"The trouble with America
is that when the dollar only earns
six percent over here, then it gets restless and
goes overseas
to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar
and the
soldiers follow the flag."
(US GENERAL SMEDLY BUTLER, USMC,
1933.)
TRUE PATRIOTIC AMERICANS ARE VERY PROUD OF THEIR MOST DEMOCRATIC CONSTITUTION
AND ALIEN-FIENDLY PATRIOTIC ACT. WHAT ARE THEY WORTH WHEN HISTORICALLY THE
INTERNATIONAL OFFICIAL AND CLANDESTINE TERRORIST ACTS OF THE AMERICAN NATION
AND STATE ARE EQUIVALENT TO (AND SOON WILL SURPASS) THOSE OF ANY ROGUE NATION
OF HISTORY: NERO, DRACO, HENRY VIII, MUSSOLINI, HITLER, STALIN, IDI AMIN,
PINOCHET, MOBUTU, VERWOERD, ETC.?
AND THE USA WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS HAVING BEEN THE MOST BRUTAL OF THEM
ALL, THAT IS, IF ANY HISTORY WILL BE LEFT TO RECORD THIS UNIVERSAL, BARBARIC
FACT!
HOWEVER, HAVING STATED THE ABOVE, AS WE EXPLAINED SO
OFTEN ALREADY, ALL THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH "GREAT" MEN OR NATIONS MAKING
OR BREAKING HISTORY. WHO ARGUES LIKE THAT IS AN IRREPARABLE VICTIM OF FORMAL-LOGICAL
"FRIEND-ENEMY" FASCIST DISINFORMATION AND SHOULD BE SENT TO "REASON" IN
THE PLEISTOCENE.
WHO DOES NOT DARE TO QUESTION THE LABOUR SYSTEM IN WHICH WE LIVE, ITS ALIENATING
RAMIFICATIONS, IN ANY CASE, IS ALREADY FAR BEYOND ANY ACADEMIC REDEMPTION
AND INTELLECTUAL EMANCIPATION.
THE "NEW WARS" OF THE USA DO NOT DEPEND ON THE DECISIONS
OF ANY "GREAT" MEN OR STATES; THEY ARE THE LOGICAL RESULTS OF CAPITALIST
PRODUCTION -- OF THE SURREPTITIOUS EXPLOITATIVE, DOMINATING
AND DISCRIMINATING DEVILISH UNDER-WORLD FORCES THAT MEGALOMANIAC "MAN" IN
HIS EGOISM, AVARICE, LUST AND PERVERSION HAVE SET FREE ACROSS THE MILLENNIA
-- OF OIL, OF CORPORATES, OF RECESSION, OF DEPRESSION, ETC. -- THAT
HAS REACHED ITS EXTREME LIMITS OF SELF-DESTRUCTION, OF ANNIHILATION OF BILLIONS
OF PHYSICAL LABOUR FORCES, AND WITH THEM ALL THE DISTURBING PRODUCTS OF
MANUAL LABOUR -- BEGINNING WITH THE ARCHAIC "TWIN TOWERS" AND THE OBSOLETE
PENTAGON.
THE YANKEE ANTI-LABOUR BULL-DOZER -- BEFORE IT
WAS THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY GUILLOTINE OF THE "REIGN OF TERROR" -- IS
AT WORK, ITS HISTORIC ROLE IS TO CLEAN UP THE FACE OF THE EARTH, DESTROYING
NATURE ITSELF, INCLUDING NATURAL HUMAN BODIES, TO ELIMINATE ANYTHING THAT
EVER WILL REMIND US OF THE LABOUR PROCESS.
