NOW, ON TO IRAQ

By Mumia Abu-Jamal

With the endgame emerging into view of a bomb- drenched Afghanistan that is now apparently newly- pacified, we are seeing the re-emergence of Iraq as America's demon-of-the-month.

The justification for this new media-military targeting of Iraq is that the country possesses 'weapons of mass destruction'!

Well, what country doesn't?

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton has tried the Iraq card before, when he charged that the Baghdad government may not be the only nation in possession of weapons of mass destruction, but the Iraqis alone have used them.

The eminent historian Howard Zinn, author of the acclaimed A People's History of the United States, remarked only a nation blind to history could accept a claim such as Clinton's:

"He could only say this to a population deprived of history. The United States has supplied Turkey, Israel, and Indonesia with such weapons, and they have used them against civilian populations. But the nation most guilty is our own. No nation in the world possesses greater weapons of mass destruction than we do, and none has used them more often, or with greater loss of civilian life. In Hiroshima hundreds of thousands died, in Korea and South Vietnam millions died as a result of our use of such weapons."

The sheer hypocrisy of such a nation threatening another nation on the basis of its possession of 'weapons of mass destruction' is stunning. Asians and Arabs must be shaking their collective heads in mass disbelief.

Clinton's lurch to the right during his second term is now mirrored by Bush fils as he recycles his predecessor's lie, the old 'weapons of mass destruction' tale, a justification for Bush the Younger's efforts to repair Bush the Elder's failure to properly discipline Iraq for daring to act as a sovereign state, instead of a vassal-state (or client-state) to the U.S. Empire.

To take the hypocrisy to an even higher pitch, consider that some of Iraq's weapons were indeed weapons of mass destruction, a fact well known to Washington because U.S. hardware was delivered to the Iraqis, the better to kill their Iranian enemies with. The U.S., London and other Western countries made mountains of wealth selling such weapons not only to Iraq, but to Iran as well. Both sides used such weapons with deadly efficiency in an 8-year war that left over 800,000 (and perhaps over a million) men, women and children slain. The U.S., smarting over the expulsion of the Shah from Iran, and the rise of the late Ayatullah Khomeini, rubbed their hands with mercantile glee as they armed and egged on the neighboring Iraqis.

Yesterday's ally is today's adversary.

And tomorrow, after the dust falls from the sustained bombing back to the hard, cold Afghan earth, America seeks to extend her New Crusades to Iraq.

This, after 10 years of sustained bombing of Iraq by the West. This, after perhaps 500,000 civilian casualties. This, after Iraq has been bombed until it became a toxic waste dump. The threats, targeting and bombing of Iraq had nothing to do with Iraqi 'weapons of mass destruction' in 1991, in 1993, in 1998 -- or now.

Why is Iraq the boogie-man of choice today?

U.S. Brig. General William Looney, who directed the bombing of Iraq in the late 1990s, put the point out bluntly:

"If they turn on their radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs [surface-to- air missiles]. They know we own their country. We own their airspace... We dictate the way they live and talk. And that's what's great about America right now. It's a good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need." [Wm. Blum, Rogue State (Common Courage, 2000) p. 159]

Voila. There it is. Oil.

Why isn't that a crime against international law?