11.11.2004

Destroying Fallujah city cannot bring democracy

Reconstruction must be run by and for the people, says Paul Greenaway

"The enemy has got a face. He’s called Satan. He lives in Fallujah. And we’re going to destroy him.” No, not the rantings of some half-crazed TV evangelist, but the motivational words of lieutenant-colonel Gareth Brandl, who commands one of the US battalions now hammering Fallujah as part of Operation Phantom Eagle. Having fully encircled the city, US and UK imperialism is hell-bent on “flushing out” the “anti-Iraq” and “foreign terrorist” forces in the city.

The backdrop to the battle of Fallujah is bloody. In Samarra 33 people were killed in a devastating series of car bombs, which went off outside the mayor’s office. Then in the town of Haditha, some 120 miles west of Baghdad, 21 policemen were killed when insurgents attacked and overwhelmed the police station, and a senior police officer was killed in a separate attack in the neighbouring town of Haqlaniya.

As for Fallujah itself - a city the size of Brighton with a normal population of 250,000 - for days before this week’s “final” offensive, US troops had ‘softened it up’ by raining down 155mm howitzer shells on a number of “pre-planned targets”.

One victim of this ‘precision’ bombing was the Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the centre of the city, with witnesses saying that only its facade remained standing. Maybe colonel Brandl thought Satan was hiding out there.

Occupation forces plan, or hope, to take the city one sector at a time - that is, the so-called policy of ‘manoeuvre-ism’. As part of this strategy, the city has, to use the military jargon, been steadily “depersonalised”. Yet despite being repeatedly urged by the US military authorities to flee the city, some 100,000 or more civilians remain, no doubt nimbly avoiding the near non-stop volley of US mortar shells. We should not forget that for every US marine that dies in Fallujah a thousand Iraqis will probably be killed - men, women and children.

Life in Fallujah is already hellish. The United Nations Refugee Agency and the International Committee of the Red Cross have expressed deep concern about the current plight of Fallujah citizens. Reporting on November 10, Fadhil Badrani, a journalist for the BBC’s Arabic service section, said the city was in complete darkness, with the rubble still smouldering from the day’s artillery bombardment. Water, as well as electricity, has been almost entirely cut off. Badrani writes: “I cannot say how many people have been killed, but after two days of bombing, this city looks like Kabul. Large portions of it have been destroyed, but it is so dangerous to leave the house that I have not been able to find out the number of casualties.”

Yes, one can easily imagine how grateful the citizens of Fallujah will be to the US forces - even though many of them will be dead, they will be free.

But we know that the military will do everything in its power to ‘manage’ the reports and images coming out of Fallujah. The vast majority of journalists in Iraq are ‘embedded’, often acting as nothing more than glorified spokespersons for the military. In this age of misinformation, we may have to wait months, if not years, to find out what is really happening or is about to happen during the next few tumultuous days.

But the propaganda war is not all going the way of the imperialists. A majority of the British people now oppose the war in Iraq. There is a groundswell of anger at the lying Blair government, with its claims of “WMD programmes” and “45 minutes”. This has become all too apparent to many of the relatives of those young British soldiers who have already been killed in Iraq, such as Rose Gentle who - much to the extreme irritation of defence secretary Geoff Hoon - has made public statements denouncing the war - “This is an unjustified war, based on a lie”, to use her own words, and she has received thousands of letters and emails of support.

The Gentles and other families have just launched a campaign, backed by the Stop the War Coalition, modelled on the American network organisation, Military Families Speak Out. We thoroughly endorse this and all other such initiatives which in their own way expose the lies of imperialism and help bring an end to the despicable and bloody occupation.

By all estimations, Fallujah is expected to remain under assault for at least a week, even if US forces on Wednesday were boldly predicting that they would have “secured” the entire city within 48 hours. Though now in ‘control’ of the centre, imperialist forces are encountering fierce resistance from the thousands of anti-US Iraqi fighters holed up there.

Communists want to see US imperialism defeated in Fallujah, as in Iraq as a whole. But that is unlikely to happen quickly. More probably there will be a messy, gruelling and protracted conflict involving few set-piece battles. It comes as no surprised to learn that US marine units have been undergoing training in urban counter-insurgency techniques by British advisers.

The British army spent decades fighting a low-level war against the catholic-Irish in Northern Ireland - obviously an inspiring precedent for US imperialism. However, our newly-taught marines should remember that, for all its military might and firepower, British imperialism was unable to militarily defeat the Provisional IRA.