HENCE INTRODUCING A VIRTUAL REALITY, AN INTELLECTUAL "CREATIVE" WORLD,
WHICH AT BEST CAN BE DESCRIBED AS AN ORWELLIAN "MENTAL HOLOCAUST", APOCALYPSIS
AND ARMAGEDDON. WHO DOES NOT SEE THIS, WHO DOES NOT WANT TO SEE THIS, CANNOT
SEE THIS ANYMORE, WELL, SLEEP TIGHT, DON'T LET THE ABCDE FLEAS OF AMERICAN
MASS DESTRUCTION BITE YOU! DREAM, DREAM ON, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, IGNORANCE
IS BLISS!!
At present, in this particular Disinformation Age, not essentially
different from the others before, in the realm of trigger-happy ideas,
marauding highway "battle-tanks", with terror and horror robbing all vestiges
of still independent, free thought, are replacing the ideological "think-tanks"
of yestermillennium. Fragile, innocent minds, not immunized against sophisticated
mind control technology, political demagoguery and blatant lies, air-conditioned
by an excellent postmodern education, still staunchly believing in authority,
democracy and justice, electing their butchers themselves, all truly presented
in their daily news, and religiously still trusting their eminent, world-renowned
analysts, more than ever before, are becoming easy prey, a delicious delicatessen
of global Orwellian "War is Peace".
But, o, my country(wo)men, by Jove, be very careful,
as can be witnessed daily in our talks and comments, even the very "best"
of us have a tragic fall, by swallowing unnoticed all the American and
European racist double-think and fascist newspeak, hook, sinker, bait and
poisoned shark, all at once! How easily we forget what we have learned
over the last years, the mind simply goes blank, loses all its relations,
its theoretical "abstractions", its rational faculties, and there we fall
down the abysmal ideological cliffs, and we drown ourselves again in the
stormy sea of isolated, concrete, empiricist, pragmatic and positivist
"facts" and "pacts".
All true Americans, enjoying their Labour Day, do not
have the foggiest
idea what Labour, Labour Pain and Hard Labour are all about. The majority
of them are picnicking, know nothing about the struggles of the labour
movement in Europe and elsewhere, even in the United States itself, across
the last centuries. They could never imagine that their very beloved boss,
job and work, that their opulent life style, their consumer "mentality",
also have generated the current fascist "New Wars" of mass destruction. And,
therefore, they have to affirm, to confirm the only things, the merchandise,
that they possess, the meagre crumbs that fall from the global, wealthy banquet
of Corporate America; they have to defend the vile, servile, global exploitation,
the productive prostitution of physical and/or intellectual labour forces
of billions of wage-slaves, their very alienating life-wire, their individual
earthly fast dwindling fire; and thus, apart from those few anti-war protesters,
they have to accept all the arrogant lies; and in a soulless world, they
have to incorporate the untruths about "terrorists" into their very souls,
to learn by heart how to be a loyal, patriotic, Spartan, Prussian soldier-citizen
in a heartless Corporate America, whose galaxy of international junkies,
hench-men and mercenaries spread the "infinite just" word against "absolute
evil" to the very chromosomes of planetary life.
I remember having mentioned that all modes of production
need and have a specific energy basis, in other words, a specific Nature-Society
relation, on which their existence depends. In fact, until now, all depended
on a definite labour relation, Nature vis-a-vis Society, that's how
they produced and reproduced themselves.
The problem now is that traditional human and natural
energy is running out,
in other words, production itself becomes extinct. Instead of a creative,
human self-preservation economy, for a century, the USA concentrated on a
destructive, wasteful war economy, destined to convert the earth to ashes.
However, within historic relations, production has produced its own opposite,
which we determined as creation (nothing divine about this concept).
Ironically, the USA is performing the dirty work for
Europe, the cleaning up of the global production mess, while Europe and
its allies are concentrating on other forms of living and life. In fact,
eventually, the "New Wars" necessarily will lead to a major confrontation
"USA versus Europe". What is happening now is just a prelude to global conflagration.
Just look at the following below:
"SPIEGEL ONLINE:
Perhaps he (Bush) is afraid of the role of the
"bad guy",
being the one who boycotts the Kyoto Protocol?
