April 11, 2003: Freedom for Iraq under US Command?

1. After the fall of Baghdad and of most of the cities of Iraq Great Britain and the USA have started to install a military administration. In order to win over the population and to justify their aggression a US TV channel broadcast a speech of Bush and Blair from a military aircraft circling over Iraq. The demagogy of this speech can hardly be surpassed.

2. It characterized the terror of bombing of the USA and the military occupation as an "act of friendship with the Iraqi people" and as "liberation". However, the US and British governments were responsible for the maintenance of the UN sanctions against Iraq for twelve years. They resulted in the fact that 3 million Iraqi people are chronically suffering from malnutrition and that the inadequate medical provisions for the masses of the people are dramatical. According to this argumentation the brutal terror of bombing lasting for 3 weeks, in which cluster bombs outlawed by international law were used, was an act of "friendship" with the people.

3. After the attack on Iraq against the will of the general public of the world and under violation of international law US President Bush impudently announced: "Iraq will become a united, independent and sovereign country." To what degree the future Iraqi government will be sovereign becomes evident in the fact that it is built under a US "interim" government led by the former US general Garner and in which the former CIA chief Woolsley as secretary for information and the former Shell chief Caroll as manager of the oil industry are taking part.

4. According to the logic of Blair: "The money from the Iraqi oil will belong to them", the money of the multinational oil companies like Exxon or Royal/Dutch/Shell would have since long belonged to the American or British people. Even if small shares of the oil revenue flow into the Iraqi treasury, it will be for the purpose of securing the infrastructure for the extraction and distribution of oil. It will change nothing regarding the war aim to give back to the worldwide leading oil companies Exxon/Mobil, Royal/Dutch/Shell and BP the right of disposal of the Iraqi oil resources.

5. When US President Bush declares: "They deserve it to live as a free people", then the arbitrary acts of the occupation forces are a foretaste to what this means. They are blocking roads, arresting people just as they like, opening fire on cars and killing women and children. Or does Bush think of a freedom based on the model of the USA? The country in which allegedly the freest press in the world exists, but where the CNN reporter Peter Arnett was dismissed without notice because he criticized the US war conduct in an Arabian TV channel. The country in which demonstrators against the war on Iraq are chased with helicopters and arrested by thousands? For the Iraqi people the alternative to the reactionary anti-people regime of Saddam Hussein cannot be the military regime of the USA.

6. The war on Iraq was actually waged for "liberation": For the freedom of the US and British finance capital to have at their disposal the natural riches in Iraq. For the freedom of the leading oil companies of the world to control the world market and thus dictate excessive monopoly prices to the whole world. For the freedom to threaten every sovereign country in every corner of the world with a preventive strike. The former NATO commander Clark  already threatened Syria once more on 10 April: "Syria must reckon with an attack, if its government does not succeed in dispelling the American reservations".  

7. Freedom for the Iraqi people can only be won by fighting against the imperialist aggression and for national and social liberation from the regime of Saddam Hussein. To achieve real people's democracy and to end exploitation and oppression in the world the power of imperialism has to be overthrown and the united socialist countries of the world have to be established. Only when exploitation of man by man no longer exists there will be no reason for attacking and oppressing other peoples.