Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Un'esule Irakeno contro la guerra

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,899030,00.html
Iraqis will not be pawns in Bush and Blair's war game 
An American attack on my country would bring disaster, not liberation 
Kamil Mahdi
Thursday February 20, 2003
* Kamil Mahdi is an Iraqi political exile and lecturer in Middle East
economics at the University of Exeter
Having failed to convince the British people that war is justified,
Tony Blair is now invoking the suffering of the Iraqi people to
justify bombing them. He tells us there will be innocent civilian
casualties, but that more will die if he and Bush do not go to war.
Which dossier is he reading from?
The present Iraqi regime's repressive practices have long been known,
and its worst excesses took place 12 years ago, under the gaze of
General Colin Powell's troops; 15 years ago, when Saddam was an
Anglo-American ally; and almost 30 years ago, when Henry Kissinger
cynically used Kurdish nationalism to further US power in the region
at the expense of both Kurdish and Iraqi democratic aspirations.
Killing and torture in Iraq is not random, but has long been directly
linked to politics - and international politics at that. Some of the
gravest political repression was in 1978-80, at the time of the
Iranian revolution and Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. But the
Iraqi people's greatest suffering has been during periods of war and
under the sanctions of the 1990s. There are political issues that
require political solutions and a war under any pretext is not what
Iraqis need or want.
In government comment about Iraq, the Iraqi people are treated as a
collection of hapless victims without hope or dignity. At best, Iraqis
are said to have parochial allegiances that render them incapable of
political action without tutelage. This is utterly at variance with
the history and reality of Iraq. Iraqis are proud of their diversity,
the intricacies of their society and its deeply rooted urban culture.
Their turbulent recent history is not something that simply happened
to Iraqis, but one in which they have been actors. Iraqis have a rich
modern political tradition borne out of their struggle for
independence from Britain and for political and social emancipation. A
major explanation for the violence of recent Iraqi political history
lies in the determination of people to challenge tyranny and bring
about political change. Iraqis have not gone like lambs to the
slaughter, but have fought political battles in which they suffered
grievously. To assert that an American invasion is the only way to
bring about political change in Iraq might suit Blair's propaganda
fightback, but it is ignorant and disingenuous.
It is now the vogue to talk down Iraqi politics under Saddam Hussain
as nothing but the whim of a dictator. The fact is that leaders cannot
kill politics in the minds of people, nor can they crush their
aspirations. The massacres of leftists when the Ba'athists first came
to power in 1963 did not prevent the emergence of a new mass movement
in the mid-1960s. The second Ba'ath regime attempted to buy time from
the Kurdish movement in 1970 only to trigger a united mobilisation of
Kurdish nationalism. Saddam co-opted the Communist party in the early
1970s only to see that party's organisation grow under a very narrow
margin of legality before he moved against it. In the 1970s, the
regime tried to control private economic activity by extending the
state to every corner of the economy, only to face an explosion of
small business activity.
The regime's strict secularism produced a clerical opposition with a
mass following. When the regime pressurised Iraqis to join the Ba'ath
party, independent opinion emerged within that party and Saddam found
it necessary to crush it and destroy the party in the process. In the
1980s, the army was beginning to emerge as a threat, and the 1991
uprising showed the extent of discontent. In the 1990s, Saddam
fostered the religious leadership of Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr,
only to see the latter emerge as a focal point for opposition. Even
within Saddam's family and close circle, there has been opposition.
Of course Saddam Hussain crushed all these challenges, but in every
case the regional and international environment has supported the
dictator against the people of Iraq. It is cynical and deceitful of
Tony Blair to pretend that he understands Iraqi politics and has a
meaningful programme for the country. Iraq's history is one of popular
struggle and also of imperial greed, superpower rivalries and regional
conflict. To reduce the whole of Iraqi politics and social life to the
whims of Saddam Hussain is banal and insulting.
Over the past 12 years of vicious economic blockade, the US and
Britain have ignored the political situation inside Iraq and
concentrated on weapons as a justification for their policy of
containment. UN resolution 688 of April 1991, calling for an end to
repression and an open dialogue to ensure Iraqi human and political
rights, was set aside or used only for propaganda and to justify the
no-fly zones.
Instead of generating a real political dynamic backed by international
strength and moral authority, Iraqis were prevented from
reconstructing their devastated country. Generations of Iraqis will
continue to pay the price of the policy of sanctions and containment,
designed for an oil glut period in the international market.
Now that the US has a new policy, it intends to implement it rapidly
and with all its military might. Despite what Blair claims, this has
nothing to do with the interests and rights of the Iraqi people. The
regime in Iraq is not invincible, but the objective of the US is to
have regime change without the people of Iraq. The use of Iraqi
auxiliaries is designed to minimise US and British casualties, and the
result may be higher Iraqi casualties and prolonged conflict with
predictably disastrous humanitarian consequences.
The Bush administration has enlisted a number of Iraqi exiles to
provide an excuse for invasion and a political cover for the control
of Iraq. People like Ahmad Chalabi and Kanan Makiya have little
credibility among Iraqis and they have a career interest in a US
invasion. At the same time, the main forces of Kurdish nationalism, by
disengaging from Iraqi politics and engaging in internecine conflict,
have become highly dependent upon US protection and are not in a
position to object to a US military onslaught. The US may enlist
domestic and regional partners with varying degrees of pressure.
This in no way bestows legitimacy on its objectives and methods, and
its policies are rejected by most Iraqis and others in the region.
Indeed, the main historical opposition to the Ba'ath regime -
including various strands of the left, the Arab nationalist parties,
the Communist party, the Islamic Da'wa party, the Islamic party (the
Muslim Brotherhood) and others - has rejected war and US patronage
over Iraqi politics. The prevalent Iraqi opinion is that a US attack
on Iraq would be a disaster, not a liberation, and Blair's belated
concern for Iraqis is unwelcome.

 economics at the University of Exeter
Per fortuna che non e' ne storico ne politico visto il cumulo di idiozie
storiche e politiche di cui parla :))
*LOL*
-Stefano


Il signor Kamil Mahadi dice cose sacrosante, peccato che qualcuno si limita
a rispondere "idiozie " non sa rispondere sulla sostanza, forse sarà un
idiota.
Unosky
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://usenet.libero.it

rispondere sulla sostanza, forse sarà un idiota.
Non c'e' alcuna sostanza ma solo fantasia :)  E alla fantasia c'e' poco
da rispondere.
-Stefano