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Elezioni in Serbia, contrasti tra i socialisti

1) Marija Milosevic sul congresso dell' SPS (da Vesti)

2) Dacic primo, Bata terzo (da Vesti)

3) L'interpretazione dell'agenzia di Stato italiana ANSA, portavoce
ufficiale di chi da noi ha voluto la distruzione dello Stato con noi
confinante ed è ancora carico di livore slavofobo ed antisocialista

(traduzioni di Ivan Istrijan per il CNJ)


=== 1 ===

www.vesti.de

<< MARIJA MILOSEVIC, CERKA SLOBODANA MILOSEVICA, O KONGRESU SPS;
OTERANI SVI TATINI PRIJATELJI >>

"Vesti!" è il quotidiano della diaspora serba, stampato a Francoforte.
I testi tradotti e qui riportati sono apparsi sulla edizione del 16
dicembre 2006,
reperibile in lingua originale (solo su abbonamento) alla URL:

http://www.vesti.de/rubrika.asp?r=101179&s=dnevnik.gif

---

Vesti (Frankfurt), 16/12/2006

Marija Milosevic sul congresso dell' SPS

HANNO SCACCIATO TUTTI GLI AMICI DI MIO PADRE

Hanno preso in mano il partito quelli che da due e piu' anni si sono
lavati le mani di mio padre

Mrkonjic accoglie quelli che una volta manifestavano contro Milosevic

All'ultimo congresso del Partito Socialista hanno vinto quelli che
"onestamente e democraticamente", oppure in qualche altro modo, gia'
piu' di due anni fa si lavavano le mani di mio padre Slobodan
Milosevic, dice per Vesti Marija Milosevic, figlia del defunto
presidente della RF di Jugoslavia e della Serbia.
Essa aggiunge che a "lavarsi le mani" hanno iniziato "subito dopo che
ha lasciato il potere ed in particolare da quando si e' trovato
all'Aia".

Oltre a Dacic, ci sono anche Ruzic, Bajatovic, Mrkonjic ed alcuni
altri. E' molto significativo che in questa votazione per il nuovo
leader, si dice, c'erano 200 schede non valide, e che nella dirigenza
piu' stretta non ci sia stato nessuno di quelli che hanno portato la
bara di Slobodan Milosevic fino alla sua dimora eterna - dice Marija.

Essa, secondo le sue parole, e tutti in famiglia, esprimono grande
stupore per il fatto che nella cerchia dei vincitori dell'ultimo
congresso si sia ritrovato anche Milutin Mrkonjic, a suo tempo uomo
di grande fiducia di Slobodan Milosevic.

"Tutti sappiamo quanto mio padre lo stimasse, e che lui meglio di
tutti in questo partito conosceva il suo pensiero, anche sulla
Associazione Sloboda e su tutte le altre questioni politiche e di
partito. Adesso sento che lui e' la persona principale ad accogliere
alcuni sportivi, nuovi aderenti all'SPS, dalle fila di quelli che a
suo tempo fischiavano e manifestavano contro Milosevic."
Sulle voci secondo cui la Associazione Sloboda avrebbe in programma
di fondare un partito politico e di uscire cosi' alle elezioni, come
se questo fosse nelle intenzioni dei famigliari di Milosevic, Marija
smentisce risolutamente: "E' una bugia assoluta ed un inganno, una
disonesta' sporca ed in malafede abusare del nome di mio padre e
volerne approfittare politicamente. Ne' io, ne' mia madre ne' mio
fratello abbiamo mai dato a nessuno il consenso e rispetto a questo
siamo assolutamente d'accordo, perche' sappiamo quanto lui fosse
contrario a questo, visto che anche durante la sua vita c'erano
alcune avvisaglie e tentativi in questo senso. Mio padre si oppose
energicamente e con fermezza a che nessuno di loro osasse accennarvi
mentre lui era vivo."

Essa ricorda come "Sloboda", come molti altri comitati
internazionali, si e' formata per la difesa di Slobodan Milosevic,
come organizzazione apolitica e politicamente neutra: "Se davvero
volessero bene e stimassero Slobodan Milosevic dovrebbero rimanere
sulle posizioni ed i principi di fondo, come hanno fatto anche tutti
gli altri comitati internazionali che adesso lottano per affermare la
verita' sulla sua morte. Invece di questo, qualcuno abusando del nome
del mio defunto padre vuole realizzare anche alcuni altri suoi
obiettivi affaristici."


LE TESSERE VENGONO RESTITUITE IN MASSA

"Il presidente di Sloboda, Bogoljub Bjelica, frequentava mio padre
all'Aia e godeva della sua piena fiducia. Sono sicura che anche a lui
abbia proibito espressamente qualunque politicizzazione della
associazione. Adesso sono veramente perplessa: se questo uomo ha
dimenticato tutto all'improvviso oppure e' in qualche modo ricattato
da alcuni, che a tutti i costi vorrebbero infangare il nome di
Slobodan defunto. Sento che gli estimatori di Milosevic adesso, dopo
la vittoria di Dacic, restituiscono in massa le tessere del partito.
Ritengo che qualcuno di nascosto stia spingendo abilmente perche'
questo nuovo partito con il nome di Slobodan Milosevic resti a mani
vuote nelle elezioni, e perche' in questo modo si riesca a dimostrare
che il suo nome in Serbia non significherebbe piu' niente."


BJELICA: SLOBODA NON SCENDERA' IN POLITICA

La Associazione Sloboda per ora non si trasformera' in un partito
politico e non apparira' alle elezioni, ha dichiarato il presidente
della dirigenza di questa organizzazione, Bogoljub Bjelica. Egli ha
affermato che alla assemblea della associazione, che si svolgera'
oggi, non si trattera' e non si prenderanno decisioni sull'impegno
politico, ne' tantomeno su alcuna sortita per le elezioni
parlamentari del 21 gennaio. "Queste sono mistificazioni con le quali
si adoperano quelli che vogliono danneggiare Sloboda", ha detto
Bjelica, aggiungendo che molti simpatizzanti di questa associazione
hanno riflettuto sulla possibilita' di trasformare questa
associazione in un partito politico, ma che ha prevalso la posizione
secondo cui come prima cosa "bisogna difendere i valori che in Serbia
sono ancora minacciati."

(B. Simonovic)


=== 2 ===

Vesti (Frankfurt), 16/12/2006

I socialisti hanno presentato la lista per le elezioni del 21 gennaio

DACIC PRIMO, BATA TERZO

Il Partito socialista della Serbia (SPS) ha consegnato ieri alla
commissione elettorale della Repubblica una lista con 250 candidati a
deputati per il Parlamento della Serbia, che, se sara' accettata,
sara' la undicesima lista nell'elenco generale dei partiti per le
elezioni parlamentari in programma per il 21 gennaio dell'anno
prossimo. Primo sulla lista figura il presidente dell'SPS Ivica
Dacic, secondo e' il vicepresidente Zarko Obradovic, terzo e'
l'attore Velimir "Bata" Zivojinovic.
"Tra i primi 25 candidati sulla lista si trovano due accademici,
sette scienziati, e personalita' indipendenti, simpatizzanti
dell'SPS", dice Dacic. Sulla lista si trovano anche i rappresentanti
del Partito dei Pensionati e del Movimento dei Veterani, che hanno
tre candidati ciascuno. Oltre a Bata Zivojinovic, sulla lista si
trova anche Svetlana Kitic, giocatrice di pallamano, e l'ex banchiera
Borka Vucic. Tra i funzionari di partito figurano Milutin Mrkonjic,
Dusan Bajatovic, Branko Ruzic, Zoran Andjelkovic, Milomir Minic,
Zivodarka Dacin e Rajko Baralic.
"L'SPS si presenta a queste elezioni per dire chiaramente a tutti che
noi siamo l'unico serio partito politico di sinistra su questi
territori ad impegnarsi per la difesa degli interessi nazionali e
statali, e nello stesso tempo ritiene che la Serbia non puo' essere
uno Stato di diritto se in essa non c'e' giustizia sociale", ha
dichiarato Dacic.
Con la loro firma hanno sostenuto la lista socialista 14649
cittadini; lo slogan elettorale dell'SPS sara': "Srbijo glavu
gore" (Serbia, alza la testa!)

(I. Petrovic)


=== 3 ===

SERBIA: ELEZIONI, NIENTE NOME MILOSEVIC PER LISTA SOCIALISTI

(ANSA) - BELGRADO, 29 NOV - Non ci sara' alcun riferimento a Slobodan
Milosevic nella denominazione della lista del Partito socialista
serbo (Sps, ex Lega dei comunisti) in corsa nelle elezioni per il
rinnovo del Parlamento di Belgrado fissate per il 21 gennaio 2007. Lo
ha annunciato oggi il segretario del partito, Zoran Andjelkovic,
attribuendo la decisione alla volonta' espressa in questo senso dalla
famiglia dell'ex uomo forte di Belgrado: deposto nel 2000 e morto nel
marzo scorso in una cella del carcere olandese di Scheveningen,
laddove si trovava in attesa di giudizio nell'ambito del processo
avviato contro di lui dinanzi al tribunale internazionale dell'Aja
(Tpi) per i crimini di guerra commessi nella ex Jugoslavia degli anni
'90. Andjelkovic ha ringraziato la famiglia Milosevic per aver
manifestato il suo desiderio in una lettera riservata indirizzata ai
vertici dello Sps. E ha assicurato che il partito - di cui Milosevic
e' rimasto nominalmente presidente anche da detenuto e fino alla
morte - rispettera' scrupolosamente la volonta' della vedova di
tenere il nome del defunto fuori da ogni ulteriore battaglia
politica. Lo Sps - incapace di contendere il grosso del voto
revanscista e di protesta, tuttora consistente in Serbia, agli
ultranazionalisti del Partito radicale - e' accreditato dai sondaggi
di un livello di consensi non superiore al 7-8% al quale e'
precipitato dopo la caduta del vecchio regime. E questo malgrado i
segnali di rinnovato entusiasmo registrati fra le residue schiere
nostalgiche nei giorni del funerale dell'ex leader. Domenica
prossima, per cercare di darsi una scossa, i socialisti eleggeranno
un nuovo presidente in sostituzione di Milosevic. Il favorito appare
proprio Andjelkovic, considerato vicino al pragmatico capogruppo
parlamentare uscente Ivica Dacic (alfiere di un graduale superamento
delle ipoteche nostalgiche sul partito), ma capace di dialogare anche
con l'ala passatista guidata da Milorad Vucelic. (ANSA). LR
29/11/2006 18:40

SERBIA: RINNOVAMENTO A META' PER EX PARTITO DI MILOSEVIC

(ANSA) - BELGRADO, 4 DIC - Il partito socialista serbo (Sps), gia'
forza cardine del regime (deposto nel 2000) del defunto Slobodan
Milosevic, ha eletto il pragmatico Ivica Dacic come suo nuovo
presidente. Lo ha reso noto l'agenzia Tanjug al termine di un
contrastato congresso pre-elettorale svoltosi a Belgrado e conclusosi
nella notte. Dacic, 40 anni, capogruppo uscente in Parlamento e
considerato capofila dell'ala moderata dei socialisti, e' stato
eletto al ballottaggio con 1.287 voti contro i 792 del suo avversario
principale, Milorad Vucelic, leader dello zoccolo duro piu'
nostalgico. Egli succede direttamente a Milosevic, rimasto
nominalmente presidente dello Sps anche dopo l'arresto e deceduto
l'11 marzo scorso in attesa di giudizio nella prigione del tribunale
penale internazionale (Tpi) dell'Aja per i crimini di guerra commessi
nella ex Jugoslavia degli anni '90 Il congresso e' stato aperto ieri
con l'adozione di un documento sul ''ruolo storico'' di Slobodan
Milosevic. Un tributo postumo cui anche Dacic e i suoi non si sono
sottratti, al di la' delle intenzioni di graduale rinnovamento del
partito e di alleggerimento delle ipoteche nostalgiche attribuite
loro dalla stampa. Non e' mancato neppure un proclama in salsa
patriottica, ribadita dal neoleader dopo la designazione, a favore
dell'intangibilita' della provincia separatista a maggioranza
albanese del Kosovo. Nel nome degli ''eroi - ha detto - che hanno
difeso la Serbia negli anni 90''. L'elezione del nuovo presidente
segna l'avvio della campagna elettorale dello Sps in vista del
prossimo voto politico anticipato indetto in Serbia per il 21
gennaio. Voto al quale il partito socialista si presenta con speranze
limitate (i sondaggi non gli accreditano piu' del 7% a cui e'
precipitato dopo la caduta del vecchio regime), cercando di
contendere parte dei consensi legati al revanscismo, ma soprattutto
al malcontento sociale, all'attuale forza dominante dell'opposizione
serba: il Partito Radicale (ultranazionalista). Contro le pretese di
rappresentare l'opposizione gioca peraltro l'appoggio esterno
garantito negli ultimi anni dallo stesso Sps all'attuale governo
moderato del premier Vojislav Kostunica.(ANSA). LR
04/12/2006 16:12

http://www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/Contributor42.htm



The Strategy of Disintegration:

False flags, dirty tricks and the dismemberment of Iraq

by David Montoute


The erosion of a target country’s integrity and viability has always
been a conscious goal of the Western colonial project. Creating
instability and dissatisfaction with existing reality was a necessary
prerequisite to “tame” and then integrate native peoples into the
dominant hierarchical model. Today, of course, we are told that
colonialism is a thing of the past. The leading nations of the
international community no longer seek to enslave their less
fortunate neighbours, but rather pursue policies of world benefaction
- within the limits imposed by healthy competition, of course. When
this miraculous conversion took place we are not told, but perhaps it
occurred incrementally, parallel to the increasing divide between the
world’s rich and poor. In any case, a casual glance at the state of
the Muslim world is enough to shatter this foolish delusion.

