considered “rogue” by the United States in a dialogue aimed at defusing the potential for war with those states. Now, with the resurgence of the warmakers inside the Beltway, this dialogue is forgotten and naked imperialism is back in vogue with the policymakers. Of course, should their war plans proceed as they hope, none of these men and women will be putting their lives on the front line. In fact, if previous US wars are any indication, neither will any of their relatives unless they volunteer to do so—a very unlikely proposition.
It is important for anyone opposed to war for whatever reasons to challenge the Bush administration’s characterization of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an “axis of evil.” While there may be several aspects of these countries’ political and social situations with which we may disagree, they are no more “evil” than any other nation. If one were to apply the reasons GW wants to wage war on these nations, s/he would most certainly find that the United States also fits man of GW’s categories of “evil.” It’s all a matter of perspective. Indeed, if the export of weapons of mass destruction is a reason to go to war, then the United States, which exports more such weapons than any other country by far, is fair game for pretty much any army. Of course, this isn’t going to happen (we hope) to the United States, nor should it happen elsewhere.
The United States has no legitimate business threatening northern Korea. The Pyongyang government may represent a threat to Washington’s plans, but for Bush and his crew to provoke war is irresponsible and wrong. Since the fall of the Stalinist bureaucracies in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe over a decade ago, northern Korea has been left holding the bag. During the cold war, Korea's southern half sold itself to the highest bidder (not without plenty of internal opposition) as the north solidified its ideological and economic ties to its allies in the ongoing struggle against Japan and the U.S.. Since those allies disappeared from the globe, the Pyongyang government has found itself the target of stepped up attacks.
Although the United States maintains one of its largest foreign contingents in Korea's southern half and stockpiles thousands of weapons (some nuclear) there, it claims northern
Korea's nuclear development and export of weapons to various countries is a threat. This claim is made by a government who has looked the other way countless times when its allies (Israel, for one) are proven to be building nuclear weapons. It is made by a government which makes and sells more weapons of mass destruction than all the rest of the countries in the world. Admittedly, further weapons proliferation is not favorable to world peace, but for Washington to cry foul and demand a halt to Pyongyang's research rings quite hollow. After all, it was Washington's political and military manipulations after the Second World War that created two Koreas in the first place. Much to the anger and dismay of the majority of the Korean people.
How did the division occur, anyhow? Near the end of the Second World War, right before the U.S. dropped the bomb on Japan, the Soviet Union moved into northern Korea to fight the occupying Japanese troops. Within weeks of Japan's surrender, democratic groups of Korean peasants, merchants, and workers formed local governing organizations and begin to organize a national assembly. The U.S. and U.S.S.R., meanwhile, chose to maintain a "temporary" occupation of the country with the 38th parallel as the dividing line. This occupation was to end after the Koreans established their own government, and Korea was to reunite. However, after the United States realized that the makeup of any Korean‑organized government would be anti‑colonial, it reneged on its promise.
Within weeks of the election of a popular national assembly, the Soviet Union began to withdraw its forces. The U.S., however, increased its military strength and coordinated security with the remnants of the hated Japanese army. At the same time, Synghman Rhee, an ultra‑right Korean politician who was living in America, was flown back to Korea (with the assistance of the US intelligence community). He immediately began to liquidate the popular movement in southern Korea and, with the complete support of the U.S. military, refused to acknowledge the existence of the newly elected national assembly. In the weeks following his installment as ruler of southern Korea, over 100,000 Korean citizens were murdered and disappeared. The United States military provided the names of many of the victims.
After realizing that the United States had no plans to withdraw its troops, the Soviet Union put its withdrawal on hold and asked for assistance from the People's Republic of China. In
the days and weeks that passed, military units from the south persistently forayed into the northern half of Korea, testing its defenses. Eventually, although the exact details remain unclear, northern Korean and Chinese troops attacked. On June 25, 1950, the U.S. responded, using the authority of the U.N. Security Council, and the Korean war began. Three years and one month later an armistice was signed between the warring sides. The toll in lives was: 52, 246 US soldiers, an estimated 4 million Koreans on both sides of the parallel (mostly civilians), 1 million Chinese soldiers, and another 4000 soldiers from armies that allied themselves with the United States.
