Iraq: A War of National Liberation Has Begun
Last Thursday evening (8 April) thousands of Iraqis on the edge of the city of Falluja hurled their shoes at US troops who were preventing a food and medicine convoy entering the city; the troops were forced back and the convoy got in.
The besieged town of Fulluja has become a symbol of opposition to imperialist rule of Iraq, with up to 500 Iraqis dead - according to local sources 243 women and children have been killed by US helicopter, tank and gun fire. In time-honoured imperial fashion, a whole city is having collective punishment meted out for its resistance.
At the time of writing (11 April) a ceasefire is in operation, but the US is demanding that those who last week killed four US mercenaries be handed over, as the price for lifting the siege. While thousands have left the city, an even bigger bloodbath is still possible. The US colonel in charge of the operation has said that in house -to-house searches, US troops may take food and other items.
Falluja is the symbolic centre, but resistance is countrywide. This is a national uprising, a struggle for national liberation. Britain and the US are engaged in a colonial war; the old terminology, used by the British in Malaya, Cyprus, Ireland and Aden is being deployed - the enemy are 'terrorists'.
The proximate cause of the uprising is popular resistance to a US political-military offensive. In the Shi'ite south the occupation forces tried to repress the movement of Moqtada al-Sadr, first banning his newspaper and then arresting his deputies. Contrary to the claims of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, al-Sadr's movement is not backed by the Iranians, on the contrary. Iran has called for calm, and continues to back the Shi'ite Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Sistani wants only to pressurise the Americans to include senior Shi'ite clerics in the 'transitional' government.
Iran does not back al-Sadr, according to local sources, because of the elements of 'Arab nationalism' in his propaganda.
In its justification for the military offensive against Falluja the United States has cited the mutilation of the bodies of four US 'contractors'. These contractors are in fact mercenaries; private military companies are being US by the US with increasing frequency, in Colombia as well as in Iraq. Ex-soldiers and security personnel can earn up to $500 a day as hired guns for the occupation forces or private firms.
In reality, the attack on Falluja had probably been long-planned, given that it is seen as the centre of resistance on the Sunni 'triangle'. It is not just in Falluja that the barbaric methods of attacking and murdering civilians has been used; in many places, but especially in ultra-poor 'Sadr city' in Baghdad, helicopter gunships and tank fire have been taking a fearful toll of civilians. Over 50 US soldiers have been killed in the last week; but the US has been killing Iraqis by the bushel - probably over 1000 are dead in the last week.
The current popular uprising is in stark contrast to the total inability of the Saddam Hussein regime to defend the country. The military collapse of Iraq in the 2003 war, and the unwillingness of Iraqi soldiers to die for Saddam, made the imperial invaders believe their own propaganda: the invaders were being welcomed as 'liberators'. For the vast majority of OIraqia this was never true.
What are the political colours of those who are resisting the occupation forces? Without doubt many in the Sunni areas come from the Ba'ath or other Arab nationalist traditions. Probably there are some leftists, but their numbers are small and their influence week. Many combine Arab nationalism with a profession of Islam. This is doubly true in the Shia south.
The use of Islam as a political banner should come as no surprise; it is caused by disillusion with the secular nationalist forces, the bankruptcy of the Ba'ath, the non-existence of leftist alternatives - and the fact that the Shia mosque has been the one place where resistance could grow and organise under Saddam.
But the profession of political Islam does not stop this being a movement for national liberation, any more than support for Hamas prevents the Palestinian struggle being a just national liberation fight. The increasing unity of Sunni and Shia in the battle will help dynamise the struggle as a unified national liberation war.
In deciding the attacks on al-Sadr's movement and Falluja, Bush and imperial proconsul Paul Bremer doubtless wanted to try to deal resistance a savage blow before the 'hand over of power' on June 30. This 'handover' to a non-elected Iraqi 'government' is a sham and a joke. Nothing of any substance will change; the US will remain in control. America is not prepared to allow any elections until pro-US forces can be guaranteed to win. Whatever happens, 14 large US bases will remain in that country, and the control of the oil and other key sectors of the economy will be in US hands as well.
Didn't the TV pictures in the last seem eerily familiar? Civilians under bombardment, masked fighters facing Apache helicopter gunships and tanks? The familiarity was of course that it looked like Palestine. Although the Palestinian conflict has particular features, at root the struggle being waged there is the same as that in Iraq - for national liberation against direct imperial intervention, or against imperialist-backed occupation.
In the face of this barbarity the anti-war movement has to be maintained and remobilised. The war has not ended war of imperialist aggression has been followed by a war of national liberation. All the barbarism of Vietnam, with the gross imperial contempt for civilian populations, is being rehearsed again.
Imperialism is in one of its most dangerous stages; with the move over towards 'small' and 'bunker-busting' nukes, the danger of the use of nuclear weapons is closer than at any time since the Cuba missile crisis in 1962. New facilities at the nuclear weapons centre at Aldermaston are being prepared so that Britain too can help with the mini-nuke preparations.
The 'war on terrorism' is an ideological smokescreen for the new imperialist militarism. In the run up to the Iraq war even former Tory minister Kenneth Clarke pointed out that war would make terror attacks in western Europe more likely; now the events in Spain have proved him right.
In Britain and elsewhere the media is being manipulated, with fake stories about planned terror attacks being taken as good coin in the press and TV. Equally the news about the role of British troops is being manipulated - the shooting of 15 Iraqis in Basra by the British army has not been reported, not have the deaths among British troops.
Now the anti-war movement has to fight to get out the truth, and to force the removal of British troops from Iraq.