March 24, 2007

It was not supposed to be like this. Iraq was not supposed to end up like this four years from the start of the invasion. By now, Iraq was supposed to be the most peaceful, most stable and most prosperous state in the region, if not the whole world. That is what US President Bush and the coalition of the blind followers prophesied to their respective tax-paying people as they sought their support for what can now only be called the stupid war. The picture is very different now of course from that prophecy; Iraq is drenched in blood as the occupation baby-sits a sectarian civil war to say the least. Death, grotesque public execution, criminal torture, hideous terror, immoral ethnic cleansing extreme poverty and hunger, and strange diseases have all swept the land of Iraq. The future is very grim, and the picture very depressing. Four years on, and US President Bush is still saying Baghdad security will take months. He must be the only one who believes he can achieve in months what he could not achieve in years!

For years, the US has been working tirelessly with in the realms of power in Washington and with international criminals masquerading as 'opponents of the Saddam regime’ for a convincing pretext for what remains be an illegal invasion of sovereign Iraq. For the tax-paying western public, it was weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and terrorism as part of the process of warmongering through scaremongering. For the people of Iraq, it was food and medicine; and liberty, justice, democracy and human rights. They call it horses for courses, or more precisely in this case, any course to make the horses march on behind the dogs of war! The so-called Iraqi opponent of the Iraq regime were used as instruments by the invaders-turned-occupiers prior to the invasion and primarily to pull wool over the eyes of their respective people and the people of Iraq as they sought their support for the stupid war and deranged plans.

It took only a few weeks after the invasion to expose the deceitful illusion of WMD; links with terrorism through AlQaeda was proven to be false even before the invasion had started! The conviction against a former Whitehouse official for the serious crime in US law, some say amounting to treason, of leaking to the press the names of CIA operatives whose investigation were proving the falsehood of the nuclear case against Iraq, shows clearly how desperate the US administration was to go to war irrespective of the consequences.

Whether pretext for the western tax-payer or the local Iraqis, events that followed the invasion which had turned into a vicious occupation, have proven all the war pretexts to be false: damn lies. It is no surprise that in the west, anger against the warmongers is constantly rising; paralleled by the free-fall in the war leaders reputation/popularity. Whilst suffering daily killing, public execution, torture, terror, ethnic cleansing, poverty, disease and hunger, it is no surprise the ordinary people hate their occupiers for turning their lives into a living hell. They also blame their misery on those who helped the occupation with the invasion, arrived in Baghdad on US tanks and have subsequently been installed to power in Baghdad; they call them the lap poodles of the invasion-turned-occupation.

Four years of occupation has resulted in 665,000 Iraqis innocent deaths, other reports put the figure to over a million; over 3,000,000 injured; and more than 4,000,000 refugees now living in make-shift shelters and tents as they seek refuge in unwelcoming neighbouring countries from the life of hell and terror under occupation and the sectarian civil war raging in Iraq. This war alone is now claiming the lives of hundreds of ordinary Iraqis on a daily basis. One recent survey in Iraq shows that at least one in four Iraqis has lost a family member to the terror that has swept the land under the gazing eyes of the occupation, one in five Iraqis has had a relative kidnapped, and one in three Iraqis has had a sibling escape Iraq because of fear and to the relative safety of the unwelcoming neighbouring countries.

There is no Saddam now to use by the warmongers to blame all this on, or for their delusional plans; for a dead dictator cannot be used as an escape goat from their failed policies. To do so now, is to self-admit bankruptcy. Nor can the lap poodles of the occupation, the war opportunist, explain and justify themselves relative to a dead dictator.

This is the new Iraq; conceived illegitimately in Washington by the false marriage between the US rulers and their lap poodles, to be a beacon for democracy, human rights, justice and equality, all of which were never asked for by the people of Iraq, not from the Americans anyway!

Fuel rationing, lack of electricity, drinking water; and food and medicine in Iraq have all now become a sickening joke in the face of the billions of Dollars worth of Iraqi oil being stolen by the new ruling class in Iraq, the fat cats of Baghdad, who were installed to a pseudo-power in Iraq as a puppet regime; and are defended and sustained in that pseudo-power by the occupation. From the promise of being a beacon for democracy, human rights, justice and equality to being the worst corrupt country in modern history. The despicable current Iraqi regime now, according to the Organisation for International Transparency, is the most corrupt regime in the world. This organisation is a western organisation; it has no links with AlQaeda, the Ba’ath Party, Islamic fundamentalism and/or other political or non-political groups for that matter. What a transformation!

It is no wonder why the people of Iraq never asked the Americans for 'liberation’. During the four years of occupation of Iraq, more Iraqis have been killed, maimed, disappeared, tortured, ethnically cleansed, injured, widowed, orphaned and made homeless than under 30 years of Saddam’s dictatorship. You may think that is unbelievable? In a recent BBC documentary shot in the Shia-dominated Sadr City in Baghdad, it was more unbelievable to see Iraqi Shias wishing for the return of Saddam’s dictatorship than live under freedom from the American occupation (!). But seeing was indeed believing. The BBC choice to broadcast the show after 11pm is an epitome of what is being done now to brush under the carpet the true thoughts and feelings of the people of Iraq.

