Arundhati Roy on the War Against Iraq

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Undoubtedly, she is one of the</div> <div> most articulate, passionate, and moving writers on the war and its meaning</div> <div> for the world. This is worth passing around, not only for its radical honesty</div> <div> but for her ability to find hope in dark times.</div> <bR> <div> Znet </div> <div> http://www.zmag.org</div> <div> Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Tigris and Euphrates</div> <div> By Arundhati Roy</div> <bR> <div> On the steel torsos of their missiles, adolescent American soldiers</div> <div> scrawl colourful messages in childish handwriting: For Saddam, from the</div> <div> Fat Boy Posse. A building goes down. A marketplace. A home. A girl who</div> <div> loves a boy. A child who only ever wanted to play with his older</div> <div> brother's marbles.</div> <bR> <div> On March 21, the day after American and British troops began their</div> <div> illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, an "embedded" CNN correspondent</div> <div> interviewed an American soldier. "I wanna get in there and get my nose</div> <div> dirty," Private AJ said. "I wanna take revenge for 9/11."</div> <bR> <div> To be fair to the correspondent, even though he was "embedded" he did</div> <div> sort of weakly suggest that so far there was no real evidence that</div> <div> linked the Iraqi government to the September 11 attacks. Private AJ</div> <div> stuck his teenage tongue out all the way down to the end of his chin.</div> <div> "Yeah, well that stuff's way over my head," he said.</div> <bR> <div> According to a New York Times/CBS News survey, 42 per cent of the</div> <div> American public believes that Saddam Hussein is directly responsible for</div> <div> the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. And</div> <div> an ABC news poll says that 55 per cent of Americans believe that Saddam</div> <div> Hussein directly supports al-Qaida. What percentage of America's armed</div> <div> forces believe these fabrications is anybody's guess.</div> <bR> <div> It is unlikely that British and American troops fighting in Iraq are</div> <div> aware that their governments supported Saddam Hussein both politically</div> <div> and financially through his worst excesses.</div> <bR> <div> But why should poor AJ and his fellow soldiers be burdened with these</div> <div> details? It does not matter any more, does it? Hundreds of thousands of</div> <div> men, tanks, ships, choppers, bombs, ammunition, gas masks, high-protein</div> <div> food, whole aircrafts ferrying toilet paper, insect repellent, vitamins</div> <div> and bottled mineral water, are on the move. The phenomenal logistics of</div> <div> Operation Iraqi Freedom make it a universe unto itself. It doesn't need</div> <div> to justify its existence any more. It exists. It is.</div> <bR> <div> President George W Bush, commander in chief of the US army, navy,</div> <div> airforce and marines has issued clear instructions: "Iraq. Will. Be.</div> <div> Liberated." (Perhaps he means that even if Iraqi people's bodies are</div> <div> killed, their souls will be liberated.) American and British citizens</div> <div> owe it to the supreme commander to forsake thought and rally behind</div> <div> their troops. Their countries are at war. And what a war it is.</div> <bR> <div> After using the "good offices" of UN diplomacy (economic sanctions and</div> <div> weapons inspections) to ensure that Iraq was brought to its knees, its</div> <div> people starved, half a million of its children killed, its</div> <div> infrastructure severely damaged, after making sure that most of its</div> <div> weapons have been destroyed, in an act of cowardice that must surely be</div> <div> unrivalled in history, the "Allies"/"Coalition of the Willing"(better</div> <div> known as the Coalition of the Bullied and Bought) - sent in an invading</div> <div> army!</div> <bR> <div> Operation Iraqi Freedom? I don't think so. It's more like Operation</div> <div> Let's Run a Race, but First Let Me Break Your Knees.</div> <bR> <div> So far the Iraqi army, with its hungry, ill-equipped soldiers, its old</div> <div> guns and ageing tanks, has somehow managed to temporarily confound and</div> <div> occasionally even outmanoeuvre the "Allies". Faced with the richest,</div> <div> best-equipped, most powerful armed forces the world has ever seen, Iraq</div> <div> has shown spectacular courage and has even managed to put up what</div> <div> actually amounts to a defence. A defence which the Bush/Blair Pair have</div> <div> immediately denounced as deceitful and cowardly. (But then deceit is an</div> <div> old tradition with us natives. When we are invaded/ colonised/occupied</div> <div> and stripped of all dignity, we turn to guile and opportunism.)