In October 2000, the United States and northern Korea signed a bilateral agreement that read, in part:
“Recognizing the changed circumstances on the Korean Peninsula created by the historic June 15, 2000 inter-Korean summit, the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have decided to take steps to fundamentally improve their bilateral relations in the interests of enhancing peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region.
The two sides agreed there are a variety of available means, including Four Party talks, to reduce tension on the Korean Peninsula and formally end the Korean War by replacing the 1953 Armistice Agreement with permanent peace arrangements.”
Unfortunately, the United States has not kept its end of the bargain. Most of this is due to the regime change in Washington. Despite the fundamentally imperialist nature of Bill Clinton’s foreign policy, his administration had made genuine steps towards resolving the decades-old dispute on the Korean peninsula and there was a real hope among the Korean people on both sides of the 38th parallel that a lasting peace would come to their land. Indeed, the most optimistic among them began to make plans for the eventual reunification of the country. Then GW Bush moved into the White House and brought with him a number of men and women who had no interest in continuing the Clinton policy of containment or, god forbid, negotiating a lasting peace.
The return to an antagonistic relationship was met by dismay in both Korean capitols. After southern Korea’s president Kim Dae Jung’s visit to Washington in March 2001 where he met with GW and a number of his henchmen, it was clear that the Clinton policy of rapprochement was dead. According to news reports, the meeting began on a sour note when Bush noted his dismay over Kim’s signature on a letter opposing the “Star Wars” missile defense system promoted by Bush and his defense industry cabinet and advisory staff. One of the targets of this so-called missile shield would be northern Korea. After this beginning, Kim knew there was little point to bring up his agenda, which included:
• Signing a joint peace declaration with the North.
• Formally ending hostilities a half-century after the end of their civil war.
• Possibly supplying electricity to the energy-poor North.
• Promoting a return visit to Seoul this spring by the North's leader, Kim Jong-il.
Since that meeting, things have only worsened, with GW’s recent comments including northern Korea in a new “axis of evil” the most recent foray in the war of words between DC and Pyongyang. The hardliners in Washington refuse to even talk about peace, preferring to take a page out of cold war architect John Foster Dulles’ script from the 1950s (written primarily by the defense industry) and revive a decades-old war that most Americans and Koreans would rather forget. Northern Korea, seeing no prospect of achieving its desire for a lasting peace and eventual reunification through conversations with Seoul (conversations which need U.S. support, which is not forthcoming), seems to be returning to its previous hardline position. Unfortunately for its population, this means more starvation and poverty, since what little money the government has will go towards maintaining and enhancing its military capabilities. As for the people of southern Korea and the rest of the region, it means a life where the fear of all-out war underlies every transaction, thanks to GW and his gang of international outlaws.
What are the alternatives? First and foremost, the United States should re-open the three-way conversation between the United States and both Koreas that was begun by the Clinton administration. Washington should recognize the northern Korean government as a responsible member of the international community and lift the economic sanctions against them. Lifting the sanctions would do more towards alleviating the suffering of the northern Korean people more than any other possible action. The people of this country, besides seeing much of their economic production being used to service the military, have also seen their countryside devastated by drought. It is this drought, more than any other factor, which has caused the scenes of suffering that the US news bureaus love to show us as examples of how Stalinist-type bureaucracies fail their populations. Of course, no government can prevent drought, not even capitalist ones, although the average US television viewer would never know that from these news reports. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the United States needs to let the people of the Korean peninsula decide their own fate—a fate which most certainly involves the eventual reunification of their country.
-Ron Jacobs