On Saturday November 13, 2004, the Chicago Humanities festival creeped it's way onto DePaul University's campus. There was no publicity on campus beforehand; no fliers, no posters, no ad in the school newspaper. This was more than likely done on purpose because the humanities festival and it's partner in the event on campus, the Illinois State Bar Association, did not want students to know about this event, or come to it. They didn't publicize it because they knew that the students would have shut it down and kicked them off our campus.
We would have protested them because the name of the panel was “Iraq: Constituting a Nation.” Among the panelist was Feisal al-Istrabadi, Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations. Istrabadi was formerly a member of the Iraqi Forum for Democracy. Don't let the name deceive you, it's actually a conservative exile group that had been urging those in power in Washington to invade Iraq.
Istrabadi used to be connected to the International Human Rights Law Institute here at DePaul. They recently received an eleven million dollar grant from the State Department to help rebuild Iraq's legal system, focusing on the schools. Among the things they are helping Iraqi's learn: international business law and international trade law, so there will be a nice free market in Iraq for the multinational corporations to pillage with the consent of a new generation of Iraqi elites.
I found out about this panel by chance the day it was occurring and decided to stop by and prod this puppet of the US empire. I was called on to ask a question, so I pointed out that Iraq's new government already owed an 436 million dollar debt to the International Monetary Fund, and that any possible elections in Iraq will only offer Iraqi's Washington Consensus approved candidates that agree with the World Bank and IMF's structural adjustment programs of privatization, neo-liberal domination and free trade dogma. So the question becomes, how is that democracy if Iraqi's won't have any choice in their elections?
Istrabadi's response? “Well, I would hope that Iraq sees more of the Washington Consensus.” He then continued to talk about how he wants to see an Iraq with paved roads, I imagine so he can drive his SUV to a McDonald's in Baghdad.
Iraq is a country where Saddam Hussein banned trade unions independent of the government in the late 1980's and the US army and Iraqi puppet government have continued to enforce those laws. US army men have arrested working men and women who stand up and demand democracy at the workplace and for an end to the illegal and unjust occupation of Iraq. With the union and worker council movement in Iraq suppressed, the US and it's imperial allies can easily walk in and sell off Iraq's industries to their friends in power, rich white CEO's. Meanwhile the Iraqi people will be left in poverty, without jobs, with hospitals that won't give health care to those who can't afford it, with schools that don't be able to teach, and with a government that won't listen to them.
Those in power today in Iraq are no different than Saddam Hussein of the 1980's. A puppet regime of the United States government. Remember those photo's of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam, talking about how to supply Hussein with everything he needed to produce chemical weapons to kill Kurds? I imagine there's one out there of Rumsfeld meeting with Eyad Allawi, the interim prime minister of Iraq, discussing how to crush the rebellion in Fallujah.
Which makes me wonder, when the US invaded Iraq, Bush told us it was to find the weapons of mass destruction. Well Iraq didn't have any, but guess who does. The United States. Who will disarm the US?
Certainly not John Kerry. His pal Bill Clinton is responsible for the deaths of at least a half-million Iraqi children as a result of the international sanction imposed on Iraq, preventing hospitals from obtaining medicine, stores from getting food, ect. Kerry himself voted for the invasion, and said the way in which Bush messed up was that Bush didn't have an international coalition to join in the massacre of Iraqi's.
Who will disarm the US then? We will. The millions of us who live in this country who took the streets in protest. Those of us who will appear at the Inauguration to attempt to prevent it from occurring. The billions of us around the world who will resist the US empire in all its forms.
The last question Istrabadi was asked at this forum came from an aged man who asked Istrabadi how he would convince our sons and daughters to die in Iraq. Istrabadi responded that he believed in ideals like freedom and democracy.
He was immediately interrupted by spectators in the crowd who realized what a joke it was. There will be no democracy in Iraq as long as the corporate powers that be dictate the terms and conditions to be carried out by people like Istrabadi. The same way there will be no democracy here in the US until the people take the power back.