As Iraqi society descends further and further into mayhem, comedians,
satirists and commentators of all kinds have made great hay from the
supposed incompetence and stupidity of our leaders. But as the
Canadian Spectator suggested recently, if it should happen that the
United States is not run by buffoons, “one must conclude that chaos,
impoverishment and civil war in the Muslim world…far from being the
unintended consequences, are precisely the objectives of U.S.
policy.” (1)

As with 9/11, the trigger event for the War on Terror, incompetence
is the preferred explanation for the nightmare scenario in Iraq
today. Though counterintuitive to the domesticated populations of the
West, a plan to deliberately fragment Iraq along ethnic lines is
amply confirmed by the published record. Resuscitating earlier
Zionist schemes, the US Council on Foreign Relations recently called
for the dissolution of the “unnatural Iraqi state.” (2) On the
grounds of its ethnic diversity, Iraq is said to be a false,
artificial construct, a product of arbitrary colonial decisions in
the early 20th century. It is a judgment that could apply to many of
the world’s countries, and yet the theme is being enthusiastically
adopted by reams of ‘experts’ who would never dream of questioning
state sovereignty in Quebec, the Basque Country or Northern Ireland.
In typical fashion, policy analyst Michael Klare recently dismissed
Iraq as an “invented country…to facilitate their exploitation of oil
in the region [the British] created the fictitious “Kingdom of Iraq”
by patching together three provinces of the former Ottoman Empire…and
by parachuting in a fake king from what later became Saudi
Arabia.” (3) Accepting the Bush Administration’s bogus rationale for
the invasion, Klare ascribed Sunni resistance to the desire for a
bigger share of oil revenues in the future partition of the country.
Missing is any idea that resistance extends beyond “Sunnis” or could
be motivated by Iraqi nationalism or the need for self-determination.

Ultimately, the ease with which Western academics casually decide to
reshape the countries of their choice owes itself to the continuing
legacy of Orientalism. In classic nineteenth century style, the
chattering classes suggest that Iraq, despite its five thousand-year
history, is now incapable of managing itself, and so its fate must be
decided by outside powers. A country that held together in 1991
through six weeks of the most intensive bombing campaign in history,
(which according to the UN left Iraq in a “pre-industrial age”) and
continued to survive through 12 years of the most complete and
devastating sanctions ever imposed on any nation is now blithely
consigned to history by concerned Western experts. To bolster their
case, the myth of ancient sectarian hatreds, a staple of the
‘humanitarian intervention’ crowd, is rehashed and fed on a daily
basis by journalists who neither question the authorship of
“sectarian” attacks nor report the view of ordinary Iraqis, who blame
the Occupation army and its puppet government for the orchestrated
chaos.


Dismantling Iraq

The preparations for the occupation of Iraq began almost immediately
after the first assault in 1991. With the imposition of no-fly-zones
in the north and south of the country and the western media already
dividing the country into three mutually antagonistic regions, the
stage was set. The first glimpse of the organized plan to destroy
Iraqi society came with the organized sacking of museums (170,000
pieces lost) and burning of libraries following the fall of the
regime in 2003. The looting had two aspects, one indiscriminate and
spontaneous and a second, in which organized trafficking network
looted pieces from Uruk, Nimrud, Niniveh, and the Nabi Jarjis Mosque.
The theft required a prepared, logistical infrastructure, whilst the
subsequent sale of the booty was facilitated by the systematic
destruction of archives, inventories and museum records (4) Later,
when the Occupation forces’ first chief, General Jay Garner,
recommended maintaining the Iraqi military and creating a coalition
government, defense secretary Rumsfeld removed him. His successor,
Paul Bremer, went on to dismantle the army and other key national
institutions, as well as ‘losing’ some $9 billion of Iraq’s oil
revenues along the way. The reconstituted puppet army was formed
almost exclusively from the Kurdish and Shia communities, a move
specifically designed to incubate sectarian tensions. Meanwhile,
anonymous assassins began targeting Iraq’s academic community,
eventually provoking a huge ‘brain drain’ from the country and
further debilitating the country’s capacity to recover.

When the armed opposition groups became active in the country, there
then followed a string of events bearing the hallmarks of undercover
operations designed to stoke up sectarian conflict and taint the
Iraqi Resistance. What follows is a brief summary of the most
suspicious incidents.