Wieczorek-Zeul: However, with
the signatures of Poland and, shortly
to come, of Russia, the protocol
will be effective by the end of this
year even without the USA. After
that, I see a chance, that the US
government will finally have
to jump onto the wagon, due to the
augmenting pressure of their
experts and the very US economy. The
Kyoto Protocol will lead, for
member states, to the fostering of
enterprises with ultra modern
energy technologies, that will profit
from these on the world market.
The US economy will be the loser, if
the Americans do not join in."
Before, I warned:
"WE", "WE, AMERICANS", THE PEOPLE,
OF, BY AND FOR THE PEOPLE!
IS IT NOT TIME TO GET RID OF THESE PATRIOTIC MYTHS?
LET'S LOOK THE "FACTS" STRAIGHT IN THE EYES!
WE, THE WAR-RACKETEERS!!
WHAT DID GENERAL SMEDLY BUTLER, USMC,
SAY IN 1933 ALREADY?
"A racket is best described, I believe, as
something
that is not what it seems to the majority
of people. Only a
small inside group knows what it is about.
It is conducted
for the benefit of the very few at the expense
of the masses. ... "
WHAT DID HE SEE AS THE PROBLEM OF THE "AMERICANS",
OF THE "PEOPLE", OF THE "MASSES"?
"The trouble with America is
that when the dollar only earns
six percent over here, then it gets
restless and goes overseas
to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows
the dollar and the
soldiers follow the flag."
And what did we say concerning the above?
The turmoil of the "world trade" dust did not subside
as yet,
when we told you already what happened; and who the
terrorist culprits were. (See our chats, after September 11 online.)
Concerning decisive historical turns of global events,
if our
analytical, trialogical, scientific-philosophic incision-precision
does not impress you, does not make an enlightening bell ring
in the profundity of your inner brain, then, urgently, you should
go and "pay" Frantz Fanon or Wilhelm Reich a cordial visit.
Now look at the following international Reuters
report:
PARIS (Reuters) - French author Thierry Meyssan
has news for Americans preparing to commemorate the first anniversary of
September 11: the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon did not involve
hijacked airliners. "9/11, The Big Lie," the English translation of Meyssan's
incendiary French-language book is due to hit U.S. bookstores by the end
of this month. The book alleges that the world has been taken for a ride
over what really happened on September 11.
The French have already
lapped up Meyssan's theory that a military faction in the U.S. government
used remote controls to guide two aircraft into the twin towers and that
a U.S. missile -- not an American Airlines jet -- smashed into the Pentagon.
"L'Effroyable Imposture"
("The Appalling Fraud") graced French bestseller lists for months despite
ridicule from national media. Meyssan hopes for similar success in the United
States.
"What I hope is that there
will be a debate on what really happened and that opinion in the United States
and the rest of the world is alerted," he said in an interview.
"The U.S. government has
chosen its scapegoats," he said of the U.S. "war against terrorism" launched
in Afghanistan, whose deposed Taliban rulers were believed to harbour suspected
September 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.
"But we cannot allow those
who are really guilty to go unpunished and the innocent to be bombed," said
Meyssan, head of the little-known left-leaning think tank Reseau Voltaire.
Meyssan's book sold little until he was invited onto a television chat show
in March. His appearance prompted a rush on bookshops as his theories tapped
into a mistrust of all things American among some French, particularly on
the left.
QUESTIONS UNANSWERED
French media, which had
previously ignored the book, poured scorn on
his claims in a windfall of press exposure
that only served to increase the book's notoriety and help publisher Editions
Carnot notch up sales of over 200,000. Meyssan, 45, claims there have been
sightings of some members of bin Laden's al Qaeda network who were named
as hijackers of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Centre. He contends
that photographs showed the damage at the Pentagon to be incompatible with
a Boeing 757 airliner crash, while both witness accounts and official statements
of the crash were contradictory and incomplete.
