“I think that human shields are the only means to head off war on Iraq,” said O’Keefe

BAGHDAD, February 24 (IslamOline.net) – Human shields flocking to Iraq are the one and only means to pressure the United States and Britain into stopping their incessant threats leveled against Iraq, said U.S. peace activist Ken Nichols O'Keefe.

In exclusive press statements to IslamOnline’s Iraq correspondent, the former U.S. marine said the arrival of hundreds of peace activists in Baghdad from the four corners of the world, particularly from the countries directly concerned in waging a potential war on Iraq, indicates that their governments do by no means represent the will of their peoples.

“They (these governments) only seek to meet their imperialistic needs and interests,” O’Keefe said, expecting that anti-war volunteers would come to Baghdad in thousands.

“I think that human shields are the only means to head off war on Iraq whose only request is to lift off sanctions and nullify the unfair (UNSC) resolutions passed against it,” he added.

The organizer of human-shield campaign in Iraq further said the anti-war tens of thousands of Americans and Europeans in Iraq will force the U.S. administration and the British government to give their war plans a second reading. 

“Majority of Arabs and Muslims see the West as an enemy…and I don’t blame them for that. But the lay people in the European countries and Muslim, Arabs are not enemies, and that’s what I want to prove by launching an anti-war campaign comprising thousands of European and U.S. volunteers to act as human shields in all Iraqi cities,” he said. 

O’Keefe said that he launched this campaign given the fact that the so-called “war on terror” is one of the most dangerous wars in the annals of history, noting that this war might end up with a third world war or a nuclear apocalypse that could turn our planet earth into an endless cycle of violence and destruction. 

He also accused the U.S. of committing genocide against all different races, to mention but a few the Red Indians and African-Americans, dismissing the U.S. democracy as nothing short of a deceptive mirage and renouncing his U.S. citizenship. 

O’Keefe also said Arabs should bear in mind that good old times with the U.S. are all but gone, since the Bush administration regard them and treat them as slaves, pointing out that it (the U.S. administration) only wanted to serve best the interests of “the U.S. leaders and politicians and to make their pockets full with a sizable chunk of oil cash obtained by hegemony.” 

O’Keefe said the leaders of the U.S. administration are not the politicians whom we see on TV screen, but a bunch of weapons businessmen and owners of private gigantic corporations, who control the “destiny of nations and peoples.”

He said the incessantly try to make use of some ground-shaking events, such as the 9/11 attacks and Bali explosions, to justify their aggressive policies aimed at making a police country out of the U.S.

The Israeli intelligence service (Mossad) and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are the ones behind beating war drums not only against Iraq, but also the entire region, averring that Iraq’s neighbourhoods would not be in safe haven any longer should war break out, O’Keefe said. 

O’Keefe is a Gulf war veteran and became a human rights activist after he had retired from the Marines Corps. He frequently lashed out at the U.S. foreign policies and shot a documentary entitled “The Hypocrisy of the U.S.” in which he accused the U.S. of committing genocide against a wide array of peoples, including whites. 

Arrest warrants have been issued against him, but the U.S. authorities have not so far succeeded in rounding him up.