MGG Pillai Commentary View

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A bad peace is even worse than war

A BAD PEACE IS EVEN WORSE THAN WAR, said Tacitus, about the Roman conquest of Britain. He also quoted the British chieftain Calgacus tell his troops about Rome's insatiable desire for conquest and plunder and to 'savage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; they make a devastation, and call it peace." He wrote this 2,000 years ago but it refers to the United States as well, now. Mr Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary and one of those who hurtled into the war in Iraq without an exit plan, said the United States was more powerful than Rome. The United States behaved now as the Romans then. And like the Romans, the United States are left wondering where they went wrong. It is perhaps trite to suggest now that you do not go to war with an adjective, but that is what the war on terror is all about. The United States did not want to sound racist, so the war against Muslims quickly became the war on terror. It invaded Iraq because of oil. It is a Muslim nation, so the adjective made sense in Washington. Its reasons at invading Iraq has proven false. There were no weapons of mass destruction, and Iraq had no nuclear plan. That it had both was why it officially invaded the country. It displaced the Sunnis and Baath party members from power, and put Saddam Hussein on trial. It had no plans other than ensure that the Sunnis and the Baathist Party did not rule. But in deciding that, it made sure that Iraq was not a oil producing state anymore, but a fourth world state which was like Vietnam in the 1960s. It war on terror made sure that all Sunnis world wide were targetted. In the Middle East, the Sunni sect of Islam dominated, and the Arab street was with the Iraqi, who did not like his country to be ruled by an invader, which the United States is. The coalition it has cobbled is a smokescreen, to make other countries join it in this war on terror. It went on an information war to regard those supported the Iraqis as foreign insurgents, as if they are not foreigners. The referendum on the American-drafted constitution may yet pass, but the insurgency would not end.

The Sunnis, who held power in Iraq though in a minority, has declded that they would make it difficult for the US and its foreigners ever to leave Iraq. But it is not only the Sunnis who are fighting. There is the Iraqi who does not like his country divided, as it would under the constituition, and this nationalist includes people who are Sunni, Shia and Kurd. Saddam Hussein, for all his faults, was assiduous in keeping religion out of politics. He ruled with an iron hand, as the new rulers of Iraq would find. He is now on trial for his life under laws that were not in force at the time he is alleged to have committed them. He rejects it at his trial for he faces victor's justice. The West is surprised that he behaves as he did, and the CNN broadcast especially is surprised that he behaves as Milosevic or Mandela when brought to court by the foreign victor. They are surprised at his behaviour in court. And so the Americans in Iraq have taken to other means so that those outside would forget him. The death of a defence lawyer after his appearance in court is stage managed, and I would not be surprised it was. I have often been accused of being a conspiracy theorist, but that is the name given to anybody who does not believe the official version. But how can we believe the official version when British troops raided a police station nominally under their control to release two British soldiers in custody after they were caught redhanded in staging a car bombing, or when two Americans are now in custody for doing the same thing?

The US and its cohorts have realised late in the day that it was a mistake to put Saddam on trial. He wins either way. He expects to be hanged, and has prepared for it. He wins if he is sentenced to death, and he wins if he is not. He has made himself a martyr. The Arab nations did not like him in power, and would have hated him if the revolt had been home grown. Like the war on terror is a smokescreen for the war on Muslims, the US came to Iraq to root out the Sunnis. They might do it in the name of freedom or other euphemisms, but their aim was clear. Al Qaeda, which Saddam in power did not countenance in his country, is now in it. The Iraqi Sunni has decided he would help in the rebuilding of the new fourth world state of Iraq, brought to that status by the Americans and its cohorts. Their aim now is to ensure that the American does not move out except at great cost. They destroyed another oil pipeline the other day. They have killed nearly 2,000 soldiers, most of whom were killed after the war was over. President Bush wanted to be the man who extended the crusades that Pope Urban II started nearly a thousand years ago. This is a world wide fight between Christianity and Islam. It is also an information war, in which the Muslims also have equal access in broadcasting their views. And the US and its cohorts are caught in their wrongdoings. The press around the world, which the West have brainwashed, parrots their views, but the Muslim also has his press to spread his case. It is the Muslim street which reads that message while not able to read the US message. I do not think the Iraqi government the United States have set up would last long after its departure from the country. The British lasted nearly 40 years in Iraq, and ended in 1958, had put the Sunni in power although in the three provinces it had carved from the Ottoman Empire, the Shias were the majority and the second were Kurds. For about 80 years, the Sunni had been in power in Iraq. An American official said boastfully that the United States is more powerful than the Roman Empire. Perhaps it is. But it is imbued with the same characteristics in empire-building as Rome. And faces the same problems worldwide.

The Iraq Saddam built was along the lines of a bad European nation, but the United States have turned it into a wasteland. It came in with intentions to use its oil to pay for its upkeep and did not foresee the ravaging insurgency, especially among the Iraqi and the Sunni who know the old Iraq is gone and they would not rule. So they destroy it so that the foreigner cannot rule. What we see on television and read in the news reports is not what is happening in the ground. There is already a civil war raging, and it will get worse when the United States and Britain withdraw. Future governments in Washington and London will win the people in their countries on how quickly they can pull the troops out. And talk to those opposed to them. But the United States and its cohorts have made that difficult. In Vietnam, I was told the Americans did not destroy the system. They behaved as a state talking to another state that it was fighting against. The North Vietnam and the Vietcong could use the American built telecommunications system when the Americans were not using it. So although the Americans lost there, they are good friends now. For that to happen in Iraq is a lot more difficult. Especially when we are told the next target is Saudi Arabia. If Iraq is so much trouble, how much more difficult will be Saudi Arabia. And if the Muslim holy shrines in Mecca is damaged, as they are in Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, there is hell to pay for the US and its cohorts in this war on terror. The Sunnis in the Middle East are in arms.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com