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Recent
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April
10, 2003
Zoltan
Grossman
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the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
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April
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April 14,
2003
Iqra: Iraq is
Free
Something for
Nothing
by
M. SHAHID ALAM
Iqra,
recite, proclaim, affirm, avow, declare: Iraq is free.
Iraq has been freed from ten thousand
years of tyranny; freed from darkest infamy; freed from cold
villainy; freed from centuries of stasis; freed from nights of
searing pain; freed from terrible torture; freed from sanctioned
starvation; freed from laser-guided precision; freed from bombs
that explode with shock and awe.
The whole world was witness to this historical
moment. They saw the dark head of the tyrant, the granite head
of Ozymandias draped in the fabric of freedom, effaced, his sneer
blotted out, his terror nullified, brought down by the force
of an armor-clad Bradley vehicle. Iraqis, many dozens of them,
cheered lustily. A few even kissed the liberators on both cheeks,
in authentic Arab style.
The nay-sayers, skeptics, doubting Thomases,
Pacifists, prophets of doom, and the patriotically challenged
were wrong about America's war in Iraq. The millions who
marched in the streets, protesting the war, are now gnashing
their teeth. In deep shame, penitent, they have announced that
they will march again in the millions, to curse, flog, flagellate
themselves for marching against the war that freed Iraqis.
This was not a war on Iraq, much
less a war against Iraq. It was a war in Iraq:
a war for the Iraqis. It wasn't the first time that a
great civilizing nation has fought a war in a barbarous
land against its homegrown tyrants. Civilized nations
have carried this burden uncomplainingly, showing equal dedication
in freeing lands of their peoples and, when the occasion
demanded, freeing peoples of their lands. It is United
States now that carries the torch of freedom, bravely torching
anyone who shows the gall to oppose the forward march of the
brave and free.
Consider the freedoms this war has bestowed
on Iraq.
First and foremost, this war has freed
Iraq of its WMDs. If Americans have not yet found any caches
of WMDs inside Iraq, this was expected all along. In the days
leading up to the war, the WMDs were smuggled into Syria for
safe-keeping. But that only means that Americans will have to
go the extra mile, into Syria. And perhaps Syria will smuggle
them into Egypt, Egypt into Libya, Libya into Iran, and Iran
into Sudan. Is this an Arab con-spiracy to hitch a freedom ride
on Bradleys and Abrams tanks?
Instantly, the American liberators have
turned the Iraqis free to pillage their museums, strip their
hospitals, plunder their universi-ties, and loot their homes.
The acutely funny Donald Rumsfeld ex-plained that " freedom's
untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit
crimes and do bad things." Quickly, the Iraqis are learning
that the gift of freedom comes at a price. And they are eager
to prove that their freedom is worth the price they are being
asked to pay. If Madeline Albright could sacrifice the lives
of half a million Iraqi children for American security, surely
the Iraqis too can give up their national treasures for a fleeting
taste of freedom.
After years of being locked out, the
war has freed Iraq to spread the welcome mat to American Corporations.
For thirteen long years, since Gulf War I, American capital was
not free to outbid Russian, French and German capital in developing
Iraq; it was an unconscionable abridgement of freedom. Now the
playing fields have been leveled. The Bechtels, Halliburtons,
Northrops, Exxons, Triremes are free at last to claim their pound
of Iraqi flesh.
The liberation of Iraq is being unctuously
greeted by Franklin Graham's Good Samaritans, the pastoral faction
of American capital. Their would-be victims are now free, after
years of sof-tening with sanctions and bombings, to receive the
good word of the Lord. Even as I write, the Samaritan convoys
are converging on Iraq, ready to trade American food and water
for Iraqi souls. The Iraqis never knew a better bargain, getting
something for nothing.
Iraq has now been freed, as Egypt had
been freed by its third defeat at Israeli hands in 1973, to derive
the inestimable benefits of normal relations with Israel. After
55 years, Iraqi oil is now free again to flow to Haifa. And,
one might add, Iraqi water too.
Freed from the threat of Iraq's WMDs,
Israelis can now attack the Palestinian problem--the Palestinians
in Judea and Samaria--with greater freedom. The pace of ethnic
cleansing, too slow for an early final solution, can now be accelerated.
Now that Iraq is free, with help from the Americans, the Palestinians
can be teleported to the deserts of Western Iraq.
The war has freed another Arab capital
from the threat of Israel's Samson option. The five million citizens
of Baghdad, once the unimpeded looting stops, can sleep in peace.
This is another inestimable gift of the war: an Iraq free from
nuclear holocaust.
If one counts all the advantages of America's
war in Iraq--and I have barely started--history will record
this war as the greatest opening in Iraqi history, when Iraqis
were freed from the coils of convoluted tyranny. Once the Iraqis
wake to this shattering truth, they will also acknowledge their
deep debt to Saddam Hussein. It was his anti-Zionism, his methodical
recklessness, his development of WMDs that precipitated the American
war in Iraq, the war that freed them. Without Saddam,
the Iraqis would still be toiling under some vapid dictatorship,
like Hosni Mubarak's, allied to Israel and receiving bribes from
USAID.
I can imagine a day, once the fog of
America's war in Iraq clears, when the Iraqis may restore
Saddam Hussein's statue to the high pedestal it occupied in Baghdad's
Central Square. And these are the words that American visitors,
in shock and awe, will read inscribed on its base: Saddam Hussein/A
Brave Iraqi/Serendipitous Architect of Our Freedoms.
M. Shahid Alam
teaches economics at Northeastern University, Boston, USA. His
recent book, Poverty from the Wealth of Nations, was published
by Palgrave (2000). He may be reached at m.alam@neu.edu.
© M. Shahid Alam
Yesterday's
Features
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
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Third Page
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