</div> <bR> <div> Even allowing for the fact that Iraq and the "Allies" are at war, the</div> <div> extent to which the "Allies" and their media cohorts are prepared to go</div> <div> is astounding to the point of being counterproductive to their own</div> <div> objectives.</div> <bR> <div> When Saddam Hussein appeared on national TV to address the Iraqi people</div> <div> after the failure of the most elaborate assassination attempt in history</div> <div> - "Operation Decapitation" - we had Geoff Hoon, the British defence</div> <div> secretary, deriding him for not having the courage to stand up and be</div> <div> killed, calling him a coward who hides in trenches. We then had a flurry</div> <div> of Coalition speculation - Was it really Saddam, was it his double? Or</div> <div> was it Osama with a shave? Was it pre-recorded? Was it a speech? Was it</div> <div> black magic? Will it turn into a pumpkin if we really, really want it</div> <div> to?</div> <bR> <div> After dropping not hundreds, but thousands of bombs on Baghdad, when a</div> <div> marketplace was mistakenly blown up and civilians killed - a US army</div> <div> spokesman implied that the Iraqis were blowing themselves up! "They're</div> <div> using very old stock. Their missiles go up and come down."</div> <bR> <div> If so, may we ask how this squares with the accusation that the Iraqi</div> <div> regime is a paid-up member of the Axis of Evil and a threat to world</div> <div> peace?</div> <bR> <div> When the Arab TV station al-Jazeera shows civilian casualties it's</div> <div> denounced as "emotive" Arab propaganda aimed at orchestrating hostility</div> <div> towards the "Allies", as though Iraqis are dying only in order to make</div> <div> the "Allies" look bad. Even French television has come in for some stick</div> <div> for similar reasons. But the awed, breathless footage of aircraft</div> <div> carriers, stealth bombers and cruise missiles arcing across the desert</div> <div> sky on American and British TV is described as the "terrible beauty" of</div> <div> war.</div> <bR> <div> When invading American soldiers (from the army "that's only here to</div> <div> help") are taken prisoner and shown on Iraqi TV, George Bush says it</div> <div> violates the Geneva convention and "exposes the evil at the heart of the</div> <div> regime". But it is entirely acceptable for US television stations to</div> <div> show the hundreds of prisoners being held by the US government in</div> <div> Guantanamo Bay, kneeling on the ground with their hands tied behind</div> <div> their backs, blinded with opaque goggles and with earphones clamped on</div> <div> their ears, to ensure complete visual and aural deprivation. When</div> <div> questioned about the treatment of these prisoners, US Government</div> <div> officials don't deny that they're being being ill-treated. They deny</div> <div> that they're "prisoners of war"! They call them "unlawful combatants",</div> <div> implying that their ill-treatment is legitimate! (So what's the party</div> <div> line on the massacre of prisoners in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan?</div> <div> Forgive and forget? And what of the prisoner tortured to death by the</div> <div> special forces at the Bagram airforce base? Doctors have formally called</div> <div> it homicide.)</div> <bR> <div> When the "Allies" bombed the Iraqi television station (also,</div> <div> incidentally, a contravention of the Geneva convention), there was</div> <div> vulgar jubilation in the American media. In fact Fox TV had been</div> <div> lobbying for the attack for a while. It was seen as a righteous blow</div> <div> against Arab propaganda. But mainstream American and British TV continue</div> <div> to advertise themselves as "balanced" when their propaganda has achieved</div> <div> hallucinatory levels.</div> <bR> <div> Why should propaganda be the exclusive preserve of the western media?</div> <div> Just because they do it better? Western journalists "embedded" with</div> <div> troops are given the status of heroes reporting from the frontlines of</div> <div> war. Non-"embedded" journalists (such as the BBC's Rageh Omaar,</div> <div> reporting from besieged and bombed Baghdad, witnessing, and clearly</div> <div> affected by the sight of bodies of burned children and wounded people)</div> <div> are undermined even before they begin their reportage: "We have to tell</div> <div> you that he is being monitored by the Iraqi authorities."