Who said that it is over and done with? [Archives:2003/631/Opinion]

Hassan Al-Haifi
Thank you very much Mr. Bush for all the malady and demise you have unleashed in the Fertile Crescent! Thank you for killing 1,500 innocent civilians, wounding another 10,000 or so of them – not to mention the tens of thousands of poor soldiers, many of whom would be the last to be interested in defending Saddam Hussein. Just look at the beautiful mess you have created in Iraq. Your father has already done enough with the help of the entire world, and now you come in and show us how to really eliminate a regime – a people. That is the way to freedom and liberty.

The Right to Know vs. the Right to Kill!
Much can be and will be written about the great American liberation of Iraq. Thus, there is no sense in trying to defend one's position to all the naive emails that have been obtained with the “We told you so, attitude” that reeks with suspicion and covert foundations. What a joke? The killing goes on, the Iraqi people lack even the water to drink and the food to nourish them, and we are supposed to believe that Mr. Bush has done a great deed. Yes, indeed he has. He has unleashed all the criminal elements, looters, and vandals to complete the job that his Tomahawks, Bunker Bombs Abrams tanks and Bradley killing machines could not finish. The Iraqi people are still crying and moaning in pain. Yet the White House and 10 Downing Street carry on their humiliation with their soothing words to a people without electricity to even hear those kind words. One is reminded of the butcher who slays his calf, while uttering soothing words to show his faith in God. Let us not be fooled by illusions. Just because a few looters were happy for the vacuum left now that everything that used to function in Iraq was brought to a dead standstill, thanks to the war of liberation, unilaterally unleashed by the world's deadliest power (Notwithstanding the tyranny and oppression of Saddam Hussein, there were very important functioning institutions and services that let people go by – albeit in a totally oppressive environment!). But now, what do we have? We have US and British Marines parading little girls of four and five years old with their hands up in the air and the M1 rifle pointed at their heads! They call that liberation!
Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair are only adding humiliation to their death and destruction of the Iraqi people by announcing to their victims that they have come to liberate them and that they are ready to distribute their humanitarian assistance to underline their humane intentions. This observer however, could not fail to see that their humane intentions were manifest the night before the entry into Baghdad, as the newscast was reading off the oil company concessions that were already being divided up by the sponsors of the next Presidential Elections and that the Israelis were assured that the Iraqi oil would flow to Haifa. Give us a break!
One should not fail to point out the truly ugly nature of this latest adventure of George W. Bush, as if to underscore the association of this right-wing madness being unleashed in the Fertile Crescent with freedom and liberation. The military might of the liberators was directed against the international press with a clear obvious message, that “this is not your ball field, so pack up your gear and get out of the way of our liberation armies. Three journalists lost their lives as the mighty liberators aimed their killing tools at the press without feeling any shame or sense of hypocrisy. Three unarmed civilian members of the press, in locations that are clearly well-known as teeming with members of the press, were deliberately and brutally murdered by Bush and Rumsfeld, just so the only things that should ever be aired are those portrayed by the “embedded” correspondents, who are spoon-fed the news that should go to the public. Since the war began, Mr. Bush and Rumsfeld never liked Al-Jazeera and Abu-Dhabi and the other unembedded members of the press (even the BCC is off-limits to British troops!), which ironically, but not coincidentally, are the same two stations that Israel has never hidden its dislike for. This is how liberation is portrayed. One never thought that the American press would keep its mouth muffled over such a serious human rights breach. But, it was. In fact the American press during the past three weeks operated like a powerful propaganda machine, with forty eight hour coverage of the “liberation of a woman soldier”, whose company took the wrong turn and fell victim to an ambush, while hundreds of Iraqis are dying by the scores, as all the destructive tools (one suspicious email tried painstakingly to convince this observer that only conventional tools were used by the US in obliterating the Iraqis. How kind and merciful can you get?), at the invaders' disposal were unleashed, for no reason at all. Yet, those press organs that tried to portray a real “balanced approach” to the news were accorded the right dosage of “liberation” medicine with, not one but two missiles against the Al-Jazeera Office and tank shells lobbed against the “unembedded” press that was staying at the Palestine Hotel. Our sympathies go to press freedom and the relatives of the deceased newsmen, who died because they wanted to emphasize the right of the public to know that no men should ever be given the right to kill under any pretext.
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