Just as alarming for the people of Iraq is the prospect for their oil which has always been used in the past for their benefit through the building of civil infrastructure, hospitals, schools, and universities; and the provisioning of other social services. Iraq was not a beacon for democracy, nor is any other country in the region for that matter. But Iraq was most definitely a beacon for social services. Now Iraqis’ wealth has been pawned for the next 10 years in accordance with a new law being passed by the current Iraqi pseudo-government under the gazing eyes and grinning teeth of the occupation. Someone has to pay for the liberation of the people of Iraq, and it was always going to be the people of Iraq. These people find themselves paying for Bush’s stupid war with their own lives, and their own money for services not rendered and were never asked for in any case!

For years, the lap poodles of Iraq’s invaders had been crying over the wasting of the national wealth by Iraq’s former ruling dictatorship, always describing in intricate details how Saddam had all those bank accounts abroad. The accounts so it seems were figments of their imagination; just like WND were figments of the imagination of the warmongering invaders. Instead, those who cared for Saddam’s non-existent bank accounts have handed 62% of Iraq’s oil to western investors from the invaders’ countries of origin, presumably to pay for the ride to Baghdad on top of the US tanks. Nothing comes for free under this occupation where the vicious strong savages the small and weak. 62% to the occupation’s 'foreign investors’, whilst the share of the 'liberated’ people will be 18%. Tight lips are being kept on the remaining 20%; this is a war where nothing adds up and no one is asking the question.

In addition to the loss of 82% of their oil to the invaders-turned-occupiers and other mysterious 'investors’, the people of Iraq do get bonuses. They receive morgues over-filled with dead bodies to the point where corpses fill hospitals car parks; insecurity; sectarian civil war; government death-squads militias and terror groups which kidnap, kill, execute, maim and torture in broad-day light and under the gazing eyes of the occupation; ethnic cleansing; poverty; malnutrition; zero public services; but to name a few. Washington’s bonus is security and oil.

Nationalisation of the oil industry was one of the greatest achievements in this Middle Eastern country, and now that achievement is being eroded by the occupation’s very own lap poodles. Four years ago, the occupation began with the destruction of Iraq’s heritage and the looting of its museums. Four years on, and the looting continues; and is soon to be law and institutionalised.

Members of the former regime stand accused of looting millions of Dollars out of the country. The reality is different. Whilst the former ruling class live off charity from Iraq’s neighbouring countries, the new Iraqi ruling class live abroad along with their families. Not long ago, they were living off western state benefits in western countries. Now they travel in private jets. One recent story tells of an Iraqi government official who had allegedly escaped from the Saddam’s evil regime; and was living in a house provided by the UK government and paid for by the British tax-payer before the war. He recently purchased a £37million hotel business in the centre of the London.

Four years on from the invasion of Iraq by the US with the help of its lap poodles, and the pre-invasion lap poodles are now the fat cats of Baghdad sustained in pseudo-power by the occupation. The fat cats of Baghdad get fatter, whilst the poor people of Iraq suffer death, terror, and torture at the hands of Iraqi government own death squads in the Iraqi government own buildings.

The new Iraq is supposed to be based on justice and equality. What’s been consistently witnessed is exactly the opposite. Iraq’s former dictator was hanged for the death of 148 people in old Iraq’s Dujail village. One wonders who is going to prosecute those responsible for giving the order that caused the death hundreds of thousands, possibly a million, of Iraqis in the course of the past 4 years? Who is going to prosecute those who have kill, maim and/or rape the ordinary women and/or the children of Iraq? Who is going to bring to justice those who torture the ordinary people of Iraq in the dark dungeons of terror in the New Iraq’s interior ministry, or Abu Ghraib? Who is going to prosecute those responsible for giving the orders to massacre some 500 Iraqis in New Iraq’s Najaf city because their beliefs happen to be different to that of the ruling fat cats and their militias? Is the death of 148 dead Shias in Old Iraq greater than 500 dead Shias in the New Iraq?

The Iraqi lap poodles of the invasion had spent their pre-invasion years in exile crying for the lack of democracy and human rights in Iraq; and wrote books on the art of killing and torture practiced by Iraq’s previous dictator. "Those bombs are music to my ears" said one such lap poodle during the 2003 bombing campaign of Baghdad. "They are like bells tolling for liberation in a country that has been turned into a gigantic concentration camp" he went on to say. No one hears his voice now. No one has read as single book about the new art of killing, execution and torture being practiced by the despicable menace of a regime of New Iraq.

As US President Bush prophesises new visions of future prosperous Iraq to be delivered by current new military campaign in months, Iraqi dead bodies continue to surface everywhere in Iraq, all with unquestionable evidence of torture prior to death by a single bullet to the head. Car bombings are on the increase. Death, torture, terror and kidnap remain the only certainty in Iraq.

False prophets speak only of false prophecies, and false prophecies are believed by fools.

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M Taqi is an independent freelance writer and may be contacted
on m.taqi@hotmail.co.uk

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The opinions expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position or have the endorsement of the Iraqi League.