</div> <bR> <div> Increasingly, on British and American TV, Iraqi soldiers are being</div> <div> referred to as "militia" (ie: rabble). One BBC correspondent</div> <div> portentously referred to them as "quasi-terrorists". Iraqi defence is</div> <div> "resistance" or worse still, "pockets of resistance", Iraqi military</div> <div> strategy is deceit. (The US government bugging the phone lines of UN</div> <div> security council delegates, reported by the Observer, is hard-headed</div> <div> pragmatism.) Clearly for the "Allies", the only morally acceptable</div> <div> strategy the Iraqi army can pursue is to march out into the desert and</div> <div> be bombed by B-52s or be mowed down by machine-gun fire. Anything short</div> <div> of that is cheating.</div> <bR> <div> And now we have the siege of Basra. About a million and a half people,</div> <div> 40 per cent of them children. Without clean water, and with very little</div> <div> food. We're still waiting for the legendary Shia "uprising", for the</div> <div> happy hordes to stream out of the city and rain roses and hosannahs on</div> <div> the "liberating" army. Where are the hordes? Don't they know that</div> <div> television productions work to tight schedules? (It may well be that if</div> <div> Saddam's regime falls there will be dancing on the streets of Basra. But</div> <div> then, if the Bush regime were to fall, there would be dancing on the</div> <div> streets the world over.)</div> <bR> <div> After days of enforcing hunger and thirst on the citizens of Basra, the</div> <div> "Allies" have brought in a few trucks of food and water and positioned</div> <div> them tantalisingly on the outskirts of the city. Desperate people flock</div> <div> to the trucks and fight each other for food. (The water we hear, is</div> <div> being sold. To revitalise the dying economy, you understand.) On top of</div> <div> the trucks, desperate photographers fought each other to get pictures of</div> <div> desperate people fighting each other for food. Those pictures will go</div> <div> out through photo agencies to newspapers and glossy magazines that pay</div> <div> extremely well. Their message: The messiahs are at hand, distributing</div> <div> fishes and loaves.</div> <bR> <div> As of July last year the delivery of $5.4bn worth of supplies to Iraq</div> <div> was blocked by the Bush/Blair Pair. It didn't really make the news. But</div> <div> now under the loving caress of live TV, 450 tonnes of humanitarian aid -</div> <div> a minuscule fraction of what's actually needed (call it a script prop) -</div> <div> arrived on a British ship, the "Sir Galahad". Its arrival in the port of</div> <div> Umm Qasr merited a whole day of live TV broadcasts. Barf bag, anyone?</div> <bR> <div> Nick Guttmann, head of emergencies for Christian Aid, writing for the</div> <div> Independent on Sunday said that it would take 32 Sir Galahad's a day to</div> <div> match the amount of food Iraq was receiving before the bombing began.</div> <bR> <div> We oughtn't to be surprised though. It's old tactics. They've been at it</div> <div> for years. Consider this moderate proposal by John McNaughton from the</div> <div> Pentagon Papers, published during the Vietnam war: "Strikes at</div> <div> population targets (per se) are likely not only to create a</div> <div> counterproductive wave of revulsion abroad and at home, but greatly to</div> <div> increase the risk of enlarging the war with China or the Soviet Union.</div> <div> Destruction of locks and dams, however - if handled right - might ...</div> <div> offer promise. It should be studied. Such destruction does not kill or</div> <div> drown people. By shallow-flooding the rice, it leads after time to</div> <div> widespread starvation (more than a million?) unless food is provided -</div> <div> which we could offer to do 'at the conference table'."</div> <bR> <div> Times haven't changed very much. The technique has evolved into a</div> <div> doctrine. It's called "Winning Hearts and Minds".