[News] David Gilbert: Abu Ghraib and the Logic of Conquest

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Mon Jul 26 12:10:52 EDT 2004


Abu Ghraib and the Logic of Conquest

The lies to justify the war on Iraq couldn’t be more threadbare: there are 
no weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein did not collaborate with 
al-Quaeda on the 9/11 attacks (in fact there was considerable hostility 
because of Osama-bin Laden’s efforts to topple secular Arab regimes like 
Hussein’s), the Bush team’s pre-9/11/01 political agenda to attack Iraq can 
be easily documented. The revelations have eroded Bush’s popularity 
somewhat but haven’t resulted in the total discrediting and disgrace he 
deserves. Between corporate media, cowardly Democrats, and a still too 
somnolent antiwar movement, we haven’t seen the mass outrage and uproar 
that is needed.

The scandal about the disgusting abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib has been 
revealing, and it doesn’t look like Bush et, al, will get away with their 
“few bad apples” line. There is at least some attention to, even if not 
nearly enough focus on, the policy decisions that led to these widespread 
practices. But I don’t see anything in the mainstream media about the 
underlying reality: such brutality is the inherent logic and outgrowth of 
conquest and occupation. We hear so little about the estimated 10,000 
Iraqis that have been killed so far. Nor any acknowledgement that torture 
and massacres were common in Vietnam, even without the same “post-9/11 
interrogation exigencies.” Nor any discussion of all the Latin American 
torturers trained, over decades, at the US school of the Americas. While US 
neocons disdain history, the Iraqis certainly haven’t forgotten that early 
in th elast century the British colonialists claimed to be ‘liberating’ 
Iraq, or that the League of Nations provided the legal cover for British 
and French colonial mandates in the Middle East. (See, Rashid Khalidi, 
Resurrecting Empire.) To see the full implications of conquest and 
occupation, how abuse and humiliation become daily realities, just look at 
the protracted horror of Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

It may feel harder, compared to the 1960s, to rally around the demand “US 
Out!” in an era when much of the most militant resistance is itself 
reactionary and repressive. Please remember, though, that the US not only 
led in crushing progressive opposition in the region but also very 
consciously fostered both bin-Laden and Hussein. Such a formative force in 
creating the problems can in no way now coerce a positive solution. The 
basic demand of self-determination is as urgent and relevant as ever. Let’s 
also not be fooled by high-flown talk about ‘democracy’ – from a US 
government that has just overthrown one democratically-elected president, 
in Haiti, and has been waging a systematic destabilization campaign against 
another, in Venezuela. (The US has violently intervened against democracy 
multiple times, as documented in William Blum’s, Killing Hope.)

The peoples of Iraq, Palestine, Haiti and Venezuela deserve our staunch 
support against our government’s attacks on their integrity and well-being. 
It may feel overwhelming to address all 4 theaters of struggle. But there 
is a way in which together they create a fuller and more coherent whole, by 
exposing Bush’s big lie that he’s fighting this war for democracy. We who 
truly support democracy need to stress that conquests, occupations, coups, 
and destabilization campaigns are the antitheses of the very first 
democratic right under international law: self-determination. The urgency 
and value of challenging the whole pattern underscores why we so badly need 
to build an anti-imperialist movement today.

David Gilbert, 7/16/04

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