“Pathetic” only begins to describe the state of the American and Iraqi public. Only the case of the Iraqi public speaks for itself; a nation that is surrounded by the sharp edges and bitterness of tyranny, starvation, death, perpetual anxiety of combat, inflation and isolation from the rest of the world.

Iraq, for many reasons, is a state that has brought some of the most gratuitous memories of modern history; it is a country that sparked and inflamed an absolute warfare on the borders of the Sunni and Shi’a Muslim worlds. With scores of death up to 8 million, it is a country whose leadership gassed some of its people – the Kurds – in 1988 in a collective lapse of human morality; a country that savagely invaded its sister neighbor, Kuwait, slitting the brotherly commonalities of Arabism and modern civil existence; a country that is going through a time lag, which lasted for a decade so far, suffocating with isolation under international heedlessness and apathy.

But the story with the American public is no different. Both peoples are infected with a leadership that can con the conscience of its nation, in an overtly Orwellian style, and make it swallow anything, anything but what is right and moral. Only there isn’t any incurable physical suffering.

Trend-spotting

The American public is victimized by a state of perpetual state of paranoia. How is Iraq, the crippled state thousands of miles away, a threat to the security of America? Why is Iraq so? And why now? For what greater good or evil should there be another pre-emptive strike against Iraq? Only President Bush and the top figures in his administration know, and in Mr. Bush everyone should trust!

The reasons behind this rhetorical laced propaganda go back to the 1980s. When the first Gulf War between Iran and Iraq was waging, Donald Rumsfeld, currently the Secretary of Defense, was President Ronald Reagan’s special envoy back in 1983 to show American good will and faith in Iraq becoming the victor in that war. Rapprochement with Baghdad is among the political scores of Rumsfeld.

Before the love days were gone, and amidst State Department and UN evidence of the use of mustard and nerve gas, American diplomats, including Rumsfeld, showed no attention to that carnage.

At the top of the current US administration are hawks who have been sponsoring and marketing for the ousting of Saddam Hussein and the strike over Baghdad. They have been demonizing Hussein and amplifying the hazards of atrocious Iraq in every workable way. Their problem is that so far they could not. He is overthrow-immune.

After the carnage of 9/11, Iraq was speculated to be the state nourishing al-Qaeda. Then, Iraq was in relation with Ansar al-Islam, a terrorist group working in collaboration with al-Qaeda. Next, Iraq was the “empire of evil” behind the anthrax wave.

The Clown and the Scarecrow

The over-investment in the barren and baseless speculations mentioned created a massive balloon filled with the hot air of intimidation. So it is either to oust Hussein, or to let out that hot air smoothly and bare the damage to their image. Yet, with the oil-loving and graciously militarized Bush administration, the second card is failure. None of those allegations were backed. No evidence was presented. None. Had there been any, the war against Iraq and the operation of removing Saddam would have been immediately started.

Trying to branch up support for the war against Iraq, Rumsfeld appeared before NATO representatives to present the pretext for the strike against Iraq, his remarks were unsophisticated:

“The absence of evidence is not an evidence of absence”!

16 out of the 19 members of the NATO club sent letters of compliments to the American government about the absurdity and the mockery of such a statement by Rumsfeld (think not of the British government. Prime Minister Tony Blair has, so far and by far, surpassed all the possible limits dogging his country’s foreign policy with the shame of going behind US interests). It is only the US and the UK that are enlightened with substitutive “evidence” against Iraq.

Such arrogance, circular self-fulfillment, apologist stubbornness and dodged insistence are all used to moralize destructiveness. It is beyond belief. 

As for the accomplished mendacity of the UN inspection team and the weapons of mass destruction, Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector who spent seven years in Iraq, said in an interview:

Iraq simply does not have weapons of mass destruction, and does not have threatening ties to international terrorism… This is about domestic American politics. The national security of the United States of America has been hijacked by a handful of neo-conservatives who are using their position of authority to pursue their own ideologically-driven political ambitions. The day we go to war for that reason is the day we have failed collectively as a nation. (Truthout, July 26, 2002).

Representing the technicalities of the inspections and the performance of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), he concluded that even if Iraq possessed such weapons through the Satellite systems and technology transfers, “we would know,” he answered.