Of course, the assault on Fallujah is aimed at “stabilising” Iraq ahead of January’s general election. It is absolutely vital for the plans of imperialism, and the stooge interim administration of Ayad Allawi, that these elections are deemed a success and thus confer a desperately-needed ‘moral’ legitimacy upon the Iraqi government and its imperialist masters. In the admirably frank words of a Pentagon consultant, Daniel Goure: “This has to be done. You want this area pacified to support elections.” Hence the ferocity of the assault on Fallujah, a near perfect example of the energetic pursuance of the strategy of the bullet and the ballot-box.

But these elections are to be run in a manner and under conditions which are designed to produce the result George Bush and US imperialism wants. They are highly unlikely to reflect the genuine will of the Iraqi people. First of all, large areas of the country are beyond the reach of the Allawi government, and, despite Fallujah, are likely to be excluded from the poll. Secondly, those areas formally under the control of Allawi (or the Kurdish nationalist parties) have nothing resembling democratic conditions in which to campaign. Allawi has just declared a 60-day state of emergency in all the Arabic parts of Iraq.
There is more trouble ahead for Allawi. The largest sunni-led political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, has pulled out of the interim government in protest at the assault on Fallujah. The main association of sunni clerics has also voiced its strong disapproval, calling for a boycott of elections due in January. In all probability, such calls will increase, thus provoking deeper splits and crises within the stooge government.

It is instructive that analogies with Vietnam are common among many US military figures - decades later, the US imperialist psyche is still haunted by its defeat at the hands of the Vietnamese. For some, pulverising Iraq is like a grotesque form of therapy, helping to banish such a humiliating memory. In The Guardian we read how sergeant-major Carlton Kent told his troops, in a reference to the 1968 Tet Offensive, that “you’re all in the process of making history. This is another Hue city in the making. I have no doubt if we do get the word that each and every one of you is going to do what you have always done - kick some butt” (November 9).

Millions of Vietnamese, Kampuch-eans and Laotians were killed by a US imperialism in search of “some butt” to kick. The quite chilling views of the likes of sergeant-major Kent and lieutenant-colonel Brandl amply demonstrate, yet again, that the imperialist global system can bring nothing but bloodshed to the world.

No one should have the slightest illusions in the politics nor the programmes of the Fallujah insurgents. However courageous, they are reactionaries, who would, if they could, impose a theocracy over Iraq. Yet we recognise that the US-UK occupation forces are the main enemy. Without this basic understanding there can be no chance for the forces of communism and socialism. Relying on trade unionism alone for a way out of the today’s terrible impasse is as good as useless. The workers’ movement in Iraq can only begin to assert itself through something like this four-pronged approach.
One, it must force all left forces to make a complete break with the Allawi stooge government. All communist and other such ministers must resign. Nor must any part of the trade union movement be allowed to act as ‘honest broker’ for Allawi and the US-UK occupation.

Two, the workers’ movement must fight to take a lead in galvanising opposition to the occupation forces. US-UK forces should without any preconditions return home. Towards that end all manner of temporary political deals and military arrangements are possible. Obviously the vacuum a US-UK would create necessitates robust measures of self-protection. Popular militias must be organised to fend off and disarm the islamic groups.

Three, there needs to be an emergency programme to lift Iraq out of the dislocation, chaos and barbarism brought about by Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist dictatorship, more than a decade of UN sanctions and finally the US-UK invasion and occupation. All foreign debts should be repudiated. The oil industry must be renationalised and put under the supervision of the workers. The national and international assets of the Saddam Hussein family and all former Ba’ath party officials should be seized or claimed back. Income from these lucrative sources should be put under democratic supervision and used for daily food and other such rations and to re-establish vital services such as electricity, sewage and refuse collection. The country’s industrial capacity must be rebuilt. The demand should be made for the UN and the US-UK coalition to pay reparations to help towards this.

Four, reconstructing Iraq is not simply a technical task. Fundamentally it is political. It demands an ever widening democracy. What Iraq desperately needs is a reassertive working class which can lead the country because it champions the rights and interests of the rural and urban poor, women, the religious minorities and the Kurds and defends the values of secularism against medievalism.
US marines, bombs and tanks cannot do that. Nor can the islamic militias. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution.