American Arrogance and Warmongering

Wouldn't Want The Rest of The World to Think We're Cowards Now Would We?

By James Cogan

Numerous Iraqis, of varying political and religious persuasions, have ample grievances to volunteer for attacks against the regime created by the US occupation. Over one million people have lost their lives since 2003, including hundreds of thousands directly killed by US forces.

The massive explosions that tore apart the Justice Ministry and provincial government headquarters in central Baghdad on Sunday, killing over 140 people and wounding at least 520, are a particularly bloody reminder of the sectarian, ethnic and political conflicts that have been generated in Iraq by six-and-a-half years of US occupation.

The weekend bombings were the second major attack on government office complexes in two months. On August 19, car bombs exploded outside the Finance Ministry and Foreign Ministry, killing 102 and wounding over 600. On both occasions, the bombers were able to drive explosive-laden vehicles through a series of security checkpoints.

On average, between 10 and 15 bombings, suicide bombings or insurgent attacks take place each day in Iraq against government officials or security forces. In some cases, the bombings indiscriminately target civilians of a particular ethnic or sectarian background. Less spectacular than Sunday’s bombing, they are barely reported by the media.

Whenever an opportunity arises, insurgents strike at the 120,000 American troops still in Iraq. US forces are now occupying the country from heavily guarded bases outside the urban centres.

The puppet government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has blamed the high-profile bombings on loyalists of the former Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein. The possibility cannot be ruled out. Significant sections of the predominantly Sunni Arab Baathist establishment have lost virtually everything they once had in terms of property, position and privilege to the Shiite and Kurdish factions who collaborated with the US invasion.

Numerous Iraqis, of varying political and religious persuasions, have ample grievances to volunteer for attacks against the regime created by the US occupation. Over one million people have lost their lives since 2003, including hundreds of thousands directly killed by US forces. Tens of thousands of others have suffered arbitrary detention and appalling abuse in American and Iraqi government prison camps. Over four million people have been forced from their homes or been compelled to flee the country altogether. Iraqi hatred for the occupation has not abated.

The attacks on the government ministries have coincided with increasingly bitter feuding among the pro-occupation Iraqi factions in the lead-up to the elections that constitutionally must take place by January 31, 2010. Washington is putting enormous pressure on Maliki to reverse a pledge to hold a popular referendum at the same time as the election on the status of forces agreement reached between his government and the US. American commentators openly acknowledge that such a referendum will likely produce a majority vote against the agreement, spearheaded by Iraqis who want to see an immediate withdrawal of American military forces.