[R-G] NO TO THE WAR, NO TO THE CRIMINAL SUDDAM HUSSEIN!

[Michael Pugliese]

NO TO THE WAR, NO TO THE CRIMINAL SUDDAM HUSSEIN!         
http://www.etehadchap.com/notowar.html
                                                                            


            The Cloud of a menacing war hovers over Iraq and the Middle 
East.  It is a distressing prospect, partly because the people of the 
region are already imprisoned by the chains of political repression, 
economic hardship and theocratic fundamentalism.  Consequently, regardless 
of their status in the foregoing struggle for freedom, democracy, economic 
justice and secularism, they are yet faced with another major anguish -war. 
 Nevertheless, it should be stressed here that people in the region still 
live under the unbearable calamity of despotic and undemocratic regimes.  
In countries such as Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, the reign of political 
terror and disregard for fundamental human rights are part of people’s day 
to day lives.  Additionally, the super-exploitative nature of the 
underdeveloped and mainly single-crop (oil-dependent economies) capitalist 
systems add to the terrible economic conditions among the majority of the 
people.  Thus, economic inequality and political tyranny leave no choice 
for the people and, specifically, the working masses, but to hope for the 
arrival of radical political upheavals that would fundamentally change the 
repressive regimes such as the theocratic states in Iran and Saudi Arabia, 
as well as, the secular, though criminal Saddam’s gang in Iraq.

            At the same time, the transnational capitals and particularly 
the U.S. military and oil industry, constantly unfold their profit-based 
aggressions throughout the world.  The September 11, 2001 tragedy has only 
given the U.S. government a pretext to put the oil-rich Middle East region 
on top of its list of imperial agenda.  Hence, the two separate social 
movements, the oppressed people’s drive for liberty/equality and the 
corporate desired aggressive policies of the hawkish elites criss-cross 
each other.  Obviously, each has its own dynamism and in fact they come 
from two opposite poles.  It is not a secret that in the 1980’s, during the 
peak of the Cold War rivalry, the U.S. administration not only supported 
Saddam’s war against Iran, but also provided him with basic means and even 
some components to build weapons of mass destruction.  Along the same line, 
the anti-Soviet policies of the U.S. were instrumental in sustaining the 
fundamentalist terrorists, among them al-Queda and Afghanistan’s Taliban.  
But, now, in the absence of resistance by the former Soviet camp, for some 
in the U.S. elite, campaign for the domination of the world, is in order.

            No doubt that if this threatening war materializes, the 
innocent people of Iraq and the region will pay a high price with their 
sufferings and deaths.  The question is what should be done in regards to 
the imperial war policies and the reactionary dictatorship regimes reigning 
in the region.  Here, a critical and balanced approach is needed.  
Obviously, the war policies should be strongly opposed.  The hypocritical 
foreign policies of the Bush administration, regarding the other countries 
which have weapons of mass destruction, as well as its support of the 
occupying state of Israel and the tyrannical corrupt regimes such as Saudi 
Arabia and Egypt, should be imposed.  It is also very important to 
simultaneously underline the thuggish and totalitarian natures of Saddam’s 
regime, the religious despotism of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the 
rest of the reactionary regimes in the region.  The world should know that 
the people of Iraq and particularly those who have actively resisted 
Saddam’s fascistic actions have paid heavy prices, by means of 
imprisonment, torture and execution, in the thousands.

            Faleh A. Jabar, a former member of the Iraqi Communist Party 
writes that since 1979, Saddam’s totalitarian Baith regime has “tortured, 
raped and assassinated thousands” of the political activists, among them 
“the organized movements of the left, the nationalist Kurds and the liberal 
Shid movements” (The Progressive, Madison, USA, Jan. 2003: 20 & 21).  In 
the words of Joe Stork, the Washington director of the Middle East/North 
African division of Human Rights Watch, the government of Saddam Hussein 
“has imposed mandatory death sentences for nonviolent political ‘crimes’ 
such as recruiting a current or former Baith Party member into any other 
political organization, or publicly insulting the president of the Party”.  
Since 1998, the regime “has conducted mass summary executions of political 
detainees (ibid: 18).  In regard to the situation of democratic rights in 
Iran, it is enough, just to remind everyone that only in the summer of 
1998, as Amnesty International reported, a few thousand political prisoners 
were executed in less than two months.  Since its beginning, the Islamic 
Republic has imprisoned, tortured and executed thousands of the opposition 
activists and certainly the people’s basic civil and political rights have 
been continually suppressed.  Atrocities such these are also common in the 
rest of the region.  Let’s not forget the Iran-Iraq War (1980 – 1988), 
which was on their people by both reactionary regimes, in which more than a 
million lost their lives.