UN targeted, after 12 years in Iraq

When a truck bomb tore through U.N. headquarters four months into the
occupation, killing special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 19
others, pro-consul Bremer suggested two possible culprits: “Saddam
loyalists or foreign insurgents”. The interim government’s Ahmed
Chalabi, however, had received prior notice of the attack the week
before. Chalabi had been warned that a “soft target” was to be
attacked, although it would be “neither the Coalition Authority nor
coalition troops”. But the UN, whose security had been withdrawn that
day, was never warned. (5)


Kerbala and Baghdad

By November 2003, with the guerilla campaign inflicting heavy losses
on US forces, the media and interim governing authority began a
steady drumbeat of sectarian brainwashing. After weeks of scare
mongering about a civil war, coordinated explosions left 143 Shia
civilians dead in Kerbala and Baghdad. The blame fell on ‘Al Qaeda’,
but journalist Robert Fisk asked the obvious question: “If a violent
Sunni group wished to evict the Americans from Iraq…why would it want
to turn the Shia population…60 per cent of Iraqis, against them?” No
answer was provided, and the senseless attacks increased. (6)


Al Iskandariya

In early February 2004 American authorities claimed to have
intercepted a message from Iraq asking ‘Al Qaeda’ for help in
fomenting a civil war. Almost immediately, as if to underline the
message, an explosion killed 50 Shias in the small town of
Iskandariya. “Terrorists spark fear of civil war,” announced The
Independent, contradicting the town’s residents who, without
exception, attributed the blast to an American air strike. “They
heard a helicopter overhead, and the whoosh of a missile just before
the blast.” The blast itself left a crater three metres deep, more
consistent with a missile than a car bomb (7)


‘Al Qaeda in Iraq’

As with the parent organization, nothing about this group rings true.
Until 2004 ‘Al Qaeda,’ a Sunni-only set up, had never uttered a word
against Shias. But as the Iraqi Resistance campaign gained
unstoppable momentum, the reportedly deceased Jordanian militant Abu
Musab Zarqawi suddenly resurfaced. Calling for war against the
‘infidel’ Shia community, he went on to wage a parallel campaign
characterized more by gratuitous attacks on civilians than by
ejecting the US from Iraq. In the following years, wherever the US
unleashed massive assaults in Iraq, Zarqawi was conveniently
‘discovered’ to be hiding. The November 2004 assault on Fallujah was
waged with white phosphorous and left at least 6,000 dead beneath the
ruins, and yet US surveillance was so sharp that Zarqawi, with his
one wooden leg, was apparently observed fleeing on the first day!
Amongst Iraqis, the all-purpose Zarqawi was referred to as a kind of
mobile WMD able to appear wherever required. His story remained
incredible right up to the end, the released photo evidence showing
the lightly bruised body of a man killed with a 500lb bomb. (8)


Nick Berg, Margaret Hassan and the Abu Ghraib scandal

By April of 2004 the game was well and truly up. Fallujah became the
first major town to come under the open control of the Resistance.
Simultaneously, US repression provoked an uprising by the Shia Mehdi
Army and the US found itself waging a war on two fronts. Massive
shows of inter-faith solidarity ensued with 200,000 Sunnis and Shias
on April 9th gathering for collective prayers in Baghdad’s largest
Sunni mosque, where the lead preacher derided the possibility of
civil war as an American pretext for extending the occupation. The US
faced a chorus of protest around the world as it bludgeoned Fallujah
from the air in a desperate attempt to retake the city. Then,
photographs of systematic torture in the Abu Ghraib detention center
were released to the press, finishing off what little credibility the
US retained in world opinion. Detracting from the negative publicity,
however, previously unknown militant groups began kidnapping foreign
nationals and releasing gruesome videos in which the kidnap victims
were frequently beheaded on camera when the kidnappers’ demands were
not met.

The first victim was businessman Nick Berg, in an alleged
‘retaliation’ for Abu Ghraib. The killing, said to be the work of al
Zarqawi, came under scrutiny when independent media questioned the
execution tape’s veracity. It was determined that the video had first
been uploaded to the Internet from London, and after examination of
the images by a Mexican forensic surgeon, many observers agreed that
the man shown in the film was already a corpse when beheaded. (9)

Anglo-Irish aid worker Margaret Hassan had lived in Iraq for 30 years
and dedicated her life to the welfare of Iraqis in need, fighting
tirelessly against UN sanctions and opposing the Anglo-American
invasion. So when she was kidnapped on her way to work in the autumn
of 2004, Iraqis were incredulous. Spontaneous public information
campaigns were started and a poster showing Mrs Hassan holding a sick
Iraqi child appeared on billboards across the capital. “Margaret
Hassan is truly a daughter of Iraq,” it read. Patients of Iraqi
hospitals took to the streets in protest against the hostage takers,
and prominent Resistance groups, even including the phantom Zarqawi,
called for her release.

Her kidnappers did not issue any specific demands, but in the
captivity video Hassan pleaded for the withdrawal of British troops.
In previous cases, the groups had identified themselves and used the
videos to make their demands. But Margaret Hassan’s kidnapping was
different from the start. This group used no specific name and no
banners or flags to identify itself. In their videos appeared none of
the usual armed and hooded men or Koranic recitations. Other abducted
women, Robert Fisk noted, were released “when their captors
recognised their innocence. But not Hassan, even though she spoke
fluent Arabic and could explain her work to her captors in their own
language.”

A video soon surfaced purporting to show her execution and an Iraqi
man, Mustafa Salman al-Jubouri, was later sentenced to life
imprisonment by a Baghdad court for aiding and abetting the
kidnappers. To this date, no group has ever claimed responsibility. (10)



The ‘Salvador Option’

Long after piles of corpses began appearing by the roadsides, victims
of anonymous assassins, Newsweek magazine reported on a Pentagon plan
to use counterinsurgency death squads to eliminate Iraqi Resistance
fighters and their supporters. The so-called ‘Salvador Option’, named
after a similar campaign in Central America in the 1980s, was
confirmed by later reports of Interior ministry involvement in the
burgeoning death squads. As the victims mounted, the corporate media
filtered the story through its angle of Sunni fanatics targeting
innocent Shia civilians. But the facts showed a different story.
According to a report by the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, the bulk of resistance attacks (75%) were on Coalition
Forces, far exceeding that of any other category in their survey
(with attacks organized by quantity, type of target, and numbers
killed and wounded). In sharp contrast to the corporate media’s
picture, civilian targets comprised a mere 4.1% of attacks. After
300,000 Baghdad Shias staged the largest popular demonstrations since
1958, M. Junaid Alam asked: “Would such a massive number of Shiites
have shown up to protest the occupation if they thought that most of
the Sunni-based armed resistance, also opposed to the occupation, was
trying to kill them?” (11)



Car bombs

2005 saw a spectacular rise in the use of car bombs, many directed
against innocent civilian targets. Though the Zarqawi network was
said to have no more than about a thousand men in Iraq, it apparently
had an endless supply of personnel ready to sacrifice themselves for
the holy war. Other accounts, however, suggest a different explanation.

In May 2005, former Iraqi exile Imad Khadduri, reported how a driver
whose license had been confiscated in Baghdad was questioned for half
an hour at an American military camp, informed that there were no
charges against him, and then directed to the al-Khadimiya police
station to retrieve his license. "The driver did leave in a hurry,
but was soon alarmed with a feeling that his car was…carrying a heavy
load, and he also became suspicious of a low flying helicopter that
kept hovering overhead, as if trailing him. He stopped the car and …
found nearly 100 kilograms of explosives hidden in the back seat…the
only feasible explanation for this incident is that the car was
indeed booby trapped by the Americans and intended for the al-
Khadimiya Shiite district of Baghdad. The helicopter was monitoring
his movement and witnessing the anticipated ‘hideous attack by
foreign elements’”. (According to Khadurri, the scenario was repeated
again in Mosul, when a driver’s car broke down on the way to the
police station where he was sent to reclaim his license. The mechanic
he then turned to discovered the spare tire to be laden with
explosives.) (12)

In the same month, 64-year-old farmer Haj Haidar, who was taking his
tomato load from Hilla to Baghdad, was stopped at an American
checkpoint and had his pick-up thoroughly searched. Allowed to go on
his way, his 11 year-old grandson then told him he saw one of the
American soldiers placing a grey melon-sized object amidst the tomato
containers. Realizing the vehicle was his only means of work, Haidar
fought his initial impulse to run and removed the object from his
truck, placing it in a nearby ditch. He later learnt that it had in
fact exploded, killing part of a passing shepherd’s flock of sheep. (13)

At this point, legendary Iraqi blogger ‘Riverbend’ reported that many
of the supposed suicide bombings were in fact remotely detonated car
bombs or time bombs. She related how a man was arrested for allegedly
having shot at a National Guardsman after huge blasts struck in west
Baghdad. But according the man’s neighbours, far from having shot
anyone, he had seen “an American patrol passing through the area and
pausing at the bomb site minutes before the explosion. Soon after
they drove away, the bomb went off and chaos ensued. He ran out of
his house screaming to the neighbors and bystanders that the
Americans had either planted the bomb or seen the bomb and done
nothing about it. He was promptly taken away.” (14)



The SAS in Basra

In Basra on September 19th 2005, suspicious Iraqi police stopped
undercover British soldiers in a Toyota Cressida. The two men then
opened fire, killing one policeman and wounding another. Eventually
captured, they were identified by the BBC as members of the SAS elite
special forces. The soldiers were in wigs and dressed as Arabs and
their car was packed with explosives and towing equipment. (15)
Fattah al-Shaykh, a member of the Iraqi National Assembly, told Al-
Jazeera TV that the car was meant to explode in the centre of Basra’s
popular market. Before his thesis could be confirmed, however, the
British army’s tanks flattened the local prison cell and freed their
sinister operatives.



The phony ‘hostage crisis’

Plans to orchestrate sectarian chaos became more obvious in the
Occupation’s third year. In one incident, the Baghdad police told
commanders of the Shia Mehdi Army that gunmen near the village of
Madain were holding 150 Shia civilians hostage. When the militia sent
fighters to the area to negotiate their release, they were fired
upon, losing at least 25 men. “I think it was a set-up; the fire was
too heavy,” said an aide said to the Mehdi militia, adding the
attackers used snipers and heavy machineguns. (16) Local townspeople
were unaware of the supposed hostage crisis and no hostages were ever
discovered there.



“Could it be a good thing?” Samarra and the ‘Civil War’

Although the incessant sectarian brainwashing was clearly having an
effect, Iraqis continued to dismiss the idea of a civil war. (17) In
the wake of the destruction of Samarra’s Golden Mosque, however, the
scale of the killing in Iraq rose sharply. Those responsible for this
critical attack wore Iraqi National Guard uniforms according to the
mosque guards. Joint forces of Iraqi ING and Americans, patrolling
the surrounding area the whole while, went on to assist a militia
attack on a Sunni mosque in a pre-programmed ‘response’. The response
of most ordinary Iraqis, however, was quite different, According to
Sami Ramadani “None of the mostly spontaneous protest marches were
directed at Sunni mosques. Near the bombed shrine itself, local
Sunnis joined the city's minority Shias to denounce the occupation
and accuse it of sharing responsibility for the outrage. In Kut, a
march led by Sadr's Mahdi army burned US and Israeli flags. In
Baghdad's Sadr City, the anti-occupation march was massive.” (18) The
Western media, however, could now seize upon each and every incident
as evidence of an irreparable social disintegration. Columnist Daniel
Pipes approvingly observed that sectarian conflict would reduce
attacks on US forces as Iraqis fought each other. His comments were
then reflected on Fox News with onscreen captions that read: “Upside
To Civil War?” and “All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good
Thing?” (19)



History as mystery

The key to justifying the horrendous colonial assault on Iraq was the
non-stop manufacture of lies. Zionist cheerleader Thomas Freidman had
likened Saddam’s Iraq to an ethnically segregated Alabama in the era
of lynchings, where Shia and Kurds held sub human status. That the
Minister of Health was Kurdish, that the regime had two Shia Prime
ministers (Sadoun Humadi and Mohammed Al-Zubaidi), or that the Vice
President was a Christian, never intruded on Freidman’s ‘analysis’.
In fact, Iraqis rarely asked about the religion or ethnicity of the
leaders and functionaries they reported to. It was simply not a
matter of concern for them.

Meanwhile, for the ‘human rights’ brigade, propagandists such as The
Independent’s Johann Hari would hash out a two-dimensional caricature
of a country in which a hellish regime murdered, each year, 70,000 of
its own citizens (without anyone really noticing). In spite of the
Ba’ath government’s admitted crimes, however, a visitor could pass
through Baghdad in the 1990s without coming across tanks, car bombs,
kidnappings, air strikes, fuel shortages (!) power cuts and vast
detention gulags. And whatever the scale of Saddam’s crimes, they
pale next to those of the Occupation. As Mike Whitney has said
“Saddam had no intention of dismantling the government, the army, the
civic institutions; of looting the museums and killing the teachers
and intellectuals, of ethnic cleansing the Christians and the Sunnis,
and inciting violence between the sects. Saddam had no plan to
increase malnutrition, to reduce the flow of clean water, to cut off
the electricity, to remove the social-safety net, to increase the
poverty and unemployment, or to set Iraqi against Iraqi in a vicious
struggle for survival. Saddam did not abide by the neoconservative
theory of “creative destruction,” which deliberately plunged an
entire nation into chaos destroying the fabric of Iraqi society and
leaving the people to flock to militias for safety.” (20)

The truth is that the approaching peak of global oil production
threatens to fatally weaken the US power bloc. (21) Hence, Saddam’s
Iraq, an independent, oil-rich state in the most geostrategically
important region on earth could not be allowed to survive. But the
intractable resistance to the Occupation has obligated the US to turn
to its contingency plan (officially, of course, it didn’t have one)
In this plan, something similar to Oded Yinon’s tripartite
balkanization of the country is being thrashed out. (22) Existing
independent states are to be broken up and replaced by a cluster of
weak and pliant protectorates. The particulars may be very different,
but the engineered breakup of Yugoslavia undoubtedly serves as the
model for this dismemberment. “In the 1990s” wrote Diana Johnstone,
“the US-led International Community was no longer interested in state-
building. Nation-state deconstruction was more compatible with
economic globalization measures.” (23) To this end, in Iraq as in
Yugoslavia, the US has allied itself with “state-splitters” and
sectarian bigots, all the while publicly claiming to uphold national
sovereignty. In case of any misunderstanding, neocon ideologues have
clarified matters: ‘natural’ sectarian tensions, they say, will
inevitably arise in the absence of a repressive state to subdue them.
Therefore, under their benevolent guidance, Iraq must be allowed to
devolve into its ethnic components.


