Commentary
The Attack on Iraq from the
infograf@beograd.com
Perspective of a Serbian Woman
Spomenka Deretic (Journalist)
Belgrade, 7. April 2003
Waiting for Death
The first victim of the Anglo-American attack on Iraq was the Iraqi Belgrader Adnan. That night, sitting on his couch, in his home, in one of Belgrade's suburbs, he was watching TV. The announcer suddenly, in an agitated voice, announced the news that the Americans had begun attacking Iraq. Adnan could see the first rockets hitting Baghdad and the city's grandiose buildings being transformed into ruins. It was at that moment that Adnan's heart simply stopped beating. We will never know for sure what Adnan was thinking about at that moment. Was he thinking about the injured Iraqi children? Or his sister (an English professor)? Or of his family home? Or the brutal destruction of a beautiful city and an old, civilized people?
Adnan often told his Serbian wife and his friends in Serbia that oil was a curse for Iraqis, not a source of wealth. Adnan believed that oil attracted today's rapacious conquerors, just as once, the fertile lands of Babylon - regulated by intricate canal systems - attracted conquerors and plunderers. The night before the Anglo-American attack on Iraq, Adnan was speaking with his sister who was still in Baghdad. Adnan's sister (the English professor), was telling him that she no longer closed the gate to their father's house. "We Iraqis" she said " wait every morning for only one guest now - DEATH"
The Ninth Crusade
The feudal rulers of Western and Central Europe led wars of conquest against the lands and peoples of the Middle East for a whole three-centuries (from the XIth to the XIVth). The Western and Central European political elite of the middle ages wanted, so they said, to "liberate" Christ's grave in Jerusalem from Muslim rule. This is why they called their soldiers Crusaders and the "liberators" of Christ's grave. But those Europeans were, in fact, really only a bunch of common criminals and thiefs.
They were more attracted by the wealth of the Middle East and the desire to control the lucrative trade routes with the other Asian and African states of the era. The false "liberators" of Christ's grave even robbed and massacred the citizens of wealthy Constantinople, the main city of Byzantine Christiandom.
The Eighth Crusade led by these thieving Crusaders was initiated by his "Holiness" Louis IX. The Ninth Crusade was called "Freedom for Iraqis" and was led by George Bush II. The goals of both Louis the IXth and Bush the IInd [George W. Bush] were identical: the conquest of other countries and the plunder of other people's wealth. In the Middle Ages the justification for the killing of other peoples and the destruction of other nations was the "liberation" of Christ's grave. Today the justification for the destruction and looting of Iraq is the battle against "terrorism." In fact, the real terrorism is the destruction of the valuable material remains of old civilizations.
In Iraq, at the turn of the 20th century, the German archeologist Koldewey uncovered physical evidence that confirmed Herodotus' accounts of the highly-developed nature of Babylonian culture. The Anglo-American pilots who bombed Al-Qasr were also bombing some of the oldest monuments of ancient Babylon. Until this month, one could find structures that were at least 4000 years old in the region, with the Gate of the Goddess Istar, decorated in the richest ways, one of the key surviving monuments of this glorious history. It would seem that when the Americans and British break through this gate - representative of all human civilization - they will build in its place a monument to the Marines and to the all-mighty Barrel of Oil instead.
A Pyrrhic Victor for the Americans and the British
The Americans and the British expected that they would easily occupy Iraq. They were surprised by the heroic resistance of the Iraqi people. They became frustrated and angry that the Iraqis were defending themselves and their own land. Bush the IInd and Blair the Ist's soldiers and rockets unceasingly rained-down on Iraqi cities and the Iraqi people in direct proportion to the people's resistance. They bombed Iraqi TV, just as NATO had bombed the workers of TV Belgrade four years ago [killing 14].
The Americans and the British have killed in the past few weeks alone over a thousand Iraqi civilians. Iraqi children injured in this assault will - if they survive - only remember the foreign soldiers that ripped apart their small bodies and brought to them unbearable pains and suffering. For these Iraqi children, their torn limbs and shattered lives will never be restored by the small packets of "aid" brought to them by "humanitarian" organizations from the countries that bombed them. They know that for these foreign soldiers - that is to say for the Americans and the British - oil is much more valuable than the lives of Iraqi children.
Anglo-American pilots unceasingly attacked Baghdad with powerful bombs, as "precisely" as NATO pilots had terrorized the people of Serbia around this time four years ago. We should remember that four years ago a precedent was established. The international community lacked the power to stop the aggression that was aimed, by this strange militaristic beast, at the people of Yugoslavia. The renewed assaults of this beast on the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq, represent the logical continuation of the militarism that characterizes the modus operandi of the sole superpower on our planet.
It is equally logical to conclude that the Americans will not be satisfied solely with the conquest of Iraq and the plunder of its oil. America feeds off of fear and becomes ever more dangerous through such nourishment. It will soon want to swallow-up Syria and Iran as well. And afterwards, whose turn will it be? Because of all the possible answers to that one question, it would seem that the attack on Iraq represents the beginning of the end of Washington's absolute domination over this planet of ours. After the attack on Iraq, America will no longer be the only super-power in this world. The only thing is, the West has still not become aware of this fact!
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