Gulf Hypocrisy
The Saddam Hussein story is one that will dominate news reports for some time to come, as has indeed been the case since the Gulf War of 1991. Not least because the Gulf has been an issue the US—still anxious to find some hegemonic raison d’etre in the post-Cold War era—has been desperate to force as an international issue. And in place of the old “communist” menace, Saddam is as good a bogey man as the US can find to protect us from.
Few of us took President George Bush’s notions of a “New World Order” seriously after the events of 1989. If anything, the New World Order meant little more than that the US would seek every opportunity to maintain its dominant position in the world and, as was demonstrated in the Gulf in 1991, that the world was to be ruled by force and intimidation.
Saddam, who certainly replaced the USSR as the official US bogeyman in 1990, has had more than his fair share of criticism. However, Saddam’s transgressions, which we’ve highlighted many times in the past, are not the concern here. The real issue is the utter hypocrisy of the US and Britain over the Gulf crisis and the hidden agenda their cant conceals.
For instance, Saddam is lambasted for stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, chemical, weapons in particular. But isn’t it the case that the US, Britain and many other countries hoard the same? And wasn’t it the US who were themselves providing Saddam with anthrax not ten years ago, a poison weapons’ inspectors have been charged with tracking down? Moreover, when Saddam exterminated 5,000 Iraqi Kurds in the town of Hallabjah in 1988, who was more silent than Washington? As for Britain, the RAF have used mustard gas on Iraqi Kurds on several occasions in the past, in response to their demands for a homeland.
Saddam is often ridiculed as another Hitler, an unpredictable madman, a ruthless dictator. Yet these same opprobrious remarks come from the same people who armed him during a 10-year war with Iran, who tipped him off about a coup attempt days before he invaded Kuwait and who were sending weapons shipments to Iraq one month before Iraqi troops crossed the Kuwaiti border.
Indeed, these same accusers leant their support to Pinochet and Galtieri, Trujillo, Marcos and Duvalier.Amin, Bokassa, Mobuto and Haile Selassie. The simple fact is that you’d be hard pressed to find a “madman” the West has not sponsored in the past 50 or so years.
Let’s get one thing straight; and this we have reported on numerous occasions. The Gulf War of 1991 had nothing to do with toppling Saddam and neither has any subsequent US attack on Iraq. This was recently made clear by UK Defence Secretary George Robertson who announced: “We are not in the business of toppling Saddam. This will be a job for his people” (Guardian, 3 February).
Washington is all too aware of the dangers a fragmented Iraq could pose the Gulf region were Saddam to be ousted. The country could easily split into three—a Kurdish north, a Sunni middle and a Shi’ite South—or into a plethora of warring factions, as was the case in Libya in the 1980s and Somalia 10 years later. In any event a further crisis would pose a greater threat to US hegemony and Gulf oil profits. It is, after all, no coincidence that the US State Department refers to the Gulf’s oil as “a stupendous source of strategic power” and “one of the greatest material prizes in world history”. Hence, the Western desire that Saddam stays where he is.
What is obvious is that the US and Britain are defending no moral high ground in the Gulf. Saddam’s disregard for the UN and world opinion in general reflects that of the US itself on many occasions, and the crimes and atrocities attributed to his regime fall well within the scope of similar atrocities the US have themselves deemed acceptable since 1945.
The present Gulf crisis should reveal at once the lengths the US and its sidekick, Britain, are prepared to go to secure the interests of their respective corporate elites. It also reveals just how obsessed the US is with the concept of “global leadership”.
That millions in Iraq continue to suffer in the name of profit is a scathing indictment on the politics of power and its consequent rewards.The sad truth is that we will enter the 21st Century no wiser for the conflicts that saw the 20th Century close. The next century offers no end to the madness until workers begin to tear away the thin veil of conceit capitalism cloaks itself in and see at last the system in all its hideous nakedness, as the monster it always was, and will be.
JOHN BISSETT
Bombing people in Iraq, to protect oil supplies, has long been a part of Labour’s “ethical foreign policy” going back to the first Labour government in 1924, as the extracts, below, from the Socialist Standard of the time show.
Labour Rules The Empire With Bombs and Bullets
The repeated use of bombs in Mespot by the Air Force since the Labour Government came into office is another item in their black and brutal record. It shows how willing they are to do the dirty work for the capitalists in maintaining their ownership and control. Under the Conservative Government bombs were frequently used to aid in compelling payment of taxes, but, of course, that was “the dirty method of the Capitalists.” How similar the rule of the Labour Party is was admitted by Mr. Leach, the Labour Minister, in the House of Commons in answer to a Tory question. He said:-
“We had communicated with our military and air headquarters in Iraq in regard to the whole situation in bombing operation, and I cannot honestly say that we have made any change in the policy of the late Government.” -(Parliamentary Debates, June 30, column 925.)
The “pacifist” minister defends bombing as a humane method and tells the Daily Herald (July 15) that it is “a great saving to the taxpayer,” as military forces cost more! In the language of an Empire Builder, he talks of the necessity to stop the tribesmen fighting, so that the land of oil annexed to “our Empire” shall be a sweet land of peace and profit. Therefore, the Labour Government is suppressing all attempts at rebellion by the kindly and Christian use of bombs.
This rule of force in the interests of Capital is shown also by the shooting down of Indians under this Labour Government.
(Socialist Standard, August 1924.)
How Labour Ruled Mespot. The Truth About The Slaughter
When it became known the bomb-dropping was regularly used by the Labour Government as a means of peacefully persuading Irak Tribesmen that British capitalism had a better right in their country than they had themselves, many simple supporters of the Labour Party were shocked. They had supposed that Empires can be built on love and maintained by soft words, and they were greatly relieved when Mr. Leach explained the whole matter away.
Mr. Leach accounted for British occupancy of the territory by saying that it was a point of honour to remain and fulfill “our” pledges; and he was able to give the assurance that:
“Under our administration British air operations have so far caused no death. Thanks to the method of warning notices, submission takes place five times out of six without recourse to bombs, and has succeeded in the remaining cases through the destruction of property and cattle.”- Daily Herald, July 15th, 1924.
Now Lord Thomson, Chief of the Air Ministry, of which Mr. Leach was Under-secretary, has disclosed the real facts. It was not honour but capitalist interest in oil which kept the Labour Government in Irak, and with regard to the bomb-dropping Mr. Leach appears to have resorted to complete suppression of the facts.
The following quotation is from a lecture given by Lord Thomson at a meeting of the Central Asian Society on November 21st (“The Times.” November 22nd, 1924.)
After briefly tracing the route followed in his tour, Lord Thomson brought home to his audience the efficacy of bombing by describing the manner in which the recent Wahabi invasion of the Transjordan was crushed. The British forces consisted solely of aeroplanes sent out at the shortest possible notice, backed by armoured cars. The effect of our air attack was appalling. Some 700 of the tribesmen were killed and the rest, seized with panic, fled into the desert, where hundreds more must have perished from thirst. Unless some such punishment as swift and terrible as this had been inflicted, the task of restoring order would have been long drawn-out. and in the end more costly in lives and money, while the results would not have been so lasting.
(Socialist Standard, December 1924.)