"One can totally reject
the official versions of events," he said, suggesting the likely suspects
were U.S. military insiders hoping to reap the rewards of a huge boost in
defence spending. Meyssan concedes he lacks concrete proof of such a plot
as well as evidence of what happened to American Airlines Flight 77 and its
64 passengers if it did not crash into the Pentagon.
"There are certain questions
to which I cannot give you the answer," he said, maintaining that he not
have the resources to investigate and verify his theories. Meyssan says he
is prepared to travel to the United States to defend his book -- but only
in French, and only on live programs. He alleges that one media interview
he gave on his book was edited to distort his comments.
"I have the sense that
some of the U.S. media has made up its mind (on
my theory)," he said. "There is suspicion
at a foreign author questioning the statements of their government."
The above is not new at all, I remember saying precisely
the same, in many a watch; about the guided commercial "missile", long
before I explained the issue.
**************************************
ALJAZEERAH
News Archives
A Vietnam-Like Situation Possible
James Fox, The Guardian
In Vietnam in 1972 there was
a hearts and minds program called chieu hoi to entice the population
in the south to rally to the government. The late Gavin Young of the
Observer quipped: “I think the Americans have bitten off more than
they can chieu hoi .” Is this the case with Iraq if, whatever happens
in Baghdad, liberation turns to occupation and resistance?
To lose the hearts and minds,
which the Americans have surely done so far in Iraq, would surely be
to lose the war, whatever the strategic results. But don’t whisper
“Vietnam”, and certainly “quagmire”, the word with which the Iraqis
daily taunt the Americans. To do so in print has invited the reflex
denial that the topography — desert versus jungle — is different and
not good for guerrilla war; that Vietnam took 10 years to lose and we’ve
been here two weeks. One historian wrote last week that the Iraqis were
not “politicized as the Vietnamese were by the Vietcong”, a startling
observation given the evidence of recent days. Nationalism, patriotism
and fatwas from the Arab world are surely enough. Iraqi strategists,
according to one Arab editor, study Vietnam constantly. And they talk
of it too. Not only will 100 Bin Ladens be unleashed by this struggle,
they say, but “100 Vietnams”.
“Let our cities be our swamps
and our buildings our jungles,” Tariq Aziz told the Institute of Strategic
Studies before war began. On Friday Iraq’s Information Minister Mohammed
Saeed Al-Sahaf talked of turning Iraq into “another Indochina”. Has
Baghdad become a mini Ho Chi Minh trail of hidden tunnels and arsenals?
George C Scott, as Gen. Patton
in the eponymous film, hisses: “Rommel, you sonofabitch, I read your
book”. The key book for the Iraqis was written by Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap,
the brilliant architect of the war against the French and the Americans.
It was published in English in 1961, under the title People’s War,
People’s Army, long before the US war in Vietnam hotted up. Though full
of partyspeak, it shows how easy it is to hold up and demoralise a
hugely superior army that has a long supply convoy. Giap exploited what
he called “the contradictions of the aggressive colonial war”. The
invaders have to fan out and operate far from their bases. When they
deploy, said Giap, “their broken-up units become easy prey”. First harass
the enemy, “rotting” away his rear and reserves, forcing him to deploy
troops to defend bases and perimeters.
“Is the enemy strong?” wrote
Giap. “One avoids him. Is he weak? One attacks him.” There will never
be enough troops to hold down the scattered guerrilla forces. Gen.
William Westmoreland, commander of US forces in Vietnam, estimated that
he would have needed 2 million troops to “pacify” the country. At the
peak of the war he had half that number. You can apply the principle
to Baghdad or the country beyond — the topography matters less than
the principle. Commanders talk of their puzzlement at Republican Guard
units “melting away” after the onslaught of last week. Are they preparing
a trap?
It was astonishing to read
of the surprise on the part of the military at the Iraqis’ methods.
The commander of the Desert Rats said that their “terror tactics” were
“outside the rules of war”, although anyone who has attended a war
knows there aren’t any rules. Hue was the last pitched battle fought
by the Americans during the 1968 Tet offensive. In that battle, 5,000
Vietcong infiltrators climbed out of their civilian clothes in the
city to reveal their North Vietnamese uniforms. Gen. Westmoreland complained
that Tet “was characterized by treachery and deceitfulness” — the same
outrageous methods Bush speaks about today.
