Voice of the International African Revolution! - Uhuru News

April 2003 THE BURNING SPEAR 7
Build the APSP
Iraqi Invasion and Occupation
Iraqi man mourns his children, murdered
in U.S. bombing campaign
The vicious
U.S. military
machine sits
astride the dignity
and freedom
of the Iraqi people,
after successfully
overwhelming
an
obscenely outmatched
Iraqi
military.
Moving from a
population base
ten times larger
than that of Iraq
and an economy
more than a hundred
times
greater, leaders
and media of the
U.S. are boastfully
self-congratulatory
over the
ease with which
the U.S. appears
to have achieved
Iraqi boy holds sign to express popular sentiment of Iraq
its immediate aim
of overthrowing
tionaries who might have contributed
the government of Iraqi President to the mobilization of the Iraqi people
Saddam Hussein as its first step in against the invasion.
attempting to reshape the power Although Iraqi nationalism among
relations of the Middle East and the the masses prevented the people
world.
from simply capitulating to U.S. terror
The initial arrogant miscalculation as U.S. war planners had predicted,
of the U.S. military — it's rush headlong
toward Baghdad that left an the people to mass organized resis-
nationalism was not enough to win
exposed supply line stretched out for tance in defense of the government.
hundreds of miles and resulted in the In addition, the repressive policy
first U.S. captives and casualties — of the Iraqi government toward the
led many to hope the Iraqis would oppressed Kurdish people in northern
Iraq deprived the people of the
succeed in inflicting enough damage
to tie U.S. forces down in Iraq long unity necessary for an effective
enough for the worldwide anti-imperialist
revolutionary forces to join the ment. The Kurdish issue has func-
defense of the country and govern-
fray from various fronts in earnest. tioned like a time bomb for the
region, threatening the stability not
Iraqi mass resistance was faced
only of Iraq, but also of Turkey and
with limitations
Iran, and to a lesser degree Syria.
However, the fact that Iraq had The Kurds are a distinct people
been starved under U.S.-driven with a distinct culture, language and
United Nations’ sanctions and regularly
bombed by U.S. and British right to a national homeland subse-
history who have been denied the
imperialists for the last 12 years quent to what has been declared
guaranteed that the weakened, "de-colonization" of the region. The
aspiration of the Kurdish people for a
national homeland has been seen as
a threat of varying significance to the
different governments in territories
where the Kurds are located.
In other words, the united population
necessary for the conduct of
People's War as successfully
employed by the Vietnamese against
French and U.S. imperial white
power and by China against Japan,
Kurds have been denied a nation did not exist in Iraq.
Viet Nam, China and Algeria are
badly-equipped Iraqi military would examples of how poor countries with
prove highly inadequate.
limited resources can prevail in contests
with rich and powerful coun-
Moreover, the nature of the Arab
nationalist Iraqi government itself tries.
placed severe limitations on its ability The 1980 U.S.-instigated and
to initiate a more effective resistance supported attack on Iran, and the
to U.S. colonial aggression. The ruling
Baath Party had viciously suptionary
internationalists in Iraq itself,
suppression of socialists and revolupressed
all opposition in the country, also limited the ability to mobilize an
including socialists and other revolu-
organized resistance from throughout
the region from the masses of
workers and peasants whose hatred
of U.S. imperialism was made obvious
in the mass demonstrations held
throughout the region, mostly in defiance
of the regional Arab governments
who worked to support the
Imperialist invasion of Iraq behind
the backs of their people.
U.S. attack on Iraq designed to
win white support for
imperialist aggression
Recognizing this is important
because the invasion of Iraq was
deliberately designed to attack a
country where imperialist logic determined
it could be achieved with relative
ease.
For the U.S., the lesson of Viet
Nam has up to now limited its ability
to win the mass of North Americans
or white people to support imperialist
ventures. This is because the
Vietnamese inflicted a defeat on U.S.
The looting of
museums and libraries
is a typical story of
white imperial
marauders that
stretches back
through the annals of
history.
U.S. marine swaggers over captured
city, Bahgdad
forces that has made the North
American people gun-shy, afraid to
attack anybody lest they invite the
humiliating defeat imposed upon
them by the Vietnamese.
September 11 provided the U.S.
government with the momentum for
attacking Iraq, although there was no
connection between Iraq and
September 11. But the white people
of the U.S. were forced to tussle with
the idea that there is no longer any
way to hide from the possibility of
defeat, whether on the battlefield
miles away or within the malls and
suburbs of the U.S.
Behind the backdrop of
September 11, the U.S. regime of
George Bush picked Iraq as the target
for an easy victory that could
make the white people less reluctant
to support imperialist military ventures
that could rescue the system
from its crisis. This crisis has been
caused by the unrelenting struggles
for self determination by various peoples
of the world, upon whose domination
the white power world capitalist
system depends for its continued
survival.
Resistance against U.S.
occupation continues in Iraq
But, despite the earlier, U.S.-
staged demonstrations of Iraqis welcoming
the conquering Americans, it
is not over in Iraq. Indeed, it may
very well be that the real struggle is
now going to begin.
Already thousands of Iraqis have
see Iraq Crisis, page 8
African People’s Socialist Party