</div> <bR> <div> So, here's the moral maths as it stands: 200,000 Iraqis estimated to</div> <div> have been killed in the first Gulf war. Hundreds of thousands dead</div> <div> because of the economic sanctions. (At least that lot has been saved</div> <div> from Saddam Hussein.) More being killed every day. Tens of thousands of</div> <div> US soldiers who fought the 1991 war officially declared "disabled" by a</div> <div> disease called the Gulf war syndrome, believed in part to be caused by</div> <div> exposure to depleted uranium. It hasn't stopped the "Allies" from</div> <div> continuing to use depleted uranium.</div> <bR> <div> And now this talk of bringing the UN back into the picture. But that old</div> <div> UN girl - it turns out that she just ain't what she was cracked up to</div> <div> be. She's been demoted (although she retains her high salary). Now she's</div> <div> the world's janitor. She's the Philippino cleaning lady, the Indian</div> <div> jamadarni, the postal bride from Thailand, the Mexican household help,</div> <div> the Jamaican au pair. She's employed to clean other peoples' shit. She's</div> <div> used and abused at will.</div> <bR> <div> Despite Blair's earnest submissions, and all his fawning, Bush has made</div> <div> it clear that the UN will play no independent part in the administration</div> <div> of postwar Iraq. The US will decide who gets those juicy</div> <div> "reconstruction" contracts. But Bush has appealed to the international</div> <div> community not to "politicise" the issue of humanitarian aid. On the</div> <div> March 28, after Bush called for the immediate resumption of the UN's oil</div> <div> for food programme, the UN security council voted unanimously for the</div> <div> resolution. This means that everybody agrees that Iraqi money (from the</div> <div> sale of Iraqi oil) should be used to feed Iraqi people who are starving</div> <div> because of US led sanctions and the illegal US-led war.</div> <bR> <div> Contracts for the "reconstruction" of Iraq we're told, in discussions on</div> <div> the business news, could jump-start the world economy. It's funny how</div> <div> the interests of American corporations are so often, so successfully and</div> <div> so deliberately confused with the interests of the world economy. While</div> <div> the American people will end up paying for the war, oil companies,</div> <div> weapons manufacturers, arms dealers, and corporations involved in</div> <div> "reconstruction" work will make direct gains from the war. Many of them</div> <div> are old friends and former employers of the Bush/ Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice</div> <div> cabal. Bush has already asked Congress for $75bn. Contracts for</div> <div> "re-construction" are already being negotiated. The news doesn't hit the</div> <div> stands because much of the US corporate media is owned and managed by</div> <div> the same interests.</div> <bR> <div> Operation Iraqi Freedom, Tony Blair assures us is about returning Iraqi</div> <div> oil to the Iraqi people. That is, returning Iraqi oil to the Iraqi</div> <div> people via corporate multinationals. Like Shell, like Chevron, like</div> <div> Halliburton. Or are we missing the plot here? Perhaps Halliburton is</div> <div> actually an Iraqi company? Perhaps US vice-president Dick Cheney (who is</div> <div> a former director of Halliburton) is a closet Iraqi?</div> <bR> <div> As the rift between Europe and America deepens, there are signs that the</div> <div> world could be entering a new era of economic boycotts. CNN reported</div> <div> that Americans are emptying French wine into gutters, chanting, "We</div> <div> don't want your stinking wine." We've heard about the re-baptism of</div> <div> French fries. Freedom fries they're called now. There's news trickling</div> <div> in about Americans boycotting German goods. The thing is that if the</div> <div> fallout of the war takes this turn, it is the US who will suffer the</div> <div> most. Its homeland may be defended by border patrols and nuclear</div> <div> weapons, but its economy is strung out across the globe. Its economic</div> <div> outposts are exposed and vulnerable to attack in every direction.</div> <div> Already the internet is buzzing with elaborate lists of American and</div> <div> British government products and companies that should be boycotted.</div> <div> Apart from the usual targets, Coke, Pepsi and McDonald's - government</div> <div> agencies such as USAID, the British department for international</div> <div> development, British and American banks, Arthur Anderson, Merrill Lynch,</div> <div> American Express, corporations such as Bechtel, General Electric, and</div> <div> companies such as Reebok, Nike and Gap - could find themselves under</div> <div> siege. These lists are being honed and re fined by activists across the</div> <div> world. They could become a practical guide that directs and channels the</div> <div> amorphous, but growing fury in the world. Suddenly, the "inevitability"</div> <div> of the project of corporate globalisation is beginning to seem more than</div> <div> a little evitable.