The Americans were surprised
and outraged by the Vietnamese tactics right to the end, consistently
underestimating the North Vietnamese Army’s strength and determination.
I remember the shock in 1972 when the North Vietnamese launched a fierce
barrage far from its bases with deeply dug-in 130mm guns south of
the demilitarized zone. Giap had stockpiled massive underground arsenals.
The Iraq campaign has swiftly
changed from a “hearts and minds” operation of liberation to one of
winning the war. The Anglo-American forces have not won the cooperation
of the local population that is so vital for military-political control.
From the Iraqi point of view, since you can’t win, the only real weapon
is the demoralization of the enemy, keeping the war going as long as
possible and uniting the population against them. Mark Franchetti reported
vividly last weekend on frightened Marines shooting up any taxi that
moved, describing the fresh-faced soldiers he had met a few days ealier
turning into scared, demoralized killers — echoes again of the Vietnam
era.
Giap wanted to wage a protracted
guerrilla war of attrition and mount a parallel political offensive
aimed at the US democratic system, which would not bear for ever a
long, inconclusive war. The Iraqis are doing the same. What took years
to build up in the US during the Vietnam War — skepticism and finally
widespread opposition — could happen in just weeks with the help of
24-hour television. Now the actual speed and success of the war will
come down to whether the Americans are prepared to kill civilians more
or less indiscriminately, as Saddam does and Giap did before him. If
it is a question of televised bodybags versus civilians, the civilians
will have to go.
Finally, there is the Giap
maxim: “War without politics is like a a tree without a root.” At the
moment, the coalition politics stinks. It is impossible for Rumsfeld,
and perhaps also Tony Blair, to understand how insulting it is to be
told what “liberation” is by a superpower you have reason to distrust.
The doctrine forgets how instructed Iraqis are with a deep sense of
their history, as were the Vietnamese and as are the Palestinians,
now coming to fight in Iraq because they fear they may be next.
I remember, too, in Vietnam
in 1972 the anger among the South Vietnamese — even when facing defeat
— at being denied a hand in their own destiny. The sentiment was eloquently
put by one Iraqi in Basra last week: “Even if I do not support Saddam,
I do not want the invasion. They want to change the system but this
is not the way. This way there will be only death, the death of children
and women.”
Maybe the Iraqis who simply
want to defend their country out of patriotism should be taken at their
word; that Baghdad is indeed the first quagmire they advertise. It
can’t be besieged because that would lose any final support for the
US/UK cause. In house-to-house fighting it will take, according to
one military expert, a battalion to clear one office block; the battle
could last many weeks or even months. If air strikes are used, it will
kill many civilians and wreck any last hope of cooperation.
“What if they get to Baghdad
and nobody’s home?” asks Dan Plesch, senior researcher at the Royal
United Services Institute, “if they’ve all melted away to the towns
set in the marshes of the Tigris?” With or without Saddam, the guerrilla
war then extends to the country beyond and then perhaps to the whole
Arab world, whose united desire at the moment, according to Egypt’s
leading newspaper, is to see the “invincible” US defeated, in whatever
cause.
(James Fox reported from Vietnam
for the Sunday Times in the early 1970s. He is the author of White
Mischief and The Langhorne Sisters
JamesFox@compuserve.com)
http://www.aljazeerah.info/6%20op%20eds/A%20Vietnam-Like%20Situation
%20Possible,%20James%20Fox%20aljazeerah.info.htm
*****
Saddam calls on Iraqis to save Baghdad
as
US tanks enter capital
(AFP), Khaleej Times, 6 April 2003
BAGHDAD - President Saddam
Hussein was shown on television again late Saturday after urging Iraqis
to defend Baghdad by attacking coalition forces across the country
as US troops pushed inside the city for the first time. State TV showed
Saddam chairing a meeting of top military and political advisers,
including his two sons, Uday and Qussay, a day after airing footage
of the Iraqi leader touring his battered capital as part of a systematic
drive to underline he was still in charge.
