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Lockdown Skeptics
Voltaire NetworkVoltaire, international edition
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Class War Hits Baghdad national |
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news report
 Monday April 14, 2003 17:03 by Syliva Pankhurst - Anarchist Federation
 Commentary on fall of Hussein and recent events in Iraq, looking at how the regime was defeated by it's subjects and arguing that this is bad news for American imperialism. Warsaw 1944, Grozny 1994, Berlin 1945, Stalingrad 1942, such were the military metaphors conjured up by the media. In the end it was more Los Angeles 1992. Yet again the working people of Iraq have put their needs before the siren call of patriotism. Baghdad fell to looters, as armed mobs took over the streets before the arrival of American armour. Shops and government offices were striped bare by jubilant crowds of families. Wealth re-distributed in an exemplary demonstration of socialism in action. A glimpse of what was to come was seen in the early days of the war, when British troops were drafted in to protect the machinery of the southern oil fields from being liberated by the locals. Likewise as disorder descended upon Baghdad, Basra got a foretaste of a possible future. There the British Army opened fire, “warning shoots” they said, as the local people re-claimed the goods that were produced by their labour. The footage of British troops being stoned by enraged youths did not receive much media coverage. A few days later and British soldiers in Basra put their “Northern Ireland training” into action, murdering five looters, in what they said was an “exchange of fire”. All this represents a defeat for American Imperialism. Washington’s strategy for the last 12 years has been to attack the working people of Iraq, with sanctions, the deliberate targeting of water and sanitation services, and blanket bombing. A strategy whose goal was to inflict so much misery and suffering that the Iraqi working people would be incapable of resistance. The creation of a perfect subject population for the day “regime change” would come. The day the assets, and workforce, of the “old regime”- the Iraqi National Petroleum company, would be turned over to the new regime of Exxon. The Anglo-American propaganda was urging people to stay indoors not to revolt. The only revolt they wanted was a palace coup switching power from one part of the state apparatus to another. Revolution is no stranger to Iraq, and on each occasion rebels have taken the streets they have faced the united opposition of all sections of the ruling class. In 1958 in the first joint Anglo-American intervention in the Middle-east troops were poured into Lebanon and Jordan to prevent an Iraqi uprising from spreading. In 1962 the C.I.A. gave Ba’ath party death squads a hit list of working class militants. In the 1980’s Western supplied chemical weapons were used to massacre deserters from the Iraqi army. In 1991 revolution had reduced Hussein’s control to a pocket around Baghdad, it was beaten back by a combination of the Iraqi state and the U.S. and British military.
Secondly, a ceasefire was then made with the Iraqi regime, all thoughts of overthrowing Saddam forgotten, and crucially the Republican Guard left intact to crush the uprising. As part of the truce Iraqi counter -insurgency helicopters were allowed into the ‘no fly zones’ controlled by the American and British air forces. Now, a few days after Basra’s “liberation”, and the guns of the British Army are already being used to impose capitalist order. Likewise elements in the anti-war camp, Clare Short, Paul Rogers, Robert Fisk, are vociferous in their condemnation of the Anglo-American bloc for failing to sufficiently repress “chaos” and “disorder”. The only division between Washington, the Ba’ath party, and born again peaceniks like Putin and Chirac, is who gets what cut of the spoils, their “order”, U.N. sanctioned or otherwise, means violence and exploitation for working people worldwide.
The Kurdistan Shoras Iraq: a century of war and rebellion http://www.geocities.com/pract_history/iraq.html Ten Days that Shook Iraq (revolt at end of 1991 war) http://www.geocities.com/pract_history/tendays.html The Class Struggle in Iraq – Interview with a Veteran http://www.geocities.com/pract_history/scud.html The Kurdish Uprising etc…. (Very extensive pamphlet written by participants in northern end of 1991 revolt.) http://geocities.com/cordobakaf/blob_kurds.html Iraq and a Hard Place http://www.af-north.org/iraqandahardplace.htm
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Comments (7 of 7)
Jump To Comment: 7 6 5 4 3 2 1It wouldn't occur to me that people would be so low as to loot a hospital.
The first five looters shot in Basra by the British army.
We're they shot trying to loot a hospital?
Nope they were shot trying to loot a bank!
Gives you an idea of just what the army was under orders to protect.
(1) There was a revolution in Iraq in 1991, the culmination of years of anti-war class struggle during the Iran-Iraq war (mass desertions and so forth) - see above links.
(2) This changed the American Imperialist agenda, rather than pushing onto Baghdad they work with the Ba'ath regime to suppress revolt.
(3) Subsequently they aimed to repress the proletariat of Iraq *before* overthrowing the Hussein government (hence sanctions etc...., this was partly the agenda before then also - the Iraqi proletariat being somewhat combatative).
(4) Having spent 12 years doing this they thought they had finished the job and moved into replace Hussein in context where their needs included as a priority the repression of a previously unruly working class.
(5) Rather than a bit of minor looting the situation was: Mass desertion (in a country that had just been invaded - hardly unsignificant!!!), and an attack on the state by the Iraqi working class (thrashing of government offices and so forth).
(6) This means that they now have to rule and exploit a population which, while siting on the world's number one natural resource, is still combative and still unruly. Thus not good news for American Imperialism.
(7) the point of the article is, that although various factions of the ruling class may have their fallings out, between Baghdad, or Moscow, or Washington their many enemy is their subjects *not* each other. (hence they unite when faced with opposition from their subjects).
And on a general point actions of the ruling class are often responses to popular opposition, for some examples in this situation, the post Vietnam 'air war' strategy of the U.S. can be considered a response to the mutinies in the U.S. Army in the early 70ies, the attempts to limit civilan casulties a response to the anti-war movement (oh and any one that would dismiss that consider that extent of Iraqi casulties in '91 in comparasion to '03).
socialism in action! excellent however i thought redistribution of wealth is not so much the 'liberation' of consumer goods from supermarkets and shops but the occupation and collective ownership of tyhe palaces of production.
Seems i'm wrong then.
I enjoyed the carnival of looting, well everything except the hospitals, but it is pushing it to call it a defeat of US imperialism just cos a city is full of proletarian shoppers. Billions have been spent in the pointless bombing of Iraq and a few piss poor Iraqis have used the opportunity to steal Tariq Aziz's tacky vase collection and thats a victory?
"Yet again the working people of Iraq have put their needs before the siren call of patriotism"
Any idea when the working people of the US and UK will do the same ? Or should I not hold my breath ?