Iraq resists

After the 1991 bombing of Iraq, and George Bush Sr.’s announcement of
a ‘New World Order’ of American hegemony, foreign policy forums
effectively proclaimed the nation-state obsolete. In fact, the global
imposition of the Western model of development after WWII had already
ended the traditional independence of the State. The ‘new’ ideology
was simply a recognition of facts on the ground. After the Soviet
collapse, celebrated advocates of the anti-nation-state ideology
predicted an approaching ‘End of History’, which would see all the
world’s peoples integrate into a globalized, urban, capitalist,
consumer lifestyle. Thus, the “chaotic diversity of cultures, values
and beliefs that lay behind the conflicts of the past” would be
removed in a general process of political and cultural
homogenization. (24) It is still too early to predict the end of this
delirious vision, but across the world, people are opting to forge
their own future, increasingly deaf to the advice of the super
elites. In Iraq, consciousness of the big picture is greater than
anywhere. Thus, the planned breakdown into generalized sectarian
conflict has not materialized. As the armed resistance intensifies
its struggle against the US and openly confronts the Salafi Jihadist
terrorists (25), a pendant has become extremely popular amongst
Iraqis. Seen on the streets and on television, anchorwomen wear it
while reading the news. The pendant has the form of Iraq.

When TV stations showed Kalashnikov-weilding teenagers going toe-to-
toe with the world’s most powerful army in Fallujah, the images
evoked a struggle of epochal significance. But alongside the armed
resistance, journalists, intellectuals, trade unionists and Iraqis of
all walks of life are, each on their own terrain, facing off against
military-corporate rule. However we decide to contribute, it is
incumbent on all people of conscience to join them.


The author can be reached at gnaoua22@...


Notes:


1) http://canadianspectator.ca/stuff/WWIII.html

2) http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=6559

3) http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/1/154940/816

4) “Saqueo a la Arqueologia” Clio: El Pasado Presente Madrid, #.20,
June 2003

5) Asia Times, 20 August 2003

6) http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles360.htm

7) “Terrorists spark fear of civil war as 50 die in car bomb” The
Independent, Wednesday 11th February 2004

8) http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=419

9) http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CAR405A.html

10) http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1353695,00.html

11) “Does the Resistance Target Civilians? According to US
Intelligence, Not Really” M. Junaid Alam, Left Hook ( http://
www.lefthook.org/Politics/Alam041605.html ) April 18, 2005

12) http://www.albasrah.net/maqalat/english/0505/Combat-
terrorism_160505.htm

13) http://abutamam.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_abutamam_archive.htlm

14) http://riverbendblog.blogspit.com/
2005_05_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#111636281930496496

15) http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0365.html
16) Omar al-Ibadi, (Reuters) Oct 28

17) http://www.uruknet.info?p=12150 - In Riverbend’s words: “Iraqis
have intermarried and mixed as Sunnis and Shia for centuries. Many of
the larger Iraqi tribes are a complex and intricate weave of Sunnis
and Shia. We don't sit around pointing fingers at each other and
trying to prove who is a Muslim and who isn't and who deserves
compassion and who deserves brutalization.” Regarding the lies about
ethnically-based oppression by the Ba’ath, see: http://
www.iraqresistance.net/article.php3?id_article=372

18) Sami Ramadani, Friday February 24, 2006 The Guardian

19) http://www.uruknet.info?p=20973

20) http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/printer_1341.shtml

21) “Crossing the Rubicon”, Michael C. Ruppert, New Society
Publishers, 2004
22) Oded Yinon “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s” http://
cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0005345.html

23) “Fool’s Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions”, Diana
Johnstone, Pluto Press 2002 - As N. Hildyard once observed: “Scratch
below the surface of inter-ethnic conflict, and the shallowness and
deceptiveness of ‘blood’ or ‘culture’ explanations are soon revealed.
‘Tribal hatred’ (though a real and genuine emotion for some) emerges
as a product not of ‘nature’ or of a primordial ‘culture’, but of a
complex web of politics, economics, history, psychology and a
struggle for identity.” - N. Hildyard, Briefing 11 – Blood and
Culture: Ethnic Conflict and the Authoritarian Right, The
Cornerhouse. 1999

24) “The March of The Monoculture” Helena Norberg-Hodge, The
Ecologist, Volume 29, No.3 May/June 1999

25) “Anbar Revenge Brigade Makes Progress in the Fight Against al-
Qaeda” http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2369940