In a speech read on television on his
behalf by Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf Saturday, Saddam
told Iraqis Baghdad was still theirs to rescue. Sahhaf
told reporters Iraq had won back Baghdad’s main airport with a deadly
assault on US troops that included suicide attacks, a claim quickly
denied by the Americans.
Sahhaf later told Abu Dhabi satellite
TV that Iraqi forces had killed more than 300 US troops in heavy fighting
around the city’s international airport.
AFP correspondents saw dozens of
Iraqi military vehicles burning on the streets after a battle near the
road to the airport, which US Central Command said was “secure” and
in coalition hands a day after its capture.
US commanders said 30 tanks penetrated
deep into the capital and had come under rifle fire and attack by
rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). US officers said an American tank
commander was shot dead and estimated some 1,000 Iraqi soldiers were
killed.
But Baghdadis could find no sign of
US troops in the capital later in the day.
AFP correspondents chased down leads
and rumors as they came in, darting from the campus of Baghdad University
to Saddam Bridge over the Tigris River to Eagles Square in the southwest
of the capital but each time turned up empty-handed.
Several hours after the dash through
the capital, burning Iraqi armored vehicles testified to clashes with
the Americans, whose tanks were long gone.
“The enemy has concentrated all its
forces against Baghdad, which has weakened its power in other parts
of Iraq,” Saddam said in the address. “You must now weaken them
(further), deepen their wounds and deprive them of what they have taken
of your land, even though it is negligible, in order to reduce their
chances and accelerate their defeat.”
He added that Iraqis should “increase
the number of attacks and go all out at the enemy to destroy them,
following the orders in the written plans they have received.
“What has happened in Baghdad up
until now is rather less than your Baghdad can put up with and God will
protect it, even if it will have to cope with an even heavier burden.
“The enemy is lost (if they) believe
they can heal the wounds they have already suffered by trying to attack
Bagdad.”
Sahhaf insisted victory was near for
Iraq.
“We have defeated them, in fact we
have crushed them,” he said of US and British forces. “We have pushed
them outside the whole area of the airport.”
He said suicide attacks had been
launched on the American forces, part of “not conventional” combat
methods he promised Friday.
US Central Command said the fight for
Baghdad was “far from finished.”
Coalition combat aircraft began
flying all-day patrols over Baghdad to provide close air support for US
ground forces probing the capital, said Lieutenant General T. Michael
Moseley, commander of the US-led air campaign. In central Baghdad,
Iraqis staged a victory march. Convoys of cars, including police cruisers
with wailing sirens, navigated the streets as motorists waved Iraqi
flags and fired assault rifles, honked and flashed the “V” for victory
sign.
At the Al-Yarmuk hospital near the
scene of the fighting, ambulances and civilian minibuses have continuously
brought in wounded soldiers since the US onslaught on the airport began
late Thursday.
Artillery fire was heard several
hours after the engagement on the edge of the Dora and Yarmuk neighborhoods
in southwest Baghdad, about 10 kilometers (six miles) from the center.
“The fighting lasted from five to
eight o’clock this morning (0100 GMT to 0400 GMT),” said Kamal, an
electrician from the Yarmuk district.
“It was hell. We were on a battlefield.”
Iraqi army trucks, armored personnel
carriers as well as jeeps mounted with anti-aircraft gunners were
abandoned, some burning and others smoking on the main road leading
to the Dora electricity station and nearby side streets. Baghdad
came in for another day of bombing, as allied warplanes struck the
city center and southern outskirts and loud explosions shook downtown
high-rises.
At least two massive explosions were
heard in central Baghdad just after midnight (2000 GMT). Iraqi artillery
fire was later heard in the southern suburbs of the city.