</div> <bR> <div> It's become clear that the war against terror is not really about</div> <div> terror, and the war on Iraq not only about oil. It's about a</div> <div> superpower's self-destructive impulse towards supremacy, stranglehold,</div> <div> global hegemony. The argument is being made that the people of Argentina</div> <div> and Iraq have both been decimated by the same process. Only the weapons</div> <div> used against them differ: In one case it's an IMF chequebook. In the</div> <div> other, cruise missiles.</div> <bR> <div> Finally, there's the matter of Saddam's arsenal of weapons of mass</div> <div> destruction. (Oops, nearly forgot about those!)</div> <bR> <div> In the fog of war - one thing's for sure - if Saddam 's regime indeed</div> <div> has weapons of mass destruction, it is showing an astonishing degree of</div> <div> responsibility and restraint in the teeth of extreme provocation. Under</div> <div> similar circumstances, (say if Iraqi troops were bombing New York and</div> <div> laying siege to Washington DC) could we expect the same of the Bush</div> <div> regime? Would it keep its thousands of nuclear warheads in their</div> <div> wrapping paper? What about its chemical and biological weapons? Its</div> <div> stocks of anthrax, smallpox and nerve gas? Would it?</div> <bR> <div> Excuse me while I laugh.</div> <bR> <div> In the fog of war we're forced to speculate: Either Saddam is an</div> <div> extremely responsible tyrant. Or - he simply does not possess weapons of</div> <div> mass destruction. Either way, regardless of what happens next, Iraq</div> <div> comes out of the argument smelling sweeter than the US government.</div> <bR> <div> So here's Iraq - rogue state, grave threat to world peace, paid-up</div> <div> member of the Axis of Evil. Here's Iraq, invaded, bombed, besieged,</div> <div> bullied, its sovereignty shat upon, its children killed by cancers, its</div> <div> people blown up on the streets. And here's all of us watching. CNN-BBC,</div> <div> BBC-CNN late into the night. Here's all of us, enduring the horror of</div> <div> the war, enduring the horror of the propaganda and enduring the</div> <div> slaughter of language as we know and understand it. Freedom now means</div> <div> mass murder (or, in the US, fried potatoes). When someone says</div> <div> "humanitarian aid" we automatically go looking for induced starvation.</div> <div> "Embedded" I have to admit, is a great find. It's what it sounds like.</div> <div> And what about "arsenal of tactics?" Nice!</div> <bR> <div> In most parts of the world, the invasion of Iraq is being seen as a</div> <div> racist war. The real danger of a racist war unleashed by racist regimes</div> <div> is that it engenders racism in everybody - perpetrators, victims,</div> <div> spectators. It sets the parameters for the debate, it lays out a grid</div> <div> for a particular way of thinking. There is a tidal wave of hatred for</div> <div> the US rising from the ancient heart of the world. In Africa, Latin</div> <div> America, Asia, Europe, Australia. I encounter it every day. Sometimes it</div> <div> comes from the most unlikely sources. Bankers, businessmen, yuppie</div> <div> students, and they bring to it all the crassness of their conservative,</div> <div> illiberal politics. That absurd inability to separate governments from</div> <div> people: America is a nation of morons, a nation of murderers, they say,</div> <div> (with the same carelessness with which they say, "All Muslims are</div> <div> terrorists"). Even in the grotesque universe of racist insult, the</div> <div> British make their entry as add-ons. Arse-lickers, they're called.</div> <bR> <div> Suddenly, I, who have been vilified for being "anti-American" and</div> <div> "anti-west", find myself in the extraordinary position of defending the</div> <div> people of America. And Britain.