            At this juncture that the Middle East region faces war, correct 
analysis and actions are imperative.  In this regard, the Iranian 
democratic and left opposition should strongly welcome the efforts of these 
progressive individuals (e.g., Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Michael Albert 
and Howard Zinn) and groups around the world, who although rightfully 
oppose the American war policy in Iraq, at the same time, they forcefully 
denounce the repressive regimes in Iraq and in the rest of the region.  
Certainly, it is right to actively defend the oppressed people of the world 
against both the external imperialist forces and the internal reactionary 
regimes.  Unfortunately, not everyone among the activists and progressive 
groups approaches these questions in a balanced way.  There are those who 
consider foreign (mainly American and British) intervention in Iraq a 
necessary preemptive war to disarm Saddam and bring about “democracy”.  
This line of thinking is false for the simple reason that a legitimate 
change in the political power structure can best be done by the people of 
Iraq.  It is difficult to explain the occupation of the oil-rich Iraq by 
the imperial foreign powers and their corporate allies in the world oil 
industries as an act of humanitarian favor to the Iraqi people.

            From a different point of view, some among the left and the 
anti-imperialist camp concentrate their condemnation only on the American- 
British policies without mentioning anything about the criminal and 
terrorist regimes in the region.  Certainly, participation in the anti-war 
movement and demonstration of solid resistance to the U.S.-led militaristic 
adventurism is a must.  But, isn’t taking a comprehensive and multi-angled 
approach, in order here, specifically, for the Iranians and Iraqi 
democratic and left opposition that had bitter experiences with their 
regimes.  During the 8 years of the Iran-Iraq War, the prevailing view 
among the Iranian progressives was to remain silent about or less critical 
of the Islamic Republic’s violent suppression of the opposition.  One 
reason for such incorrect positions, they claimed, was that the anti-war 
front against Iraqi aggression should remain intact.  Consequently, the 
reactionary theocratic regime was able to crush the opposition in its 
totality.

            Right now, inside Iraq, the people live in a hell that has been 
created mainly by Saddam.  At this juncture, giving exposure to the crimes 
done by its dictator and other tyrannical cliques in the region should be 
of high priority for the democratic and socialist oppositions.  Taking 
stands on the despotic regimes, at this time, not only doesn’t diminish a 
bit from the intensity of struggle against the onslaught of international 
capital and its imperialist military powers, but instead a simultaneous 
condemnation of both internal and external reactionary forces would 
distinguish the liberating democratic aspirations of the masses from both 
the aggression of the global capital and the oppressive agenda of the local 
tyrants.  The above two-fold approach would certainly be beneficial to the 
secular democratic and left movements in their pursuit of freedom and 
justice, independent of both reactionary camps.

            Thus, one cannot blindly join the anti-war rallies without 
critically assessing the “fashionable” slogans and demands.  There are 
those mottos that, uncritical of the imperialist forces only, denounce the 
despotic rulers and the reactionary religious groups in the region and 
concurrently those that remain silent on the atrocities done by the local 
tyrants, suggesting that the imperialist interventions are primary factors 
contributing to the people’s miseries and sufferings in forms of war, 
political repression, economic injustice, etc.  Such one-sided 
accentuations of the present crisis not only obscures certain aspects of 
the obstacles facing the people of Iraq and the Middle East in particular 
and the humanity, in general, but, it also hinders the necessary bonds of 
solidarity between the democratic and socialist movements around the world. 
   As Noam Chompsky writes, disarming Iraq is important and “nobody doubts 
that the world would be better off if Saddam is eliminated”, but military 
intervention is not the way to proceed with this problem (etehadchap.com, 
1/24/03).  And in the words of Joe Stork of the Human Rights Watch who 
opposes the American-British war policy, the anti-war and pro-peace 
movement should make clear that “it is a movement that supports the Iraqi 
people…(by)…explicitly opposing the Iraqi government and condemning its 
many crimes” (The Progressive¸ January 2003: 19).

            It is only, then, with giving the deserving exposure to 
existence of correlation between many aspects of global socio-political 
impediments and specifically the actions of the U.S.-led imperialist powers 
and the local repressive regimes that one hopes the world-wide people’s 
collective struggle for freedom, justice and peace will invigorate 
immensely.



LONG LIVE FREEDOM, JUSTICE AND PEACE!

Workers Left Unity - US                                                     
                                                                   Feb,2003

-- 
Michael Pugliese
American imperialism  has been made plausible and attractive in part by the 
insistence that it is not imperialistic.
Harold Innis, 1948
http://www.monthlyreview.org/sr2004.htm