Earlier Saturday night, a missile
struck the Tigris next to Saddam’s main presidential palace, which has
repeatedly been hit by bombs or missiles since the United States and
Britain launched war on March 20 with the aim of toppling him.
http://www.aljazeerah.info/6%20news/Saddam%20calls%20on%20Iraqis%20to%20
save%20Baghdad%20as%20US%20tanks%20enter%20capital%20aljazeerah.info.htm
*****************************************
6 de abril del 2003
En las puertas de Bagdad
Guerra
no prolongada de la ciudad al campo?
Isaac Bigio
Servicio
Informativo "alai-amlatina"
Un
viejo pensamiento militar consiste en recomendar a las fuerzas débiles
que se enfrentan a un enemigo poderoso el esquivar los combates frontales
o en emboscar desde la periferia para ir minando el centro de poder. Basándose
en añejas enseñanzas bélicas chinas, Mao acuñó
la estrategia: 'guerra popular prolongada del campo a la ciudad.' Su tesis
de cercar las urbes desde el agro inspiró a una serie de movimientos,
algunos victoriosos (Vietnam) y otros derrotados (Senderismo peruano).
En el caso iraquí Hussein ha creado su propia variante. Sus
fuerzas se repliegan de las áreas rurales para concentrarse en las
urbes mayores. La mayor potencia de la historia es la que está cercando
a Saddam esperando una guerra que dure semanas y no años.
El Baath pretende resistir a la invasión atrincherándose
en Bagdad, Basra y otras ciudades. Uno de sus portavoces sostenía
que Irak es un país desértico y cuyas junglas son las selvas
de concreto. Es en los bosques urbanos donde los iraquíes piensan
que podrían neutralizar mejor la tremenda superioridad tecnológica
de los anglo- americanos.
En la segunda guerra mundial la lucha por Berlín o Stalingrado
costaron decenas de miles de muertos. Bagdad, con 5 millones de habitantes,
no sólo es más grande que dichas ciudades en los 1940s, sino
que es por lejos la urbe más poblada que confronta abiertamente a
una intervención anglo-americana.
Hussein se inspira en otros recientes movimientos islámicos.
En Mogadishu los norteamericanos fueron obligados a ir luego de haber
producido una matanza al tratar de entrar a un barrio controlado por las
fuerzas de Aidid. En Beirut y el Libano los israelíes tuvieron
que retirarse debido a la hostilidad de la población. Los saddamistas
sostienen que la 'intifada' palestina marca un ejemplo en el cual la población
con piedras se enfrenta a una fuerza ocupante.
Las fuerzas ocupantes están ante un dilema. Si lanzan una
ofensiva frontal e indiscriminada en Bagdad se corre el riesgo de producir
tantas bajas civiles que se enajenaría a gran parte de los más
de mil millones de mahometanos y se crearía tal resentimiento dentro
de los iraquíes que luego sería difícil contenerlos.
Lo importante para ellos no es sólo ganar la guerra sino la paz.
Para esto último requieren haber ganado el apoyo de amplios sectores
de la población local.
La estrategia que vienen siguiendo los británicos en Basora
es la de rodear ésta, tratar de confraternizar con la población
ocupada, ir haciendo algunas incursiones progresivas y buscar generar un
levantamiento interno anti-saddamista.
Hace 12 años los chiítas de Basora y el sur iraquí
se sublevaron cuando EEUU les instó a ello. Mas, se sienten traicionados
por que Bush padre permitió que Bagdad los aplastase pensando que
era mejor mantener la estabilidad iraquí con una dictadura desarmada
a la cabeza antes que permitir que revoluciones desintegren al país.
La tesis de sitiar las grandes urbes también presenta inconvenientes.
Prolonga la guerra generando mayor oposición interna. Según
Robin Cook, ex secretario de relaciones exteriores británico, es
uno de los métodos más crueles contra los civiles, quienes
deben padecer de falta de alimentos y servicios.