</div> <bR> <div> Those who descend so easily into the pit of racist abuse would do well</div> <div> to remember the hundreds of thousands of American and British citizens</div> <div> who protested against their country's stockpile of nuclear weapons. And</div> <div> the thousands of American war resisters who forced their government to</div> <div> withdraw from Vietnam. They should know that the most scholarly,</div> <div> scathing, hilarious critiques of the US government and the "American way</div> <div> of life" comes from American citizens. And that the funniest, most</div> <div> bitter condemnation of their prime minister comes from the British</div> <div> media. Finally they should remember that right now, hundreds of</div> <div> thousands of British and American citizens are on the streets protesting</div> <div> the war. The Coalition of the Bullied and Bought consists of</div> <div> governments, not people. More than one third of America's citizens have</div> <div> survived the relentless propaganda they've been subjected to, and many</div> <div> thousands are actively fighting their own government. In the</div> <div> ultra-patriotic climate that prevails in the US, that's as brave as any</div> <div> Iraqi fighting for his or her homeland.</div> <bR> <div> While the "Allies" wait in the desert for an uprising of Shia Muslims on</div> <div> the streets of Basra, the real uprising is taking place in hundreds of</div> <div> cities across the world. It has been the most spectacular display of</div> <div> public morality ever seen.</div> <bR> <div> Most courageous of all, are the hundreds of thousands of American people</div> <div> on the streets of America's great cities - Washington, New York,</div> <div> Chicago, San Francisco. The fact is that the only institution in the</div> <div> world today that is more powerful than the American government, is</div> <div> American civil society. American citizens have a huge responsibility</div> <div> riding on their shoulders. How can we not salute and support those who</div> <div> not only acknowledge but act upon that responsibility? They are our</div> <div> allies, our friends.</div> <bR> <div> At the end of it all, it remains to be said that dictators like Saddam</div> <div> Hussein, and all the other despots in the Middle East, in the central</div> <div> Asian republics, in Africa and Latin America, many of them installed,</div> <div> supported and financed by the US government, are a menace to their own</div> <div> people. Other than strengthening the hand of civil society (instead of</div> <div> weakening it as has been done in the case of Iraq), there is no easy,</div> <div> pristine way of dealing with them. (It's odd how those who dismiss the</div> <div> peace movement as utopian, don't hesitate to proffer the most absurdly</div> <div> dreamy reasons for going to war: to stamp out terrorism, install</div> <div> democracy, eliminate fascism, and most entertainingly, to "rid the world</div> <div> of evil-doers".)</div> <bR> <div> Regardless of what the propaganda machine tells us, these tin-pot</div> <div> dictators are not the greatest threat to the world. The real and</div> <div> pressing danger, the greatest threat of all is the locomotive force that</div> <div> drives the political and economic engine of the US government, currently</div> <div> piloted by George Bush. Bush-bashing is fun, because he makes such an</div> <div> easy, sumptuous target. It's true that he is a dangerous, almost</div> <div> suicidal pilot, but the machine he handles is far more dangerous than</div> <div> the man himself.</div> <bR> <div> Despite the pall of gloom that hangs over us today, I'd like to file a</div> <div> cautious plea for hope: in times of war, one wants one's weakest enemy</div> <div> at the helm of his forces. And President George W Bush is certainly</div> <div> that. Any other even averagely intelligent US president would have</div> <div> probably done the very same things, but would have managed to smoke-up</div> <div> the glass and confuse the opposition. Perhaps even carry the UN with</div> <div> him. Bush's tactless imprudence and his brazen belief that he can run</div> <div> the world with his riot squad, has done the opposite. He has achieved</div> <div> what writers, activists and scholars have striven to achieve for</div> <div> decades. He has exposed the ducts. He has placed on full public view the</div> <div> working parts, the nuts and bolts of the apocalyptic apparatus of the</div> <div> American empire.</div> <bR> <div> Now that the blueprint (The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire) has been</div> <div> put into mass circulation, it could be disabled quicker than the pundits</div> <div> predicted.</div> <bR> <div> Bring on the spanners.</div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>