The Media Coverage and the Cover Age

The word “coverage” has such a double-cross meaning. This is the exact deal with Iraq and American Media. Norman Solomon wrote:

With its credibility badly damaged by the spying, the U.N. inspection system did not survive. Another factor in its demise was the U.S. government’s declaration that sanctions against Iraq would remain in place whether or not Baghdad fully complied with the inspection regimen. But such facts don’t assist the conditioned media reflex of blaming everything on Saddam Hussein. No matter how hard you search major American media databases of the last couple of years for mention of the spy caper, you’ll come up nearly empty. George Orwell would have understood.

The amount of coverage that swept on the Spying stories (which started with the headlines of The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and The New York Times) in the first month of 1999, precisely before the Desert Fox operation, was overwhelming. Koffi Annan himself was quoted saying that he believed UNSCOM enabled the United States to listen in on some of the most sensitive communications of the Baghdad regime—a daring violation of the integrity of the team assignment (The Boston Globe, January 6, 1999).

The same was covered by The Washington Post on the same day. Still, the leading New York Times on its headline pinpointed the espionage stating that “Scientists, military officers, diplomats and other professionals serve on the commission. The United States included some intelligence officers, using diplomatic cover or other professional identities, to gather intelligence independently, according to the officials” (January 7, 1999). The American members of the inspection team were brought into play to gather information about Hussein.

All this, alas, was sent to the dustbin of history. American media is not interested in covering this. American media is interested in covering this by con tricks of national “security” and the “dangers” of Iraq. Iraqi non-compliance with UNSCOM, even if denied, is a pretext for war. War is easy. War is good for the long lasting bullying of the Iraqi regime and, consequently, people.

The October Rain

Mid-October seems to be the zero hour for the coming adversity on Iraq. The conflict must be resolved by mid-October. This strike is in the works.

The mid-term congressional elections will be held a few weeks afterwards. What is better than triumphing in a mismatched combat against the main actor in the “axis of evil”?

And as Ritter, who participated in Operation Desert Storm, stated:

The Third Marine Expeditionary Force in California is preparing to have 20,000 Marines deployed in the [Iraqi] region for ground combat operations by mid-October… The Air Force used the vast majority of its precision-guided munitions blowing up caves in Afghanistan. Congress just passed emergency appropriations money and told Boeing company to accelerate their production of the GPS satellite kits, that go on bombs that allow them to hit targets while the planes fly away, by September 30, 2002. Why? Because the Air Force has been told to have three air expeditionary wings ready for combat operations in Iraq by mid-October.

Whether and the Weather…

The US, along with its loyal follower, the UK, cannot approach the Security Council. They are destined to the denial of their wanton request. The German Council and the French president declared their rejection of any involvement in such a war, and the same response came from all of Europe.

The Muslim and Arab worlds are fed up with American favoritism to Israel and the countless civilian losses in the War on Afghanistan. The Arab summit in Beirut showed a serious intention for reconciliation with Iraq. Even the Syrian government, the long-lasting arch nemesis of its counterpart in Baghdad, has normalized its relations with Iraq.

The international community is almost completely against the coming offensive against Iraq. American nuisance and warlord diplomacy is unhappy with an international atmosphere that can alter its action.

The American public is blinded by the pathological lies of its administration. With more additions to the thousands of Iraqi civilians who lost their lives along with unwanted American soldiers that should have stayed home, the region will be haunted by another flood of destabilization, breaking the thin ice it survives on.

The Iraqi president is one of the most murderous despots that ever existed. If the US goal were to relieve the anguish of his people, it would have been more morally adhering to lift an embargo that has killed thousands of Iraqis so far, for the last thing Iraqis need is another war. And the last thing Americans need is another immoral war in their name.

The best treatment is an indigenous resistance that restores to the Iraqis their pride and sound living, not a puppet government(s) formed by Iraqi exiles that the US is sponsoring. The problem with such systems is self-evident in Afghanistan. They would be tailored to fit only American interests. Their people under them would still be clashing for their sovereign existence. Yet, the coming is another Afghanistan that is staged by the inability of both the American and Iraqi publics to deal with criminal administrations.

Tarek A. Ghanem is an Egyptian freelance writer based in Cairo, Egypt. He is specialized in comparative politics and is currently assistant to the English section in Al-Siyassa Al-Dawliya (International Politics), a quarterly journal published by Al-Ahram Foundation, Cairo, Egypt. You can reach him at t.ghanem@islam-online.net

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