Hussein quisiera empujar a los anglo-americanos a bombardear de tal
manera a las urbes iraquíes que generaran más odio y cobijo
donde resistir. Saben que los anglo-americanos no quieren una política
de tierra arrasada pues anhelan retomar la valioso infraestructura económica
del país y quieren ganar a su gente. Confiados en ello, los saddamistas
quieren provocar a los aliados a una política de guerra total en
la cual el régimen aparecería identificado como héroe
de la causa iraquí, árabe y musulmana.
Para Saddam su ideal sería producir muchas bombas humanas que
paralicen al enemigo y que le obliguen a separarse de una población
civil en la cual desconfíen. Una guerra de ocupación dejaría
por los suelos la estrategia de aparecer como demócratas liberadores.
Incluso de llegar a ocupar las grandes urbes el costo sería muy
alto pues a cambio perderían la paz y generarían la libanización
de la cuna del panarabismo.
Scott Ritter, ex inspector de armas de la Organización de las
Naciones Unidas (ONU), veterano de la primera guerra del golfo y miembro
del gobernante Partido Republicano, concibe que la actual ofensiva está
logrando lo opuesto a lo inicialmente deseado. Un dictador tan impopular
aparece simbolizando una resistencia nacional y los EEUU se están
ganando la antipatía de un pueblo al que hubiesen querido ganar:
"Jamás podremos hablar de instalar un gobierno pro estadounidense
para el pueblo de Irak. Al final nos expulsarán. Abandonaremos Irak
derrotados, de la misma manera que los rusos dejaron Afganistán".
Es esto lo que quieren los antiimperialistas árabes. Aunque
al final pierdan las ciudades, quieren que ello se produzca con el mayor
costo humano posible a fin de hacer casi imposible una futura reconciliación
de los iraquíes o árabes con occidente, y luego resistir desde
las comarcas o con marchas con piedras en las ciudades.
Ciertamente, la mejor estrategia para haber echado a Hussein consistía
en haber promovido un levantamiento popular interno. Ello hubiese sido
hecho a costa de menos cotos humanos y materiales, y hubiese ayudado a que
los propios iraquíes se liberen a sí mismos y democraticen
más su sociedad.
Mas, las lecciones de 1991 es que para el Departamento de Estado dicha
alternativa es más peligrosa que mantener a Hussein. El resultado
es esta guerra en la cual los anglo-americanos tienen grandes posibilidades
de tomar las urbes desde el desierto, pero donde el problema mayor será
como estabilizar y pacificar a un país que a la larga puede tornarse
en una fuente de problemas mayores que Somalia o Líbano.
Para los atacantes quedan 3 posibilidades. Una es una guerra total
rápida y violenta que conquistaría Bagdad pero a costa de
mucha destrucción. La otra es cercar las grandes urbes y tratar
de crear contingentes iraquíes anti-saddamistas leales a occidente,
pero ello puede tomar tiempo y hay desconfianza en que los destacamentos
locales puedan tener su propia agenda. A los 60,000 combatientes kurdos
en el norte no les empuja en masa a marchar sobre Mosul por temor a Turquía
e Irán y también por no poder controlar luego a ellos. Con
respeto a las decenas de miles de combatientes del Consejo Supremo (Chiíta)
de la Revolución Iraquí, los aliados se niegan a empujarlos
contra Saddam pues temen que luego ellos e Irán creen otro contra-poder.
Una tercera alternativa es la esbozada por sectores del laborismo británico
quienes recomiendan un cese al fuego y una retirada para evitar que el
conflicto siga escalando.
Por el momento los atacantes buscarán alguna fórmula
basada en las 2 primeras opciones o en una combinación entre éstas.
Si la guerra se complica es posible que crezca el sector que propone el
armisticio. A este último apuntaría la estrategia iraquí
de agotar a los ocupantes con su guerra prolongada de la ciudad al campo.
* Isaac Bigio, analista Internacional
http://www.rebelion.org/imperio/030406bigio.htm
