By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
9 December 2006
The report of the Iraq Study Group clearly tries to arrive at and promote a Democratic-Republican bipartisan consensus in order to satisfy the US monopoly bourgeoisie, especially the military industrial complex and the oil giants, and to frustrate the will of the US electorate which repudiated the Bush policy of aggression and occupation of Iraq in the 2006 US mid-term elections.
The main thrust of the recommendations is the withdrawal of most of the US troops from combat zones by early 2008 to the safety of huge US military base complexes in Iraq where they can accelerate the training of the security forces (military and police) of the Iraqi puppet government. At the same time, US military advisor teams are to be embedded in the puppet security forces. In brief, the US military forces are staying and digging in.
The US strategy remains unchanged. It is to keep US military bases in Iraq to back up the puppet government and security forces, serve US oil interests and reinforce the US-Zionist combine in the Middle East. The US is not at all interested in spreading democracy and improving the lives of the Iraqi people. According to UN secretary general Kofi Annan, life in Iraq today is far worse than during the time of Saddam Hussein.
The US scheme in Iraq is to serve the interests of US oil giants and engineering firms in gaining direct ownership of new oil wells and financial control over old Iraq state-owned oil wells by encumbering them with the costs of repair and renovation. US firms of various types will continue to do business and draw profits from a sham reconstruction of social infrastructure which the US military forces have destroyed in the first place.
The US is responsible for having ignited sectarian violence by using its Iraqi agents to blow up the main mosque of the Shia. The US scheme is to divide and rule the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis and to pretend at fairly dividing the Iraqi oil income among them while the US monopolies make the most profits from the ownership, production, export and domestic distribution of oil.
The US military forces seek to use puppet security forces to put under control the Shiite militia forces, which are deemed pro-Iranian, and to suppress the Baathist and other resistance forces among Sunni people. At the same time, the US seeks to use diplomacy to solicit the support of Iraq’s neighboring countries in order to help stabilize the situation for the benefit of the US.
The bipartisan consensus aims to aggrandize the US monopoly bourgeoisie and to frustrate the demands of the American people for the immediate complete withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, for the investigation of war profiteering and corruption in state contracts with the military-industrial complex and for the impeachment of Bush for going to war on the basis of deliberate lies, committing the crime of aggression and causing unnecessary high human and material costs.
Can lying about having oral sex at the Oval office be more impeachable than lying about intelligence and committing the crime of aggression? This colossal crime of aggression by the US government and in particular the Bush administration has already caused the loss of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and American lives, the misuse of more than USD 350 billion of US money and the destruction of Iraqi state and private property running into many more hundreds of billions of USD.
There are ominous signs against the just demands of the American people. Bush is openly trying to ensure a bipartisan consensus in his favor and in the interest of the oil giants. Republican Sen. John McCain is calling for a surge of more US combat troops into Iraq. And the incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already declared that the impeachment of Bush is not in the agenda of the Democratic Party, unless the people demand it. The major US mass media that used to drum up the US war of aggression against Iraq are trumpeting that the US military forces must stay on in Iraq in order to prevent chaos and big losses for the US.
The American people need to be vigilant and militant. They have to press for the realization of their just demands and underscore the fact that the US occupation of Iraq is unjust and extremely costly in terms of lives and money, that the US is clearly losing its war against the Iraqi people and that shortfalls in USA military recruitment are growing despite the increased financial and educational incentives for the recruits.
The US military forces have already killed more than 650,000 Iraqi people. But the Iraqi resistance forces have killed nearly 3000 and wounded more than 20,000 US troops (not to mention the casualties among the so-called security contractors and more than 24,000 US troops evacuated for various medical reasons, including illness due to the effects of depleted uranium, psychological disorder and accidents). The Iraqi resistance has also blasted the oil pipelines and other facilities, thus causing the drastic reduction of oil production and the profitability of the war for the US.
No matter how smart the politicians, pundits and publicists of US imperialism may think of themselves, the Iraqi people and resistance forces are determined to fight for their own national liberation and democratic aspirations. They are sure of themselves and see how the US military forces are quailing and getting hurt on the ground. They are inspired by the American people’s repudiation of the Bush policy of aggression and occupation and by the open admission of the highest US and British officials that they have failed to pacify and dominate the Iraqi people. ###
